Gregg Olsen - Fear Collector

“Not really hurt, Peg,” Ted said over his naked shoulder. “Just a scratch from running. Hit a damn branch.”

Peggy put her feet on the dust-bunny-littered wood plank floor and started to fumble in the darkness, clawing toward him, her handsome, elusive Ted.

“Let me help you,” she said, pleading as though her life depended on it.

Silence echoed in the bedroom.

“Let me take care of you,” she said. “Come to me. Don’t make me beg, but if you do, I will. I want you. Whatever it takes.”

Ted Bundy had a cold side. She knew it, though she’d never directly experienced it before. Not even in a dream. That changed when Ted came through her window. He actually glowered at her.

“Don’t need help from some stupid bitch,” he said, his voice a little soft, as if he was trying to mitigate the true meaning of his words. Yet there was no mistaking it. No matter how clever Ted was or wanted to be. It was still loud enough to hear.

Peggy’s chest tightened and tensed. She wasn’t sure of the meaning of Ted’s words, if he was directing them specifically at her or, she hoped, someone else.

“Theodore, what in the world are you saying?”

He turned toward her, his eyes dark and cold. A puff of warm air came from his mouth. “Kidding, Peg. Love you. Love your hair, too.” Then he winked.

She looked downward and touched her hair-the shimmery, silky Gabor wig. The Susan was fashioned of long dark tresses, parted in the center with the precision of a ruler. It was just what he loved.

He loved the way she looked.

When she turned to embrace and kiss him, Ted was gone. A breeze caused the curtain to flutter. Peggy got up and rushed toward the window, holding her wig in place.

“Theodore, come back! Don’t go to her! You only love me!”

“I can’t wait to show you what I bought, Mother,” Peggy said the next morning when she’d summoned the courage to model her latest purchase. Behind her back, she gripped the Gabor wig.

Donna Howell looked excited. “Did you get me my favorite chocolates? Almond Roca, you know. Tacoma’s finest and famous candy.”

Peggy shook her head. “No, Mother, not Almond Roca. Next time, I promise. But this is even better.”

“Nothing’s better than chocolate,” the older woman said, a cigarette dangling from her thin lips. “Except maybe sex, but it’s been a while since I’ve had either.”

“Close your eyes, please,” Peggy said. “No fair peeking, either.”

“Good God, Peggy, will you grow up and quit playing games?” Donna closed her eyes and expelled a lung-full of smoke, and it joined the cloud of yellow and white that circled over her like a swarm of wasps. She loved Almond Roca and the pretty pink tins that the candy came in.

“You can open them now,” Peggy said.

Donna looked at her daughter. She immediately had a disgusted look on her face. “What in the world have you got on your head now?”

“Mother, it’s a wig. Long hair is very, very in, and you know mine takes forever to grow out.”

“You look like some kind of a slut with that kind of long hair. Cheap. Like a dime-store floozy.”

Peggy felt her face grow warm, but she vowed that she wouldn’t argue with her mother. She didn’t have anyone else she could really turn to. She needed that favor.

“I’m not so sure about it, either.”

“I must be going deaf,” Donna said. “I thought I heard you agree with me.”

Peggy didn’t, but she hated fighting with her mother about everything. “I said I wasn’t sure. I looked in the mirror and I don’t think I like it as much as I had hoped I would. It’s a Gabor wig, you know.”

“The Green Acres actress?”

“Yes,” Peggy said, swinging her hair slightly as if to make it all the more real looking.

“Makes sense in a way. Like one of those wigs on Miss Piggy.”

“Mother!”

Donna shrugged and reached for her smokes. “You asked my opinion. You get what you ask for when it comes to me. No holds barred. That’s the kind of mother I am and always will be. No matter how stupid you are, I’ll never feel sorry for you. Your stupidity came from your father’s side.”

Peggy pulled a small Instamatic camera from her purse.

“Will you take my picture? I want to see what it looks like in a photograph. It’ll help me decide.”

“Waste of film,” Donna said.

“Please, Mother. I’ll go to the mall and get you those chocolates.”

Donna thought a moment. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I have to do something in order to get a gift from you. Doesn’t seem right. You always were an unbelievably selfish creature. Got that from your dad, too. Bad genes.”

Peggy ignored the poisoned words. As awful as her mother was just then, there were times when she was far, far worse.

“Please,” Peggy said. “I’ll get you a two-pound tin.”

Another drag on the cigarette followed by two streams of smoke out of her widening nostrils and then she held her hand out for the camera.

“You look wretched,” Donna said. “But I want the candy.”

Peggy handed her mother the small Kodak camera. She posed with her hand on her hip and her lips slightly parted. It was her attempt at a come-hither look. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to pull it off. There wasn’t going to be any coaxing from her mother to make sure the shot was just right.

“Take another, Mother, please. I’m at the end of the roll.”

Peggy had known her mother would only snap one or two, so she’d taken a bunch of filler photographs before coming over.

“Waste of film,” she said.

“Only three left. I could take your picture.”

“Like hell you will. Unlike you, I know I’m past my prime. I don’t need any reminders of what I used to look like. Too bad you didn’t get my good looks. And too bad you got your dad’s bad hair. Whole family on his side has bad hair.”

The camera went off two more times and Peggy’s mother pushed it back at her.

“Now get out of here and get me my candy, you stupid little bitch.”

“Yes, Mother,” she said. “Fuck you, Mother.”

Donna narrowed her brow. “What did you just say?”

“I said, ‘thank you, Mother,’ ” Peggy said.

Donna paused a moment, scouring her daughter’s face for the trace of a lie.

“That’s what I thought you said,” she said.

Peggy spun around and went for the door, promising to come back right away with the chocolates.

A half hour later, she stood at the one-hour photo place and waited for the images to roll off the conveyor belt.

A spectacled worker in a white lab coat with a name tag that said ANSON met her back at the counter.

“Only three shots,” he said. “The rest of the roll must have been damaged. Other shots look blurry like they were taken of a carpeted floor or something.”

He was very observant.

“I’m sure they are fine.”

“No really. I can give you a free roll.”

“No, I’ll pay for those now.”

“Honestly, no problem, ma’am.”

“Give me those photos,” she said, her voice carrying the distinct tenor of a person impatient and annoyed.

Peggy didn’t even wait until she got in to the car. She’d gone to a lot of trouble-not to mention the purchase of some chocolates for the woman she hated more than anyone in the entire world. It was ironic that her mother had taken the photos. Her mother would call her every name in the book if she’d known how she’d fallen for Ted Bundy. She would never, ever understand.

Peggy took a deep breath as she stood in the parking lot and opened the envelope. The first one had her sexy look approximating something closer to indigestion. She blamed her mother for that. She was always putting her down. The second photo depicted her with her eyes half closed.