Billie
The dream is all hands and no face.
Rough palms, wide and calloused, dragging up my thighs, spreading me open. A mouth settling against me that feels like a violation but also like it knows exactly what I need. The scratch of stubble on the inside of my thigh. A low voice humming against me and I know that sound.
The face moves down low, it's dark, I can't see, but what this man's tongue is doing would make a girl find God. He's working his mouth on me and it feels dangerous, but I don't want him to stop.
Please, show me your face.
No, baby. No one can know--
My eyes snap open and I feel like I'm suffocating.
I'm on my stomach, hips grinding into a pillow that's somehow made it between my legs, my worn Bullwinkle and Rocky t-shirt rucked up around my waist. My skin is damp and my breath is ragged and the ache at the apex of my thighs throbs with unfinished business.
I fling myself onto my back and press the heels of my hands against my eyes.
Relentless rain batters the cabin as I kick my heels into the mattress. Lightning turns the room to bone-white for a half second, then it's gone.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand. The screen stings my eyes.
Rudolph at 10:14 PM: Home. Love you baby. Goodnight.
Janice at 10:22: Darlene is neutralized. Call us if you need anything sweetheart.
Rhett at 10:30: Got back safe. Lock up, sweetheart.
Sweetheart. I stare at that word until the screen dims. He calls Janice that too, calm down.
12:03 AM — I've barely been asleep an hour and I'm wound so tight I doubt sleep will return anytime soon. I drop the phone facedown on the nightstand and swing my legs off the bed, padding to the bathroom. I peel off my soaked panties and kick them into the corner.
I twist on the faucet with a squeak, cup my palms, gather some cold water, then lower my face into it with a sigh. Rinse, repeat.
When the dream lust retreats to a dull throb, I brace my hands on the sink and look at myself in the dark mirror. Lightning flashes and I look flushed, wide-eyed, blonde strands falling out of the messy bun.
"What is your problem?" I mutter, tugging my scrunchie out of my hair and letting it fall.
I know what my problem is. My problem is six-four with salt-and-pepper hair and hands that could carve my heart right out of my chest.
I snap off the light and pad back into the bedroom.
Cold air raises goosebumps on my bare legs. Not the stale chill of a drafty cabin. This is fresh, moving air.
I dart my eyes around the dark room. The French door to the balcony is open a couple of inches.
It wasn't open when I went to bed. I press the backs of my knuckles to my lips.
The storm spray is wetting the hardwood in a little puddle by the opening.
A hint of shadow from the porch light, but not enough to make out shapes.
Pushing some steel into my spine, I step toward the door to close it and an unoiled hinge squeals slow, like a bad horror movie. Then a scrape from something heavy follows from behind me.
I go stiff. Every nerve comes alive going on high alert.
"Don't close it." A low voice rolls out from near my closet, where the dark is thickest. "I like hearing the rain while I watch you."
My heart hammers in my throat. I can't swallow around it.
Another creak, scrape. "Was a nice little show.
You lying there on your belly. Rolling up that pillow and stuffing it where you need attention.
You made some pretty sounds..." The voice is muffled and the silence when he stops talking is somehow more frightening than when he's talking.
"Made me want to climb on top of you and do some ass humping of my own. Gave me some ideas."
My hands start to shake. I press them flat against my hipbones. The distance to the bedroom door is five steps to my left. He's to my right, between the closet and the open French door.
"I know what you're thinkin' there, little bunny.
" He exhales on an audible swallow. The scrape of his boot comes again, one, two.
"Go ahead and run. That's a party I'd show up for any day.
" There's another pause, another scrape, tension presses the air around me as pressure builds behind my eardrums. "I waited for your family to leave.
They think you're nice and safe and tucked in for a day or so at least. Enough time for me to have all the fun I want. "
My teeth are chattering as saliva gathers under my tongue.
I'm fast. I know this land.
Whoever this is doesn't have that advantage.
I tense my thighs, inhale, and launch myself toward the bedroom door, rip it open, and I'm through it before the sound of his first boot step hits the hallway floor behind me.
My legs move up and down in a fury but his steps come heavy and unhurried behind me.
I take the stairs two at a time in bare feet, my hand slapping the wall as my balance teeters in the dark. I hear him chuckle, then a boot hits the first step following me down.
Fuck. I'm moving as fast as I can but he's still too close.
I hit the ground floor and cut through the living room, panting, banging my shin on the coffee table, pain blooming up my leg. The front door is deadbolted and chained.
Of course it is.
I fumble with both, shaking, rattling the chain off, throw the deadbolt, and yank the door open.
The storm hits me like a wall. Mouth open, I suck in wet air and cold as rain soaks through my shirt.
Wind shoves me sideways off the porch. I catch the railing, then my feet hit mud that swallows me to the ankles.
I dare one look back. A silhouette moving through the house toward the door.
I tug each foot from the mud with a wet, sucking sound and run.
There's no moon, no stars, nothing but the black sky dumping water and the occasional lightning flash that turns the whole world white for a split second before snatching it away.
In those flashes I gauge the old work truck. Twenty yards left. I pivot and sprint, rain hammering my face, blinking to keep my sightline clear.
"Come on." I hiss, reaching the truck and tugging the door handle.
Locked. I don't lock this truck. No one wants to steal this piece of shit.
Fuck.
I slam my palm against the window and spin, pressing my back to the cold metal, chest heaving, scanning the dark.
Lightning cracks overhead. The front door to the house is wide open. The hallway light's been turned on, spilling a weak yellow rectangle onto the porch.
Standing in that light is the man. Watching me. All black. His face in shadow.
I make a break for the tree line. Forty yards to the creek, then north — there's a hunting blind in a huge oak. I can make it.
My feet are numb and every step is a fight, the earth pulling at me, holding me, slowing me down. I'm in nothing but the t-shirt, soaked through and plastered to my body, and the cold is sinking into my bones.
I don't even have the dignity of underwear.
Lightning flashes and I catch a glimpse of the boulders that line the creek and veer toward them. If I can get over, I can get to the blind.
I'm ten feet away when my foot catches something and I go down hard with an oof. Hands and knees and face down into the sloppy earth, the impact jarring through my wrists, cold muck splattering up my thighs and stomach.
I scramble, toes slipping, knees to my chest trying to get up and my right foot slides out from under me and I go down again, tasting mud and rain.
Get up. Get up. Don't quit. Never quit.
Tears burn at my lower lids. This is impossible.
How is this happening to me? My mind spins, trying to think of anyone I've bumped into in town recently that seemed off. I come up with nothing. I've never even had a secret admirer let alone a stalker.
This is crazy.
When the lightning flashes again, he's right there.
Five feet away. Walking through the storm like he's the one that brought it with him.
That's when I see it.
It's not my eyes playing games. He's wearing a mask.
White bone. Hollow eyes. A toothy grinning skull flashing before the dark eats it again.
I choke on a gasp tangled with a gag. I dig into the ground and push off, turn, turn again, cut behind the big rocks and keep low so he can't see when I double back.
I get behind the oak. The ladder's on the far side, out of his sightline.
I manage one hand on the first board and I'm hauling myself up when my head jerks back with a violent tug of my soaked hair and I tumble back to the wet earth with a hard thud.
I scream. The rain sucks it from the air.
There's nowhere to run.