'Marie!'
Several knocks fell against the door now.
She clearly recognised Richie's voice.
Her gaze began flitting to the door. If she could let Richie in…
But she made a mistake by watching the door too long.
She gave the man just enough time to jump across the four feet separating them and grab her around the neck.
In moments she felt his sweaty face breathing hot foul breath against the side of her face, the blade of the butcher knife held tight against her throat.
'You're going to walk over to that door and let him in,' he said. 'Do you understand?'
She nodded.
'You're not going to scream. You're not going to kick me. You're not going to do anything except let him in and then stand back. You got it?'
Again, she nodded.
He shoved her with his hips, keeping the edge of the blade exactly against her carotid artery. One slice and-
She felt so many things as he pushed her toward the door- terror, confusion, panic. She even felt guilty. If only she'd cried out, warned Richie away.
Now she'd drag him into this and God only knew what-
'Open it,' the man whispered harshly in her ear.
This time when he shoved her, she felt his swollen erection against her buttock.
The thought of this stunned and sickened her.
She reached out and tripped the hold that would undo the lock.
The lock opened like a shot.
The door crept open half an inch or so.
Diesel fumes and the chilling night air rushed through the tiny crack.
'Marie?'
She could hear the fear and indecision in Richie's voice, hear the questions he had to be asking himself: Should he come in? Should he run for help? By now, he had to know that something was wrong in here, terribly wrong.
The door creaked open.
A section of Richie's head angled around the edge of the wooden frame.
'Marie-' he started to say. And then he saw her there, took in the man who had the knife at her throat.
Something terrible started to form in his throat, some sympathetic wail of protest.
But before Richie could get much of the sound out, the man said, 'Get in here, punk.'
Richie's first instinct was obviously to run. You could see him start to withdraw in the doorway, wriggle himself free, and run for help.
The man said, 'If you don't get in here right now, I'm going to kill her on the spot. You understand?'
Marie could see the colour fading fast from Richie's face. She could also see that he was just starting to take serious note of her virtual nudity. While she'd been able to pull her jeans up around her waist, she hadn't had the opportunity to snap them shut. Her panties tom by the man, she knew that dark pubic hair blossomed in the V of her open fly.
Richie came inside. 'Don't hurt her. Please. All right?'
'Lock the door and come over here.'
Richie came over. Stood two feet away.
The man said, 'Anybody else know you're in here?'
Richie shook his head, glanced at Marie. She saw both fear and sympathy in his eyes.
'Then you're going to be the only witness, kid.'
And with that, the man began to pull the knife across Marie's throat.
There was no pain. That was the first thing she noticed. She knew she'd been cut but still there was no pain. Not yet anyway.
She was wriggling against the man's grasp when she saw Richie hurl himself across the empty floor between them.
Richie let out a sound that was both bravado and nerves, some ancient war noise that humans had learned long ago from some lower species.
Richie hit them so hard that all three of them were knocked to the floor. He scrambled to his feet immediately, grabbing Marie's hand and helping her get upright, too.
On the floor, the man was crawling toward the knife that had once again been knocked from his grasp.
'Call the police!' Richie said to Marie.
Frantically, she shook her head. 'He tore the wires out from the wall.'
The man grabbed the knife, jumped to his feet, spun around, and faced Richie.
'You little sonofabitch,' the man said.
He seemed even more insane now than he had earlier. Obviously he'd assumed that Marie would be all his, to do with as he chose. But Richie had spoiled those plans and the man was enraged.
'Richie, watch out!' Marie cried as the man started circling Richie, much as he had Marie herself.
Richie looked about desperately. Whatever courage had come to him in the first moments of seeing Marie in the man's grasp was now given to caution and anxiety.
Marie realised that there was only one way she could help Richie. Reach the door and run out to the sidewalk and start screaming for help.
But as she started for the door, she saw a nightmare take shape.
The man jumped on Richie, slamming him to the floor. In seconds he had the knife at Richie's throat and had tom a deep gash from one side of the throat to the other.
Richie made a horrible gasping sound-almost as if he wanted to vomit-and the man once again pulled the knife all the way back across Richie's throat.
Blood began to flood the floor.
Richie's eyes showed pleading and panic. He looked like a small child in the throes of death.
Marie knew she was screaming but it sounded as if somebody else were making the sound.
The man was bending over Richie like some feasting animal and then abruptly he was on his feet.
Marie was running.
She had no idea where.
She was just running.
Running.
Through the door. Out onto the sidewalk. Screaming, screaming. Out into the street.
Headlights and blaring horns. Shouted obscenities.
Collapsing into the middle of the street itself. Brakes screeching. The stomach-turning sound of one car slamming into the rear end of another car. More blaring horns. More shouted obscenities. Richie lying bleeding to death back there on the floor and the man-
He didn't get the bitch. He'd come here to get the cunt-fuck her till she cried out-then slash her throat.
Instead he cut up some goddamned punk who must have been her boyfriend or something.
He saw her go for the door and he went after her.
He knew his whole hand was bloody, that the knife blade was running, dripping with blood.
He also saw-peripherally-that there were people on the sidewalk watching him as he lunged into the street after her.
He didn't care.
The only thing that brought him back to his senses was the noise of cars slamming on brakes and horns shouting at each other like wounded animals.
