Death Theory

by John Mimms

“I’m gonna cut you free so I can move ya. If you pull any kind of funny shit...” He made his point by cutting a short gash in Debbie’s shoulder.

  She let out a muffled cry and bit her lip. A bead of blood trickled down her chin from the sensitive flesh of her lips.

  “Do you understand?” Pac barked.

  Debbie nodded as a single tear streamed down her cheek.

  He reached down and cut the tape binding her legs. He then ordered her to stand.

  Debbie rose to her feet, her legs as shaky as a newborn giraffe. She started to teeter forward and Pac did the only courteous thing he could. He grabbed the back of her hair and jerked her upright.

  “I’m warning you, bitch! No funny shit!”

  He pushed her towards an open closet a foot inside the entrance to the kitchen, guiding her by the back of her hair. He intended to lock her inside while he experimented on Mrs. Gage. Then it would be her turn. If she was going to act, it had to be in the next few seconds, otherwise both of them were dead. She considered the idea of never seeing Jeff again and then acted with focused determination.

  Chapter 33

  DEBBIE DROPPED TO HER knees, causing Pac to lose his grip on her hair. She hit the floor hard with her chin, gushing blood as it split open. She did not notice the pain. With her hands still bound behind her, she twisted in one swift move onto her back. Pac stood a few feet away, gawping with stupid disbelief. As they made eye contact, Pac’s face contorted, sending chills down Debbie’s spine. He sprung at her with the knife raised over his head.

  Pac never got close with the knife because Debbie had the advantage of leverage. She pulled her right knee up and back towards her face before launching her leg like a missile. Her foot landed between Pac’s legs. It sounded as if someone struck a tomato with a hammer. He let out a blood-curdling howl and landed flat on his face, cradling his crotch.

  Pac fell a few feet away, not quite grabbing distance, but close enough for discomfort. Debbie pushed up with her bound hands and managed to get to her feet. Her injured arm wailed in agony with every upward thrust.

  Pac lay face down in a fetal position, moaning and crying. The knife had skidded to the far corner of the kitchen. Debbie headed there. When she reached the corner, she braced her back against the wall and edged herself down into a seated position to reach the knife.

  She kept her eyes fixed on the blubbering psychopath as she maneuvered her hands, trying for purchase on the hilt of the knife. A glimmer of hope kindled in her, however small. She just might make it out of this alive. The sound of pelting rain against the kitchen window above her head served as a cruel reminder of how fast any small flame can be extinguished. Soon Debbie grasped the hilt, and she brought the blade up carefully. She turned it at an angle between her wrists then began to saw the tape.

  Pac sobbed and squirmed as Debbie sawed. She almost dropped it once when the knife shifted in her sweaty palms. It punctured her hand under her left thumb. She tried to hold back tears as she felt a warm stream of blood trickle off her fingertips. Focus ... she told herself.

  “Just me, the knife and the tape,” she whispered.

  Debbie’s breathing began to quicken when she noticed the sobs coming from Pac were getting fewer and far between. She decided it was time to hasten things. With a rapid series of motions, she pistoned the knife up and down across her adhesive restraints. She accidentally sliced about an eighth of an inch of flesh from her right index finger. A detail she ignored as the tape fell away and landed on the floor. Blood splattered the tape and floor from her injuries.

  She turned around to stand up. When she saw the gray tape smattered with her blood, she had the strangest thought, “It looks like a bleeding armadillo cake.”

  She thought of Jeff and his Tom Skerritt impression.

  ‘Thanks, Weesa, ain’t nothin’ like a good piece of ass!’

  She would see Jeff again, however, to get her and Mrs. Gage out alive, she would have to redefine the term ‘steel magnolia’. She allowed herself a small, painful smile. Her bottom lip would require at least three stitches. Debbie then stepped toward the kitchen door.

  She had taken her eye off the ball for a few seconds, but a few seconds was all it took.

  Her heart sank, as cold as death, into her stomach. Pac was standing in the doorway. He glared at her with hatred and fury. Tears still streamed from his bloodshot eyes and fell into his upturned palms. He was a bull from hell, ready to charge.

