Killing Ways

23

Carly Raine stood in her back garden, dressed in a white tank and blue denim cut-offs. There was a laundry basket at her bare feet. She was hanging white bedsheets on the washing line, enjoying the cool as they lapped back against her bare arms and legs. It was the highest breeze to rise in weeks, and as soon as she felt it that morning, she thought of doing laundry. And right after that, she thought of how sad and domesticated she was. But she smiled — she loved her life. Partying and dating were behind her — and they had brought her a big handsome husband, and two beautiful children to love all day, every day. Even on Saturday nights, when all over the world people were lighting up bars and dance floors and not having to worry about getting up the next day to be mom to a three-year-old boy and nine-month-old baby girl. Carly Raine never thought she’d see the day. And love that day. Every day.

He had taken a wrong turn. He had come here for someone else, but he was hidden now at the back of this sheltered property, out of the parked pickup, drawn through the trees by the flapping white sheets. He had seen her at the washing line, her back to him, and he felt the breath being sucked from him, as if by a violent force that wanted to rob lives in one terrible inhalation.

He was taken home, decades back. And he never wanted to be taken home — not then, not now. He felt a surge of heat through his body, a powerful rage to push back — to push back on whatever was trying to destroy him.

He sucked in a huge breath, and made his way, out of sight, to the back door of the house.

I worry when it goes quiet, thought Carly Raine. But she was smiling. She was sliding a peg down onto the last corner of the last bedsheet. Something in her chest tensed. Her heart. It had gone really, really quiet. She had zoned out. Silence had fallen, and... where was Tyler? Isobel was asleep in her crib upstairs, she knew that. But where was Tyler? He had been running all over the garden. A shiver swept up her back.

‘Ty?’ she said. ‘Ty, sweetheart?’

She whipped back the white sheet. The kitchen door was closed. She knew she had left it open. Her gaze was drawn to the right, where she could see Tyler, standing in the window of the dining area, his hands flat against the glass.

What’s he doing in there?

Carly was slow to process the scene.

‘Oh my God!’ she screamed.

There was a man dressed in black, standing behind her son.

Carly ran for the kitchen door. She realized that the man was now walking through it, without Tyler, but closing the door behind him, coming toward her. She glanced at Tyler, who was screaming now, but it was silent and terrible, and this man was on top of her, knocking her back, sharply onto her back.

Carly went to scream, and as her mouth opened wide, her attacker’s mouth opened just as wide, and he clamped down on hers. It was a suffocating, terrifying pressure, his tongue plunging down deep, making her gag, making the veins on her neck bulge as she tried to raise her head. He kept on, depriving her of breath, closing off her nostrils, leaving her desperate and coughing for air.

She never imagined that in a situation like this she could go limp, she always imagined herself fighting, but this was it, this was her moment, and she turned to liquid.

My babies. My babies. My babies. Help me! Someone!

He pulled his head up, smiled down at her, waited for her to catch her breath.

‘Please don’t do this to me,’ said Carly. ‘Please — my babies. I want to live. I want to live. I really want to live. I’ll do anything you want. And I’ll never tell anyone what you did. I swear to God. I won’t even report this. Just... you can do whatever you want to me. I swear. You can even hurt me. I... just don’t kill me. I don’t want to die. I have my family. I love my family. My friends. I... I just don’t want to die.’

‘Well,’ he said slowly, like he was giving it thought. ‘I wouldn’t be doing my job right if you didn’t feel like dying by the end of it, now would I?’

She let out a choking gasp, and he slapped her hard across the face. She started to shake as she stared into the vast, gaping blackness of his eyes. It was like nothing she had ever seen. It was like a possession. She believed in that. Carly Raine had learned about the devil when she was in Sunday School and she remembered a line she had first heard when she was seven years old: the devil wears coats. And she knew what that meant, even then. The devil can slip inside anyone and make himself one with them. Carly began to pray. She began to pray to Jesus, who she always believed was not just all around her, but inside her heart and soul. Right now, he was rising up to fight this devil off, because the devil never wins. Right? The devil never wins.

But the devil did win, and in winning, he could soar. He was above her now, above them both, looking down on this perfect scene: woman, naked, hunted, soon to be raped, soon to be lifeless. And he would be there, kneeling behind her, bending over her, filled with life, overflowing with it, as he was taking hers away.