My Pretties

by Jeff Strand

  Immediately.

  You didn't need an ambulance immediately to collect dead people.

  Of course, it could've been meant for her, but Gertie wasn't sure the cop had even noticed that she was still alive before he left the room.

  She tried to wave for the other cop's attention, but her arms had moved all they were going to for now. "I'm alive," she managed to say.

  The cop hurried over to the cage, eyes wide. He tugged on the door but it didn't open.

  "We'll get you out of there," he promised her.

  "How's my friend?" she asked.

  The cop glanced at the three corpses, as if uncertain about what kind of news he'd have to deliver. "Which one's your friend?"

  "She's outside."

  "I'm not sure. My partner is checking her out. Worry about yourself for now."

  "I don't need to. I'm fine."

  Gertie was pretty sure her stab wounds were getting infected, and she didn't know yet what injuries she'd sustained when the cage fell, and she was certain she'd have nightmares every night for approximately the next seventy years, but as long as Charlene wasn't right outside the door with her brains splashed against the wall, Gertie believed that things would indeed be fine.

  * * *

  It felt like it took forever for a police officer to show up with bolt cutters. By then, Charlene had already been taken away in an ambulance. She wasn't dead yet. The cop who'd told her to worry about herself gravely informed Gertie that Charlene had a nasty neck wound and had been shot in the leg, which Gertie already knew, and that she'd been shot directly in the stomach.

  She was unconscious and unresponsive. But alive.

  "She's got a rough time ahead," the cop said. "But if she can stick it out until they get her into surgery, I think she'll pull through."

  * * *

  Charlene Fox stuck it out until they got her into surgery.

  EPILOGUE

  Six Months Later

  Charlene and Gertie sat across from each other in the restaurant booth, sipping their non-alcoholic chocolate milkshakes.

  They'd spent a lot of time together, with Gertie visiting her every single day during her stay in Intensive Care, then every single day after she got moved to a regular room, and then every single day after she moved to inpatient physical therapy. Gertie was who she saw when she opened her eyes for the first time after that bitch shot her in the gut, though Gertie had immediately rushed off to the waiting room to let Charlene's parents know she was finally awake.

  She'd thought she might resent having Gertie around so much, as a reminder that she'd been responsible for dragging her into this nightmare in the first place, but she actually found Gertie's presence very comforting. And they'd continued to see each other on that wonderful day when inpatient therapy became outpatient therapy.

  Best friends forever? Sure, why not?

  * * *

  Gertie didn't know if this counted as a victory or not.

  She had not saved her cousin Kimberly. Had not saved Ken's latest victim. Had definitely been responsible for Travis getting on Vivian's radar, and was thus also responsible for the other two victims that showed up at the wrong time.

  Three innocent deaths because of her involvement.

  How many more women would Ken have kidnapped if he'd been allowed to continue?

  More than three?

  She'd never know.

  Maybe Jared would have followed in his father's footsteps.

  Gertie may have saved a large number of hypothetical victims. And she may have saved none. She'd just have to satisfy herself with the knowledge that the bad people were dead.

  * * *

  "This is a good shake," said Charlene.

  "I know."

  "It would be better with some rum in it."

  "You can't have alcohol."

  "I'm just saying. You could have some rum in yours, and let me smell it."

  "I'm not going to drink a delicious alcoholic milkshake in front of you."

  "That's very kind of you. You're a good friend. When are you going to go down on me?"

  "I'm not."

  "I think you owe that to me. You have to eat my pussy for all you put me through."

  "In your dreams."

  "They're actually nightmares. You'd be terrible at it. You'd be all like—" Charlene stuck out her tongue in random directions to mimic poor oral sex technique. "It would be embarrassing. I'd eventually just get bored and leave."

  "People are staring at you."

  "I got my neck slashed open by one psychopath, I got shot in the stomach by another psychopath, and I was almost locked in a cage to starve to death by a third psychopath. Guess how much I care that people are staring at my tongue?"

  "I got stabbed a few times by a psychopath, and I did get locked in a cage to starve to death, and I do care that people are staring at your tongue."

  "Too bad for you. I'm sure they're silently judging you. Can you feel their eyes boring into the back of your head?"

  Gertie laughed. "I'm glad you're back to normal."

  "Oh, I'm so far from normal that it isn't even funny."

  "You're back to acting like you did when I first met you."

  Charlene picked up her milkshake glass. "We should do a toast."

  "To what?"

  "I don't know. To anything. To not getting murdered by a family of serial killers."

  Gertie held up her glass. "To not getting murdered by a family of serial killers."

  They clinked their glasses together and drank their chocolate milkshakes.

  The End

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to my usual amazing crew of Tod Clark, Donna Fitzpatrick, Lynne Hansen, Michael McBride, Jim Morey, Paul Synuria II, and Rhonda Rettig for their assistance with this novel. Thanks also to the ghosts of Roan Mountain, Tennessee, for letting me finish this book in peace when they could've been jerks and possessed the other people in the cabin.

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  Books By Jeff Strand

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  The Andrew Mayhem Collection. All four novels for one low price!

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  For information on all of these books, visit Jeff Strand's more-or-less official website at http://www.jeffstrand.com