Billie Girl

Chapter Thirty Eight

Stanley was still sitting on my chest, his knees pressing down hard on my arms. The dogs were barking away now.

"What is going on here?" she asked.

"Billie passed out. I guess the stress has been too much."

"He's lying Mom, call the police..."

"What's wrong, Billie? He is with the police."

"He isn't. He's the one who killed Leslie."

My mother clearly was just coming out of a very deep sleep and was having a hard time knowing who or what to believe. Certainly her first choice of who to believe was the man in the pin-striped black suit.

"For God's sake, Detective, there is no need to restrain her."

"You might need to contact her psychiatrist," Stanley said, crouched over me like that, "Or maybe you could take her to Network 360. They are called that because they turn people's lives around. Your daughter isn't well."

"Mom, you don't understand....he's going to kill me."

As the seconds passed, my mother's intuitive powers came back.

"You can get off of my daughter now, please, detective."

"She is a danger to herself, and she might be a danger to others. She needs a forty-eight-hour lock down for observation. I am sure that with some sedatives and antipsychotics, she will calm down and make a full recovery."

"Excuse me Mister, I said get off my daughter." My mother was now standing close, towering over Stanley and me.

"He's not a fucking detective!" I yelled at the top of my voice.

Stanley then punched me so hard on the bridge of my nose that I blacked out again. Again I saw Dad's face, his thin straight hair moving as if a breeze in heaven were blowing it and he was smiling saying, "Your room is all ready, I think you will like it. All your stuffed animals are there, and so is Nessie, she is doing so well. The silly thing loves running around the property. When you get here, you can walk her." Then Dad picked up my childhood dog, my beloved Welsh terrier who had run away when I was nine. The back fence was blown down by high winter winds and that was how she escaped, never to be found again. But now my father held her up so that I could see her again.

I snapped out of it and I could now see my mother laying on the couch weeping. Stanley was hovering over her, holding her neck with his black-gloved hands.

I found the strength to get up, and I ran to them and pummeled him with the full weight of my body, which was not much at all. He hardly budged. He turned to me. "You aren't strong enough to stop me, so why even try?"

He hit me with great precision in my throat and I lost the ability to breathe and again was thrown to the floor.

Again I was in some other world:

"And your grandmother, Molly, has been dying to see you," Daddy said.

"I only want to be with you," I said to my father.

"And so you shall be." And he kissed me on my cheek.

I opened my eyes. I could breathe again, but only haltingly. Stanley's hands were still gripping Mother's throat. Her face showed a terror which I had never seen before.

I ran to the kitchen and grabbed our biggest kitchen knife. The one that I used to cut chicken with and slice watermelons in half in the summertime. I was not sure I had the guts to actually use it, but then again, I was no longer my normal self. Adrenaline was pumping through me and reaching every corner of my being. Mother was all I had. And I was all she had. I would not allow him to take another member of my family away from me.

Then I stopped and stood there frozen and watched as he continued to choke the life out of her. I could hesitate no longer, and I plunged the kitchen knife into his back, but he was wearing a leather vest under his thick winter coat, and the layers were so thick that the knife did not penetrate. He didn't stop choking her. He was intent on taking my mother from me. I had to stab him again if I intended on stopping him. But then he let go of her neck and turned to me, while mother lay there lifeless.

He then came at me with full force, my life-preserving instincts took over, and I ran from him. The dogs were incessantly barking and the house was dark. He was following close behind me and I didn't even have time to open the front door and run outside, so I ran upstairs to my room and managed to make it inside and lock the door.

He pounded on the door. "Let's just do this already, Billie. You know you have been wanting this. Your sister is gone, your mother is now gone. You have nothing and nobody left. How are you going to take care of yourself now? They will have to place you in a shelter or a foster home, and I am sure you have heard what happens in those places. I know all about those places, because that's how I grew up. You will have nobody to trust. And those kinds of people don't take care of their kids. They will take from you, in every way imaginable. Its called abuse these days, but I will tell you what we called it back in the day. We called it fucking up a life so good, that when the kid grew up they ended up just like me, your friendly neighborhood Detective Stanley."

I considered jumping out my window, but I feared I would break a leg or twist my ankle, and then he could get at me for sure. I reached for my cell phone to dial 911 when the door burst open and Stanley stood there with a smirk on his face that sent a cold chill through my body.

"Please don't." I said, and I stepped back and wound up stepping on the remote to my TV. The station was set on Channel 140 which was an all-video channel, and they were playing the Keri Hilson song, where she sings: "Don't hate me because I am beautiful." And I thought, wouldn't you know it that I will be strangled to death with that song playing? I wondered if the forensic scientist that my mother adored so much would be able to pinpoint the song that was playing when I died. And then I realized my mind was just spinning around on hyper-speed and I knew then that only I would know the irony of getting strangled to a song called "Pretty Girl Rock." And I would be the only one who would take that information to the grave.

And then it felt like I was possessed by some goddess of passivity because it occurred to me that maybe if I didn't fight against my fate that it would wash right over me like water. The running and the stabbing and the hiding was not working, so I decided in a brief moment to take a totally different tactic as I said, "Do you want me?"

Stanley blinked in rapid succession, "Yes, I do."

"Then you can....have me."