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The woods behind Liz's house**********
Darkness. So impenetrable, so obscure.
It consumed
her. She floated in this veritable
oblivion, lost in the
sporadic, psychedelic colors.
However, consciousness began to
return slowly. At
first, it was a twitching of a
finger or two. Then the
throbbing dullness of her head.
The straw that broke
the camel's back was when she tried
to sit up. Pain
lanced all through her.
"Ohhhhh!" Liz moaned inaudibly.
Twisting a little, she felt sticks
and rocks digging
into her back. Leaning up on her
elbows, Liz took
stock of her surroundings. A strong
breeze blew
through the trees above her, and
thunder rolled in
the far distance. It was then that
she realized she was
soaking wet.
Shaking her head, she tried to remember
what
happened. Then it came flooding
back. The locked
and silent house, the dark figure,
the running, then
sliding, and then the voice. She
also remembered the
terror, the panic, the icy dread
that had pierced her
heart.
Still in shock, she stumbled to
her feet, leaning
against a nearby tree for support.
At that moment,
she felt a draft. Looking down,
she saw that her shirt
was ripped, from the waist all
the way to the
neckline. It hung on her more like
a jacket. She also
noticed her jeans were unfastened.
Quickly reaching
down to zip them up, she felt thick
fluid. Drawing
her back, she saw they were covered
in blood.
She began to scream uncontrollably.
At Liz's house (occurring simultaneously
as above
scene)**********
"LIZ!" Lucky called, pounding on her front door.
No answer.
"ELIZABETH!" he cried again. Throwing
all his
weight and strength into it, Lucky
beat against the
door with all his might.
"I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE, DAMMIT!
OPEN
UP!"
As he finished his bellow, a light
flickered on in the
house, then the porch light. The
door burst open
then, revealing an irate Sarah.
"What the HELL are you doing, Spencer?"
she
asked. "It's 1:30 in f*cking morning!"
Ignoring her and pushing her aside,
Lucky entered
the house, scanning for any sign
of his fiancee.
Seeing none in the living room,
he headed towards
the kitchen.
However, there he found nothing.
Before he could
traverse any farther, though, Sarah
intercepted him.
"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded.
Lucky just stared coldly into her
eyes. "I'm looking
for Liz. Where is she?"
Huffing, Sarah said, "How should
I know? I'm not
her keeper. She's probably off
somewhere, screwing
some horny guy. She's got an itch
in her pants that
you can't seem to satisfy."
Angered, Lucky grabbed her by her
upper arms and
began shaking her. his grip was
so tight that Sarah
knew she'd have bruises in the
morning.
Through gritted teeth, Lucky demanded
again,
"Where is she?!?!"
Before getting an answer, he disgustedly
threw
Sarah away and made an dash for
Elizabeth's room.
However, he found nothing there
as well.
Standing by the window, he leaned
against it and
sighed. He didn't know why he had
to find Liz. All
he knew was that his gut told she
was in trouble. He
HAD to find her.
"I don't know where she is, Lucky.
Can't you just
leave now?" Sarah beseeched him
from behind.
Whirling around, Lucky shouted,
"You don't even
care, do you? Liz could be lying
somewhere,
anywhere, right now, in danger,
in pain, hurt, scared,
and you don't give a DAMN?!?! DO
YOU?!!?"
Furious, Sarah returned, "Why should
I? She's never
done a thing for me, always stealing
the guys I want
with that poor-pitiful-me routine!
She's not a
helpless victim! She's just a pathetic
whore who's
got you so wrapped around her little
finger, you
can't tell the difference between
your head and your
prick anymore!"
CRACK! The sound of flesh whipping
against flesh
reverberated around the room.
Heaving, Lucky said in an icily
calm tone, "Don't
ever, EVER speak of you sister
that way again."
However, before Sarah could return
the blow, soul-
tearing screams echoed through
the house.
The woods**************
Elizabeth felt her lungs collapsing,
caving in on her
as she gulped for breath. He throat
felt raw and
scratchy from the screaming. Climbing
out of the
barrier of trees, she pulled her
tatter, blood-stained
shirt around her, and somehow,
she managed
another cry, pleading and desperate.
"LIZZIE!"
Again, she pushed air out of her
body in the form of
a death-cry, but it was drowned
out by a crack of
thunder. The sky opened up, mingling
its tears with
her own.
"ELIZABETH!"
She the wind screech her name. Sobbing
balefully,
she toppled into strong arms, overcome
by grief and
pain and fatigue. The arms lifted
her, spinning the
night sky before her. She stared,
through haze and
tears, at her angel's face.
Then, the darkness consumed her once more.
The hospital, a few hours later***********
Reality beckoned, teasing at the
edges of her stupor.
Warm and vague, it promised light
and enchantment,
rather than the dark cold of her
current state of
oblivion.
Moaning slightly, she shifted, trying
to piece
together her predicament. She lay
in a soft bed,
covered from head to toe in toasty-warm
sheets.
