Somebody Wants to Kill Me Read online

  She checked her wrist. It was still bleeding. Getting a small handkerchief from her pocket, she pressed it to the cut, cursing the raven that pecked her, and almost crying as she examined the red drops on the sleeve of her new white coat. Her beautiful Gucci! $8,000! Ruined!

  She switched Beethoven off.

  If she could get hold of that raven, she’d wring its scrawny neck. And that of the Jeep driver who had caused her to panic – hiding behind its black windshield, switching on his headlights, its beams cutting into the darkened cemetery, illuminating her, scaring her half to death. That could only have been deliberate. But why? Why?

  Under her handkerchief the cut was throbbing. What if she got blood poisoning? Or rabies?

  Could she get rabies from a bird cut? Did she need a tetanus shot? It was years since her last one and the nearest hospital was all of forty twisting miles away. What about old Doc Willowby, who’d withdrawn from the world ten years ago to live a hermit’s existence in a shack deep in the woods, hanging over a stream and small falls? The juices he extracted from his antibacterial leaves could save Paul and her the journey…

  No, the track to Doc’s place was over seven miles away. The best thing to do was to get back to Paul and see what he advised. And there was still the Jeep…

  What if it suddenly reappeared?

  Peering at the dark forest surrounding her, getting to feel more and more frightened the more she thought about its ominous all-over blackness, she stamped her foot on the gas pedal, spinning her wheels, then shot away from the side of the road and around the corner into a short straight.

  Up ahead of her, hiding in trees, was the Jeep.

  Instinctively, she flattened her gas pedal almost to the floor. The Jeep’s headlights came on and again like glaring eyes, seemed to follow her as she sped past. Glancing back in her rear mirror as she entered the next corner, she saw it exit the trees and come after her.

  Sliding into the corner too fast again, she managed to straighten out, and looked once more in her mirror and saw the black Jeep appear in it, its driver smoothly rounding the bend, in control of his truck, catching her up, his headlights full on.

  Oh, God, oh, God, why was he chasing her? What did he want with her? And why her? As for the truck, there was something evil about it. Its blackness. Its headlights, fixed hypnotic on her in her mirror. She forced herself to look away and saw another bend rushing up at her.

  Again she entered it too fast, her car whiplashing as she exited it. Managing to correct it she checked in her mirror. The Jeep driver ironed the corner, continuing to close up on her. Another two short straights and two bends sped by, and as they exited the second he was right on her tail.

  He rammed her.

  She screamed, almost losing control of her car as it snaked down the straight.

  He rammed her again, harder, jolting her, her seat belt cut into her shoulder, but this time she managed to keep her grip on the steering wheel as they entered the next bend, not quite so severe. Her more powerful engine opened up a slight gap, but ahead of them was an S-bend. Coming out of it the Jeep would be back on her tail, ramming her again, either trying to force her to crash or getting a sadistic pleasuring in terrorizing her. If the latter, the sonofabitch was succeeding. Her heart was pounding, the palms of her hands gripping the wheel were wet with sweat.

  Paul, oh, Paul, why didn’t I bring you with me?

  ‘Call home,’ she yelled at her car’s computer screen.

  The dial tone was immediately answered, thank God!

  ‘Paul Archer.’

  ‘Paul!’ she screamed at the screen.

  ‘Karen, what’s wrong?’ Paul cut across her, responding to her panic, his deep voice urgent yet reassuring, even over a phone connection, and more than two miles away from her.

  ‘I’m being chased–’

  ‘Chased? What do you mean?’

  ‘By a black truck. With black windows.’

  Glancing in her mirror as she neared the S-bend, she saw for the first time that the Jeep had no front license plate. Added to its blackness – not a sliver of chrome – and its all black windows that made it even more evil-looking.

  ‘It’s got no license plates!’

  Entering the S-bend at speed, she didn’t hear Paul’s reply. Skidding, slithering, she managed to get through it, but as she exited into the next short straight, the Jeep was back behind her.

  It rammed her again.

  ‘It’s ramming me!’ she screamed to Paul.

