Love Lies Dying

by Steve Gerlach

  “This can’t be happening,” John whispered and shook his head in disbelief.

  “I know, I know, I thought the same thing,” Zoe continued, her hands working on her right braid now. “I thought that as I drove up the driveway. Like I told you I would, I stopped a good distance from the farmhouse. Ricky was already on the veranda waiting for me. I could see some of his men standing back in the fields on both sides of the driveway. They were all armed and I was scared, Johnny. But I stood my ground. I got out of the Jeep and stood in the driveway and yelled at him to bring out Helen.”

  This game has gone too far. It’s out of control!

  “Poor Helen,” John said in a soft voice. “She didn’t deserve any of this.”

  “One of Ricky’s men brought her out from inside the farmhouse. She was in a bad way, Johnny, she looked really beaten up and terrible. She could hardly stand. He’d done her over, I could tell. Just like he used to do to me.”

  “Bastard.”

  “I yelled to him to leave her alone and to let her go. I said that I’d leave the Jeep where it was and that I would take Helen’s place. I said I’d walk up the driveway and that he should let Helen walk towards me. I’d give her the keys and she could drive out of here and leave and we could go back home and he could do anything he wanted to me.”

  “He didn’t believe you,” John whispered as he stared hard at the floor, noticing for the first time the patterns in the wood, as if it were the most important thing to look at right at that moment.

  Zoe continued pacing, “No, I don’t think he did. He called me a good for nothing piece of shit and said that whores like me didn’t deserve to live. He called me a lot of other things too. I told him I was sorry and would do anything for him and then he…”

  She trailed off.

  John looked up at her. She was leaning against the stove, her arms crossed in front of her as her right braid slowly unravelled. Her eyes were shut as tears fell from them, and her bottom lip was quivering.

  “Zoe?”

  He watched her, and his heart broke. She’d been through so much. Too much. Things she should not have gone through alone.

  I could’ve helped her more.

  “Are you alright?” he asked.

  She shook her head and tried to control her emotions.

  “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I really am.”

  He let her cry it out.

  Her deep sobs echoed around the church. And they continued for a long time.

  John watched her, powerless to do anything.

  When she was finished, she wiped the tears from her eyes, took a deep breath, and continued.

  “Anyway, I said I was sorry and would do anything for him and then he…he began to tell me exactly what he would do to me…”

  She fell silent as she began to pace again, reworking her right braid.

  John watched her struggle with the memories of what had happened to her.

  “…and how…and with what…”

  “I’m sorry,” John whispered.

  “It’s not your fault,” she continued. “I should’ve seen what he was trying to do. Damn it, I’ve lived with his fucking mind games long enough that I should have known what he was trying to do. But seeing Helen in the state she was in and not knowing what I should do next, I fell for it.”

  John nodded.

  She should never have taken him on alone.

  “He was taunting me, making me mad. And I ate it up like the brainless piece of shit I am.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “It’s true though. He knew what buttons to push, and how to get me angry. And it worked. He stood there on the verandah taunting me, describing how he was going to hurt me when we got home, what he was going to insert in me, how he was going to rip me in half, stretch me until I tore and bled, then have some of his friends over to rip me more.”

  “He’s a bastard, a sick fucking bastard.”

  “I know,” Zoe nodded as she paced. “But I fell for it anyway. I lost it. I screamed at him, I called him a fucking murderous sick fuck…”

  “Good.”

  “And I pulled the gun out. And then I started firing.”

  John stared at her, unbelieving.

  Zoe stopped talking, but continued pacing in front of him. He watched her intently, waiting for her to continue, not wanting to force her until she was ready.

  The silence stretched between them for quite a while.

  “I didn’t really know what I was doing,” Zoe continued eventually. “I just fired in his direction. I emptied the whole gun. I fired and fired and fired and even when the bullets stopped coming I continued pulling the trigger.”

  “Did you hit him?”

  She shook her head, “I didn’t hit anyone. Everyone hit the ground when I started shooting. I don’t even know if I was aiming anywhere near them, I just fired blindly and wasted my best chance. I should’ve got closer, I should’ve waited until Helen had driven off in the Jeep. But he got under my skin, he said those dirty awful things and I just lost it.”

  John nodded, “I understand.”

  He noticed her hands were shaking now, as they continued to play with her braids.

  She’d done her best, and that was all he could ask of her.

  “And that’s when Ricky picked himself up and said that I’d just come here to kill him and that I was no longer his. That’s when he said that if I was going to pick you over him, you would have to lose someone too. That was the deal if he was going to lose me.”

  John nodded. It was all starting to make sense now.

  “I didn’t know if he meant it or not. I didn’t know if he was bluffing or telling the truth. I just stood there. There was nothing else I could do. I didn’t have any other weapon; the gun was useless to me now. I just dropped it in front of me and yelled to him that I was sorry. And he smiled at me then. The sick fucking bastard smiled at me and I thought I had a chance. I thought maybe an apology was all that he wanted. I’m such a stupid fucking bitch. I thought I’d won him over and I even smiled back at him.”

