He wants sex? she thought. Right now. That’s what he’s thinking about?
Her eyes opened in slits, just enough to see the dark body above her, the green and red lights blinking offensively. Her eyelids opened further as her sight adjusted to the darkness. Her focus went from the blinking box up his chest, past his heaving shoulders, to his face. Cold and blank. Just like his eyes. She was expecting him to be looking at her, but he wasn’t. He was staring into the nothingness above her head. A single tear escaped her eye as hot panic boiled in her guts.
“Ja—“
At once, his hands were around her neck. Her eyes shot open in terror. His eyes were staring into hers now. Dark blue and menacing. Samantha pushed and struggled against his body. She grabbed at his wrists and tried to work them apart. But he only squeezed harder. A large vein pulsed in his forehead as his heart pumped thick, hot blood through his body.
“Please,” Sam gasped, “Jason.”
His lips curled upwards into a maniacal grin. Samantha grabbed at the grin, pushing against his face. He was too strong, and she was weakening—white spots flashed across her field of vision. In a final, desperate move, she dug her nails into the side of his face and pulled down as hard as she could. Jason screamed in pain. He released his grip on her neck and grabbed his own face, writhing in pain.
Samantha coughed and gasped for breath. Her throat cried out in agony as she gulped in precious lungsful of air.
“You bitch!” he screamed as he looked at the blood on his hands. Samantha felt a surge of powerful energy as she bucked Jason off her hips and onto the floor with a thud. She sprang up quickly and ran to the bathroom, closing and locking the door.
She rubbed her throat, red from trauma, and walked backward until her knees hit the toilet bowl. She sat down, not taking her eyes off the door. She could hear Jason cursing and moving around in the bedroom. Samantha jumped as he smashed something against the wall, something wooden. She thought of her nightstand. She thought of her phone that was left there. She was trapped, shaking, and alone.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM against the door.
“I’m gonna kill you, you bitch!” Jason yelled from the other side.
BOOM! once more.
“You’re dead!”
Suddenly the banging stopped, and she heard Jason move to the office. Samantha’s blood turned to ice. Hyperventilating with tears streaming down her face, she looked hopelessly around the small bathroom for something, anything she could use as a weapon. She grabbed the toilet brush and held it up. “Fuck!” she yelled. “Help!!”
She jumped into the shower and slammed her fists against the wall.
“Please! Help me! Please!!”
Samantha banged again, so hard that one of her wrists cracked and sent an explosion of pain up to her head. She screamed in a mix of terror and agony.
She jumped out of the shower, opened the cupboards under the sink, and began throwing makeup and toiletries out with big sweeps of her arms until she saw it.
She grabbed the small but heavy pipe from under the sink.
BOOM! against the door again. Samantha jumped and fell back against the wall. The sound of something hitting the door. Wood on wood. Again.
CRACK!
The door split open just wide enough for the butt of a shotgun to come through. Jason pulled the stock from the door and bent over to look in. His eyes were crazed, and his maniacal grin only wider. Samantha shrieked at the sight of this man that looked nothing like her lover.
“Jason stop! Please Jay!” she cried.
His face disappeared from the hole.
“Oh I’ll stop alright,” he hissed. “As soon as I get my hands around that pretty little neck of yours again.” Jason reached through the hole in the door and grabbed for the handle. Samantha lifted the pipe without pause and brought it down as hard as she could on Jason’s grasping hand. The sound of pounded meat and cracking bone rang out in the bathroom.
“Aaarrghhh!” Jason screamed in painful anger. “Fuck! You fucking bitch!”
He slammed his good hand against the door. “Francine’s gonna cut you in half!”
The brightly polished shotgun barrels appeared through the hole in the door. Samantha gasped and fell backward onto the floor, dropping the pipe with a clang.
“Are you fucking ready, bitch!?”
The shotgun bobbed around in the hole.
“Get ready to meet your fucking maker, you bi—“ The silver barrel disappeared from the hole as Samantha heard a loud thud. She stared at the hole, her breath coming in sharp, frantic spurts that stabbed her throat like daggers.
She listened intently for any clue about what had happened, but all she could hear was her own breath and beating heart in her temples.
“Sam?” a voice finally broke through. “Samantha, are you in there? Are you ok?”
“Chester,” she said dumbly. “Chester!?”
Feelings of relief washed over her as she began to sob. She made herself get up off the floor and opened the door, suddenly exhausted and acutely aware of every scratch and bruise.
“Sam,” Chester said with apologetic eyes. Beneath him lay Jason, unconscious from the baseball bat in Chester’s hand.
“Are you ok?” he asked, knowing that she, in fact, was not. Movement at the front door made Samantha look over. Their neighbors were standing there: the woman and the strange little boy. Samantha stared at them dumbly as the woman turned to usher the boy away. “Wait!” Samantha croaked.
The woman paused and looked back as Samantha half ran to the door. She stopped when she reached the woman. She grabbed on to the door frame in an effort to hold herself up as she wheezed and gasped for breath.
“Did you call Chester?”
The woman nodded.
Samantha took another labored breath.
“Did you call the police?”
The woman shook her head.
“Why not?”
Samantha’s squinting, confused eyes followed the woman’s gaze down to the long sleeves of her dark shirt. The woman pulled the material back to
