Come Get Me (28 page)

“She went on and on about how you’d come back
for her one day,” Johnny said starting his story again. “She said
you’d realize you’d made a mistake and you would come back and take
her away with you and ya’ll live happily ever after. I tried doing
things to get her to love me, hell, just to even notice me, but
none of it worked.” Johnny was getting angry now. All of his pent
up aggression was about to come poring out. Jim could see that
trying to explain anything to Johnny right now was going to be a
waste of time. “Then a little while ago she got her idea,” he said
continuing. “I guess over the years she’d at least decided she
could trust me so she told me about it. I couldn’t believe what she
wanted to do at first. Then I thought of all the crap I’d been
listening to about you and figured why not.” A change was slowly
coming over his face as he talked. He actually looked like he was
getting happier about something. Jim didn’t know what was going on
but he hoped it was something good. Pete was still slowly
struggling with his ropes so he still needed some time. Johnny was
doing a good job giving it to him. Maria surprisingly was just
standing nearby twirling her hair. She must’ve known about Johnny’s
feelings. There was no way she couldn’t. Then Jim understood. She’d
used those feeling as a way to get him to help her. Maybe in her
own demented way she did care about him but Jim doubted it. At this
point she probably didn’t care about anything but the revenge she
thought she was taking on him.

“Actually I was kinda hoping it would turn
out this way,” Johnny said startling him. “See, I hoped you’d come
back and not want her. Then you’d be gone again and I’d have her
back to myself like before. It’s a little unfortunate you three
have to die but that’s how it’s got to be. Who knows, maybe once
you’re dead and buried she’ll finally love me and not you.”

Even though Johnny was telling him they were
going to kill him he still almost felt bad for him. He couldn’t
imagine what it must’ve been like living with her all these years.
If he’d had to do it he’d probably feel almost the same way except
without the killing people and stuff. This thought sober him
quickly and got him thinking right again. The reasons they had for
doing the things they were doing were the reasons of the insane.
One wanted to kill him because he didn’t love her and the other
wanted to kill him because he’d had to listen to the complaining
about him over the years. This really was crazy. He was going to be
killed for pretty much nothing. At least if he’d done something
maybe it would’ve made a little bit more sense but he hadn’t. There
was no real reason except they were crazy.

“But you didn’t tell him the best part,”
Maria said whined. “You didn’t tell him what we did after we had
the plan all together. You also didn’t tell him what we did to
Tommy and that was one of the best parts. With your little pee
sized brain I shouldn’t be surprised you forgot to mention how I,
myself, went out in those yucky woods where Tommy was and acted
like I was the typical damsel in distress so he would come out of
his tree and rescue me. That really sucked by the way, I got all
hot and sweaty and stinky but boy was it worth it. You should’ve
seen the look on his face when he realized what was really
happening. I should’ve gotten some type of award for that let me
tell you” She paused to make a few scared-surprised faces, mocking
what Tommy must’ve looked like, laughing harder each time she
looked at Jim’s face.

“You also seemed to have forgotten to tell
him the rest of your involvement in this whole plan. How once he
actually did come down to check on me you came up behind him and
cracked him in the back of the head then threw him on that tree
stump you’d cut earlier to make it look like some kind of dumb
accident.”

Jim was grateful she stopped to catch her
breath for a few minutes. She’d worked herself into such a state of
excitement that she was starting to hyperventilate, which wasn’t a
bad thing, but he also didn’t really want to hear all the gory
details of Tommy’s death. Jim was actually hoping she would pass
out then all he’d have to do is deal with Johnny. At least he still
might be able to be talked out of what Maria wanted to do. Then
again he had already killed Tommy so maybe it was better if Maria
just stayed conscious and kept talking. Left to his own devices
Johnny might decide to put an end to thing and get out while the
getting was good.

“You also didn’t tell him about what happened
to Rob,” Maria chimed in apparently done calming down.

