Love Lies Dying (69 page)

“Don’t worry,” she smiled at him. “It’s newly loaded. I had plenty of time to change clothes and reload while I was waiting for you two to get back here.”

His back hit the tennis net pole and sent new pain through him. He stopped crawling, exhausted.

There’s no use.

He reached out his hands to shield his face as lightning struck.

This is it!

“You had your chances, Johnny!” she said as her finger started to squeeze the trigger.

She smiled at him.

Yes, I did…I had my chances…

Then she turned away from him, pointing the gun to her left.

He followed her aim.

She was pointing at the tractor.

It was speeding towards her now, the engine revving.

Sherrie was at the wheel.

NO!

John climbed up and sprinted towards Zoe.

NOOOOOOO!

She pulled the trigger.

Once.

Twice.

Before she could fire a third time, John cannoned into her, knocking her from her feet.

He heard a cry and looked up at the tractor for a split second as he and Zoe flew through the air.

Sherrie was falling from the tractor’s side, a splash of blood shining in the security lights.

Sherrie! No! Jesus, no! Not you too!

John and Zoe tumbled in the wet and the clay, rolling over and over again.

Pain charged along his shoulder and through his hip.

The gun jarred from Zoe’s grip. It clattered and sloshed nearby.

John held on to her tightly, rolling with her, determined not to let her go.

They slid to a stop near the demolished gazebo. Side by side, they lay in the water, clay and mud.

“You
fucking
psycho
bitch!
” John yelled in her face.

The rain fell around them, striking like bullets.

“How
dare
you!” Zoe spat back, slapping a palm across his face. There was real hatred in her eyes. “Who was the one who took a young girl and
warped
her? Who was it who delighted in publicly embarrassing her every chance he got? Who was it who stood by and watched as two guys raped her and shoved a
fucking silver ladle
up her cunt?
Huh?
Who turned away from me when I pleaded, when I
begged
, for help? Who’s the
fucking psycho
, Johnny?
Who?
You tell me!”

He shook his head.

“Who’s the
fucking psycho
?” she screamed. “Who
ruined
my fucking miserable life?”

John reached out and rubbed some of the clay from her forehead. He ran his finger across the scar in her eyebrow. He traced the outline of the scar on her cheek.

He didn’t know what to say.

He had no energy left to try…

And she didn’t give him the chance.

She smiled at him and then dug her fingernails down through the wound in his left arm. She pushed hard, her fingernails scraping through his shirt and digging in deep. The pain sliced through him and he could feel the stitches popping one by one as she dragged her fingers down through the wound. Almost immediately, blood began to soak his shirt once more.

His scream split the night and his head felt light and his stomach churned.

He lost control of his arm and she escaped from his grip.

Before he knew it, she had staggered away from him.

“You don’t win that easily,” she said. “You can’t win by charm anymore, Johnny.”

John looked up at her. She was smiling down at him.

He looked past her, trying to see Sherrie. But he couldn’t find her anywhere.

The tractor was in the way. Still moving.

Slowly rolling straight towards them.

He looked back to the steering wheel, thinking maybe Sherrie was back on the tractor, but the driver’s cabin was empty.

The tractor rolled closer. Its front scoop sitting low now, parallel to the ground. Its teeth pointing directly at them.

He sat up quickly.

Pain bit at his hip.

His hand moved to his back pocket.

And he remembered…

Yes!

He smiled.

Of course!

My game.

My rules.

And one last chance…

Quickly, John got to his feet, picking himself out of the wet clay. He was holding his arm, trying to stop the blood flow.

He took a step towards her.

She put her hands on her hips and stood there, different emotions flooding across her face.

Work quickly!

The noise of the tractor’s motor was getting louder as it rolled towards them.

“Zoe,
please
,” he said in a calm voice.

Her head tilted.

He held out his hands to her.

She didn’t move.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Zoe’s face fell. Her bottom lip quivered and her forehead creased.

She looked away from him, to the ground.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yes, I am.”

“You know, that’s all I ever really wanted, Johnny.”

This is it!

He leaped forward and punched her square in the face.

He felt her nose crack under his fist and the blood began to gush immediately.

She crumpled in front of him, hitting the ground heavily. Her back slammed into the water and clay, her head bounced hard.

John looked up at the tractor.

Almost here!

His hands fumbled in his back pocket.

Come on, come on! Quickly!

He pulled out the handcuffs and slapped one around her wrist. The teeth clattered and locked tight.

She was on the ground, shaking her head. Her other hand was trying to stop the flow of blood pouring from her nose.

Dazed and confused, she didn’t fight back.

Using the cuffs, he dragged her a few feet across the court. She slid through the puddles and the clay.

He attached the other cuff to the nearest tennis net pole.

