Not Dead Yet (29 page)

Jack lashed out at Foster’s head with a leg of the broken chair.  Dodging Jack’s blows, Foster reached up with his large arms, trying to wrestle the chair leg away from Jack. Foster snatched the seat of the chair to use as a shield.  When Jack struck with the chair leg, it hit the seat and bounced off, flying across the room. 

Foster went on the offensive, using the chair seat to strike Jack in the torso.  Jack jumped up and vaulted across the rat-infested sofa.  When on the other side of the sofa, he looked around for something to use as a shield or as a weapon.

Jack yanked metal vent pipe sections from the wood stove.  He hurled these at Foster, spewing gray ash and dirt into the air and on Foster.  Running out of pipe sections he picked up a heavy round opening cover from the cooking surface of the wood stove.  This he threw overhand at Foster’s head.  Foster dodged, and the metal piece crashed through a front window and out onto the porch. 

Foster stood in the kitchen area, where he grabbed yellow cans of generic brand beer and hurled them at Jack.  Jack bobbed and ducked, picked up a chair to use as a shield, and worked his way over to Foster.  Jack tackled Foster around the knees, knocking him backward over the long plank kitchen table.  Pies went flying.  Before Foster could regain his balance, Jack jumped on top of the table and punched Foster in the face.  He got in two or three blows, then Foster bucked upward and sent Jack flying off the table.  He crashed into a pile of chairs. 

Foster ripped the doors off a kitchen wall cabinet and threw them at Jack, who neatly ducked.  Foster then grabbed the cabinet and, with a roar, wrenched it from the wall and hurled it across the room.  His crazy man adrenaline had kicked in.  Theia wondered if he would throw the stove next.

Foster lunged onto Jack.  They grappled and swung punches at each other, at this point looking more like drunks than skilled fighters.  Jack’s head injury was taking its toll, and the adrenaline rush left Foster with less control than usual.

“Come on, soldier boy,” Foster gestured with a smirk.  “Show me what you got. We good ole Southern boys know how to fight, too.”

Jack stepped back, going into a martial arts pose and bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet.  Bruised and getting foggy-headed, he waited patiently for Foster to make the first move.  It took every ounce of focus he possessed to try to overcome the disadvantage of having a concussion and having recently been pummeled.  Mind over matter, he reminded himself.

Foster stood straight, in standard boxing stance, shuffling from side to side like a prizefighter.  Jack looked outmatched by Foster’s powerful build.  Jack was lean and lithe, well-muscled but not bulky.  Foster was still built like the college football player he had been long ago.  He maintained his muscle mass through long, regular workouts in the weight room. And he had the advantage of the seemingly superhuman strength of the insane.

“So, how was she?” Foster asked.  “Did you enjoy fucking my wife?”  He unleashed powerful punches, which Jack easily evaded.

“She’s not your wife,” Jack replied, as they continued to fight.

“She will always be my wife,” Foster insisted.  “Tell me, did you make her scream?  Did she say you were the best?  Was she worth dying for?” he asked as he lunged at Jack.  Jack deftly sent Foster flying over the back of the sofa.  Jack glided over the sofa to land on top of Foster, who was on the floor, momentarily dazed from his fall. 

Jack was getting the upper hand, which enraged Foster, who bellowed, “This is not the way this is supposed to go!  I’m supposed to kill you in front of her.  You’re supposed to die!  Die, damn it, you whore hopper!”

“Hate to disappoint you, old man,” Jack chuckled, landing a few solid blows into Foster’s abdomen.  Foster grunted in pain.

They careened across the floor, swinging at each other and knocking things over.  Theia turned around in her chair and frantically tried to finish untying herself. The struggling men crashed into the tray of instruments. Scalpels, surgical instruments and men went flying onto the floor, then scrambled to their feet.  They were both battered and bloodied, sweaty and staggering. 

Foster grinned and let out a crazed laugh.  “Look at what I found!” he announced, brandishing a shiny scalpel.

