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Chapter Ten

  Paul controlled his breathing. It was easier than it had been earlier. He was fast developing the ability to keep his body under control. His emotions were another matter entirely. His afternoon romp with Rita had proved physically satisfying but decidedly left out his emotional urges. Not that he could not have satisfied himself emotionally with her. It was just that she would have to die for him to do that. He was not ready for that. Not yet. In his own way, he still loved her. He just didn't need her.

  He smiled to himself as he watched the young woman walking to her car. It was dark. It was late. The bar had closed over an hour ago and now he watched as the last two people, a bartender and a waitress, made their ways to their vehicles. Both were women. Either one was a good target.

  He had decided on women because he wanted the fear they emanated to fully inflame his emotional fires. Without the fear it was just a death. The fear was like sex used to be. The more they acted out their fear and showed him their pain at the peril he was placing them in, the more he could absorb their desires and energies. He had considered it all afternoon after his encounter with Rita. That was why he had driven so far out of town and up the highway.

  The bar had a gravel parking lot, so he had left his car in a gas station around the corner. He wanted no connection between himself and this incident. That's what he had decided to call them. Incidents. His time with Rita had been a physical incident. Those were no longer fully satisfying. That was because he was no longer fully physical. His new existence required a new satisfaction level and method for achieving that satisfaction.

  Rita would never understand his new level. That didn't matter much any more. He had already decided to just let her live as his wife for the rest of her life. It was not a merciful decision like it sounded. For him it was a punishment he was levying on her for not understanding how he had transformed their lives. He was going to subject her to living a life of the dutiful wife for the rest of her life without the rewards of the physical union only he could give her. Instead, he would share that joy with others and give them what he was denying her. At some point he might even tell her what she was missing so that she could truly be miserable about the life he was going to build for her. He would show Rita who was boss. He would show her who the puppet was.

  The bartender drove off first, waving to her friend and coworker after both cars were started. Paul watched the lights of the first car going out of the parking lot and then stepped from the shadows beside the building. He staggered forward like he was drunk or maybe injured. He wasn't sure which trigger would excite a response from the woman in the last car.

  She was pulling forward to exit the parking lot when she saw him. Her instinct was to brake and see what was happening. A man appearing out of the darkness was scary but not unexpected in her line of work. She had seen it before.

  She recognized the man as a customer she had served earlier. He had not been drunk when he left the bar a few hours ago. He certainly was now. Quickly looking around she saw that he had no car in the lot. Funny. There were no homes within walking distance of the bar. How had the man gotten there?

  Paul stumbled on as the woman appraised her situation. He struck the side of her car and fell to the ground beside her front wheel where she could not see him without getting out of her car. Slowly the door opened and the woman tried to see what had happened to the man.

  She saw the man lying still against her car and blew a frustrated breath from her lips. A long wisp of tired hair fell across her face accentuating how she felt about the exhausting length of her evening and the prospect it was getting longer every moment she had to deal with this drunk.

  Squeezing out of her car door because his body was partially against it, she let it slam shut with his weight falling back with its natural gravity. She leaned down to shake the man and see if he was alright. He didn't move or respond in any way. She shook him again. Same response. Nothing.

  Kneeling down, she tried to shake the man awake. Her position brought her close enough to smell his breath. Sweet with the alcohol she assumed was his problem. But there was another odor she did not recognize. It was metallic and stronger than the alcohol smell.

  Suddenly Paul struck. His hand shot out and landed flat against the temple of his victim. Her long, dark hair flew wildly around her face as she absorbed the impact of his blow and struggled to make an escape before any further damage could be done. Her high heels, part of her tip assurance manner of dress, slipped out from under her. The gravel gave way beneath her feet and left her without traction and vulnerable to his attack.

  Paul utilized the moment of surprise to subdue her and bring her under his control. She lost a shoe in the attack and he did not retrieve it for her. Pulling her to the back of the building, into the darkness there, he breathed in her face and let her know that he was going to kill her.

  “I have come to take you to a better place, Sweetie.” Paul told her as he dragged her scared, limp form behind the building.

  “Please...” she cried. “Don't hurt me.”

  “Sweetie, not only am I going to hurt you, but I am going to cause you such pain that you are going to wish I killed you a long time before you actually will die. Believe me, you are going to beg me to kill you before this is over. And I will happily oblige your request when I am done playing with you. Go ahead and scream. I love the sound and there is no one going to hear you out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  She screamed at the top of her lungs for someone to help her. No one came. No one heard. Her attacker was right about that. He was also right about her wishing she was dead a long time before she did dive into the welcoming darkness of that forever sleep.

