by Zane
Suddenly I heard some footsteps coming down the stairs. I let Jason’s head down gently before sneaking off to conceal myself in the darkness of the living room.
“Where’s that bitch wife of yours?” Jason started to regain consciousness. A swift kick to the chest cavity made him wake all the way up. “Where is she?”
Jason didn’t answer. He just looked up off the floor with fear and pain in his eyes.
“Come on out, Zoe, my love! Snookums! I have something I want to give to you, a present!”
Jason started to blurt out a question. “Aren’t you—?”
“Yes, I am. I’m also the man who’s been fucking the shit out of your wife. Well, at least one of the men she’s been fucking.”
Jason muttered the word, “Bastard.” All he got in return was another violent kick, but this time to the leg. I wanted to rush over to him, but I needed to think things through clearly. I simply couldn’t believe my eyes.
“Zoe’s such a whore, Jason. Don’t you realize that?”
Jason spit on his assailant’s shoes, and I noticed blood coming out along with his saliva.
“I thought for sure you would leave her. Kick her ass out of the house. That way she could have been with me. We could have been together forever, Jason.”
Jason’s temper started to flare up. “If Zoe’s such a whore, as you put it, why would you even want to be with her?”
“Don’t get smart with me, Jason!” Another kick to his chest. “Don’t ever take that tone with me! The only reason you’re still breathing is because I need you to get to her! I know the skank bitch won’t show her face unless it’s to save your pathetic ass!”
“Zoe loves me and only me!” Jason exclaimed. “She always has!”
“How sweet! Not that it’s going to matter much a few minutes from now.”
I saw Jason about to get kicked again, and I couldn’t maintain my composure one more second. I screamed out, “Quinton!”
Quinton swung around to face the living room. I could see him squinting to make out my shadow. “Zoe, my love!” He reached out his arms. “Come to Poppa, baby!”
“What are you doing here, Quinton?” I asked as I walked into their view. Jason was frantically trying to wave me away, silently telling me to run. There wasn’t a chance in hell of me doing that. I looked back at Quinton. “You killed Allison, didn’t you?”
Quinton grinned at me like he thought the question was humorous. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!”
I was dazed and confused. Part of me still didn’t want to deal with what was going on. I was prepared to face off with Tyson, but not Quinton.
“But, but, but why?” I stuttered. “Why are you doing this?”
Quinton held up his gun and scratched his temple. “Gee, I dunno, Zoe. Maybe something just snapped.”
I noticed the gun had a silencer on it. No wonder Jason and I didn’t hear the gunshots when Andy and Barney were killed.
“Yeah, that’s it,” he continued. “Temporary insanity brought on by falling in love with a trifling-ass bitch!”
I struggled to find some words. “But, but we thought Tyson—”
He interrupted me before I could finish. “Ingenious, wasn’t it?” he boasted, waving the gun around in the air. “Planting the earring and everything? I knew the police would pick up on that, and if they didn’t, you would.”
He gave me a devilish grin. “Setting up Tyson as the fall guy was perfect. Not that he gives a shit!”
“How did you—?” I hesitated and thought back to the confrontation in Quinton’s hallway. I clearly remembered that Tyson wasn’t wearing the earring because Dusty had ripped it out in the parking lot. “The day Tyson came to your place, he wasn’t wearing it.”
“Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh,” Quinton chuckled, shaking the index finger of his free hand like he was scolding a toddler. “Correction! The first time he came to my place he wasn’t wearing it.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Quinton ignored my question. “Now that I’ve had a couple of months to reflect back on it, Zoe, I really should have let him kill your bitch ass then. The stupidest thing I’ve ever done was prying his fingers off your neck.”
Now I was starting to get pissed. How dare he come off at me like that? I realized I needed to stay calm because Quinton was there for one reason and one reason only—to kill me. However, when he made his last statement, I threw tact out the damn window. I walked within two feet of him and slapped him in the face. “Then why didn’t you, you bastard? You fuckin’ piece of shit!”
Quinton rubbed his cheek. I started to try to grab the gun, but I didn’t want to risk Jason getting shot. I didn’t care what happened to me at that point. I probably deserved it anyway.
“Aw, come on, Zoe,” Quinton chided. “No need to be rude. Let’s not make this situation any uglier than it already is.” He pushed me down on the floor next to Jason. “Why don’t you just have a seat down there with your man? Cool your heels off.”