However, she did not recognize
the room. She was
attached to several machines by
wires, all blinking
and bleeping quietly. An IV bag
dripped some
unknown liquid into her blood stream.
Groggily, she thought, 'I must be
in the hospital. But
why?'
Then the truth came rushing back.
She recalled the
fear, the fall, the voice. The
sound of ripping cloth
as cold, gloved hands tore into
her flesh. Hands that
arched her back at an impossible
angle as they pulled
open her pants. Then the flash
of metal. The
downward motion of an arm. The
harsh life, and the
blinding pain as her stomach spilt
open, and her life-
blood slowly drained from her.
Remembering, and not wanting to,
Liz rolled to her
side, and wept, her salty tears
cascading down her
ashen face and pooling in glistening
reservoirs on the
toasty-warm sheets.
Outside Liz's room (occurring
simultaneously)**********
"But why can't I see her? She's
my fiancee," Lucky
asked again, for about the fifth
time in as many
minutes.
"Doctor's orders. No one's to see
the young miss,"
the rotund night-clerk replied.
"You can wait over
there, patiently."
The nurse pointed to a cluster of
chairs about five
feet away. Suppressing the urge
to storm into his
love's room, Lucky sullenly stomped
over to the
chairs and plopped down in one.
It was then that Bobbie and Detective
Alex Garcia
walked off the elevator. Bounding
up, Lucky rushed
to greet them. However, a stern
look from Garcia
shut him up.
Taking her nephew by the arm, Bobbie
suggested,
"Why don't we go sit back down?
Lucky, the
Detective would like to ask you
a few questions
before he sees Liz. After you do
that, I'll give you
the rundown on her condition, but
not before.
Okay?"
Reluctantly, Lucky nodded.
Taking their seats, Alex pulled
out his pad and a
pen, then looked pointedly at Lucky.
"All right, young man. Tell me how this happened."
Perplexed, Lucky just said, "Man, I don't know."
Sighing impatiently, Garcia then
asked, "Okay, why
were at Liz's so late?"
Taking in breath, Lucky launched
into his version of
the night's events, "Early this
evening, around eight,
Liz and I went out with my parents
to the club, to
celebrate Liz's and my engagement.
I left with Liz
around 11:30 and dropped her off
at home. About
1:30, I went back over there because
she wasn't
answering her line or the downstairs
line. When I
got there, the house was completely
dark. I pounded
on the door until Liz's sister,
Sarah, opened. I went
searching through the house, but
couldn't find a
trace of Liz. I was up in her room
looking around
when I heard screams. I ran down
the stairs and out
the back door. Liz was standing
at the edge of the
woods, crying and sobbing, soaking
wet. Her
clothes were torn, and she was
caked with mud. I
picked her up and brought her back
into the house.
It was as I was laying her on the
couch that I noticed
the blood on her shirt, jeans,
and hands. Then I
called 911."
At the end of his dissertation,
Garcia merely
grunted. Annoyed, Lucky turned
to his aunt and
demanded, "How is she?"
"Well, Lucky," Bobbie began softly,
"She was pretty
much out of it by the time she
arrived. She lost a lot
of blood."
"But from what? There was blood
all over her
stomach and jeans! Did she fall
or--" Lucky asked
emotionally.
"NO!" Bobbie stated firmly. "No,
Lucky, Lizzie
didn't fall."
Impatiently, he said, "What then?!"
"Lucky, Liz was....she was attacked...."
"Oh, God! Not again..." he moaned,
clutching his
stomach.
"No, she wasn't raped. However,
someone chased
her into the woods and somehow
got her to the
ground. They beat her, ripped up
her clothes, and
then...then...Lucky, they cut her.
The cut her bad.
The slice stretched all the way
across her hip. She's
lucky to be alive."
Shocked, Lucky leaned back, absorbing
the news,
tears welling in his eyes.
"Oh, God..."
Grief consumed him, pain and horror
too intense to
control. Rocking back and forth
slightly, Lucky
cried, tears falling down his face.
Together and apart, Liz and Lucky wept.
The Hardy House**********
A light knock at the door broke
Sarah's
contemplative silence.
Quietly, a black-clad figure entered the room.
Sarah turned accusing eyes to that
person. "Why
didn't you finish the job?"
Impassively, the figure replied,
"Because, as the
stupid b*tch's blood flowed over
my hands, a
brilliant idea occurred to me."
"Well, what?!?!"
"Oh, just a little added touch to our original plan."
The figure held up a slender, metallic
object. Placing
it into Sarah's hand, the person
said, "Place this
along with the other pieces of
evidence in Lucky's
room. It should provide an added
twist to the plot
when the police discover it there."
Sarah raised the object in her hands.
It was a pocket
knife, with a metal grip and a
blade about one-inch
wide and four inches long. An exact
duplicate of the
one Lucky had bestowed upon Liz
two years prior
for protection.
As the truth dawned on her, Sarah
laughed, a cold,
harsh, braying cacophony. And she
could not stop.