Flesh and Blood: Chapter Five

Out of the frying pan...

When Mae Bishop finally did in her abusive husband and dumped his body in the river, she thought her troubles were behind her. When his ghost shows up and leads her away from the police and straight into the lair of a serial killer, she realizes trouble never left. And when a mysterious angelic being recruits her for purposes yet unknown, Mae knows she and trouble are in it for the long haul.

You're reading Flesh and Blood. This is Chapter Five.

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"Wake up, darlin'."

Mae opened her eyes, her momentary peace shattered. So much for freedom.

She was in a dark place. She couldn't see or hear or feel anything, except for Wade. He crouched before her, ghostly, cocky, his face intact and handsome as ever, lit from within by a reddish-orange glow that created a fiery aura around him.

"You've got to get up," he said.

She pushed herself up to sitting. "Where am I?"

"You're eyeball deep in a big pile o' shit. And you've got to get yourself out of it."

"How?"

He shrugged. "Wish I knew. From where I'm sitting, this situation looks pretty hopeless, if you want the truth. But you're a lot more clever and resourceful than I ever gave you credit for. I'm sure you'll think of something."

"That's a big help, Wade."

That smirk she hated so much spread across his face. "Just calling it like I see it." Then he sobered and grew serious. "But remember this. You were sent here. You have a job to do. And that job is not to end up buried in this sonuvabitch's basement. Now wake the hell up."

"But I--"

"Wake up, Mae!"

He disappeared, plunging her into blackness. Sensation gradually came back to her limbs. She lay on something hard, cold. She was shivering. She felt like she was buried in mud, and it filled her head and weighed down her arms and legs. She fought to move, to simply open her eyes.

"Please wake up!"

It wasn't Wade's voice this time. The voice was high and feminine. Young. Scared.

Mae opened her eyes for real this time. It was dark, but not so dark she couldn't make out vague outlines once her eyes began to adjust. "M'wake," she muttered as she pushed herself up. That's when the pain hit her. Not acute, like before, but dull, throbbing. In her head, her hand... everywhere, really. It was hard to pinpoint.

She lay on hard, cold concrete. Realizing there was nothing separating that from the skin of her bare legs, she felt herself over and muttered a curse. She'd been stripped down to her underwear. At least the creep had left her tank top on. Mae hoped he'd been disappointed by what he saw. She'd stopped choosing underwear for looks and opting for comfort ages ago. Whatever he'd hoped to find when he peeled off her jeans, he doubted gray cotton boy shorts that covered her whole rear was high on the list.

"Are you okay?" the voice asked. Mae couldn't help but scoff at the question. It took a moment, but she registered that it had been asked by the girl whose cage she'd tried to open. The other girl still sobbed softly a little further away.

"Are you okay?" she asked pointedly. The girl stayed silent. Mae reached out, but her arms didn't stretch far before they encountered the thick wire of the dog cage she'd been locked inside. Again, she swore. Gritting her teeth against her soreness, she got on her knees and felt around, examining every inch of the cage for a weakness, for some loose screw or part that she could pry off and use to get herself free.

But she found nothing.

She slumped into a corner and stretched her legs as far as they would go in this cramped space, which wasn't very far at all. "So what happens now?"

Wendy -- Jana, whoever -- moved to sit beside her on the other side of the adjoining cage wall. "Just do what he wants, okay? If you give him what he wants, he'll keep you around."

"And what does he want?"

The girl didn't answer. Or rather, her silence was answer enough.

"Yeah, I figured. So what happens if I don't keep him happy?"

"Nothing good. When Wendy and I got here, there was another girl in your cage." So, Jana then. Wendy was the crying one. "One day he took her out and she fought him. He..."

Jana's voice trailed off, and she swallowed, hard. On the other side of her, Wendy let out a loud wail.

Mae lost her patience. "Quiet, girl! You're not helping anything!"

The girl's sobbing abruptly stopped, reduced to a soft whimper.

"He tortured her," Jana continued. "Right in front of us. He... and then he killed her and... and--"

"He cut her up!" Wendy screamed. "He sawed her into pieces!"

"Jesus," Mae muttered as Jana turned to shush her friend. She wasn't sure whether she meant it as a curse or a prayer, but hoped someone up there, if anyone was up there, would take it as the latter.

"So just do what he tells you, okay?" Jana turned back to her. "Don't fight him. We don't... we don't want to have to see that again."

"Don't worry. You won't."

The door creaked open at the top of the stairs. The kitchen light cast an elongated shadow of their captor on the basement wall. Wendy screamed.

"Shut up!" Mae snapped, gathering herself up into a crouch. She wouldn't fight. At least, not yet. Not here. But she wasn't going to be taken by surprise, either.

Heavy steps tromped down the stairs. Mae couldn't imagine how this lumbering creep had managed to sneak up and get the drop on her. She had to remember that he could be light on his feet when he wanted to.

He didn't bother to turn on the light at the bottom of the stairs. A handheld spotlight lit his way. When he reached the cages, he shined it on Mae, blinding her. She held her sore hand in front of her eyes to shield them.

He undid the lock and opened the cage door. "Out."

Mae considered refusing, making him come and get her, but that would only result in more indignity and pain. Keeping her eyes closed against the light, she crawled forward, feeling her way out of the cage. She was halfway out when he gripped her arm, hard, and yanked her to her feet. He'd had to set the light on top of the cage to do so, and in the faint glow of the kitchen light she could see why. In his other hand he held a zip tie and something that looked like a collar and leash.

"Turn around."

