Twisted Fate (Tales of Horror) (11 page)

“Are you serious?” she asked. “I did not expect you, of all people, to try to save me.”

Her condescending tone pissed me off. The world would be a better place without people like her, littering it with their demented sicknesses.

There was a loud knock on the front door.

“Police! Open up!”

“Umm, Jessica, we’re going to have to get that.”

“Why? You worried they’ll bust the door down? That could get expensive.” She raised the gun, butt end extended to me. “Here, shoot me and this ends now. Or get out of the way so I can open that door and have them shoot me. Either way, I die today, and the blood stain will be on your carpet. It was here that I directed your sister to her death, it’ll be here where I direct my own.”

“Can we talk about this?” I was getting seriously angry. “Go home. Do it there. Why do you have to ruin me in the process?”

Jessica moved forward. “You don’t get it, do you? This is all your fault. If you felt love, even for one day, you would understand what was happening here. But you don’t.”

She walked past me and touched the door handle, the pistol in her other hand.

“Get what? You want to end it. That’s easy. I get it. Just save me the name in the paper. Do it at home. And what does this have to do with love?”

Jessica hesitated. She held the doorknob and stared at the floor.

“If you loved your sister and didn’t judge her for what your parents did, you would’ve taken her call. Had you done that simple, humane task, she would be alive today. If you could fathom what love is,
you
would be alive today. You’re dead on the inside.” She raised her head and stared into my eyes. “I lost my parents. I feel responsible. If I could go back, I wouldn’t be driving that night. I’d had too much to drink. If I could go back, I wouldn’t be working here, for a soulless man who only cares about money. You’re more dead than I will be in the next minute.”

She turned the knob.

“Wait!” I shouted.

She stopped and looked at me.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. Put the gun down and step away from the door.”

“Why should I?”

“Because, I can change.”

She shook her head back and forth. “No one changes. This isn’t about you. I die today and ultimately, as much as it is my fault, it’s yours, too.”

I heard a noise in the back of the office. Maybe they were coming in through the rear entrance to surprise us. I hoped they hurried and disarmed Jessica before she did something I would regret.

“Please,” I said, thinking maybe I could disarm her first. “Give me the gun. We’ll deal with this together. We’ll get through it. I’m sorry I’ve been such an ass to you. Give me a chance. Show me what it means to love again. Teach me. I’ll be your student. It’s quite evident how much love you have to give. Your parents are gone and it crushes you. My parents are gone and I laugh about it. Bring me over to your side. Teach me how you are the way you are. Help me and I’ll help you.”

Yeah, right. As soon as you go home I’ll fire your ass and you can kill yourself there, in your own bathtub.

She let go of the doorknob and turned toward me. “Are you serious? No jokes?”

With a show of exaggeration, I shook my head back and forth. “No jokes. Realness here. Seriousness.”

Someone was moving around in the back of the office.

Good. They’re coming. I will have her gun in seconds.

I reached out. Jessica shivered as she started to cry. She handed me her weapon. Then she stepped over to her desk and sat down, resting her head in her arms on top of the desk.

I lifted the gun up to look for the safety.

“Drop it!” a man yelled behind me.

When I turned around a red laser pointer moved about on my chest. Three men dressed in some kind of ski hats, with what looked to me like military fatigues, were battle ready, guns aimed at me.

“I’m trying to flip the safety on,” I said, my heart thumping in my chest. The last thing I wanted was these guys to see weakness.

“Drop it!” the cop repeated.

I turned it around, my fingers shaking, found the safety and used my other hand to flip the switch. I didn’t realize that the barrel was aimed at the cop.

They fired at me.

A barrage of pops resounded in my small office. My heart felt like it stopped. I lost all ability to stand. There was pain in my chest. More popping sounds. I dropped the gun. Jessica screamed somewhere off to my left. My eyes closed.

When I look back, I realize the text messages were a chance for me to set things right, to curb my personal evils. I could have done right by John Turnbull and sold a cheaper house to the lottery winners. I could have spent more time with my sister. I understand now why the text said that it was my last chance. It was my last chance at salvation.

I know I saved a life.

Mine.

There never was an explosion at the Garrison house. Jessica had been approached by my sister six months before and together they worked out an elaborate plan to bring me back to the land of the living. My sister acted like she was dying of cancer. The texts were a collaboration of work between Jessica and my sister. Jessica knew the Turnbulls were going to call in. She knew on most Friday’s I love to buy meat for a barbecue. She’d called my sister and told her to meet me there, and then sent me a text.

The suicide thing at my office, was a set up. Would I save a life? Even after finding out I’d just lost my only other family member?

The three officers had a key for the back door. Two of them were ex-boyfriends of my sister and one was Jessica’s brother. They fired blanks and one of them tased me so I’d lose control of my body and assume that I’d been hit and dying. They took me to the edge of an insane reality and brought me back so maybe I could live again.

They did it because they love me.

Life is but a river of tears. At least now they flow from joy. I’m married and I have two lovely children. I work from home so I can spend time with my family every day. For me, waking in the morning is a blessing. Every day I breathe is one more day I get what I wasn’t supposed to have. Hearing my kids laugh, enjoying the smile on my wife’s lips, eating ice cream, playing catch with my son, watching a sunset are all examples of life’s little pleasures, that for me, amplify the beauty of my surroundings.

