Gregory Funaro - The Sculptor

And then there was the smell. The strong smell of-

Nail polish remover?

Cathy did not have time to think. She could hear The Sculptor scuttling above her. She screamed and staggered to the garage door-tried to lift it by its handle but it would not budge.

“Help me!” Cathy cried. “Somebody help me!” Like a caged rat, Cathy zigzagged to the rear of The Sculptor’s studio-found no exit there either and collapsed at the edge of the stainless steel hospital tub. The smell of the nail polish remover was stronger here; it was coming from inside the tub-a tub that looked to Cathy like a chrome coffin.

The Plastination chemicals, Cathy thought. The acetone.

Cathy spied a cup on the ledge of The Sculptor’s slop sink and made a limping dash for it. She was back at the tub just as The Sculptor’s feet dropped through the trap door in the ceiling. Cathy threw open the lid and plunged the cup into the cold, stingy liquid. Quickly she brought it out again, hiding it from view as she crouched by the tub, as she turned to face her attacker. Her eyes met The Sculptor’s as his feet hit the floor. He just stood there, staring at her for what seemed like forever-his one good eye blinking robotically as the blood trickled down from the other’s pulpy socket.

Then The Sculptor began to giggle.

Amidst her paralyzing fear, out of the corner of her eye Cathy spied the glow of the garage door button to her left- two of them , in fact, across the hood of the van on the opposite wall next to a door.

“All right,” Cathy hissed, gripping the cup of acetone. “You can’t get it up for anyone but your mother, so I guess you’ll have to kill me you sick son of a bitch.”

In the shadows, in the dim light cast from the TV monitor, Cathy could not see the look in The Sculptor’s remaining eye. No, all Cathy Hildebrant could make out was the clenching of The Sculptor’s fists, the cocking of his elbows and the lowering of his head.

Then, without warning, he charged.

In a flash, Cathy brought up the cup of acetone and splashed it in The Sculptor’s eyes. The Sculptor screeched like a cat, his hands flying to his face as he stumbled backward. Cathy climbed over the rim of the tub and lifted herself onto the van-her bad ankle banging painfully against the wall, her naked flesh rubbing raw as she slid across the hood. Cathy made it to the side entrance. She could not see The Sculptor as he cried out again, as something came crashing down out of sight behind the van.

“Help me!” Cathy shouted-her body sandwiched awkwardly between the van and the door as she wrestled with the knob. Then she noticed the dead bolt-one that required a key from both sides . But Cathy did not pause, did not look behind her when she heard the driver’s side door open, when she realized The Sculptor was coming for her across the front seat of the van. No, her fingers automatically went for the glowing garage door buttons.

But nothing happened.

“No!” Cathy screamed, pressing frantically; and then she began backing away between the wall and the van. Suddenly, the passenger door slammed open into the wall. The Sculptor’s massive frame was too big to get through, too big to follow her along this side of the van. But then again, it was clear to Cathy that The Sculptor had no intention of following her. No, in the dim light of The Sculptor’s studio, Cathy could see that The Sculptor had retrieved from the van a double barrel shotgun.

Yes, all The Sculptor really cared about now was his aim.

“Bad material,” he said perfunctorily.

Then The Sculptor fired.

The shot was sloppy, half-blind. It took out a chunk of Cathy’s right arm and spun her against the van, dropping her to the floor. But Cathy kept moving. Another shot, the crack of the pellets ricocheting off of the cement as Cathy rolled underneath the van. The Sculptor howled with frustration as Cathy emerged on the other side and rose to her feet-her arm bloody, her naked body scraped and soiled. Cathy began to shiver, began to weep, but did not cry out when she saw The Sculptor open the van’s sliding side door; she did not say a word when she saw him reloading his shotgun. She only backed away until she could back away no more, until her naked body crashed into The Sculptor’s drafting table.

The Sculptor did not speak either-only stood in the middle of his studio and raised his shotgun for a clear shot at Cathy’s head.

And then time seemed to slow down for Cathy Hildebrant-seemed to all but stop as a flowing black angel tumbled from the trap in the ceiling and landed directly on top of The Sculptor. The shotgun fired, wide and wild with a clang to Cathy’s left-a hiss and a pop and the instantaneous smell of sulfur. And then time resumed, rushed back to normal speed when Cathy recognized Sam Markham falling back against the van-the blood on his face, on his shirt as black as oil.

“Sam!” she cried, her legs coming to life. But they did not carry her to him. No, as Markham slumped weakly to the floor, in an instant Cathy found herself running toward The Sculptor.

Already dazed and off balance, The Sculptor received her like a domino. He gave no resistance as Cathy slammed into him, knocking him backward, knocking him directly into the stainless steel hospital tub.

The Sculptor hit the acetone with a splash, sending the chemical spraying all over the carriage house as he went under. Cathy was close behind; she fell on top of the coffinlike lid and slammed it closed-her fingers locking only one of its four latches just as The Sculptor pushed up like a vampire from the inside.

Then out of the corner of her eye Cathy saw the flames.

The Sculptor’s errant shot had set to sparking what Cathy recognized to be an arc welder, and now the spattered acetone had ignited. Cathy backed away toward the van-The Sculptor’s furious movements rocking the stainless steel tub as more acetone seeped out from underneath the partially locked lid. Whirling, the flames mating and multiplying all around her, Cathy spied the van’s keys in the ignition.

“Get up, Sam!” she shouted. “Get up into the van!”

Her strength not her own, Cathy Hildebrant lifted the semiconscious FBI agent through the van’s open side door-took the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition as The Sculptor suddenly burst up from the hospital tub in a spray of acetone. And just as she slammed the van into reverse, Cathy saw The Sculptor go up in flames. She saw him point to her and heard him scream like a fiery demon when the hospital tub exploded-its force sucking the wind from Cathy’s lungs as the van crashed backward through the garage door in a fireball. Cathy kept her foot on the gas; she slammed into a tree as she tried to back away from the sheet of flames that engulfed the acetone-soaked windshield-the sheet of flames that was eating its way around the entire van.

“Sam!” she cried, dragging him out the side door of the burning van. Cathy helped Markham to his feet and supported him on her bad ankle as they stumbled together down the overgrown dirt driveway.

They had only gotten about twenty yards when another explosion sent a wave of heat up their backs and knocked them to the ground. But Cathy did not turn around-did not care to see the carriage house go up in a plume of chemical fired flames. No, all that mattered now was Sam Markham.

“It’s over now, Sam,” she whispered, holding him in her blood-soaked arms. “It’s all over.”

One year later, Sunday morning,

somewhere in Connecticut

Cathy closed her cell phone and just sat on the back porch sipping her coffee and looking out over the river. It had all come so fast, was still all so new, but it still felt like home. However, the conversation with Rhonda, her new literary and publicity agent, had unsettled her, left her feeling numb and confused-so much so that when Sam Markham sat down beside her, Cathy hardly noticed he was there.