Michael Hunter - Come Get Me

“Now then Jimmy boy, let’s flash forward,” Maria said catching his attention. “When you left town, you just left. No words of goodbye, no telling me how you really had loved me all those years and would send for me when you could. No nothing. You just left without a word or a backward glance. Do you know how bad that hurt me? I was heartbroken. I couldn’t understand why you’d left me. You didn’t bother saying anything least of all goodbye. One day you were there then next you weren’t. I just didn’t understand what I’d done wrong. What was I to do?” She looked at him like she expected him to answer. Not knowing what else to do, he just silently stared back. She was deep into her delusion but as long as she was talking they were relatively safe. All the stuff spouting from her mouth was sort of true but only sort of. He remembered her from high school and how she was almost always in the places he was but that was it. She must’ve somehow gotten the idea that they’d had some type of relationship with each other. He didn’t know how though. All he could remember saying to her was hi.

“I knew we were meant to be together,” she said as she walked over to Jill and slowly ran a finger down the side of her face. “But we weren’t. You left to go God knows where and do God knows what with God knows who and left me here with no idea of when I might see you again. Then I thought maybe you were testing me to see if I really did love you and would wait for you. I knew I would but I also knew I had to figure out a way to get you to come back. Then, one day, a few years ago it came to me. I had an epiphany.” She brutally pushed Jill’s head to the side, spun and walked back to the center of the room. Stopping with her hand raised and looking up at the ceiling Jim almost thought she really was having a true vision then he remembered who he was thinking about and just shook his head.

“It was like a sign from the heavens. I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought of it sooner. I knew that day I just had to make it so you had no choice but to come back. After that the rest was easy,” she said smiling, “Do you want to guess what my idea was?” she looked at him expectantly. He wasn’t about to try to answering anything. He didn’t know what was right or wrong in this situation so he figured being quiet was safest. “Boy,” she said looking at Johnny, “I thought he was a lot smarter than this. It’s a good thing we didn’t end up together; our children probably would’ve made the freak over there look like a genius. Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, my idea. Well, since you won’t guess I’ll just tell you.” She took a few seconds to gather her thoughts. While she did this she just looked at him with shinning, evil eyes. Her hands idly roamed over her body in many provocative ways but Jim didn’t think she was trying to entice him anymore. It seemed more out of habit than anything. He didn’t have much time to think about it, which was fortunate.

“I thought about it for what seemed a long time but actually wasn’t,” she began, “Finally, I figured out just what it would take. I knew if something happened to one of your precious little friends you would probably coming running home right away. I could’ve gone after your mother but I figured that was too old hat. You know something that someone else would do but not me. I’m better than everyone else so my plan had to be better than what someone else might come up with. The thing about my plan though, was that it had to be something drastic. It couldn’t just be some little accident. Why would you rush home for that? It had to be deadly. So the logical choice was killing one of them. I figured that would do the trick. Then, once you were back I would be here to comfort, console, and love and nurse your damaged emotions back to the way they should be. Then you would finally love me and we would be together forever and ever!” She sounded like she really believed her plan would work. Jim cast a quick glance at Pete to see what he was doing. He was a little closer to the window but still not close enough to jump out. Pete’s eyes flicked in his direction and Jim saw one of them wink at him. He thought he was seeing something at first but decided he hadn’t when he looked at Pete’s hands. His bonds were loose. Almost loose enough for him to get free. In a few more minutes he probably would be free. Then he could make a break for it and get help. At least that was what Jim was hoping for.

“Ok, at least I know why I’m here now,” he said trying to give Pete as much time as he could. “But why did you take Pete and Jill? They didn’t have anything to do with any of this. Well, I guess Pete did, but he was out of the way stuck in jail and probably on his way to the loony bin.”

“Well,” she said looking towards Jill, “little Jilly over there is here simply because she’s just like all those other girls you used to date. She was trying to take you away from me. See, you did everything that you were supposed to do as part of my plan. You came home and we reunited with each other but then you made a mistake. You went and met Jill and picked her instead of me! How could you go and do something stupid like that? You’re mine! Don’t you understand that? She sure didn’t seem to. When I found her earlier I tried to explain it to her nicely but she just got all smart and started asking all kinds of dumb questions so since she wasn’t cooperating I brought her out here to explain things a little better.” She looked at Jill angrily for a minute before continuing.

“Freak boy over there is here because my loving dolt of a partner got just a little bit ahead of himself. He thought it would be a good idea to change the plan from what I’d originally designed. I actually was content to leave Petey sit in jail and rot but Johnny boy thought of something else. It’s something I don’t really like, but I guess it might work. We don’t really have much of choice now either way but he can tell you that.” Maria was beginning to go into pout mode again but she surprised him.

“Why don’t you tell them what you had planned lover boy,” she said teasingly.

To Johnny’s credit that looked like the last thing he wanted to do but he took a deep breath and fixed Jim with a glare. “Well, let me tell ya, when you left all that while ago she was pretty messed up. I’m talking not eating, not taking care of herself, stuff like that. She was bad. Hell, all she really did do was drink and cry. Other than that she just sat in her place day in day out doing nothing. I didn’t really understand why until one day when I went over to check on her she finally told me. She was drunk as a skunk and was barely coherent but I understood enough to know what you done. I thought that was a pretty mean thing for you to do leaving her like that but then again I was happy too. See, I was there and you weren’t. I was there for her when she needed somebody. You weren’t. I’d loved her for as long as I could remember but every time I tried to tell her, all she wanted to talk about was you. But now all of a sudden you weren’t there anymore. You left. I knew she and I would finally end up together now. But no, she said she wasn’t going to let you go that easily.” Johnny paused here like he was remembering something he didn’t really want to and Jim guessed he was. He actually felt somewhat sorry for the guy. Johnny’d been in love with the crazy bitch all these years and all she’d ever wanted was Jim. If it’d been him he would’ve just moved on but it didn’t seem Johnny was able to do that. He held out hope all those years she would eventually love him back and she never did. Johnny himself was probably half crazy by now.

“She went on and on about how you’d come back for her one day,” Johnny said starting his story again. “She said you’d realize you’d made a mistake and you would come back and take her away with you and ya’ll live happily ever after. I tried doing things to get her to love me, hell, just to even notice me, but none of it worked.” Johnny was getting angry now. All of his pent up aggression was about to come poring out. Jim could see that trying to explain anything to Johnny right now was going to be a waste of time. “Then a little while ago she got her idea,” he said continuing. “I guess over the years she’d at least decided she could trust me so she told me about it. I couldn’t believe what she wanted to do at first. Then I thought of all the crap I’d been listening to about you and figured why not.” A change was slowly coming over his face as he talked. He actually looked like he was getting happier about something. Jim didn’t know what was going on but he hoped it was something good. Pete was still slowly struggling with his ropes so he still needed some time. Johnny was doing a good job giving it to him. Maria surprisingly was just standing nearby twirling her hair. She must’ve known about Johnny’s feelings. There was no way she couldn’t. Then Jim understood. She’d used those feeling as a way to get him to help her. Maybe in her own demented way she did care about him but Jim doubted it. At this point she probably didn’t care about anything but the revenge she thought she was taking on him.