  “It wouldn’t be that easy…”

  “It wasn’t. He helped Helen up off the verandah and pushed her down the front stairs. He told her to get out of there and go home and I really thought that I’d won! I began to walk towards her. She was having trouble walking and fell to her knees. I started to run to her, but Ricky yelled at me to stay where I was. That was the first moment that I thought something was wrong. Helen struggled back to her feet and smiled at me. She actually smiled at me through all the pain and bruises on her face. And she staggered towards me.”

  Silence again.

  My poor Helen…

  John knew he had to hear the rest of the story, but he didn’t want to be the one to force her to tell it. He knew it was coming, and he would dread every word.

  Zoe finished her right braid and ran her hands over her hair. John could see the shaking had spread to her whole body as she paced.

  “She would have been about thirty feet from me…” Zoe continued. “And that’s when they opened fire.”

  “What?” John stared at her, but her back was to him. She wouldn’t turn around and face him.

  “They opened fire, all his men, from all around her. They shot her Johnny, they cut her down in front of me. Like some kind of animal.”

  John watched Zoe’s shoulders hunch over and her hands go to her face.

  “There was nothing I could do other than watch as the bullets tore into her,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands.

  My God, John thought. Helen! No! My poor girl… You never deserved anything like that. Ever!

  John’s head was spinning. He felt sick. The numbness in his body could not override the sickness in his stomach and the pains in his chest. He let his head drop forward as he closed his eyes.

  He tried to picture Helen’s face.

  Tried so hard.

  He was ashamed of himself when he couldn’t.

  Oh, Helen, h
e thought. There was so much left unsaid between us. So much I needed to say to you…

  “This can’t be happening,” he said as he stared back at Zoe.

  Zoe turned to face him, her tears had created red-stained rivers on her cheeks. “I ran to her, Johnny. I ran to her and picked her up from the ground. She was bleeding so much…”

  Zoe walked to him and held her arms out to him, “This is all her blood.”

  John nodded and closed his eyes once more, letting his head fall on his chest.

  “I know,” he said.

  “I held her, Johnny. I held her until her eyes closed and she –”

  “Stop,” John whispered. “Don’t tell me any more.”

  The silence between them was heavy.

  I can’t go on any more, he thought as the sadness overwhelmed him. I never wanted things to turn out like this.

  He felt hollow inside, almost drained of all energy. But then, almost without another thought, the anger started to build inside him. His sadness turned to rage. He wouldn’t let this go unanswered. He couldn’t.

  I’ll hunt you down, Fox. And I’ll nail your sorry motherfucking arse if it’s the last thing I do.

  John opened his eyes and stared at Zoe. She was leaning against the stove, watching him, her arms crossed in front of her. He couldn’t read the expression on her face.

  “We have to make him pay,” he told her.

  She nodded, “Don’t think I haven’t thought about that. But what are we going to do? We haven’t got a gun now, and we’ve got no other weapons!”

  “I know.”

  “But I understand it now if you want to go to the police,” she said.

  John shook his head, “Don’t worry, Zoe. We’re not going to the police. This is between Fox and us.”

  Zoe’s expression changed to a look of worry and then fear.

  “You don’t want to do that, Johnny.”

  “I have to. For Helen.”

  “If I can’t beat him at his game, you can’t.”

  “I can try.”

  “I don’t want you dying too, Johnny.” Zoe walked towards him, her footsteps loud in the silence of the church. “I can’t lose you.”

  “We have to, Zoe. We have to try and stop this bastard.”

  “But with what? We have nothing, we can’t stand against him and his men who are armed, Johnny!”

  John shook his head; he didn’t want to discuss that now.

  “What happened then?” he asked.

  Zoe looked surprised by the question, “Huh?”

  “After Helen,” John paused. “What happened then?”

  Zoe ran a hand over her hair and started pacing again.

  “Well,” she said. “Somehow I got back to the Jeep. I must have panicked and run or something. I don’t know if they started firing at me or whether I just turned and ran. But I got back to the Jeep and I was screaming and I was covered in blood and I just drove out of there as quickly as I could. I can remember hearing gunshots, I’m sure I did, and I remember hitting one of Ricky’s men who jumped onto the Jeep and opened the door. He tried to pull me out. He grabbed me and pulled. I swerved the Jeep, driving side to side on the driveway, and I hit out at him. One second he was there, trying to pull me out, and then the next he was gone. I guess he fell backwards out of the Jeep when I hit him. I drove and drove and didn’t look back for fear they were following me.”

  “He just let you go?”

  Zoe nodded as she paced, “That’s the thing about Ricky. I don’t know how he’s going to play the game now, or if there is even any game left to play. Maybe I’m soiled now, maybe he doesn’t want me because I’ve been with you. Maybe killing Helen is all the revenge he needs. I don’t know. But I just drove and drove and they didn’t follow me. The next thing I knew, it was night and I was still driving. The clock on the dashboard said 2 a.m. and I had no idea where I was or what I was doing. I pulled over to the side of the road and cried and cried for I don’t know how long.

  “Once I finished crying, I got back in the Jeep and began to find my way back here. That’s why it took me so long, Johnny.”

  John nodded his head. He couldn’t find the words to reply.

