Michael Hunter - Come Get Me

“Jim over here!” called the whisper again. “It’s me Pete!”

Jim knew he was fading and the voice he heard actually was from the other side. He’d seen Pete shot in the back. That must be why it was him. When Jim had thought of death before he never thought he’d be greeted by Pete when it happened. He was almost disappointed. At least someone was there though and he guessed that was all that mattered. Looking around he was still unable to see where Pete was but moving around caused him to realize something. He wasn’t actually dead. If he could still feel pain then he was still alive. If he was still alive then he was still in danger. Wanting to slap himself for almost giving up he forced his eyes to focus and found Pete’s head sticking up above the window he’d jumped out of a few minutes before.

“Jim, wake up damn it! I need some help here,” Pete whispered a little louder. Once he saw Jim was looking in his direction he began talking again. Jim couldn’t hear most of it since his hearing had decided to rebel but he did hear Pete tell him he just needed to hold on for a little longer. He said the Goatman was almost there and that all he had to do was wait a little longer.

Great, Jim thought, the Goatman was almost there. Maybe he could talk him into putting him out of his misery since no one else seemed to want to. For someone who said she wanted him dead Maria was sure taking her time. But hey at least the Goatman was on his way. Yup, Pete was still crazy. Leave it to him to think some mythological creature was on the way. Forget all about going for actual living, breathing help. Not that it mattered much anyways since, if the thing was real, it wanted to kill him almost as much as Maria did if not more. Jim was still slowly processing everything when he was startled and almost smacked his head on the floor as shots split the night and pieces of wood started flying from the window frame where Pete’s head was.

“Damn he’s a fast little bugger!” Maria exclaimed. “Think I got him that time though. If not oh well.” She turned her attention back to Jim and smiled.

“I’ll just deal with him after you and I are finished.”

Jim’s concentration was lost as a result of the gunfire but he still tried to focus his eyes enough so that he only saw one Maria instead of three. One was bad enough, but three was enough that he almost asked for the gun to kill himself for her. It was too much trouble trying to see her so he just closed his eyes and rested his head on the floor. It was making his head hurt worse anyways. He figured he might as well be as comfortable as possible if these were going to be the last few moments of his life. He didn’t like giving up but there was nothing he could do. There wasn’t much he could do with one arm and no weapon. Maybe if the army or something came in right now they might live but as it stood now he could barely move his head without passing out much less fight for his life. Maria held all the cards. Opening his eyes he looked her way to see what she was doing and was saddened to see tow of her standing across the room from him. Gun in one hand, gasoline can in the other. Not a good mix. She saw the direction of his gaze and smiled. “Don’t worry; it’s still the axe for you and the tart. I can’t use the gun on you. It wouldn’t fit the story. Remember? The Goatman carries an axe not a gun, silly.”

Nonchalantly tossing the gun over her shoulder she slowly sauntered over to Jill. Staring at Jim she slowly began spilling the contents of the can around Jill’s feet. The smell of gasoline slowly reached his nose making him sneeze. This just added more agony to his already tortured body. He was clear headed enough to wonder how the whole house wasn’t an inferno by now. Between the two of them rolling around a little while ago to the gasoline it was a wonder they weren’t toast by now.

Squinting he saw the interior actually did look a little darker than he remembered. He assumed the darkness was a result of his head injuries but that apparently wasn’t the case. Adjusting his head he saw most of the candles that had been lit the last time he’d seen them were now scattered, smoking as they died. Maria must’ve taken advantage of the time he’d been unconscious to extinguish most of them so she could draw out her little plan as long as possible.

In his mind he still struggled to regain enough of his senses to mount some kind of resistance; he couldn’t let it end this way, but his body wouldn’t obey him either. He was still having a lot of trouble breathing and his arm was still dead. His hands and knees were the farthest he’d been able to make it since his pummeling had begun. He didn’t know what to do. If there were ever any option he hadn’t seen them. Now all he had to pin his hopes on was a creature that didn’t exist. Oh yeah, said creature wanted to kill him so there went that idea.

Through a haze of pain he watched Maria as she danced around the room dumping gas here and there like it was water instead of a flammable liquid. While most of the candles were out he knew some were still burning otherwise they wouldn’t be able to see. It wouldn’t take much for a small flame to become a big one. Especially in an old place like this. It would go up like it was made of paper.

She made it most of the way around the room when she suddenly stopped and tossed the can to the ground. Bending over she shifted some boards and papers out of her way, let out a small squeal of delight and stood up.

“Looky what I’ve found Jimmy!” she shrieked happily.

Shit, Jim thought, she found the damn axe. Why couldn’t Pete have made himself useful and grabbed the damn thing before he left. At least then he would have been of some help instead of running around spouting stuff about the Goatman. He really did sound like some kind of freak when he did crap like that.

“So, which one of you do you think I should kill first?” Maria asked no one in particular. “Maybe I should do the Eany, Meany, Miney, Moe thing. That always works in the movies. Then again I could do the Rock, Paper, Scissors stuff but that’s no fun alone.”

She stood thoughtfully for a minute.

“Oh! I know! We can draw straws!” she said jumping up and down. “Wait a minute. Jilly isn’t awake enough for that. This is really a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be.” She stood undecided for a moment before shrugging her shoulders and walking towards Jim.

“Well,” she began sounding somewhat sad, “since Jill won’t be awake for a while I suppose you and I will just have to have our fun first. Nothing that will kill you or anything like that. We have to wait until I kill Jill for that. Who knows, maybe if we’re lucky your yelling and screaming will help wake her up, then I can have some fun with her while you watch. You have to watch you know.” Pausing again with a finger to her lips, “No, I think we’ll just make sure you’re in a lot of pain first. The fun stuff will come later.” She took a step closer fingering the blade of the axe, “Let’s see, where should we…” she was abruptly cut off as a tremor shook the floor. Jim could almost swear he heard a ringing sound accompany it but he guessed that was probably just from his injuries.

Dust sifted down from settling around them in a cloud. Jim could hear groans of protest sounding from the upper floor of the house. Maybe someone was looking down on him. If he was lucky the house might come crashing down around them. If he was really lucky it would just fall on Maria, killing her allowing him and Jill to make their escape.

“What the hell was that?” Maria yelped.

Almost as if it had been waiting for some signal the tremor rocked the house again. Pieces of plaster fell from the walls this time. Jim’s hopes rose as he thought about something falling on Maria. He also heard the ringing sound again. It sounded vaguely familiar but he couldn’t remember from where