He slashed at Jack, who jumped back so the blade only made a shallow cut diagonally from his midsection across his chest.  Theia screamed at the sight of blood.  Foster jabbed at Jack.  Jack bobbed and dodged the blade.  Foster got a little cocky and gave a war yell as he barreled toward Jack, leading with the blade.  Jack used his martial arts training to knock the scalpel out of Foster’s hand and send Foster, off balance, stumbling into a pile of firewood.

Theia heard a heavy crack, then a thud. Jack lay motionless on the floor, blood pooling around and under him from a gash in his skull.  A bloody piece of jagged firewood lay on the floor next to him.

Foster staggered to a chair to catch his breath, unaware that Theia had untied both hands.  “Your beau put up a good fight,” Foster gave a mock salute at Jack’s still form.  “Can’t say as I blame him.  But I won.  And to the victor go the spoils.”

“Foster, how do you think this is going to end?” Theia asked, weary and sad.

Foster looked surprised by her question.  “That’s easy.  I’m going to kill you.  First I’m going to fuck you, and then I’m going to kill you.  Will all the questions be this easy, teacher?”

“And then what?” she asked him.

“What do you mean ‘and then what’?” Foster was puzzled.

“The officers outside are going to kill you.  If you don’t have a live hostage, they’ll have no reason to hold back from killing you,” Theia explained. “If you want to live through this, you have to keep me alive.  I represent life or death.  As long as I’m alive, you‘re alive.  If you kill me, you kill yourself.”

“You have already killed me,” Foster said.  “The day you stopped loving me, you drove a stake through my heart.  I love you, Theia.  And you’re killing me.  Why are you doing this to me?  I don’t ask for much.  Why can’t you just love me back?” Foster asked, piteously. 

“I used to love you, Foster, but how can I love someone who keeps trying to kill me?  I would have to be as crazy as … “

“As crazy as me?” Foster asked softly, his voice breaking.  “Do you think I want to be like this?  Do you think I asked for this?  We had a great life.  We had everything.  And now, everything is gone.”

“There is a way out,” Theia pleaded.

“No, there’s no way out,” Foster shook his head.  “There’s no time for us.  There’s no place for us,” he muttered, and went over to the music player. Taking out Randy Crawford, he put in Queen, and the haunting voice of Freddie Mercury began singing ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’ as though Freddie had felt the pain himself.

There’s no time for us

There’s no place for us

What is this thing that builds our dreams

Yet slips away from us?

Foster paused the music.  “Don’t you see, Theia?  I don’t want to go on living.  I can’t take this pain any more.”

Freddie sang on.

Who wants to live forever?

Who wants to live forever?

There’s no chance for us,

It’s all decided for us,

This world has only one sweet moment

Set aside for us.

“This is all we have, dollbaby.  This one sweet moment.  I have to take this one last sweet moment,” Foster explained.  “It’s all there is.”

Who wants to live forever?

Who wants to live forever? 

Now touch my tears with your lips

Touch my world with your fingertips

And we can have forever

And we can love forever

Forever is our today

Who wants to live forever?

Who wants to live forever? 

Who wants forever anyway?

Theia stared off into space, tears flowing.  Foster turned off the music.

“It has all been decided for us, my dear. All that remains is for us to play our parts, to run through the script.”  He knelt as if proposing.  “Do you remember the day I asked you to be my wife?  To spent the rest of your life with me?”

Theia nodded, unable to speak through her tears.

“Today, you will fulfill your promise to me, when you die with me.  Only then will we have forever.  Only then will we love forever.”

“No, I promised life, not this,” Theia shook her head. “This is not love, this is murder.”

“Prove your love for me,” Foster insisted.

“Prove your love for me and let me go.  Forcing this on me will not prove anything, except that you are a murderer.  Let me go.  If you really love me, let me go, Foster.  Please.”

“How dare you defy me!” Foster lashed out, suddenly enraged.  “You belong to me.  You are my wife.  You will do as I say.”  Foster ranted and raged, stomping back and forth across the room. “I went to a lot of trouble to get you back.  Do you know how many people I killed in the last five years?  Their blood is on your hands.  And how much money this has cost me?  Your Judas was particularly expensive.  But it was all worth it, to get you back.  And now you are mine.  I came here to do something,” he continued bellowing, “and by God, I’m going to do it!”

