Ashes of a Nightmare by Jalena Dunphy

Author:Jalena Dunphy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jalena Dunphy
Published: 2021-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

As if someone was controlling my life with a remote control, everything happened in slow motion. My mouth hung open. My chest hurt like a rifle had been fired, leaving a hole where my heart should have been. It was nearly impossible to breathe.

Joe and Newbie’s knees were on the floor—they were too busy fighting to notice her presence. In her small hands, she held a familiar red book held high above her head. The long sleeves of her knee-length black dress rolled down her arms. Her forearms were straining from the weight and the position.

Despite informing Betty that no one used encyclopedias anymore, she gave me her World Book set when I went off to college. Hearing the sound of the encyclopedia making contact with Joe’s head, the look in his eyes when he stared at me as if searching for answers, and the subsequent thud of his body against the cold linoleum floor, I’d never been happier with a seemingly useless gift.

I tried to focus on Joe, on Newbie, on Kris, but Doris consumed my vision. What in the hell had she done? Was she overthrowing Joe? Did she want to take the reins for a while? If what she’d done to Newbie was a glimpse into what she’d do to me, I’d rather deal with Joe. I was in no mood to start from the beginning to learn if her levels of wickedness sunk as low as Joe’s.

She bent over his body and hit him three more times with the large book. When he no longer moved, she was still for a moment, moving only enough to set the book down onto the kitchen table. My eyes were frozen open. There were no words, no screams, no laughs, no cries of relief that I, we, might finally be free. I sat motionless. My restraints were forgotten. Kris’s tongue wasn’t missing. Newbie’s neck wasn’t turning red from Joe’s arm pressed into his throat. For the longest second of my life, everything ceased to exist, everything but the tiny woman married to a psychopath whose body was now lying lifeless on the floor.

She hurried around Newbie to stand behind my chair. Having her out of my sight was unsettling. Without knowing her intentions, she remained as high a threat as Joe.

Time resumed, speeding past all the seconds I’d lost.

Newbie was staring down at Joe, bewildered. Kris’s narrowed eyes said she didn’t trust the situation either. Were we free to go? What would happen to us all now? Why couldn’t this have happened before Joe cut out Kris’s tongue as penance to an undeserving sin?

The sound of zip ties snapping was followed by the ability to move my hands. I immediately drew them to my lap. I took turns rubbing one aching wrist then the other. She freed me. But why?

Doris stood before us in the center of the room. Mine and Kris’s backs pressed against the rungs of our chairs. Newbie got off the floor and sat back down on his chair beside me.

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