  ‘Pull away,’ Paul shouted back. ‘Your BM’s faster than a truck.’

  She accelerated, somehow keeping control of her sliding coupe around another bend, but lost speed snaking out of it into a long straight.

  The Jeep overtook her and drove alongside her.

  Up ahead she saw Carvers Gulch on her side of the road. The Jeep angled in at her, its side pressing against hers, forcing her toward its almost sheer descent, to send her over the edge and plunging down to her death on to the rocks below. Through the Jeep’s black windows she could feel the driver’s eyes fixed menacingly on her, feel him getting actual pleasure at the anticipation of her car flying out of control over the side, and the mangled wreck that in seconds would be her car, a metal coffin with her body crushed inside it.

  ‘He’s forcing me down Carvers Gulch,’ she shrieked, stamping her foot down on her brake pedal. Her wheels locked and her car slid inexorably across the road toward the gully.

  ‘Oh, God, I’m going over the edge.’

  Sitting before an open laptop, its screen blank, on an otherwise clear desk in William Ryan’s old study, holding an old fashioned corded phone to his ear, and a portrait of Ryan looking down at him, stern of face, from the wall above, Paul Archer heard Karen scream her last words. ‘Oh, God, I’m going over the edge.’ It was too late to shout back, whatever was going to happen to her was inevitable, no words of his could save her now.

  He listened to the screech of locked wheels coming over the phone line, followed by silence. Then came Karen’s voice. ‘My brakes held but with a wheel over the edge. I daren’t move in case I start to slide.’

  ‘Damn!’ Paul swore. A rugged man, just over six feet, good-looking rather than handsome, wearing jeans and denim shirt, fashion brands not Levis, ‘What about the Jeep?’ he demanded.

  ‘It went past me ‘round the next bend. He tried to kill me, Paul,’ she was almost crying. ‘He tried to kill me–’ She broke off and screamed. ‘Oh, God, he’s coming back!’

  Paul jammed the phone to his ear, interpreting the sounds as best as he could as he listened to what was happening to Karen at this very same moment.

  With mounting horror, Karen watched the black Jeep come nearer and nearer, aiming for her, the driver slowing down as though savoring the moment of impact before sending her to her death.

  But with a front wheel hanging over the gulch – if she moved that could happen anyway.

  Her engine was still idling. Taking her foot off the brake she slammed the gas pedal, her rear wheels sprayed grit as they fought to grip, then the BMW shot forward cutting across the front of the Jeep as it angled in at her. Its front fender clipped her rear one, the BMW swerved toward an embankment on the other side of the road that, if it drove into it, would bring it to a juddering halt. Desperately spinning the steering wheel, Karen controlled it and raced for the bend.

  Glancing in her rear mirror as she entered it, she saw the black Jeep make a U-turn and come after her.

  Oh, God! Oh, God!

  She exited the bend into a longer stretch of road. With her bigger engine, she could surely now open enough of a gap to keep him behind her until she reached home and Paul, and she would safe.

  She looked again in her mirror. The Jeep was catching up on her.

  Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Whoever the sonofabitch was, he must have a supercharged engine under his hood.

  ‘He’s coming after me again,’ she screamed at her car phone.

  ‘Lock your doors,’ Paul
yelled back.

  Fearfully, she locked them.

  Sam King sat in his parked white Ford Fusion by the side of the road. A silver BMW coupe flashed past him. He caught a glimpse of the young woman driver. Shoulder length tawny hair, she glanced desperately at him as she went by. Close on her tail was an old Jeep Wrangler, all over black, and black windows raised, hiding the driver.

  Sam, a Chicago cop, detective, Organized Crime, taking a solitary vacation in a cabin in nearby Ravensburg, seeking its isolation to be alone with his thoughts, switched on his engine. About forty years old, lean, wearing a dark blue shirt under a dark blue sleeveless padded jacket, dark blue slacks, he eased from the side of the road and drove off in pursuit.

  Glancing again in her mirror, Karen saw the white car in the near distance, slowly catching up on the Jeep, and breathed a sigh of relief that its driver had realized her plight and come after them.

