You Only Die Twice (25 page)

He
turned sharply away from her and seemed to face someone else.
 

“What
did you just say to me?
 
You think
I’m crazy?
 
Is that what you
said?
 
It is, isn’t it?
 
Well, let me tell you something, lady,
I’ve heard that my whole life.
 
I
heard it from my parents, who threw me out of the house when I was
eighteen.
 
I heard it from my
teachers, who didn’t understand why I always carried the Book with me and read
from it in class, when they wanted me to learn some useless bullshit like
chemistry, history or math.
 
I heard
it from people on the street, when I stood up against abortion.
 
I’ve heard it all and it means nothing
to me because it’s not true.”

His back
was to her.
 
Cheryl Dunning looked
down at the dead tree limb she used as a crutch and felt its weight.
 
Not heavy, but not slight, either.
 
He was six, maybe seven feet away from
her.
 
Could she do it?
 
And if she didn’t do
it, what
then?
 
He was going to kill her
anyway.
 
It was just a matter of
time.
 
If she didn’t act when she
had the chance―and she felt she had a good chance right now―she’d
forever regret it, even if forever, in her world, was now reduced to a matter
of m
oments.
 

She
lifted the limb quietly above her head, took a step forward and listened to her
bum leg drag across the ground.
 

She
froze at the sound of it and looked at him.
 
He was in full rant, raving at someone
who wasn’t there, and if he heard her, he didn’t act as if he did.
 
He was pointing his finger at something
that wasn’t there.
 
Shoving it at
someone he alone could see.
 
He was
yelling something about the power of God and how he, as the Chosen One, was the
only living person who could channel that power.

“I’m
here because of Him.
 
I’m here to
carry out His laws.
 
Do you get
it?
 
Do you understand my role?
 
The importance of it?”

She took
another step, this time tipping her body to the left so her leg didn’t drag as
much.
 
It didn’t.
 
She held the limb higher, almost as if
it was a baseball bat, and a surge of adrenaline shot through her when she
realized she might just pull this off.
 
She stared at the back of his head, took another step and held her
breath.
 
Almost within striking
distance.
 
His voice bellowing into
the night.

They
killed Patty.
 
They killed my
friend.
 
They nearly killed me.
 
If he lives, how many other women will
he kill?

Anger rising,
she took another step.
 
And a final
one, but this time her right foot caught on something―a dip in the
pavement―and she tri
pped a little.

Which he
heard.

He spun
around and faced her.

Time
warped into another sphere.

The
light of the fire shined upon his twisted face.
 
It threw shadows upon it, his broken
nose and his bloody horror movie of a mouth.

“You,”
he said.

“That’s
rig
ht―me.”

Before
he could lift the gun, Cheryl Dunning reached deep into whatever pool of energy
she had left and swung that limb as if it was a bat.
 
She swung it just as hard as she did
when she and her father would play ball in Broadway Park.
 
She swung it like a champ wanting to
bust a ball out of a stadium so she could run the bases while her father
cheered her on.
 
She swung it at his
head, cracked it hard against his skull, but the momentum of the act got the
best of her.

She lost
her balance and fell into him as he listed to her left.
 
She dropped the stick and reached out to
grab his jacket for support.
 

It was
the worst thing she could have done.
 

She fell
back and, with her hands still gripping his jacket, she took him down on top of
her.

CHAPTER
FOR
TY-TWO

For a
moment, stunned, they just lay there, she on her back with her eyelids
fluttering, and he on top of her, his bloody smear of a mouth pressed against
her cheek.

He
wasn’t moving, but he was breathing.
 
She could feel his hot breath huffing against her cheek and she felt
cheated that she hadn’t killed him.
 
She was pinned in such a way that she couldn’t see what she did to his
head.
 
How much damage did she
cause?

“OOOOOOOG...”
he said.

Not
enough.
 

She
tried to push him off her, but he was heavy, all muscle, and she quickly
realized that she didn’t have the strength to lift him or shove him off
her.
 
And so she squirmed, but as
she squirmed, it just roused him more.
 
His eyes slitted open and, though at first he didn’t know where to look,
his eyes eventually met hers and locked on them.
 
She squirmed harder, but it was no use.
 
There was no moving him.

And then
he did something she never expected.
 
He smiled down at her, his mouth a bloody hollow of hatred that
possessed fewer teeth than she originally thought.
 
She watched his thick tongue flick out
and curl over his cracked bottom lip.
 
He wasn’t full
y conscious yet―it was as if he was coming out of
sedation―but he was getting close to fully being awake, and that
terrified her.

She spread
out her arms and started to pat the ground, hoping to find the gun or a
rock―something that would finish him off for go
od.
 
But she found nothing.

And then
it came to her.

Except
for my hands.

She
looked at his throat, noted how thick his neck was, and wondered if she could
do it.
 
