Chapter 35

Def Leppard, and death!

That night, Patty dreamed of a man whispering in her ear -- a bad boy, by the sounds of him, with his buttery deep voice and confident manner. He told her about all the things he could do for her, to her, and all she had to do was...

Patty startled awake. A loud booming bass line was coming from her landlord Carl’s house next door. She looked at the clock: 3 AM.

She would normally have just turned over and plugged her ears, but that dream had left her feeling full of energy. She grabbed her bathrobe, put on some slippers, and strode across the intervening lawn, the cool night air slipping under her robe and up her thighs like an overeager lover as she went. She shook her head at that thought ... she had been reading too many romance novels!

She banged on the door of Carl’s house with her fist. A few moments later, her nose was assaulted by the scent of unwashed male and cigarettes, and her ears by Def Leppard, as Carl opened the door, beer in hand, still wearing the jeans and dirty t-shirt from earlier that day.

He leered at her. “Who’re you, babe?”

“I’m ... Patty,” she answered, confused, “your renter?”

“Oh shiiit!” Carl whistled as he squinted at her. “Without yer glasses you look totally different, like Clark Kent and Superman, y’know? Well, come on in, Supergirl!” He opened the door wide.

Now Patty realized that she was standing there in a simple bathrobe being ogled by the man who had been stealing her dirty panties, and she had left her phone back in her bedroom. Was she stupid? she wondered. Why did she think that this was a good idea? “I ... no, I need to go to sleep. Please just turn down the music, Carl.”

She turned to leave, but he grabbed her arm. “Naw, I said get in here, bitch!” Then he yanked her into his living room, her robe coming open as she spun about. She heard the front door slam and the deadbolt lock as Carl strode toward her.

“Carl, no--”

Smack! He backhanded her, and she fell to her knees, her face nearly hitting the coffee table. She could see several bottles of liquor on it, mostly empty, and the remainder of a line of white powder on a mirror, which explained Carl’s lack of restraint.

Then her face was shoved forward into the dirty carpet and she felt her bathrobe being flipped up onto her back. Her bare ass was hanging out now!

“Noo!” she cried, but her voice was muffled by brown shag carpeting, long past its trendiness. She heard Carl unzip his pants.

All her life, Patty had been treated like she didn’t matter. Her older sister was prettier and more successful, her only boyfriend in college had revealed that he had settled for her when he really wanted her more attractive roommate, and now she was going to be raped by this skidmark!?

Her hand flew out to grab something, anything, that would help her. Her fingers closed around something solid, and she swung it back, hard.

“Ack!” Carl yelled, and fell back, holding his head where the whiskey bottle had tagged him. “Fucking bitch! I’ll...”

Then he was face down on the floor and no longer moving. Patty hadn’t even realized that she had jumped to her feet and swung the bottle again, this time with maximum force, fueled by her anger and adrenaline.

“Carl?” She dropped the bottle. She knelt next to him and saw blood trickling from his head.

“Oh no ... no no no...” She looked for his phone but realized that it must be in his pocket. She didn’t want to touch him again, so she unlocked his door and dashed back for her own phone. As she ran into her bedroom, she tripped over something.

The old book from the apartment fire was on the floor. How had it gotten there? she wondered. She was sure that she had left it in her bag. Then she thought for a moment ... the book promised power, everything she ever wanted, and all she had to do was...

She rushed back to Carl’s house, the book in her hand and her phone in her robe pocket. As she reentered his house, she noted that he was still breathing, but the growing halo of blood around his head told her that time was running out.