“That’s because you did Rob all by yourself!”
he spit back defensively.

“Oh yeah, I did didn’t I? Sorry,” she said
smiling. “Yes, it’s true. I did call him begging for help with my
car. I told him I’d broken down out near the freaks place and I was
scared and needed help. Him being the Boy Scout he was he rushed
right out to help.”

“You took advantage of him!” Jim yelled. Pete
still needed more time. He had to keep her talking.

“Of course I did. What else was I supposed to
do?” she responded. “I couldn’t very well confess to killing his
best friend in an attempt to make you love me could I? Plus Tommy’s
funeral was coming up then you’d be leaving. I couldn’t let that
happen. I had to find some way to keep you here a bit longer. You
needed that extra time to realize where you belonged and that Jill
was wrong for you. So to help you out I chopped Rob into little,
itty, bitty pieces the first chance I got.” She finished with a
giggle. “But,” she started again apologetically, “it wasn’t as much
fun as I thought it would be. Sure the screaming was cool and all
but you can only take so much of that before it gets boring. You
should’ve heard him! When that hatchet hit him he let out such a
scream that I thought they’d hear it all the way back at the
sheriff’s station.”

She began limping around and moaning to
demonstrate as she was talking. She reached behind her acting like
she was trying to pull something out of her back until she finally
fell down. She lay with her eyes closed for a moment before they
popped open, “And do you know what the best part was?” she asked
whispered only a few feet from his face.

“We weren’t even caught!” she answered
gleefully when he said nothing. “I knew the sheriff here was an
idiot but I thought for sure he would notice something strange was
going on. I mean it was a decent plan but there were at least a
dozen things we should’ve been caught on. I mean at the very lest
we should be suspects now or something. But as you can see,
nothing, nada, zip. They have no idea what’s going on around here.”
Jim couldn’t look directly at Pete without giving him away. He
decided to try to shift himself to another position more away from
him than he already was. If he could keep her attention focused on
him then there was at least some slim hope still left that they
might survive. He didn’t need to worry about her though. As soon as
he moved and got slightly comfortable she smacked him in the
head.

“You don’t move unless I tell you too!” she
yelled. “Now, where was I? Oh yeah, then my little Johnny-wonny
came up with his brilliant addition to my plan. This in turn brings
us to the reason for Pete being here. Deputy Dog’s bright idea was
to make it look like Pete was the one that had done everything. He
was afraid he was about to have the murders pinned on him so he
broke out of jail. Johnny was going to make it look as if Pete had
somehow over-powered him and taken his gun when he’d gone to check
on him. Then the freak, who probably has no knowledge whatsoever
about guns, was supposed to shoot his was out of the station with
Johnny as his docile hostage.” Maria chuckled a few times before
continuing. She obviously didn’t think Johnny was too bright.
Either that or she just liked putting him down in front of
others.

“For some reason,” she continued, “Pete was
going to contact you and Jill and talk you into meeting him out
here so you could help him escape. But at the last possible minute,
Johnny, suddenly being the big strong hero, was going to wrestle
the gun away from whoever had it at the time and dramatically shoot
everyone before they could escape. Then supposedly all the blame
for everything would be placed on you three and we would be in the
clear. Sounds like a great plan huh?” Jim thought it did sound like
a half decent plan. Not one he would use but it might’ve worked out
ok.

“Oh,” Maria added, “did I forget to mention
he didn’t really think of any kind of reason why you might help
Pete or why Pete might’ve killed his friends? I mean he was crazy
sure but not like that. Everyone knew he wasn’t violent.”

“It wasn’t…” Jim started to say.

“Well,” Maria said cutting him off, “I didn’t
like it. It wasn’t my plan and my plan was better so I didn’t want
to use it. Now I don’t really have a choice.”