  “You stupid bitch!” he shrieked. “I was going to let you off easy, but now I’m gonna kill you slow and make you like it!”

  Pac then reached down and grabbed his crotch. He broke into such a sadistic smile, Debbie had to avert her eyes.

  There was no time to react; he was on her in a second. Her arm bearing the knife was pinned behind her back when he shoved her against the wall.

  Pac slid his hand down the front of Debbie’s jeans, cupping and massaging her.

  “You know if we had the time; it would be very interesting to prove energy transference when a baby dies in a mother’s womb.”

  He made a couple of thrusts with his hips while licking Debbie from ear to ear. Her urge to vomit was overwhelming.

  Pac pulled back a little to peer into her eyes, when something bizarre happened. The expression on his face changed like a television channel from Chiller Network to The Catholic Channel.

  “No, that would be wrong. Abortion is most definitely wrong. Killing an unborn is reprehensible. I always vote pro-life!” he finished with an insane smile.

  This Jekyll and Hyde transformation had caused Pac to loosen his grip a little. It was enough for Debbie to work her arm free. Before he could react, Debbie brought the knife up hard and stabbed beneath his armpit. The resulting sound was as if someone jerked a rusty zipper.

  Pac’s eyes flew open, and he let out a scream heard in Branson. As he stumbled backwards, Debbie withdrew the knife with another sickening rip. She sprinted through the kitchen door and to the table with Mrs. Gage. To her relief, she wasn’t bound to the table, only wrapped up like a mummy in duct tape. She couldn’t move much outside of her head and feet. Mrs. Gage regarded her with tired and frightened eyes. Debbie’s relief faded when she realized it was going to be difficult to cut her free without injuring the poor woman.

  Debbie had no more time to consider as Pac came steaming from the kitchen with malice in his eyes. He staggered, stumbled, and then fell head first into the legs of the table supporting Mrs. Gage. There was a clang as one of the legs came loose. The table tipped forward, spilling Mrs. Gage head first into the wall. The ghastly crunch of bones registered in Debbie’s soul before her eyes confirmed it.

  She rolled Mrs. Gage over and beheld the milky stare of death. Her neck was broken.

  Pac got to his feet and pointed at her glassy eyes. “You damn, BITCH!!” he screamed. “You’ve made me ruin the experiment!”

  Debbie squatted by Mrs. Gage and stroked her bound hand. She gazed up at Pac as he launched into a tapestry of obscenities. As she watched, a cold wave washed over her body. It was as if she were in a dream. Indeed, she was in a dream, her nightmare. She understood it all as her memories flooded back.

  Debbie watched Pac’s expression turn from disbelief to anger.

  “You bitch! I just put this carpet down!” he screamed, pointing between Debbie’s feet. She was another damned dog messing up his carpet.

  As in her dream, Debbie was squatting in the floor next to a person and urinating. She had already discovered the woman was her mother, but she had no idea what the circumstances were. She now remembered everything.

  “You killed my mother!” Debbie said, her voice trembling.

  Pac’s face went from anger to confusion.

  “My mother is fine,” he said in a defensive tone. “I don’t go by there anymore ‘cause she is not a good housekeeper. Our relationship has never been better!”

  “No, you killed MY mother!” Debbie shrieked. “I was only seven years old, and you kil
led her!”

  Pac was thrown off his game by this accusation. He leaned up against the wall clutching his injured side.

  “If I killed her when you were seven, I would have been nine years old.” He puffed out his chest and proclaimed, “I’ve never killed anyone whose death didn’t better the world!”

  Debbie felt as if she was going to pass out. Her head hurt and she was exhausted, both mentally and physically. Moreover, what Pac said made sense. She knew beyond any doubt it was Pac ... Pac as an adult. How could it be? It was impossible unless he had invented time travel. Judging by the cruel sloppiness of his scientific endeavors, it was highly improbable.

  There was only one thing left to do. Run.

  Her accusation had elicited the unintended, but welcome, effect of confusing her captor. As Pac leaned against the wall, nursing his wound, Debbie bolted for the door.