The teeth clattered and locked into place.

She was cuffed to the pole.

The tractor edged closer.

She was right in its path.

He bent down to her ear. “The game stops here,” he whispered.

She looked at him, blood streaming from her nose, a look of fear on her face. It all dawned on her then.

“No!” she yelled as the sat up and pulled on the handcuffs.

Lightning flashed.

John saw a glint of gold around Zoe’s neck.

He reached down her shirt and grabbed the half-heart gold pendant. With one swift movement, he pulled it from her neck.

She screamed at the top of her voice. She turned around and placed one foot on the pole for leverage and pulled harder at the cuffs, but they wouldn’t let go.

She pulled at them, her free hand tearing at the skin on her cuffed wrist, trying desperately to escape, fighting to get her wrist to slip from the cuff’s grip.

But it was no use.

The tractor was almost upon them now. The teeth on the scoop looked sharp, wet and hungry.

John turned his back and walked away.

The game stops here.

He headed up the court, where he could now see Sherrie.

She was sitting to one side of the court, leaning against one of the perimeter trees. Her left hand was holding the wound in her right shoulder. It was bleeding badly, John could see.

He smiled at her.

She smiled back.

“No!” Zoe screamed into the night. “Help me,
please!
”

John resisted the urge to turn around and watch. He kept his eyes on Sherrie.

And Sherrie kept her eyes fastened on his.

The tractor continued behind him.

The motor slowly turning in the night.

Can’t be long now.

“I did it for us!” Zoe yelled. “For
both
of
us!
”

John walked on, not looking back.

“I love
yooooouuuuu!
”

There was the sound of metal on metal, a long grinding metallic crunch. And then a sickening squelch that was drowned out by one single short scream.

Then there was silence for a few seconds, followed by the sound of crushing wood and metal echoing in the air.

By the time John reached Sherrie and bent down to look at her wound, only the low chug of the tractor motor and the occasional rumble of thunder broke the silence.

“You okay?” he whispered to her.

She nodded.

Sherrie’s shoulder wound wasn’t too bad. The bullet had passed right through. There was just a lot of blood soaking into her wet shirt.

He took off his shirt and split it in two, wrapping one half around Sherrie’s shoulder and the other half around his arm to stop the bleeding where the stitches had burst open.

His wound looked deep and ugly. But he didn’t care.

In the rain, he bent forward and kissed Sherrie.

They sat there for quite a while.

Holding each other.

When they were ready, they stood up and turned back to the gazebo.

The tractor had rolled over the tennis pole and had come to rest embedded in the wreckage of the gazebo. Its motor still turned, but the piles of broken timber and metal from the gazebo had stopped it from continuing any further. Its wheels churned over and over in the clay.

The tennis net pole was bent to one side, completely flattened by the tractor, and the cuff was still attached. The chain had broken and the other cuff couldn’t be seen. There was a massive amount of blood pooling in the clay puddles around the pole, and a solitary sneaker off to one side.

John could see the deep red drag marks that stretched from the pole to under the tractor. Somewhere at the front of the tractor was Zoe’s body.

John sighed.

The game was at an end.

They stepped closer to the carnage.

“Stay here,” John said.

Sherrie shook her head, “No, I won’t.”

He turned and stared into her eyes. He kissed her lips.

“
Please
, honey. I’ll only be a minute.”

She looked deep into his eyes as if searching for something. After a few seconds she nodded. “Okay.”

John turned from her and walked slowly across the court to the tractor.

The motor continued to run.

He thought about turning it off, but changed his mind. Let it run out of fuel in its own time.

Let it die too.

Wearily, he walked past the front of the tractor. He didn’t want to look, but he knew he had to. He had to make sure.

He couldn’t see much through all the broken timber and twisted metal. The front scoop was embedded deep into the wrecked remains of the gazebo.

But he could see her ponytail.

It was laying just to the right of the tractor on a pile of metal and timber. The rain was soaking through it, rinsing the blood away. Her roots were there too, and a part of her scalp was hooked onto a sharp piece of split metal.

Blood ran down the front of the tractor’s scoop and its grill was splattered with blood and other dark wet debris too. It dripped down and was pooling on the broken wood caught underneath it.

He’d seen enough.

Game over, Zoe.

Turning from her final resting-place, he crawled across the slippery wet metal and planks and made his way over to where Helen’s hand reached out from the rubble.

He knelt by her hand and tried to think of something to say.

But words wouldn’t help now.

Thunder rolled around him and the rain began to ease slightly.

He reached out with the half-heart pendant in his hand and dropped it into hers. He tried to close her cold fingers around the pendant, but they were stiff and wouldn’t bend. He noticed her index finger was missing. The wound was a jagged mess and there were marks around the skin. It looked as if it had been bitten off.