He walked around the room, picking up some of the scalpels and surgical instruments that had been scattered during his fight with Jack. He set the metal tray table upright again, although crooked.  Foster adjusted knobs and wing nuts until the table was straight and stable again.  He set the table in front of Theia and arranged the instruments into neat rows.  To taunt her, he held up several scalpels one at a time, raising an eyebrow at her.  Theia put on a defiant face, but the pulse in her throat was pounding wildly.

“And now, my love, you will be disciplined for your adultery,” Foster said.  He got out a fresh set of surgical garb and set the stack of shrink-wrapped packages with a slap down on the kitchen table.  With deliberate movements, Foster tore open the package containing a surgical gown.  He slipped his arms in, pulled the ties around his waist and tied a precise knot in the front.  Foster put on a pair of surgical booties, a cap and a mask.  He snapped on a pair of latex surgical gloves and rolled the metal tray table to Theia’s side.  Walking behind her, he saw that she had worked her hands loose.

“That was very bad,” Foster reprimanded.  “You should not have done that.”

He walked over to the tray table and picked up a scalpel. Squatting down at her side, Foster quickly sliced the ropes that bound Theia’s ankles.  He grabbed her and forced her to the floor, as he lay on top of her.  “Because of that, I’m going to fuck you one last time before I kill you.” 

As he reached to unfasten his pants, Theia glanced to the side and saw some scalpels on the floor.  She threw her arm toward them, grabbing as many as she could, wincing as some cut her arm and hand.  In one quick, clean motion, she jammed them into his back as hard as she could.

He reared back in pain and shock.  Looking deep into his eyes, Theia saw the most terrifying thing she had ever seen.  Nothing.  Inside his eyes was a vast, arctic-cold, nothing.  No soul.  No light.  Nothing human.  Miles and miles of black tunnels winding throughout the universe.  The blackness was reaching for her, trying to pull her down.  Theia resisted as the blackness tugged and pulled at her.  She cried out, “No!”  Then even the darkness was gone.

Foster slumped over on top of Theia, his lifeless body heavy on her chest, making it hard for her to breathe.  She squirmed and pushed to get out from underneath him.  Scooting to one side and pushing him to the other, she finally got out from under his crushing weight.

Theia sucked in great gulps of air as she lay on the floor next to him, exhausted from the struggle.  She looked up at the ceiling and murmured a silent “Thank you.”  The nightmare was finally over.  Somehow, yet again, she had survived.  But this time, instead of Foster being carted off in an ambulance, he was right here and she could see with her own eyes that he was dead.

Theia looked over at Foster’s still form, face-down on the rough wooden floor, with scalpels sticking out of his back.  Some of them had fallen out onto the floor.

Theia’s gaze then went to Jack, who was also still.  Had she lost both of them - the man she had once loved and who had terrorized her, as well as the man she now loved?

She collected her strength to go over and see if Jack was dead or alive. Slowly, she stood and, teetering a little, she held on to a chair until she was steady. She stumbled across the room and knelt down at Jack’s side.  Checking his wrist, she did not find a pulse.  Grabbing his shoulders, she shook him, demanding, “Breathe, damn it!  Breathe!”  She checked for a pulse on his throat, and looked uncertain.  Placing her head on his chest, she listened for a heartbeat.  She popped up into kneeling position, a look of glee on her face.  He was alive! 

Two large hands grasped Theia by the throat and slung her onto her back on the floor.  Seemingly oblivious to the scalpels still sticking out of his back, Foster straddled her and squeezed her throat like a metal clamp.  She tried to yell to the people outside to help her, but he had cut off her air.  Her pulse pounded in her head.  The blood vessels in her head expanded as the blood could not circulate.  The pressure in her head was immense.  She was dizzy and saw little sparkly things.  The edges of her vision began to darken.  The dark area grew larger, until there was only a central area that was not blacked out.