Eric Dimbleby - White Out

“You seem a little upset, ma’am. Are you okay? You look like you’ve been through hell and back, if ya’ don’t mind my saying.”

She nodded. “I have been. And I survived, but that’s beside the point, Edgar . I want to know where you came from, and why you’re in my house, and when you’re leaving. I suggest you say something along the lines of: as soon as possible. ”

“Hold up there,” he said, putting up the palm of his left hand towards her in the universal gesture to back up a step. “I don’t mean no harm here, Annie.”

“My name is Anabel. You don’t know me well enough to call me Annie.”

“Fair enough, but I intend to get knowin’ on you better. I intend a whole lot of that,” he replied. Annie could see that he was tightening his jaw. He was holding back an abnormal instinct; one that he knew would scare the shit out of her if he let it loose. She’d witnessed that same look in The Shiny Bald One’s eyes when he first saw her and Tony (half naked, trying to hide their shame) but he had quickly let that facade crumble. Edgar was doing a better job of it, keeping the glue of his mask intact, but the results would end up the same. Something inside Annie’s gut screamed to every inch of her body, telling her that she was in danger. And even worse than that, Paulie was in danger.

“I’d like you to leave. Christian may have invited you in, but I’m vetoing that decision.” The confused expression on his face made Annie wonder if he knew what the word veto meant. “I won’t ask again.”

“I don’t think you understand, Annie.” His eyes got big and wide when he said her name, which she’d corrected him on only a few seconds earlier. He didn’t heed her advice as she’d hoped, not in any way. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m settled in and settled up. Ever heard that term? People in my family used to say it. I got a new family now, though. So this family gonna say that shit too, ya’ hear? We’re gon’ be a happy little family, you and me. Gonna make some memories. Some real nice ones like Disney Land and shit.”

And there it was.

He was as crazy as a bed bug. This stranger considered her his new “family” though they’d met only minutes earlier. So continued the long line of cuckoo birds, coming at her from every direction.

“If you hurt my son,” she started to say, pursing her lips and touching the revolver. She unconsciously pulled it out, holding it in Edgar’s direction. “Get the fuck out of my house. I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here.”

Her head felt like a block on her shoulders. Her exhaustion was overtaking her. Annie’s equilibrium was all over the place from the loss of hearing in her ear. She couldn’t keep the gun steady because of this. With every bit of strength, she fought against the wobbliness in her hands, fearful that it might neuter the threatening gesture.

She said, “Take the snowmobile if you want, I left the keys. I don’t need it anymore.”

His silence pervaded the room. The invader only smiled, his lips pulling back in a disgusting manner that looked like a lizard. He advanced a step closer to Annie, staring at the gun in her hand. It was evident that it wasn’t the first time the man had a gun pointed at him; most people would have flinched at the sight of it, but he acted as though it was par for the course. Edgar was what her deceased grandfather might have called, “a natural born rough rider.”

“Get out,” she said, holding the gun firm now, trying to hide that unending shakiness in her hands. Even with all that she’d gone through with the other whackos, she still didn’t feel right taking somebody’s life.

Count to three , she told herself. If he hasn’t left by three, shoot him in the face. Don’t even tell him you’re counting, cause that’ll make him move first.

One…

“I said get out!” she shouted. Edgar started to laugh at this, followed by a throaty cough.

Two…

She thought of Paulie. It always came back to Paulie—every thought, every word, every breath. Edgar had said that he was in the basement, sleeping. But what if he was dead? What if she went down those stairs and found that her baby was no more? The thought revolted her so she pushed it away. This wasn’t the time for that consideration. Not yet. “Last chance,” she warned, trying to sound a whole lot tougher than she felt.

Three…

The gun clicked. The sound deflated her entire being, almost instantly. She pulled the trigger a second time. It was out of bullets or jammed. Either way, she was in trouble. Had she miscounted her bullets? When she collapsed earlier, had another round gone off? Had two bullets struck The Shiny Bald One instead of just the one? This is the part where you throw the gun at somebody, Annie thought to herself. If there were no bullets, then the next best thing was to hurl the weapon.

When she threw it, the revolver missed his head by a good foot.

This made the devilish stranger smile.

Edgar lunged toward her, grabbing her by the meat of the throat. Stars filled her eyes within seconds, swimming around her already disconnected consciousness. He shook her so hard that Annie felt her bones rattling inside of her. Her ears started to ring louder than ever, presumably from the panic that was invading her being. A thought came to her that this might be the last moment she ever remembered, but her whole damn life refused to flash in front of her eyes like it was supposed to, according to the saying.

Annie dug her claws into Edgar’s wrists, pushing her fingernails until she felt them starting to break, but Edgar didn’t hold back on his assault. In fact, her defense maneuver only made him fortify his grip, tightening up enough to make his hands go pale and white.

“Pull a gun on me like some kinda animal? Fuckin’ cunt. Tryin’ t’make a better life for us here,” he snarled, spittle falling from his lips. If he wasn’t choking her to death and tossing her about the kitchen like a rag doll, she might have laughed at that notion. His corny sentiment was laughable, as compared to his violent outburst. “The boy wants me for his pop, ya’ hear? And if you don’t want to be part of the family, well… fuck ya’.”

His voice trailed off inside her head, just as the starry shapes in her eyes got so big that they might have been blazing suns, right on the brink of supernovas.

She shook loose of her unexpected blackout, reaching up to touch her throat. It felt like her windpipe had been crushed, so she tested her voice with a cuss word, “Fuck.” It didn’t quite sound like her, but she could still speak. Her voice was gone, just as the hearing in her left ear.

The sound of a hammer thudding against nails echoed through the pitch-black room.

Sitting up with a jolt, she realized that she was at the bottom of the stairs, and that her arms and legs screamed in pain. The monster (the newest monster, she corrected herself) had tossed her down the stairs, and now he was barricading her in.

She scrambled to get herself up off the ground, rolling over on to her side as she reached for the lowest steps. She wasn’t going to let this invader lock her away in the basement, like some deformed sibling from a gothic horror novel.

“Hey!” she shouted, her voice barely above a whisper. He’d screwed her throat up pretty bad with his meaty paws.

Then she heard the voice—a sound so sweet that it made her heart rate double and then triple. She could hardly remember what happened next, both from escaping her woozy prison of stars and being without sleep since her brutal attack in The Purple Cat.

“Mammah?” the voice asked weakly, barely audible in the mush of her ear canal.