  Rita dreamed of being chased again. This time it was definitely Paul the whole time. He was laughing and taunting her as he trotted along behind her. She was running full out and breathing raggedly yet she was not making any distance develop between them. No matter how hard she ran, she seemingly did not get any further away. He was always right behind her, not breathing hard and not putting much exertion into the chase.

  She screamed for him to get away from her. He laughed harder and continued coming on. She begged him to stop. He laughed more. She cried out for help and that seemed to make him laugh the hardest of all.

  Out of breath and out of energy, Rita knew that if she stopped Paul would catch her and that would be the end of her. She did not want to die. She did not want to run. But run she did.

  Suddenly she saw the figure watching her from the side again. It was John. John Corwin. She was sure of that. She had been infatuated with the young man once and she had spent many hours watching him before she had made her move. A move he rebuffed and ignored but still, she had put in the time. She had learned him from watching him. She could not be mistaken. Besides. He was the only help around.

  “Help!” she screamed at him. He smiled. “Help me!” She screamed again. “He's trying to kill me.”

  Still, the figure of her John at the side of her dream just watched.

  “Don't you understand? He's trying to kill me. I need your help.”

  Nothing.

  Onward she ran. The figure of John stayed at the edge of her dream world in the same position no matter how hard she ran. The laughing figure of Paul behind her stayed exactly the same distance behind her, too. A thought built in her mind. Maybe her running was not really running. Maybe she was just thinking about running and not really doing it.

  Forcing herself to calm down she stopped running and looked back at Paul. He was still laughing maniacally but not advancing on her. John was still in his place at the edge of her dreamscape. She stood looking around. Darkness was the rule of the day. Everything she was not seeing was dark. That is to say, everything except John and Paul was in darkness. There was no definition to the landscape or her surroundings in any way. Just darkness.

  “Go away!” She demanded of Paul.

  “No!” He bellowed back at her. “I am going to follow you forever and b
e your worst nightmare because you have ignored me and resented my success.”

  “I do not resent your success, Paul. I am worried about this change in you and the aggressive attitude that it has given you. You are not the man I married.” She felt a need to explain herself.

  “You got that right. I was not a real man when you married me. I was a puppet of your devising. Now that I am a real man, making real strides against the losers of this world, you resent my success. I will not forgive you for degrading my life or resenting it when I discovered your duplicity.”

  “I have done no such thing, Paul.” Rita shouted her innocence into the blackness. His voice sounded so strong. Hers sounded so weak.

  “You have and you will pay the price.”

  “Are you going to kill me, too?” She could not explain it but she knew he had killed already. It was in his eyes. Like one could see when a young girl had lost her innocence, she could discern that Paul was not making idle threats.

  “Not you.” Paul answered her. “I want you to live a long time and be aware of all you are being denied because you once held me in derision like so many others.”

  “Derision?” Rita had no idea what he was talking about. “I loved you, Paul.” She caught her own mistake as soon as it left her lips.

  “Loved?” He caught it too. “I suspected as much. As soon as I was no longer your puppet to play with and control, you lost interest in me. Didn't you?”

  “No! It's not like that.”

  “Sure it is.” Paul laughed his crazy, low, guttural laugh that boomed across the darkness to her.

  “No.” Her denial lost its fervency. She was thinking of running again. She had to get away from this crazy man who had taken over her husband's body.

  She turned to John.

  “John? Can you help me?”

  She stared at the figure half obscured by the darkness around him. Paul laughed even harder. She squinted into the darkness. Maybe it was not John. It sure appeared to be him. Maybe it was only a part of her imagination like her running away had been. Maybe she was just reaching out in her imagination and wishing that John would come and rescue her.

  “John!” She pleaded with the dark cloud of her dream world. “John! Please help me!”

  John fell asleep in his chair. It was comfortable enough that it was not the first time. Suddenly he recognized a wakefulness that was not physical. He knew his physical body was asleep, still. It was his mind that came to awareness. He had heard a voice. A familiar voice. He listened intently and heard it again.

  “John! Please help me!” A woman's voice.

  He focused on the voice, calling to memory every woman he had ever met. One by one he compared their voices with the one in his head. He knew it was important to discover the owner of the voice. He could not see anyone. Identifying the owner would clear things up a little. Fortunately, his catalog of women's voices was short.

  Rita!

  The memory of her voice came as both a shock and a shame. The last time he had talked to her she had come to him to ask if he really wanted her to leave him alone and start up a relationship with Paul. He had heard the pain in her voice and seen the slump in her shoulders as she accepted his wish that she move on without him. He had not really wanted to do it, but experience had taught him to avoid relationships that only drifted apart later. Not that there had been many. Just one.

