I’m Fixing To Play Dead (Part 46)

The expression of shock remained on Louise’s face after I told her I wasn’t going up to Sissy’s lake house with them to hide out from Red, and then the sound of the garage door opening caused her to just about jump off the kitchen chair she was sitting on. When she had partially recovered she begged me to make sure that it was her little sister entering the garage.

I could feel her hand on my back as we walked toward the door leading from the kitchen into the garage. When we reached it, I turned the doorknob with my left hand while I slid my right one inside my jacket and caressed the handle of my weapon. When I cracked the door I saw the Lexus pulling into the garage with Sissy at the wheel. I comforted Louise by saying, “It’s her. Everything is okay.”

I opened the door wide for her. Sissy came rushing in, looked at me and breathlessly asked, “How much time we got?”

“We got about 30 minutes before we have to start getting nervous,” I told her.

As the ladies were gathering up their bags to load into the Lexus Sissy asked where my stuff was? “He’s says he ain’t going,” Louise informed her.

Sissy’s lovely head snapped back to face me. “Why not?” she asked in alarm. “You can’t stay here and face that murderer! Maybe we should all stay here and call the cops.”

I began helping with the bags while I explained the situation. “What’re we going to tell the cops—that a killer’s coming this way in a silver SUV? They’ll have a lot of questions and chances are Red would spot them and take off, besides, there would be the problem of how to explain me.”

“Explaining you won’t be a problem in a couple of days,” Sissy said, “but I guess it would be right now. I’ll just be worried sick if we leave here without you. Why in the world would you want to stay?”

“Don’t you see? We know he’s coming and I can be ready. If there’s a next time we might not have the advantage of knowing he’s coming. All you have to do is call here after daylight tomorrow morning, and if I don’t answer the phone, then you should probably call the cops. Now it’s time for y’all to get moving.”

Sissy sighed in agreement with me, reached inside of her purse and pulled out a set of keys. “This is a key to the Cherokee and there’s also one to the house.” Then she handed me a slip of paper and said, “Just in case, here’s a map to the cabin. It’s kind of hard to find, and my cell phone number is written at the bottom.”

Then they both dashed off to separate bathrooms for a last minute stop. As soon as I heard the bathroom doors close I knew this was my opportunity and that I had to move fast. The first stop was my bedroom where I grabbed the suitcase of cash and a blanket. When I got into the garage I placed their bags on the back seat of the Lexus, raced around to the rear, lifted the hatch and placed the money bag on the carpeted floor. Afterwards, I quickly stripped off my money belt, tossed it in next to the suitcase and then threw the blanket over them. Now, neither Louise nor the money would be here when Red arrived.

A moment later they both spilled out the kitchen door into the garage and leapt inside the vehicle. I walked around to the driver’s side and closed Sissy’s door. The window was down and my hand was on the top of the door. She covered it with her own and with a scared and concerned look said, “Sonny Boy, promise me you’ll be real careful!”

After they had backed out of the garage and down the driveway I watched the tail lights disappear before I went back into the garage, closed the door and deactivated the automatic opener, knowing it was time to get ready for Red.

Now I was secluded next to the hedgerow in the back of the yard, the one I had scouted out earlier, where I could observe the back yard and the back of the house. Once again I was alone in the dark, cold and sitting on the damp ground, but I did have a blanket this time. After the girls had departed I had turned off all the lights inside and outside the house except the dim one on the back patio, and now I sat, shivering and waiting, huddled in the shadows of the hedgerow.

I had expected Red to show up sometime during the first hour, but at around two a.m. I was having second thoughts like, “Maybe he’s not coming tonight, maybe I had been wrong.”

Looking up into the cold and clear sky I saw a million stars brightly flickering. That’s when I felt the sandman tugging at my tired eyes. I fought it off, but after another half-hour I had to stand up and move around to stay awake. Once I got limbered up I moved back into the shadow of the hedgerow where it wasn’t long before I fell into a stupor, similar to the feeling of driving on a warm, sunny afternoon when your eyes get heavy and you get a floating feeling of nothingness until your tires hit the rough shoulder of the road and snap you back to wakefulness.

I crawled out of the fog of semi-consciousness two times, but the third time got me and there was no sudden grinding of tires on rough gravel to awaken me. I descended beyond the edge of the road into what was fixing to be a dark forest of deep sleep.