Mae complied, but as she did a spark of hope ignited. She'd been brushing up on self defense ever since she'd taken leave of Wade. Zip ties were one of the easiest restraints to get out of, if you knew how.

"Hands behind your back."

Mae balled her hands into fists and placed them side by side, thumbs together and palms facing out, at the base of her spine. As he slipped the tie around them and pulled it tight, she squeezed her fists as tightly as she could, flexing her wrists.

With her hands secure, he spun her around to face him and placed the collar around her neck. It was a black leather dog collar, the kind with metal studs that people bought for big dogs with names like Butch or Spike. A chain hung from it. Once he had it buckled in place, Al took hold of the chain and started back toward the stairs, yanking her roughly behind him.

That suited Mae just fine. It meant he couldn't see her hands. Following Al across the basement and up the stairs, she relaxed her fists and folded her hands with the palms together. That created enough slack in the zip tie for her to start working her hands free. The hard part was not making any noise over the pain that shot through her battered left hand. By the time they reached the top of the stairs, she'd managed to pull it free. She let the zip tie fall back down into the darkness and kept her hands behind her back as Al led her into the kitchen.

She scanned the counters, looking for some kind of weapon. A wooden block of kitchen knives sat near the sink, pushed back against the wall, too far out of reach to take one out without him noticing. One slot was empty, though. Mae's eyes darted along the counter until she spotted a large butcher knife lying precariously on the edge of the sink. Her luck was definitely turning. She reached for the knife as she drew near, but Al chose that moment to give her chain a hard yank, causing her to stumble. She was too far out of reach of the knife by the time she regained her balance, with no way go back for it without pulling against the chain.

He led her past the stove, and she spotted the heavy coffee pot, still warming on the burner. Without a moment's hesitation, Mae lunged and grabbed it. Al turned to see what she was doing, and she slammed it as hard as she could into his face, sloshing hot coffee all over him. He screamed and dropped the leash as his hands flew to his face.

Still holding the coffee pot, Mae brought it down hard on his head, again and again. Al dropped to his knees. Wasting no time, Mae pushed him over and tore past him in a mad dash for the front door.

She didn't make it three steps before her windpipe was painfully smashed as she was yanked off her feet. Suspended in the air for what felt like a small eternity, Mae thought of the dog from the old Foghorn Leghorn cartoons, chasing after the smart-alec chicken until he ran out of leash. It sure looked funny when it happened to the cartoon dog. But Mae wasn't laughing. Even if she had managed to find some absurd humor in her predicament, the laughter would have died as her body slammed into the floor and all of the air got knocked out of her.

"Bitch," Al grunted. "I'll kill you for that."

Pretty sure you were going to kill me anyway, she wanted to tell him, but all she could do was gasp like an asthmatic as she tried to draw air back into her deflated lungs. The collar tightened around her throat again, cutting off her attempt as Al dragged her toward him.

Mae reached behind her head and grabbed onto the leash. She managed to pull herself up on it and create enough slack to let her breathe. Then she rolled, turned her body around and slammed her heel into Al's face. She heard a satisfying crunch as it connected with his nose, followed by a scream. Blood gushed over his mouth and beard, but Mae didn't stick around to admire her handiwork. He had let go of the leash again, and this time she gathered it to her and ran to the door.

It was bolted and padlocked shut.

She turned around. Al was still on his hands and knees, struggling to get up. He was a large man, and while Mae wasn't exactly petite, she wished she still had that extra 25 pounds to give her some added momentum as she rushed him. She screamed as she ran, not a scream of terror but one of fury, nothing less than a battle cry. It was the same sound she'd made when she'd come at Wade with the hammer.

He'd made it up onto his knees as she reached him. She bent low and rammed a shoulder right square into his chest, and he lost his balance and went down again. She felt him reach for her, his fingers grazing her ankle but failing to grab hold as she kept going, back through the kitchen, all the way to the back of the house until she found a back door.

It, too, was locked, but it boasted a big glass window. A toolbox sat open beside the door. Mae pick up a socket wrench and used it to smash the glass. She told herself not to panic, to do it right as she took the time to smash the jagged shards sticking up along the bottom of the window. In the kitchen, with a lot of huffing, puffing and cursing, Al still struggled to his feet.

With the way clear, she shut the tool box and dragged it in front of the door, under the window. She stepped up onto it then placed her hands on the window frame and vaulted herself through it. Despite being careful with the shards, there were still enough pieces of glass sticking up to cut into her hands, but her adrenaline was so far up that pain impacted her about as much as a fly buzzing in her ear.

She stumbled when she hit the back porch, but recovered and took off at a run. She leapt over the two steps leading down into the yard and ran around to the side of the house before pausing to get her bearings.

Her truck was nowhere in sight. The large, mowed lot backed up to the woods. Mae had spent enough time hiking in her own woods nearby to know that these weren't the kind you could navigate easily. Going in there shoeless and half-naked would be likely to get her scratched up and possibly injured no matter how careful she was, but she knew the hazards to watch out for. Did Al? Would the tangles of thorns and brambles and the rocks and the dead fall be enough to slow him down?

On her right was the car lot, and the driveway leading out to the road. Plenty of places to hide in the one, and possible help to be found in the other. If she could make it before Al caught up with her.

While she stood there debating her options, she began to shiver. The weather was warm for late November, but still chilly, and the sun hadn't yet risen high enough to burn off the morning frost. At least that told her she hadn't spent too long passed out in that cage. Unless it turned out she'd lost days instead of hours.

The back door slammed open. With no more time to think, Mae darted for the car lot.

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Keep Reading:

Flesh and Blood: Chapter Six

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