  “Rita!” He called out into the darkness of his mind.

  Slowly, the darkness gave way to a shimmering figure and he once again saw Rita in the familiar place of her dream where he had seen Paul chasing her before. No identifying landscape. Just the distance and the position and the setting of two figures in the darkness suggested to him it was her dream once again.

  “Rita!” He called out again. More light filled the area around her figure.

  “John!” She yelled back across what seemed a deep chasm between them. There was even a small echo effect.

  “Rita.” He said her name again, not sure what he was supposed to do now that he had identified her.

  “Help me, John. Paul is going to kill me. Or worse.” Rita's voice floated on a strange wind that carried her words to him like a paper boat floating on a running stream across a parking lot after a rain.

  “How can I help?” He called out to her.

  “Help, John.” Her voice was urgent and her mannerism said she was desperate.

  “How?” he screamed into the darkness that was the gulf between them. It was like a huge darkness separated them and she was visible only by a lighted window on her side.

  “Come to me, John. Help me before he kills me.”

  John struggled with the emotions in his heart. Kathy. Marcie. Rita. His mother. His father. Relationships. He was scared of them. Except the one he had with Kathy. If only he could get back there. If only she had not died.

  “John!” Rita's voice shook him back to the moment.

  John shook himself and concentrated. Marcie had said let it flow and it would come to him. He stopped trying to force something he had no idea what it was. He just thought about Rita. He thought about her and how much he really wanted to help her. However she needed help.

  A light grew around Rita and the space between them decreased. He continued thinking about helping her. The light grew and the space shrunk. Soon she was within a few feet of him and he could reach out to her. Her voice was stronger, closer. He also noticed she was naked. He had never imagined her that way or thought about her in that manner, so it was a shock to see her now. He wondered if his mind was extrapolating or whether wherever she was she was really naked.

  “John. I knew I could depend on you. I always loved you, John.”

  Her words were like a slap in the face. He had pushed her off on Paul. Now she was calling to him to take back all those things he had done to her. She was reminding him that it was he and not her that made her go away. He was okay with that back then. Necessary. But now it seemed very selfish. Like he had taken something from her that was rightfully hers. Friendship. More.

  “I know.” He found himself answering her automatically like they had been talking together forever.

  “Please, John. Don't send me away this time.” Her words tore a new hole inside him. Like the one Kathy's leaving had made on her exit. Except this one was an entrance wound. He felt he deserved it. The pain of his own selfishness causing pain for others.

  “I won't.”

  He told her the truth. In his heart John felt a lot of guilt wash away with that one statement. He would not push her away this time. He would be her friend and make up for the injury he had done her for no reason. She had never been anything but a friend to him. He had treated her like she was trying to steal something from him. He had no idea what it was back then. Today, he knew. His wall. She was a danger to his wall. He had constructed it so carefully to keep the hurt out that he defended it like it was life itself. And Rita was someone who wanted to come through the wall. He could not allow that back then.

  “Come to me, John.”

  Rita reached out to him with both arms in a desperate attempt to grab on to him. John instinctively reached out his own arms and made contact. It was electric. He felt every nerve fiber of his being jolted into action relaying the sensations of their touch throughout his body. She came closer. Felt closer. Physically in his space. The light surrounded them both now. One light, not two.

  “No!” Paul screamed from across the chasm of the darkness.

  John reacted to the bellowing call of his one time friend with an instinctive flinch that both, sheltered her in his arms and pulled her closer but also shut off the light that spanned the chasm between Paul and them. Darkness settled in around them and John knew he had pulled her through the cloud to himself. He held her tightly, feeling her shaking, trembling fear.

  Long minutes passed and she calmed down. Her breathing returned to normal. The trembling stopped. Her body relaxed against his.

  “Better now?” he asked her as she looke
d up into his face.

  “Yes.” She smiled for the first time since he had seen her in her dream. Then she angled her face and kissed him. It was more than just the kiss of a friend. It was a life long yearning to complete something both of them had started long ago. He returned her kiss and they enjoyed their coming together and the warmth of an embrace they had never shared before.

  He knew he would wake up with her in his physical world. He knew it as sure as he knew his name. What he would do about that, how he would explain it to her, he had no idea. That was another matter for another moment. Go with the flow. Wasn't that what Marcie had said? Wonder if she had seen this coming. Wonder what Kathy would think of him waking up with a naked woman in his camper.