  She spilled out onto a concrete porch, and then tumbled headlong into the driving rain, tripping over a row of shrubs. She bounced to her feet and spun around. She could tell she had just exited the left-hand side of a duplex. She didn’t have time to register anything else. The duplex owner emerged through the door.

  “Come back here, bitch! I’ll take it easy on you if you come back!” he screamed, clutching his side and holding a cell phone to his ear.

  “What the hell is he trying to do?” Debbie thought. “Call the police and report her for ruining his experiment?”

  Debbie turned and ran into the darkness, narrowly avoiding Pac’s white sedan.

  She heard Pac shout. “Give me a break! I’ll get her, dammit!”

  Debbie glanced over her shoulder long enough to see Pac bring his phone away from his ear and toss it into the open door of the duplex. Before she could face forward again, she smashed headlong into a large pine tree. Her head snapped back, her feet went out from under her, and she landed with a squish in the mud. She cried out in anguish. The side of her head colliding with the tree dazed her to the point she almost forgot where she was. As she sat, dazed and disoriented, reality returned when she felt two hands grasp her shoulders.

  “I got you, you no good bitch!”

  But, before he could pull her up, two high pitched screams exploded in unison, punctuated by a distant roll of thunder. Debbie whirled the knife back and stabbed. It penetrated Pac’s hand like a crucifixion nail, but the blade went through and penetrated her shoulder. Pac’s hand was stuck to her shoulder like a bug mounted on an entomology pin.

  Debbie cried out as Pac jerked free, pulling a nickel sized hunk of shoulder flesh with him. Pac stumbled backwards and landed on his back a few feet away. He sat in obvious shock, staring in disbelief at his impaled hand. Still wearing his blood-spattered smock, he was the poster child for accidents to avoid in the workplace.

  Debbie reached up for a low hanging limb and tried to pull herself up. Her shoulder burned like fire and she let go with a howl of pain, landing on her back in the puddle. She saw Pac was still sitting and studying his hand as if in a deep hypnotic trance. Seeing his deep state of disorientation, she mentally prodded herself like a drill sergeant.

  “Get your ass up and go! This is your only chance.”

  With every ounce of strength, she reached for the limb with her other arm and pulled. Every injury – her head, her lip, her chin, her arm, her shoulder – all burned and throbbed. After a few excruciating moments, she was up and running, blind through the dark. Her only light was the occasional flash of lightning in the distance. The storm had passed, leaving a steady rain which stung her wounds with each cruel raindrop, but she pushed on.

  Debbie ran and ran, almost stumbling into the ditch at the end of Pac’s long driveway. She scrambled to her feet and oriented herself with the road as a brilliant flash of lightning illuminated the way. She sprinted as fast as pain and exhaustion would permit.

  She didn’t dare look back. If Pac was behind her, then there was nothing she could do about it. All she could do was run until he caught her, or run until she couldn’t run any more. The prospect of finding help seemed foreign in this desolate, dark, and godforsaken area.

  Exhaustion threatened to stop her, and Debbie didn’t know how much longer she could endure. Her head felt like a floating apparition, completely numb, and unencumbered by the body supporting it. Perhaps it was an abundance of adrenaline, or a starvation of oxygen that made her cease to feel. Or, it could have been a combination of the two which produced this weird and dreamy euphoric state. As she listened to her labored breathing, a childhood rhyme inexplicably came into her head.

  ‘Run, run as fast as you can! You can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread man!’

  Debbie laughed hysterically. The stupidity of this childhood limerick, coupled with the irony, made her laugh until her head and lip made her stop. After several more minutes, Debbie’s lungs were demanding an abrupt halt to this insidious exercise. She was about to oblige them when two bright lights appeared in front of her. Debbie had no time to react before her legs were knocked from beneath her. She rolled over the lights and struck her head on a windshield. As the vehicle came to a screeching halt, she flew forward and landed on the muddy road with a dull thump.

  Debbie stared through groggy eyes at the headlights only a couple of feet away. A car door creaked open on rusty hinges. A shadow loomed over her in the blinding lights. She felt a hand touch her forehead and then someone spoke. Indiscernible words spun out of grasp and comprehension down a long tunnel. Debbie was gone.