“Well, if that wasn’t your plan,” Jim said
jumping in feet first just to keep her talking. “Then what was it?
What did you actually have planned? Did you just think killing all
of us would be written off to another type of accident? You
couldn’t actually believe you were going to get away with it could
you? Practically everyone in town saw the display you two made at
Tommy’s funeral. They also saw you fawning all over me too. If we
were to turn up dead after that it would look mighty suspicious
wouldn’t it? How did you think you’d get away with it?” He knew
Pete only needed a little more time. If he wasn’t out after this,
it was over. The last time he’ had a chance to look at Pete’s way
he’d seen he was at the window. Hell, if he stood up he would
probably fall out. Jim didn’t know why he didn’t do just that other
than his hands were still bound but even they were loose. He
should’ve made a run for it but instead he just sat there.

“Well, all that’s true isn’t it?” Maria said
taking his bait. “But if you remember I did leave enough clues for
even a jackass like the sheriff to get some pretty wild ideas about
what was going on didn’t I?” Maria said. “I mean I left goat hair
at most of the places we did stuff. Then I left the hair and tracks
at Petey’s house. We even wrote who we wanted everyone to think of
on Petey’s house. If that wasn’t a good enough clue I don’t know
what was. If nothing else it would just be written off to one of
those strange disappearance types of things.”

“You actually thought you could blame the
whole thing on a legend?” Jim asked incredulously.

“Why not?” she asked. “You four seemed to
believe in him enough way back in the day so I figured why not use
that to my advantage? See, I know something you don’t know.
Remember when you and your little buddies went looking for
him.”

“How do you know about that?” Jim asked
defensively.

“Oh you know, one of those days you didn’t
notice me, you know back in high school, well I saw all of you
crowded around each other like you were trying to keep a secret so
naturally I had to know what was going on. Don’t look at me like
that. I was practically your girlfriend so I felt I needed to know
what my man was doing. Boy was I surprised to find out you idiots
were going out to find The Goatman.” She started laughing at this.
Jim didn’t think it was very funny. The four of them had been very
serious about finding proof of his existence. According to Pete
they’d found what they were looking for. “Hey pay attention,” Maria
said when she saw his blank look. “Anyways, when I was coming up
with my plan for getting you back I thought why not use the exact
thing that had scared the piss out of you when you were little? Why
not just do what I had to do and then blame it? I mean sounds like
a pretty good idea right? I thought it was. If I did everything
just right there was no way I’d ever be caught. As you can see I
haven’t been caught so everything must be working right. Johnny’s
little brainstorm threw a wrench into everything for a minute but
it doesn’t really hurt any of my plans too much. There’s only one
thing left to do.” She started walked over to Jill and grabbed her
by the hair. Reaching up and behind her on a shelf Jim hadn’t seen
before she took something down. It flashed as it caught the candle
light. She had a knife. A big one.

“Now I just have to kill three instead of
two,” she said smiling at his surprise. “I think I’ll start right
here.” She put the knife to Jill’s throat. He could see her arm
tensing, ready to pull the blade across her throat but it never
happened.”

“Goatman, Goatman, Goatman,” Pete yelled
exploding off the floor, “come get me!” Then he was jumping through
the window into darkness. Their two captors had been caught
completely off guard. They stood there with their mouths hanging
open looking at where Pete had been only moments before. All that
was left were the pieces of rope that had held his hands.

Jim had to admit he was slightly stunned
himself. He hadn’t thought Pete had it in him. He’d hoped something
like this might happen but Pete wasn’t exactly the hero type.

Pete had probably surprised himself too. At
least now he had a chance at getting away. He might even be able to
find help before Maria decided to cut her loses. Then again who was
he kidding? It was Pete they were talking about and they were in
the middle of nowhere. Where was he going to find help at?

“Well, that sucks,” Maria said being the
first to recover from the surprise. “I guess we better go get him.
We wouldn’t want him going and bringing back help would we?” As
they turned to leave Jim felt his hopes rising. Left alone for a
few minutes he might be able to free himself and Jill then get
away.