I know what’s important in life. And it isn’t money. It’s hearing my wife whisper, ‘
I love you
’ while we’re having a family hug before bed each night.

I don’t own a cell phone.

I don’t send or receive texts.

The Witching Hour

Dear Vanessa,

If you’re reading this, then I have died. You have no idea how much I wanted to watch you grow up, get married and have children of your own. I’m so sorry that you have to go through this loss, this pain. I tried to stop it from happening, but fate played a hand I couldn’t beat.

If only I’d married another man. But then I wouldn’t have had you and having you made everything worth it. You’re old enough now to move out and get away from your dad.

If you do anything for me it will be to distance yourself from the monster you call a father. I don’t know how he did it, but I’m assuming he pulled it off to make it look like a suicide.

As I write this I need you to know that I DID NOT kill myself. I would never do that. I love you too much to be that selfish. That’s why I’ve been saving money for over six months and getting ready to make a run for it and to take you with me.

Your father found out and I got a phone call from your father’s girlfriend today. He’s on his way home right now. I’m scared. I have nowhere to go. I’d leave but you’re in school and I don’t have the car.

Remember that I love you and I will get us out of this mess.

But if you’re reading this letter, then I failed you and I’m sorry.

Please forgive me.

In the back yard you’ll find a small box with two thousand dollars wrapped in plastic. It’s beside the oak tree on the left of the shed buried about four inches deep. Get it and leave but don’t tell your dad or anyone else where you’re going or he will find you.

I love you. I’m watching over you.

I’ll always be with you my darling.

Love,

Your Mommy.

The bell signaled the end of another school day. Vanessa was outside and on her way to the town’s small police station two minutes after the bell. The sun shone high and bright, doing its best to maintain a warm September.

Tomorrow it would be exactly two years since her mother had died. Vanessa found the note from her mother in her diary. Whoever left it there was playing a game, and who better to have access to her diary than her father?

Vanessa decided to discuss everything with James Redfield, the town’s local sheriff. If there was anyone in the little town of Hover’s Grove who could help, it would be him.

Then she would confront her father.

Her mother had drowned. That’s what the police had said. Death by misadventure. Swimming in the lake at midnight by the light of the full moon.

They filed it as such, but it was rumored a suicide because who would go swimming at midnight when the temperature had dropped so low on that September evening? Her dad had said Mom was a good swimmer, and at the time, Vanessa had just thought he was trying to put on a brave face and let her mother die with dignity.

Vanessa knew her mother would never have ventured out in the middle of the night for a swim unless she meant to kill herself. And it looked like she had good reason. Vanessa’s parents were fighting near the end, screaming at each other into all hours of the night. Vanessa would lie in bed crying as her parents destroyed any kind of marriage they might have had left. Mom always wanted to leave Hover’s Grove and Dad said they had to stay.

Dad had a great alibi that night. He had to work the nightshift at the private security firm where he was employed. He needed to check in every hour on the hour with an electronic device he swipes to pinpoint where he was at all times during his shift.

She had overheard her dad on the phone telling someone the police cleared him of any wrongdoing. He said the police always looked at the husband first, but he was cleared.

In the days immediately following her mother’s death, Vanessa had turned the world off. The funeral had been a blur. Feeling wayward and lost, Vanessa had wanted to join her mother in death. Now, armed with a purpose to unmask the reasons for her mother’s death, Vanessa was empowered. Something had to be done. She had a new note from her dead mother, who would not kill herself. And if her father was responsible, then he should pay for what he did, whatever that price may be.

Ten feet from the front door of the police station, a seagull squawked and flew low enough to catch her eye.

She watched as it lurched in the air, struggling to fly out toward the sea. It regained a semblance of flight but then chose to land on the grass in the park across the street.

Vanessa followed the bird’s path, pulled in by its struggle, rapt by its faith in flight and lost in its suffering. She stared until the seagull landed and waddled on what appeared to be a broken leg. Its white wings flapped while it tried to walk, but it finally gave up and slipped to the side where it lie panting.

“Hey!” someone yelled behind her.

Vanessa jumped. She spun around and glared into the eyes of a woman in her sixties.

“Why did you just yell in my ear?” Vanessa asked, trying her best to keep the anger out of her voice.

“Missy, I’d best advise you catch the tone in your voice and monitor it for anger. Better to place anger in a jar, save it for later to release it on the most worthy opponent, yes?”

Vanessa stepped back.
What the hell is she talking about? And what the fuck is she wearing? A sari or something
?

“Didn’t you see that bird?” Vanessa asked. “I stopped to watch it and then you came up behind me and—”

“Shhh, just shhh,” the old woman said. She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “I’m warning you. I think you might want to take the right-hand path. Do not take the left-hand path. You were spared last time. You may not be spared again. So take my advice and walk the right hand. Consider yourself warned.”

Warned
?

The woman lifted her arms and moved her hands back and forth like she was about to do a magic trick at a kids’ birthday party. Her face contorted into a sneer and then her hands dropped to her sides as she gazed past Vanessa.

It was like her eyes were riveted on a train wreck, horrified but unable to look away.