  ‘Thank God,’ she yelled at her phone. ‘Another car’s coming up behind us.’

  ‘How far are you from home?’ Paul’s tense voice told her how uptight he was.

  ‘About a mile. Approaching Ravens Pond–’

  The Jeep rammed her coupe, jerking her so hard her seat belt dug into her again and cut off the rest of her reply. Recovering, she screamed again at her phone. ‘He’s still ramming me, trying to make me crash. Help me, Paul,’ she pleaded. ‘What do I do now?’

  In his study, the phone lay on the desk where Paul had dropped it, the line still open. From it came Karen’s voice, ‘Help me, Paul. What do I do now?’

  The study window overlooked a country road. Looking left, a front wing of the house jutted out, clapboard, substantial, showing that the whole was large. Once painted white, its freshness was long gone, telling that William Ryan, although wealthy when he was alive, was also thrifty, clearly not believing in any needless expenditure.

  A dark blue SUV shot out of the dirt driveway beyond the front wing of the house, and sped off down the road as Paul burnt his tires to get to Ravens Pond.

  In his rear mirror, the Jeep driver saw a white car closing up on him, then up ahead spied a sharp bend bordered by a coppice, thick trunked fir trees interspersed with slender saplings. I couldn’t have wished for a better spot, he malignly gloated. I’ll angle in on her, clip her rear fender and send her crashing into them – and speed off, leaving it for the driver behind to stop and try to render her aid. Except that try was the operative word. With more firs than saplings, the odds were more than stacked in his favor that she would slide out of control into one of them – head-on if the gods of retribution were looking down at them – but even if it wasn’t head-on, at that speed there was no way she could survive such a crash.

  Karen Ryan would be dead and he will have succeeded.

  Entering the corner, Karen saw the Jeep in her rear mirror pulling out and angling in on her.

  ‘Paul, Paul,’ she screamed at her screen phone. But again Paul failed to reply.

  At that same moment a truck trundled around the corner toward her. Instinctively braking to avoid it, she skidded out of control into the coppice.

  The Jeep driver locked his wheels, saw he was sliding straight at a fir tree, took his foot off the brake pedal as he fought to control the Jeep, and entered the coppice at speed behind the BMW.

  The driver of the truck, a vintage Dodge Ram, swerved to avoid the silver coupe and crashed into woods on the opposite side of the road, straight into the trunk of an oak tree.

  Plowing through the coppice, flattening saplings but miraculously missing any fir trees, Karen came to a halt stuck in thick mud on the edge of Ravens Pond. Dark. Forbidding.

  Behind her the Jeep hit a rise and flew over her coupe into the pool. For a moment it floated, then it started to sink. Its black door handle jerked up and down on the outside as the driver tried desperately to open it from inside.

  ‘No,’ Karen screeched at it, ‘drown, you bastard, drown.’

  She watched the door fail to open and the Jeep sink ever lower, but then his window started to roll down. Realizing he might yet crawl out of the cab and escape, she hammered on her steering wheel in rage, but then saw the window stop with a gap but inches wide. Gloved hands gripped it to force it down, but the water seeped in through the gap and the Jeep sank below the surface.

  Even as she exhilarated in the certain torment of his last drowning moments, her BMW started to slowly slide through the mud toward the dark pool. Local folklore had it that Ravens Pond was bottomless.

  ‘Paul,’ she shrieked. ‘Paul, where are you?’

  Unclipping her safety belt, she reached to unlock her door. An agonizing pain shot through her back. She couldn’t move. She screamed as, inch by slow inch, her BMW slid nearer the pool.

  A crow landed on her hood. It was entirely black, shiny feathers, legs, talons and bill, even its eyes were black. A bird so black was said to signify death. Karen screamed again. The crow cawed.

  And continued to caw the more she screamed.

  Sam saw the Jeep lose control and follow the silver coupe into the coppice.

  Slamming on his brakes, his car went into a sliding U-turn, backwards into the stand of trees. It hit a fir, his side on, and bounced off.

