by Al Riske
I wanted Sheri to live this time.
I RAN AND ran and ran. Finally I saw a car coming and tried to wave it down. The driver slowed then swerved and hit the gas.
What the fuck?
I bent over to catch my breath and that’s when I got a good look at myself. Not only was I covered in sweat and smeared with blood, but my elegant Prada skirt had ridden up around my waist and my white Natori thong wasn’t giving old Frank the kind of support he needed.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I started running again, not caring what I looked like. I had to get home, had to get to a phone.
MY KEYS, PURSE, cell phone—I had left everything in the car. So now I would have to break into my own house. I ran around back, hoping I’d left a window open somewhere. No. Then I remembered—idiot!—six months earlier I’d put a key in one of the potted plants. But which one? I tore through three, four, five terra cotta pots.
I could hear a car pull up.
The key was in the next pot and I quickly let myself in, locked the door behind me, and crept to the front window in the dark. The car was the one I’d seen before and I tried to get the license number, but it had no plates. It was brand new.
On my hands and knees, not wanting so much as a shadow to cross behind my window, I crawled to the phone, picked it up. It was dead.
A voice said, “So, where’s Brenda?”
Donald was standing over me, his nose swollen to twice it’s normal size.
“How the— ?”
“Nice of you to leave the key in the door for me,” he said.
I started to get up, but he pushed me back down.
“I asked you a question,” he said.
“Brenda? How should I know? She moved out a week ago.”
“You’re a hell of a good liar, but I’m not buying it.”
She was at her weekly pottery class, but I’d be damned if I was going to tell him that.
“Where is she?”
“Not here.”
He laughed.
“Too bad,” he said, “I thought she might like to watch me fuck you.”
“You don’t want to do that.”
“Oh, but I do. Very much.”
“Look, no, you don’t understand. I’m … I’m … ”
“What? Having your period? One, I don’t believe you. Two, it won’t bother me if you’re bleeding.”
I sprang to my feet suddenly, without thought, just an instinctive impulse to flee, but he caught my arm and twisted it behind my back until I thought it might break.
“Ah, ah, ah,” was all I could say.
“Already panting,” he said. “I like that.”
He bent me over a chair, held me down, worked my skirt up with his free hand, twisted my arm even harder with the other.
“Stop!”
It took Donald a second to realize it wasn’t me screaming at him.
Brenda was standing in the doorway, knees flexed, arms straight out in front of her, elbows locked, Donald’s own revolver gripped in both hands.
“Back off!” she screamed.
When Donald didn’t move, she fired a shot into the ceiling and plaster fell all around us. Reflexively, Donald stepped back. I moved away and tried to compose myself.
“Trade in your Jeep?” she asked.
“Brenda, this isn’t what it looks like.”
“No, Donald? What then?”
“I was trying to persuade your little friend here to answer a few questions.”
“Donald has this idea that I know something and I do,” I said. “I know he killed your daughter, his daughter.”
“Sheri’s father lives in New York. Donald is my second husband.”
At the same time Donald was saying, “That’s a lie. She’s lying, Brenda.”
I could see it clearly then. With my eyes closed, I could see it.
“He raped her,” I said, “and strangled her with her scarf.”
I wanted to wake myself up but I was already awake, my eyes wide open again.
“How do you know that?” Brenda asked. “The police never released that information.”
Donald said, “Only the killer would know that, Brenda.” “Listen, Bren … ”
I stepped toward her, still trying to adjust my clothes and my manhood, and she swung the revolver toward me. I stopped.
“Holy shit. Now I get it,” Donald said. “She’s a he. He’s that transplant patient. Frank what’s-his-name.”
“Brilliant deduction, Sherlock.”
“Wait, wait. Don’t you see? He … he’s the one who killed her.”
“You’re a sick fuck, you know that?” I said.
“Think about it, Brenda. He wanted her eyes.”
“That’s insane.”
“The fresher the eyes,” Donald said, “the better the results.”
“He’s making this up.”
“I’ve been following the company, Brenda. They’ve been analyzing the data and—”
He stepped toward her, but she swung the gun at him and he stopped.
“Brenda, please.”
There wasn’t much light and I wasn’t sure how well she could see me, but I tried to get her to look into my eyes.
When she did, Donald lunged.
She shot him in the chest.
Bang!
I saw Donald’s body slump to the floor. I saw his blood soak into the carpet. Then I saw nothing at all.
About the Author
Al Riske was born in Shelton, Washington, and earned a degree in communications from Linfield College in Oregon. He has worked as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, copywriter, and ghostwriter. His short stories have appeared in the Beloit Fiction Journal, Hobart, Pindeldyboz, Switchback, Word Riot, and the Blue Mesa Review, where his story “Pray for Rain” won the review’s 2008 fiction prize. He now lives in California with his wife, Joanne, and their dog, Bodie. He is currently working on a novel.