Could she squeeze the life
out of someone this rugged, even if he was in such a damaged state?
 

She wanted
to.
 
She wanted him to die for what
he did to her and for what he and his dead partner did to Patty and to the
other women.
 
She wanted to watch
his eyes bulge in terror when he realized that it was he who was dying, not
somebody else.

Could
she do it?

Probably
not.

But
Cheryl Dunning seized his throat, anyway.

CHAPTER
FO
RTY-THREE

The
moment she began to squeeze, his eyes came partly into focus, his body bucked
out of instinct, but Cheryl Dunning clung on.

“Die!”
she screamed in a voice so hoarse, it didn’t sound like her own.
 
“Die!”

But he
wasn’t ready for death.
 
Not
now.
 
He grappled with her.
 
Railing on pure survival mode, he
brought his own hands down onto her throat, but hitched back when she spit in
his eyes.
 

Probably
because of the dried blood in her mouth, it was enough to sting and make him
rear up, but because her hands were attached to his throat, she came up with
him.
 
She kicked her good leg
beneath her, swung it beneath this legs and then pushed herself down on top of
him when he fell back.

Now he
was flailing while she squeezed.
 
Even in the raging orange light, she could see his face turning bright
red.
 

“GAW!”
he managed.
 
“GAWD!”

“Fuck
you and your god,” she said.
 
She
hunched over him so the bulk of her weight was fully pressed on his
throat.
 
She squeezed as hard as she
could, but it was difficult.
 
He was
strong.
 
His neck was almost too
thick for her small hands to choke and to crush.

Like a
beetle on its back, he furiously tried to get up.
 
His eyes began to bulge.
 
Her thumbs pressed directly on his
windpipe, hoping to flatten it.
 
To
throw him off guard, she spit in his face again, which took him enough by
surprise that she was able to bear down harder.
 
One of his fists flew up and smashed
against her ribcage.
 
It was enough
of a blow that it nearly knocked her off him, but Cheryl Dunning was in the
fight of her life.
 
When she died
the first time, there had been no opportunity to fight back.
 
Mark Rand simply knocked her
unconscious, raped her, removed his blade, sliced her throat, and left her to
die.

But not
this time.
 
This time, she fought.

“Die!”
she screamed.
 

His fist
again, out of nowhere, this time connecting with her face and casting her off
him.
 

Dizzy,
she fell to the ground.
 
Her face
burned from the punch.
 
She could
hear him gasping for breath, starting to get up behind her.

The
gun.
 
He’s going to go for the gun.

She
whirled around and looked for it herself.
 
She found it just a few feet from her.
 
She scrambled to her knees and grabbed
it.
 
Turned and pointed it at his
face.
 

He was
on his feet now, swaying.
 
On the
side of his head, where she struck him with the limb, there was blood, but not
the crushing dent she hoped to see.
 
As hard as she hit him, it wasn’t enough.
 
She was too weak to do any real damage.
 
What she did was enough to knock him
unconscious, maybe give him a mild concussion, but nothing more.

She
failed.

But the
gun was a game changer.
 
The gun
would kill him.
 
She was ending this
now.

“You are
so dead,” she said to him.

He
rubbed his neck and started to come more into focus.
 
“No, I’m not.”

“The
hell you’re not.”
 
She pressed
lightly on the trigger and placed the laser beam in the center of his forehead,
where it trembled.
 
He cocked his
head at her, smiled that horrible smile she destroyed with a well-thrown rock,
and held out his hands on either side of him.
 
Right now, with his body sheeted in the
light of the fiery forest, he looked like a burning cross.

“Go
ahead,” he said.
 
“Shoot me.
 
Send me to heaven.
 
He’ll just resurrect me.
 
And then I’ll come for you again.
 
I’ll make it worse for you.
 
I’ll filet you.
 
I’ll strap you down to a table, take a
knife, and I’ll eat you alive.”

She
pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

Horrified,
she pulled it again.
 
And again.

Click,
click, click.

The magazine
was empty.
 

Click,
click, click.

It had
been empty all the time.
 
He spent
his last few bullets in the woods.
 
He must have known that.
 
Of
course, he knew that.

Their
eyes met.

A blue
light flashed across his face and he glanced past her, his arms lowering at his
sides.
 
She wanted to look behind
her, but she didn’t.
 
The blue light
kept flashing and it was getting brighter.
 
She could hear the sound of an engine.
 
A siren.
 
Finally, the police were coming their
way.
 
Someone had spotted them.

It was
over.

Only it
wasn’t.

He
lunged at her, threw his full weight on her body, and she felt a bone in her
damaged leg snap as she fell back.
 
Her back struck the road, then her head, which caused her to skate deep
into the long gray road that led to sleep.
 
She heard someone shout.
 
She
heard someone say, “Freeze!”
 
And
then she started to spin into a familiar darkness.