  Dazed, Sam looked into his rear mirror and saw the Jeep sink below the surface of the pond, and the BMW slowly sliding toward it. On its hood, peering into the coupe through its windshield was a black crow. It seemed to Sam to be cawing.

  A dark blue SUV braked to a stop alongside his Fusion as if out of nowhere. Sam shook his head, trying to clear it, but was only dimly aware of the driver leaping from it and running for the pond, yelling at the BMW as it slid slowly into its waters.

  Reaching the pool, the driver hurriedly kicked off his shoes and dived in.

  Only the upper part of the BMW was now above the surface of the pond, water was creeping up inside it and over the young woman’s shoulders, leaving just her face and hair showing. Sam could dimly see through her window that she was screaming. The crow, like a dark harbinger that had fulfilled its purpose, flew off to re-join other black crows, silent witnesses perched on the branches of an oak tree overlooking the pool.

  Sam glanced back across the road at the Dodge truck, saw the driver struggle out of it and fall to his knees, then get to his feet. Looking to be in his late twenties, wearing a brown leather jacket, army camouflage blouse, trousers, suede desert boots, he half ran, half staggered across the road.

  Still dazed, Sam looked again in his rear mirror.

  The SUV driver was swimming on his side on the surface of the pool, pulling at the almost submerged BMW’s driver’s door handle and kicking at its window, trying, but failing, to break it. Swimming on the passenger’s side of the car, also pulling at its door handle and kicking at its window, was another man who must have been in the SUV with him.

  The BMW sank, sucking air with it as it went under.

  Leaving only ripples on the black surface of the pond.

  -3-

  The Dodge driver staggered to Sam’s car. Sam unclipped his safety belt but couldn’t open his door, the impact with the tree had jammed it. He glanced again in his mirror and saw the SUV driver dive under the water after the BMW. The other man, wearing what looked like a black polo neck sweater, stayed on the surface treading water.

  The Dodge driver, 5’ 10”-ish, good looking, well built, crew cut hair – a combat soldier and tough with it, Sam reckoned, home from abroad on furlough – yanked at Sam’s car door but failed to budge it. Sam managed to crack his window down. ‘Can you swim?’ he yelled through the slit.

  ‘Sure I can,’ the soldier picked up on the urgency in Sam’s voice.

  ‘Coupe’s gone under–’

  ‘Karen!’

  The soldier spun away, cutting Sam off. Watching the scene unfold in his mirror, he saw the soldier half run, half stumble, to the edge of the pond. Tearing off his jacket and boots, he hesitated…precious seconds passed…and then he dived into the pool, straight do
wn into its murky depths, cold enough to maybe clear his head, but too late to help save her, Sam thought.

  Still groggy, he clambered over his gearshift, out through his passenger door, lurched to the pond. Peering into it, trying to penetrate its blackness at what was happening beneath its surface, she hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of coming out of it alive, he brooded.

  As her car sank slowly deeper, the water inside reached just below Karen’s mouth, then it stopped rising, leaving a pocket of air for her to breathe. She tried to stretch up in her seat, to have all her face above the water. The agonizing pain shot through her back, preventing her.

  She screamed again. Water seeped into her mouth. Choking, she spat out the foul tasting stuff, gulped in air and stared desperately out at the engulfing blackness, with only a faint light coming from the pool’s surface far above her, and her car slowly sinking further away from it.

  A wave of panic swept over her, and her heart was pounding so fast she could feel it as she realized she was going to die, die in the dark depths of a black pond, drowning as the air pocket she was breathing diminished, and the unrelenting water would creep up over her mouth and up her nostrils and down into her lungs, as it once had when she was fifteen and tried to escape her father and end it all by drowning herself in the bath – after first taking some tranks she’d got from a young pusher in her class at school on the promise of a quick feel behind the sheds she hadn’t kept – leaving her father to live the rest of his life alone, ruing the way he had mistreated her. The remembrance of it flashed before her eyes – but wasn’t it said that the whole of our life flashes before our eyes as we die, she despaired, recalling the burning sensation as the bath water filled her nostrils, and made her choke and retch up the contents of her stomach and swear never to try to kill herself again, but get her own back on him some other way.