Bryan Smith - Queen Of Blood

A frown stole across Chad ’s face as he listened to Jim’s seemingly incongruous oratory about truth and lies. “Um…what’s this got to do with the movie?”

Jim took a drag on his fresh cigarette and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

Chad hesitated. He had a feeling he knew what was coming, but he didn’t want to hear it. It was something insane, a thing he’d attempted to relegate to the darkest, remotest recesses of his mind. But it had remained just beneath the surface, a niggling nag of a notion that kept trying to capture his attention. He wanted more than anything to keep pretending it wasn’t there, and he certainly did not want the idea verbalized. But an image that made the ground beneath him feel slippery intruded on his thoughts-Allyson shoving an overstuffed black travel bag he’d never previously seen to the back of the Lexus’s trunk, then quickly covering it with two more hastily packed bags.

He sighed. “Ask me.”

Jim removed his sunglasses and nailed Chad with his piercing dark eyes. “How well do you really know Allyson?”

Chad felt dizzy. He put a hand to his head and said, “I have to sit down.”

Jim nodded in the direction of the picnic tables. “Over there. We’ll get out of the sun and talk this out.”

He flicked away the cigarette and set off toward the tables.

Chad numbly followed.

Allyson brushed past a pair of doddering elderly ladies and banged open the restroom door. It was a long room with a line of gleaming silver stalls against one wall. Nearly all the stall doors stood open, indicating disuse. Two of the nearest were closed. A woman in her thirties leaned over the basin, checking her makeup in the long mirror. Allyson kept her head down and strode quickly to the very last stall, stepped inside, and shut the door behind her. She sat on the toilet seat, fished her cell phone from the depths of her pocketbook and thumbed the red power button.

She’d turned it off at some point after killing the intruders, fearing a call she wouldn’t be able to explain to Chad and the annoyingly suspicious old rock star. A displayed message informing her she had received seventeen missed calls and had three voice mail messages. She was not surprised to find each call was from the same number. Allyson’s heart pounded as she pressed the button to dial her mailbox. She drew in a calming breath and raised the phone to her ear. The first message was a brief burst of shrill panic. “What the fuck is going on out there? Call me back.”

The caller’s voice was more relaxed during the second message. But the content of his message sent a bone-scraping chill winding through her:“Ms. Vanover, we know you have betrayed us. This is not a very smart thing you have done. Those who betray us are always made to pay the highest price. Rest assured, I mean to hunt you down and exact vengeance personally. I have a lovely picture of you right here, by the way. It appears to be a still from a pornographic movie. Your hair was different then, but the image is unmistakably that of Allyson Vanover. Or as you were known then, Sinthia Fox.”

Allyson felt the earth shift beneath her. She closed her eyes and gripped the phone tighter as the man’s calm voice continued. “I’m going to show this picture and others like it to your boyfriend just before I go to work on your delectable body with a knife. I wonder what he’ll be thinking as he watches you suffer and die. Will he be crying out for blood and revenge when I shove the knife up your cunt? Or will he still be too stunned by the images of double penetration and girl-on-girl pussy-licking to care?”

The message ended and Allyson sat there shaking for a time before working up the nerve to hear the last message. She didn’t want to hear the man’s insinuating tone again, but she knew she had to hear what he had to say. So she pressed a button and heard the following:“I imagine you are very frightened now. Afraid not only of what’s coming for you, but hoping against hope that Chad doesn’t begin to piece some things together. But he will, Allyson, and you know it. He’s a smart man. Even now he is thinking hard about many puzzling things, and in time he will ferret out the truth about you. And when that happens, you will be tossed out like the trash you are.”

There was a silence then, the recording continuing as he paused long enough to allow her time to think about what he was saying, the obvious truth of it. She worked hard to imagine an alternative possibility, but every time she tried to see a happy future with Chad the forced images glimmered with a plastic sitcom phoniness for a fragile moment before dissolving.

Then the man drew in an audible breath and slowly exhaled. “Not a pretty picture. But you know what, Allyson? I’m feeling generous today. I’m going to offer you a way out of this mess.”

Allyson tensed and closed her eyes again.

“Call this number when you arrive at your destination. Tell us where you are, then slip away when no one’s watching. If you do this, your death sentence will be rescinded. You will not be getting the hundred thousand dollars originally promised you, but you’ve probably already figured that out. You’ll get to keep the ten grand we fronted you…if there’s any left, that is. Which I doubt, if you’ve still got that nasty porn star coke habit. So that’s the deal, bitch. Take it or die. Remember…before sundown.”

The message ended and Allyson pressed a button to delete it. She did not dismiss out of hand the offer she’d been given. It was a simple way out of a very complicated situation. One phone call. She could do that and haul ass out of Jim’s “safe haven,” whatever or wherever the hell that was. She still had every penny of the ten-thousand-dollar advance. She’d shed her coke habit prior to coming to Georgia and had successfully resisted every temptation to dip into the fund. Ten thousand dollars wasn’t as comfortable a stake as the one hundred thousand dollars upon which she’d based her original plans, but it would be more than enough to start a new life somewhere else.

Allyson flipped the cell phone open and punched in a number. She held the phone to her ear and listened as it rang. The man answered on the second ring. “Hello, Allyson. Have you accepted my offer?”

Allyson allowed a moment to pass before responding. She was still thinking. Still unsure. She didn’t know what she would say until the words came out of her mouth. “You’ll never find us, you son of a bitch,” she said, voice emerging without even a slight quaver. “And there’s not a threat in the world you can make that scares me. I’ve told Chad everything and he’s forgiven me. And even if you do figure out where we’re going, I’ll kill anyone you send after us, just like I killed those men last night.”

There was a long pause from the other end. Then the man grunted and said, “Next time you won’t have the advantage of knowing my men are coming. One night when you’re sleeping they’ll slip into your room and take you. And then they’ll bring you to me. And then-”

A soft laugh.

And then the line went dead.

The phone slipped out of Allyson’s hand and landed with a clatter on the floor. She stared at her shaking hand, willing it to be still again. The man’s final, implied threat had rattled her more than she would’ve expected given everything else she’d been through. The voice of cowardice rose within her again, imploring her to pick up the phone and call the man back to tell him she’d reconsidered.

Allyson did pick up the phone. Then she stood up and smashed the delicate device against the concrete wall. The casing cracked, but that wasn’t good enough for Allyson. She wanted to destroy the thing completely, to vent her fear, frustration, and rage on this symbolic link between herself and the bad people she’d so foolishly aligned herself with all those months ago. So much had changed since those early days in Georgia. She no longer felt dead inside. The world was wide open and alive with possibilities she’d never imagined for herself. And she’d be damned if she’d allow that snide cocksucker and his threats to taint that. So she flipped the phone open. The hinge connecting the two halves of the device let go with a snap as she smashed it against the wall two more times. Then she separated the two halves with a savage twist and stood there breathing heavily for a moment.