Quinton was really sick! I thought back to all the passionate afternoons and evenings we spent together. He was so romantic, so giving of himself. To think, all along he was a psychopath.
“As I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me, Zoe. Tyson didn’t have on the cross earring the first time, but he did the second.”
I glared up at him, trying to make some sense out of what he was saying. “The second?”
“Can you believe that piece of shit came banging on my door, demanding I leave you alone?” Quinton asked, enraged.
I was beginning to get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. If Quinton was crazy enough to kill Allison and two police officers, what would keep him from killing Tyson? “And what did you say to him?”
“Aw, nothing much,” Quinton quickly replied. “I sat there for a few minutes, listening to him profess his undying love for you. I told him he really needed to be telling all of his bullshit to Jason. He said he already had and told me about their punk-ass fight.”
Jason yelled out, “You’re the punk, mutha fucka!”
Before I could stop him, Quinton kicked Jason in the head. “I beg to differ with you, Jason! You’re the biggest punk of all! You married the queen bitch and bred babies with her!”
I cradled Jason’s head in my lap and looked around for a weapon, anything I could use to defend us. I was willing to die, and I would have begged Quinton to get it over with if Jason was safe and in the clear. I couldn’t let Jason pay the ultimate price for my sins. I just couldn’t. Our kids needed at least one of us to survive.
Quinton was pointing the gun at Jason’s head. I desperately needed to change the subject, so I asked him, “What did you do to Tyson?”
Quinton started laughing, guffawing even. He went over and leaned on the counter in hysterics. I was just glad he stopped pointing the gun. “You want to know what I did to him? I’ll be glad to tell you. I killed his ass!”
I prayed the whole nightmare would go away.
“I killed his ass and buried him in the train yard right along with my brother, my sister, and Diamond!”
“Train yard? Diamond?” I just knew I had to be hearing things.
“Yes, Zoe.” Quinton came back over and knelt down in front of us. “You remember the first time I fucked you, Zoe? In the train yard? Guess what? We did it right on top of the graves I dug for my brother and sister fifteen years ago.”
I was in shock. “You killed your brother and sister?”
“Among other people,” he answered calmly. “As for Diamond, I know what you did with her, Zoe.” I looked away in shame. “I know what you did, and she paid the ultimate price for your pussy too. Just like Tyson.”
He ran his fingers through my hair, grabbed my face, and tried to force his tongue in my mouth. I refused it.
He stood back up. “I hate to borrow that old clichÈ, but if I can’t have you, nobody will.”
Jason tried to push his way up off the floor, using his hand to no a
vail. His eyelids were fluttering and he was barely conscious.
“Enough of this!” Quinton exclaimed. “Come to me, Zoe!”
I hated to let go of Jason but I had to try something, and there was nothing on the floor that would help out my cause. I placed Jason’s head on the floor and slowly got up. “Quinton, I have an idea. If you really want us to be together, why don’t we just leave? I’ll go anywhere you want to go. Just don’t hurt Jason, okay?”
“How admirable, Zoe.” He looked me up and down like he was pondering my offer. “However, I don’t believe shit you’re saying.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“Truth?” He started laughing again. “You don’t know the meaning of the damn word.”
Quinton suddenly grabbed my arm and flung me against the kitchen counter, making me hit my ribs against the overhang. I screamed out in pain. He walked up behind me and pressed himself up against my back. “Oh, did I hurt you?” he asked, pulling back the hair out of my face so he could see my profile. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, baby.”
I asked a logical question. “If you don’t want to hurt me, why are you here?”
He took a deep sigh. “Because I’m confused, Zoe. Part of me wants to wring your little neck, but the other part of me wants to carry you away someplace and make you love me.”
I didn’t reply. I just stood frozen in place while he started licking all over the back of my neck.
“Maybe if I fuck you right here, right now, in front of Jason, I might be able to figure out the solution to my bitch problem. You think?”
“You’re sick,” I blurted out, searching the countertop for something to hit him with. Since the cabin was a rental, most of the countertop was cleared off.
He swung me around to face him. “I’m sick? What about you?”
“Okay, we’re both sick,” I readily admitted. “But Jason has nothing to do with this. Let him go,” I pleaded. “For the sake of my kids.”
For a brief second, I thought I saw a tear forming in Quinton’s left eye.
“Please, Quinton! You remember what it was like to grow up in a home without parents! Look at what it did to you!”
“Shut up, Zoe!” Quinton punched me in the face. “Shut the fuck up!”
