Side by Side

34

Drenched in sweat, Lucy Dockery listened.

The trailer door burst open and a familiar figure entered. Heart pounding, Lucy froze in the doorway of the bedroom, holding Elijah to her. Her heart skipped a beat and she felt a hollow burn of acid churning in her gut. It wasn’t the woman.

“Wail, hail,” Scaly-hands called, smiling at her across the twenty feet that separated them. “You’re up and about, I see. I reckon Dixie ain’t back yet.” He took off his wet cotton duster and tossed it over the cold potbelly stove. His eyes were locked on her, his tongue darting in and out from the crack between rows of yellow teeth. He rubbed his hands together as he appraised her.

“You are a perty sight in that nightgown. A perty sight indeed.”

Lucy stood frozen, studying the man whose greedy eyes were broadcasting that his ugly mind was cobbling together something horrible. This hideous monster, driven by a lust that smoldered in a vile and focused anger, wanted her. If she’d found a weapon, now would be when to use it, but the only thing between him and her was Elijah, who clung to his mother like a terrified monkey.

“She’s coming back,” Lucy told him. As frightening as the thought of the big woman was, Lucy prayed that she would come. If Dixie couldn’t prevent him from doing what he wanted to do to her, probably no one could. He hadn’t hurt her before and she believed that was only because Dixie had been in the trailer.

“Why don’t you shuck off those panties?” he said, moving closer.

“Please,” Lucy said weakly. “Not in front of my baby.” She felt a wave of self-revulsion for using Elijah as a shield, and she wished she could somehow kill the man. She could kill him.

“Why not? Ain’t like he’ll remember it. People doing what nature wants them to ain’t bad for kids. Hell, I grew up seeing people doing the dirty deed.” His smile turned her blood to ice.

“Please?” she begged, trembling. “Please don’t do this.”

“Come out here,” he ordered. “Less you want me to come in there where it’s nice and dark.” He stared down at her legs as she came into the kitchen. She saw that he liked the fact that she was afraid. She also saw something that looked like splattered blood on his shirt and on his hands and neck.

Reaching out suddenly, he peeled Elijah off Lucy, held the screaming child up in the air by his arm, opened the bathroom door, and plopped the child down on the floor beside the toilet. Elijah howled. Scaly-hands closed the door as the baby tried to stand.

Lucy sprang at the man’s powerful shoulders and reached around to scratch out his eyes. He elbowed Lucy in the jaw, sending her sprawling, her head bouncing against the refrigerator door.

As he approached, Lucy scuttled back against the bedroom doorjamb.

“You rich gals all like it rough,” he said. “You get off on big old boys treating you like two-dollar whores. You need what Buck’s got, honey. And Buck’s got a whole lot of what you need.”

As he talked he unbuckled his belt. As he came toward her he pulled it free and wrapped it once around his fist so it would stay in place while he used it on her.

I can take it, Lucy thought. I can take whatever he can do, and I will get on the other side of this, for Elijah’s sake.

A six-letter word for being scared witless.

T-E-R-R-O-R

She closed her eyes, drew herself into a ball, and clenched her teeth, waiting.