  “But I still can’t believe they didn’t come after me. And that’s the worst part, because if he doesn’t track me down now, I’m going to live my life in fear, waiting for him to step out in front of me one day and smile and then kill me. That’s what he’s like, he’s going to make me sweat, to worry myself half to death, until he’s ready to strike.”

  “We’ll strike first,” John replied.

  “We can’t.”

  “We have to!”

  “With that?” Zoe turned around to face him, her face angry now. “Don’t you get it yet, Johnny? Can’t you see what’s going on here? You’re out of your depth, you don’t know how this game will play out in the end! We can’t fight this, it’s bigger than both of us! Helen is dead, Johnny? Do you understand? She’s dead! That’s who you’re up against! You’re up against someone who’ll kill your wife in cold blood! This whole thing is out of control, Johnny! What do you possibly think you can do?”

  John shook his head, “I don’t know, I really don’t. But we’ve got to go back there and give Fox some of his own medicine. We have to. He has to finally pay for what he’s done. There must be something around here we can use against him.”

  Zoe put her hands on her hips, “There’s nothing, Johnny, or I would’ve taken it with me when I left. Now, we don’t even have a gun. We don’t have anything.”

  Zoe stopped her pacing and stared at him, “Except…” she said to herself as she walked into the kitchenette and started opening the drawers.

  From where he sat, John heard the clatter of utensils in the drawers, but couldn’t see what Zoe was looking for.

  Zoe tugged on one of the drawers, pulled it from its slot and emptied it on the kitchenette counter. A spray of knives, forks and spoons clattered around the counter-top.

  Pushing the utensils one way and another, Zoe searched through them, grabbing at the knives, looking at each one.

  “This is all we have,” she said as she searched. “Our great hope against Ricky.”

  Her hand grasped the biggest knife on the counter. It was nothing more than a steak knife with a serrated six-inch blade.

  “It’s not going to be enough,” she said to him as she moved it across the counter and placed it just inches in front of his eyes. “Johnny, we can’t fight him with this.”

  John stared at the steak knife, the sunlight reflecting off its blade.

  But there has to be a way…

  “We need to sit down and work this thing out,” he said. “We have to plan an attack and then get whatever we need to wipe this fucker off the face of the earth.”

  “It’s not that easy, Johnny,”

  “Unchain me and we’ll work something out.”

  Zoe walked around the kitchenette counter and stood in front of him, shaking her head and crossing her arms over her chest.

  “It’s not that easy, believe me.”

  “I didn’t say it was going to be easy,” John replied. “Just untie me and we’ll work it out!”

  Zoe bent forward and stared into his eyes. Her blood-stained face was just inches away from his and he could feel her breath as she talked.

  “I still don’t think you get it,” she said to him. “This isn’t a game. I don’t think you realise that, even now. This is life and death stuff.”

  “I realise that,” he said. “Now, untie me.”

  Zoe sighed deeply and her hands went to the back pocket in her jeans.

  Finally! John thought.

  Her hands returned from her pockets. She held them closed out in front of his eyes.

  “I think you need to understand,” Zoe whispered.

  She opened her hands.

  Resting in her left palm was a gold chain with a half-heart gold pendant attached to it.

  Helen’s.

  T
he pendant he had given to her when they were engaged.

  The other half of the heart was still hanging around John’s neck.

  John sat in stunned silence.

  “I didn’t want to show you this,” Zoe continued. “I didn’t want to hurt you any more. But I think you need to see it.”

  John looked at the half-heart pendant. The gold was tarnished, dusty now, and there were specks of dried blood on it. The chain was dirty too, and stained so badly with blood that he couldn’t tell if it was really gold any more.

  The sorrow welled up in John’s chest. He felt as if he were drowning in the sadness of it all.

  And all of a sudden, he couldn’t stop himself. He closed his eyes tight and let his head fall forward as the tears began to fall.

  “I’m sorry, Johnny, I really am.”

  Zoe was closer to him now, by his ear. He could feel her warm hand on his back, rubbing him, comforting him.

  “Helen took it from her neck,” she continued between his sobs. “She gave it to me while I held her. Before she died she asked me to give it to you and to tell you that she loved you.”

  John’s sobs grew louder as he let the sorrow flow through him.

  Oh, Helen, he thought. Why? Why did this have to happen to us?

  “I thought it would hurt too much to give it to you,” Zoe continued rubbing his back. “But now I think you needed to see it, so you know how dangerous this whole game is. Okay?”

  John nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Johnny” she said once more.

  He cried for what seemed like forever.

  Zoe stayed by his side and let him cry out the pain. Holding him and kissing his cheek.

  His sobs echoed through the church until finally, he could cry no longer. He was too exhausted, too tired.

  This is all so fucking fucked up!

  With one last, deep sob, he lifted his head and opened his eyes.

  He turned his head to the left and looked into Zoe’s eyes. She smiled at him. Her face was still spotted with Helen’s blood. Even the scar across her left eyebrow was a deep red colour now.

  Her smile filled him with warmth and he was glad she was here by him, to make the pain ease slightly. He didn’t want to be alone right now.