Vicious

her hands were handcuffed around the pipe.

“Oh, Jesus,” Susan murmured. She tugged at the handcuffs. “Okay, listen, I’m going to look for something to free you up from these damn things. Just hold on.”

Moira let out a weak laugh. “I ain’t going anywhere….”

The table leg clutched tightly in her fist, Susan headed down the shadowy corridor until she spotted an old fire box with a broken alarm, a coiled hose—and peeking out behind it, an ax. The glass on the firebox door was cracked. Susan struggled to open it up. She finally dropped the table leg and pulled at the door with both hands. When it finally gave, a shard of glass fell off and shattered on the floor.

“Are you still there?” Moira called weakly.

“Yes, that was me!” Susan replied. She pushed the coiled hose aside and reached for the ax stashed behind it.

The thing was heavy and awkward to carry, but the blade still looked sharp. Susan ran back down the corridor with it. Ducking into the office, she hurried to the closet where Moira had managed to stand up. She was leaning to one side, putting all her weight on one foot. When she saw Susan with the ax, a look of horror swept over her face. “My God,” she gasped. “I thought you were going to get a bobby pin or something to trip the lock.” She started coughing again and shook her head at Susan.

“Listen, I don’t know a thing about picking a lock,” Susan admitted. “But my aim’s pretty good. Okay?”

Moira winced at her. “I don’t know—”

Susan hesitated. But then she heard the rattle of bottles and cans in another part of the building. She realized Allen had found his way into the plant.

Moira must have heard it, too, because suddenly she nodded several times and turned her body away from the pipe. Susan adjusted the girl’s hands so the inch-long chain between the cuffs was vertical and taut against the pipe.

All the while, she listened to the footsteps of someone running in the hallway.

“You—you were at the general store yesterday, weren’t you?” Moira asked nervously.

“Yes, my name’s Susan. Now, I need you to keep very still.”

“Don’t you have a little boy?”

“Yes. The woman at the store is looking after him right now—I hope.” Susan took a deep breath, then lifted the ax.

“You were talking to my friend, Jordan. I think he’s got a crush on you….”

Susan didn’t want to tell her that her friend was dead. “Moira, I need you to be quiet,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry. I talk a lot when I get nervous. I’ll shut up.”

In the silence between them, Susan could hear the footsteps in the corridor getting louder—and closer. She swallowed hard and swung the ax. Moira let out a startled yelp as it hit the chain. The pipe made a loud, hollow, bang. But the handcuffs’ steel links were intact. “Do it again,” Moira said under her breath. Her hands were shaking.

In the dark little closet, Susan felt lucky she hadn’t chopped off one of the poor girl’s arms on that first try. But she hauled back and swung the ax again. There was another clatter that echoed from the pipe. Susan barely waited a beat before giving the ax a third swing. At last, the handcuffs’ chain snapped. Moira let out a grateful cry and leaned against the wall. She rubbed her arms.

Susan figured the sound of that ax hitting the pipe had reverberated through the whole building. She paused, but couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore. She wondered if he was just outside the office door, waiting for them.

“Thank you,” Moira whispered. “Thank you, Susan.”

Draping her cardigan over Moira’s shoulders, she grabbed the ax and started to lead her out of the closet. The girl could hardly walk. “I—I think I sprained something,” Moira explained. “I’m sorry I can’t move very fast.”

Susan glanced down at the girl’s swollen, discolored ankle. “Looks like a bad sprain,” she whispered. “Just lean on me, okay?” Susan held her up with one hand and clung onto the ax with the other. Before they stepped out to the hallway, she paused, put her finger to her lips, and then left Moira leaning against the wall. With the ax ready, Susan peeked into the corridor. She didn’t see anyone, just the shadowy hallway and the office doorways.

She ducked back into the office and nodded at Moira. The girl grabbed hold of her shoulder, and together they started down the gloomy corridor. They moved past the open doors to several dark offices. Susan was terrified that Allen could be lurking in any one of them.

“This guy, he’s a cop—he’s the one who did this to me,” Moira started to explain.

Susan shushed her, then nodded. “I know, I know,” she whispered. She’d lost track of which office window she’d used to enter the building. She couldn’t stop trembling—and neither could the girl. They passed the old laboratory and turned down another corridor.

She spotted a very faint light coming through one doorway near the far end of the hall. Susan bypassed the other offices and hurried toward it. Moira hobbled alongside her. Stepping into the room, Moira accidentally kicked some old bottles. They both hesitated for a moment. Susan wondered if Allen was close by, listening to them. There was a reason those footsteps had stopped. He was hiding.

She saw a shaft of moonlight pouring through an opening in the broken window where the plywood board was askew. She peeked out the window to make certain he wasn’t waiting for them there. Holding the plywood board back, she helped Moira through the opening to the ground below. She lowered the ax down to the girl and then climbed out after her.

They crept alongside the building, toward the old parking lot. Susan kept thinking that any minute now, Allen would come up and grab one of them from behind. She saw the Toyota ahead and reached for the car keys in her pocket. All the while, Moira clung to her, and Susan clung to the ax.

She noticed the drops of blood around the passenger door as she opened it for Moira. Then she checked the backseat to make sure Allen wasn’t hiding in there. “Lock it!” she said, once Moira shut the car door.

Susan glanced at the tires. There was nothing wedged beneath any of them to give her a flat. The back tires looked a bit low, but seemed okay. Opening the driver’s door, she quickly stashed the ax in the backseat. As she climbed behind the wheel, she saw blood on the dashboard.

“What is that?” Moira asked, staring at it, too.

Susan shut her door, locked it, and then put the key in the ignition. Giving it a turn, she prayed the car would start. The engine let out a roar—and that rattling noise started, too. Starting up the driveway, she glanced in the rearview mirror at the dark, abandoned building. She didn’t see anyone. There was no sign of Allen.

“What is this?” Moira asked again, nodding at the blood on the dash.

Susan’s heart was still racing. But she started to catch her breath. She glanced at the dark red spots and smears on the dashboard. “I had a disagreement with my fiance,” she said.

Susan hadn’t noticed that the same kind of markings were on the hood of the trunk. It didn’t dawn on her why the rear tires were riding low. Nor did she realize the trunk was propped open—only a sliver.

It was just enough for him to breathe a little easier.

Rosie heard the bell tinkle over the door. On a dead night like tonight, it usually gave her the willies when someone wandered into the store three minutes before closing. That was what had happened one evening six years ago, and the guy had held her up at gunpoint.

But tonight she was expecting Susan Blanchette’s fiance or Deputy Shaffer to come pick up Mattie. With a groan, she pulled herself off the play-area floor mat, where she’d been supervising Susan’s son on the mini jungle gym. “Howdy!” Rosie called, not sure yet to whom she was talking. She waddled around from behind the counter and saw Tom Collins coming up the soup and canned foods aisle.

“Hey, Rosie,” he said. “How’s it going?”

Mattie jumped off the pint-sized jungle gym and scurried in front of her, almost tripping her. “Hi, Tom!” he said, looking up at him.

Tom stopped and smiled at Susan’s son. “Well, hi, Matthew Blanchette,” he said. “Where’s your mom?”

“She’s running Aaron,” Mattie replied. “I’m going to ride in a police car!”

“Well, how about that?” Tom gave Rosie a puzzled look.

She mussed Mattie’s hair. “Sweetheart, why don’t you put the toys away, and maybe old Rosie will give you a