Before I could react to the punch, he started ripping off my clothes. He lifted me up on the counter and hit me again in the face until I had no choice but to succumb to his advances.
I shut my eyes because I didn’t want to see what I knew would be next. I heard him unzipping his pants, and then he entered me roughly. I laid there in fear while he had his way with me. The mere fact that he was fucking me with Jason in the room made me want to crawl up in a hole and die. I just wanted the whole thing to be over with. I began to think about all the things I would never get to do, including watching my kids grow up.
I opened my eyes when Quinton dropped the gun on the counter so he could grab my hips and push himself deeper into me. I tried to gauge whether it was within my reach and stretched my fingers out in a useless effort.
Quinton noticed what I was doing and chuckled, “Forget it! Not a chance! Just fuck me, Zoe! Fuck me hard!”
I wouldn’t move my hips, and that made him even more irate. “Fuck me, dammit!”
I clamped my eyes shut again and prayed for it to end. That’s when I heard the crack, like a walnut being opened with a nutcracker.
Before I could see what was happening, Quinton was suddenly no longer inside me.
“Who’s the punk now? Who’s the punk now, you fuckin’ bastard?” Jason exclaimed, beating Quinton on the head ferociously with the butt of the gun.
By the time I managed to get down off the counter, Jason was on top of Quinton on the floor, still beating the shit out of him. A handful of Quinton’s teeth were scattered on the floor, and his face was so bloody it was almost unrecognizable.
I tried to pull Jason off him. “Jason, that’s enough!” He kept beating him, and I was afraid he would kill him. “That’s enough, Jason!” I reiterated, pleading with him not to take a life. “Death is too good for him! Let the police handle him!”
Jason finally stopped hitting him and tossed the gun aside. I got down on my knees and hugged him tightly. He started crying and he wasn’t alone.
I kissed him all over the face. “I love you, Jason!”
“I love you too, Zoe,” he whispered. “This is forever.”
“Always has been! Always will be!”
epilogue
They found more than a dozen bodies buried in shallow graves in the train yard where Quinton painted his first mural—the mural of the perfect family he wished he had.
Along with Tyson and Diamond, they also identified the bodies of Quinton’s brother and sister using dental records they obtained from a court order. Two additional bodies are believed to be those of his father and stepmother. Quinton admitted to killing them on the one-year anniversary of his mother’s suicide.
Quinton is permanently confined in the criminally insane ward of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. They are still trying to get him to reveal the identities of his other victims, but he refuses. However, all of the remaining victims are believed to have been young females.
“My name is Zoe, and I am addicted to sex!”
I was attending my first Sexual Addiction meeting, and I decided to waste no time telling the whole room my dilemma. Marcella told me I could just sit back, watch, and observe the first few times until I felt comfortable enough to speak. I jumped right in with my testimonial, though. Hiding things and keeping secrets had caused enough damage in my life, and never again would I allow them to overpower me.
Marcella had located the addiction group through a local Atlanta hospital. I still planned to spend a couple of weeks in Florida with Dr. Graham in the summer, but attending local meetings with other people suffering from the same illness as myself was a start. Surveying the room, I was surprised to see so many faces. Even stranger was how normal they all appeared to be. They came from all walks of life—from accountants and housewives to lawyers and college students. While I was not happy to find out so many others shared the same problem, it felt good to know I was not alone.
Jason was outside in the waiting area with Marcella. He was dying to come in with me, but I reassured him I could handle it alone. Things between him and I were improving every day, and our lovemaking was nothing short of awesome. I always knew he was the man for me, and my love for him had never been, and will never be, more profound.
I gave my testimonial to the group. I told them how my life had been turned upside down because of incidents in my childhood. I explained that nothing and no one had been what they seemed. I told them my life had transformed into a web of lies and deceit filled with people who all had their own secrets and mental issues to deal with. I described how I was stalked and almost murdered. Finally, I explained how it all came to a horrible end in the mountains a week before the meeting.
I made it through the session and listened to a few of the others relate their depressing stories and enlightening recovery experiences. Then I went back out in the hall and kissed Marcella good-bye, promising her we would do that gurl thing real soon—go shopping or take in dinner and a play together, just like Brina and I used to do. Jason reached out for my hand, and we headed out the hospital exit, on our way to rebuild our lives together free of chaos and lies.
Look for Zane’s new novel
Heatseekers
coming summer 2002