The Dead Woman

Matt stepped out of the car. 'I don't think that's going to happen, Abbey.'

Abbey turned her head towards him. 'Matt?'

'Yeah, it's me. And we both know you aren't going home tomorrow.'

'I don't know what you are talking about,' she said. She turned back to Dale. 'You didn't tell me you brought company.'

'We just want to talk to you,' Dale said.

'Fine. But turn those goddamn headlights off. I can't see a thing.'

Dale reached into the car. Matt caught a glimpse of something behind her back. It was long and straight and glinted dully in the light.

'No!' Matt shouted, but it was too late. The headlights snapped off, and Abbey brought the shotgun up faster than he or Dale could follow.

The shot sounded like a cannon.

Dale grunted in pain as his body flew backward in a spray of blood and gore. He landed in a heap a few feet away from the cruiser, blood flowing freely from a large hole in his thigh.

'Fuck!' Matt yelled, and dove behind the car just as another shot peppered the dirt where he'd been standing.

'I told him not to come here,' Abbey said. 'This is my place. My private place.'

Matt poked his head around the back of the car just in time to see Abbey step off the porch. Now that the light wasn't directly behind her, he saw the huge gaping sore on the side of her face. The edges were rotted away, leaving nothing but dead skin and insect larvae. As he watched, the area of rot spread across her whole face, covering her nose and mouth. Even from ten feet away, the stench of decay was almost a physical presence.

But as horrifying as her face had become, it still didn't scare him as much as the shotgun in her hands. And she was coming towards the car.

Fuck.

Matt scrambled around to the driver's side, where Dale lay on his back in a growing pool of blood. The lawman's left thigh was a mess. Blood poured out of it like water from a pitcher. His breath came in rapid gasps that sounded like wet slaps. Dale's eyes stared up at the sky but didn't seem to settle on anything for more than a few seconds. His whole body shook, making him look like he was having a seizure. Matt grabbed Dale's belt and slid it off, then jerked it tight around the injured man's upper thigh and cinched it into a makeshift tourniquet. The blood slowed, but didn't stop. It would have to do until he could get medical attention.

This was his fault. He had insisted Dale come to Abbey's. If he'd just left Crawford like he was supposed to, Dale would be fine and probably filing divorce papers right now. Just another person Matt had managed to hurt with his very presence. Maybe he'd be better off if Abbey took that shotgun to his head.

'You still here, Matt?' Abbey asked from the other side of the car. 'Where'd you go? You can't hide from me, you know.'

Matt would have to worry about Dale later. Right now he needed something from the fallen cop's waist. He reached down, trying not to look at the ruin of Dale's leg, and unclipped the holster for Dale's service revolver. He wiggled it free and brought it to his face. A .38 caliber Smith & Wesson, minus the safety and, thank God, sporting a full cylinder.

He brought it up just as Abbey rounded the back of the car, leading with her shotgun.

Matt was faster. He fired off two rounds as fast as the revolver would shoot, and one of them hit Abbey in her left arm.

She yelped in pain as the bullet spun her in a circle, sending her shotgun to the dirt. 'You cocksucking asshole! I'll kill you for that!'

You were gonna kill me, anyway, Matt thought. He jumped to his feet and ran around the car, hoping to catch her on the ground, but all he saw of her was her backside as she ran back into the house, presumably for another weapon.

Matt sprinted up the yard to the doorway, not wanting to give her time to find another gun. With luck, he could catch her unarmed and force her to surrender, and then he could call the police. He didn't want to kill her any more than he'd wanted to kill Andy, but he couldn't let her hurt any more people, and Annie was probably still in the house. If she was even still alive.

He stepped into the house, looking left and right, but there was no sign of Abbey. A dull green telephone on the end table gave him an idea, and he pulled it off the hook and dialed 9-1-1.

'Nine-one-one. What's your emergency?' a voice said.

'Officer Everett has been shot. He needs medical attention. Send a car to—' Shit! Matt didn't know the address.

A muffled cry from somewhere in the house caught his attention. He set the phone's receiver on the table and walked deeper into the house. He might not know the address, but the operator at 911 would. Her voice came through the line asking more questions, sounding tinny and small. When she couldn't get an answer, she'd have to send a car.

Or so he hoped.

Directly in front of him was a large living area, which opened onto a deck on the rear of the place. He knew from his previous visit that the kitchen and dining room stood to his left, while Abbey's bedroom was to his right. He'd spent most of his time here either in the bedroom or in the backyard, and while he hadn't seen any weapons in the bedroom, that didn't mean there weren't any there. Besides, that's probably where Abbey had Annie. He set off down the hallway, keeping his back to the wall and listening for any sound of her presence.

Along the way he noticed more pictures on the wall. Lots more. They had been there the other night, of course, but he hadn't paid any attention to them. Now that he looked, they were all of Abbey and various men. There was one of her and Dale, obviously only a few years old, and one of her and another man that, by their clothes, looked like it was taken in the seventies. Beyond that was another picture of her in front of the old car lot with the man she claimed was her husband, Clark. And beyond that were many more. All of them showed Abbey as one half of a smiling couple through the decades. There was even one done in the very old style, with the man sitting in a chair while Abbey stood behind him with her hand on his shoulder. The clothing looked to be from around the early 1900s.

Jesus. How old was she?

Matt stopped in the middle of the hallway, looking back at the line of pictures. Was that what was in store for him? Would he someday have a hallway full of old photos, too? Not if I let her kill me tonight, he thought, forcing his mind back to the present. The implications of Abbey's pictures would have to wait. First he had to stop her from killing Annie. He walked the rest of the hallway's length. It ended at the bedroom door.

Matt put his hand on the doorknob, then took a deep breath, and turned it. He pushed open the bedroom door a half inch at a time, waiting for the gunshot that would end his life. When it didn't come, he opened the door the whole way.

There was Annie, gagged and tied to the bed but very much alive, despite a few cuts across her chest that oozed blood onto her shredded T-shirt. Matt breathed a sigh of relief. 'Thank God you're all right.'

Annie's eyes grew wide when she saw Matt, and she tried to mumble something under the gag, but Matt couldn't make it out. He crossed the room and leaned over the bed, putting his finger to his lips.

'She's still here somewhere,' Matt whispered. 'I'm gonna undo your gag, but you have to keep quiet, okay? Nod if you understand me.'

She nodded.

'Good,' Matt said, and he reached over and pulled the gag down over her chin. 'That better?'

'Yeah,' she said. 'That bitch is fucking crazy. Get me the hell outta here.'

'I will. Just give me a second.' Matt tried to undo the knots on the ropes. His wrist flared with pain. He gritted his teeth and tried again but soon realized he couldn't maneuver his fingers while holding the gun, so he set it on the nightstand. 'You let me know if you see her, okay?'

'You got it, man.'

Matt went to work on the knots, but he couldn't loosen them. Abbey had tied them very tight. He could probably get them if he had an hour to spare, but he didn't. 'Shit.'

'There's a knife in the top drawer of her nightstand,' Annie said. 'It's the one she used to cut me.'