  Chapter 34

  “DEB, SWEETHEART ... can you hear me?” said the man in her dream.

  “Honey, I’m right here,” said the woman in her dream.

  It was a strange dream indeed. The voices were clear and close, yet she couldn’t see a thing, except for a bizarre slice of white light. She felt unseen hands grasp each of hers. A cool, sterile, breeze blew across her face.

  “Doctor, please come here!” another woman called. “She’s trying to open her eyes!”

  Debbie felt the two hands release their grip. In an instant, her head filled with a white stabbing pain. She felt one of her eyelids pried open and a blinding light flooded her vision. She gasped and tried to pull away, but a strong hand held her in place.

  “Debbie, this is Dr. Mallett. Do you understand me?”

  Debbie nodded a very weak affirmation. Her head felt as if jackhammers were digging from her temples to the center of her brain. The damned light in her eyes wasn’t helping matters either. She shut her eyes and grimaced. Dr. Mallet extinguished the light.

  “Debbie, how do you feel?” Dr. Mallett asked.

  “Like possum poop,” she said weakly.

  “That’s my girl!” a familiar male voice said with a heavy sigh of relief.

  Debbie turned her head and saw Jeff standing a few feet away. She thought she saw tears in his eyes. Her vision was too blurry to be sure. She smiled as best she could.

  “Hi,” she said.

  Jeff stepped around Dr. Mallet and took Debbie’s hand. He kissed her on the left eyebrow.

  He gazed into her eyes and said, “That seems to be the only spot on you without a boo-boo.”

  Yes, those most definitely were tears. Two of them dropped on to Debbie’s hospital gown. It gave her a jolt of horror as she recalled the raindrops. She wasn’t sure how long it had been. It could have been months for all she knew. However, this remembered terror was quelled by the strong feeling she had for Jeff. She made it back to him, exactly as she promised herself.

  “I love you,” Debbie said, tears pooling in her eyes.

  “I love you, too,” Jeff said and gave her another light peck on the eyebrow.

  “Don’t forget about me,” another familiar voice said.

  Debbie turned her head and saw the disheveled, yet smiling face of Grammy Lee. Her uncharacteristic bedhead almost made Debbie laugh.

  “Hi, Grammy,” Debbie smiled.

  Grammy Lee reached out and gently touched the fingers of Debbie’s bandaged hand.
/>   “Honey, what happened to you? The rural newspaper deliveryman said you ran right out in front of his car. Said you were out in the middle of nowhere ... all banged up. Please tell us what happened.”

  Debbie did not intend to hold back any information, but first she wanted to get her bearings straight. It was painful to talk, but she asked anyway. “How long ... have I ... been out?”

  “It’s about seven o’clock on Sunday morning.” Grammy Lee said. “Jeff said y’all had a spook hunt last night at some lady’s house.”

  She felt like Ebenezer Scrooge awaking on Christmas morning. He realized that he hadn’t missed Christmas after all - the spirits had done it all in one night. In this case, the psychopathic narcissist had done it last night.

  “How bad?” she asked, touching her bandaged chin.

  Doctor Mallet informed her she had a severe laceration in the shoulder. It required twenty stitches to close. A four-inch slash on her forearm had required eight stitches. The pad underneath her left thumb had a deep puncture wound requiring two stitches. The index finger on the same hand had a good chunk of flesh shaved off between the second and third knuckles. The back of her head had a deep gash requiring fourteen stitches. Her forehead had a small cut with a few fragments of embedded glass from the windshield of the newspaper man’s car. This required two stitches. She was covered from head to toe with several abrasions and contusions. The worst thing was she suffered a severe concussion. This would require at least a couple days of bed rest in the hospital.

  The newspaper man loaded her in his vehicle and drove her to the hospital. He refused to answer any questions and left saying - ‘his papers couldn’t be late’. He had introduced himself as L.C., and said he would be back later.

  Debbie sighed and asked for a drink of water. The nurse obliged and the doctor left after giving instructions not to get Debbie upset or excited. When they were alone, Debbie told them everything, providing as much detail as possible.

  Jeff’s expression went from one of shock, to red-faced fury.