Chapter 17: Tara's Dream - The Nightmare Begins

Sitting at the bar with her face between her hands, Tara sobbed quietly not quite knowing what to do next.

She'd just taken her only child off to live with relatives in order to keep her safely away from her father who the police were very actively searching for. She came to this place because it's a place that he would never enter.

He'd abused her and her daughter for the last time.

That afternoon he'd come home from his part time job, drunk off his ass as usual, and started slapping Tara around. Tara was used to that treatment, they'd been married for a little over 7 years and about 2 years ago he seemed to slip off the deep end when his hi-tech job was ostensibly eliminated. She learned later, they had to get rid of him because of his attitude towards coworkers, especially female ones. He'd become too much of a liability.

Yelling at her at the top of his lungs, he pushed her down to the floor and started to tear at her clothes, ripping the blouse she was wearing and tearing the light shorts. Their daughter had come into the room and started to scream at him to stop.

"Stop it daddy. You're hurting Mommy. What are you doing?" she screamed at him.

It was when he started going after the youngster that her mother had finally had enough. She jumped up and grabbed for the phone dialing 911 just as he gave up chasing the youngster and falling down over himself, his equilibrium being toast as usual.

As the emergency operator came on the line, he slapped the phone away from Tara and started hollering and beating on her with his fists.

"Who you callin' you fuckin' cunt? Huh? I'm going to beat you to within an inch of your slut life."

Fortunately the phone had just hit the couch and rested there without disconnecting, so the emergency operator had heard what was going on and because of the reverse address facility she knew exactly where the call was coming from and the name of the "owner of the number." She had already dispatched the local Sheriff and informed them the guy in the house was very violent and could possibly be armed.

He must have had an idea about the call because suddenly he screamed death threats at Tara and his daughter and could be heard by the operator to be smashing things inside the house. The operator didn't know if he had killed the victims or not. There were no other voices in the house except his and the smashing of furniture and other items. It was all on the 911 tape that was to be used as evidence, but by the time the Officers arrived he'd run out the back door and out of the yard. He was on the run.

Surprisingly, Tara was not badly injured physically in the melee but emotionally she was a basket case. The young girl had barricaded herself into her bedroom with a baseball bat so she was untouched. The officer's report noted that he had no doubt that the youngster would have used it to defend herself.

Tara declined medical treatment as the officers radioed for backup, gave a description of the "suspect", issued an "All Points Bulletin" and took all the appropriate statements.

As things were wrapping up the telephone rang and the officer and Tara looked at each other. Tara gingerly picked up the telephone after the officer started his recorder. She placed it sideways between the police officer and herself managed to croak a, "Hello?"

"You're dead cunt," came through the receiver. "I'm going to make sure you never see another sunrise you two bit piece of shit, you and that slut daughter of ours. Some way, some day I'll hunt you down and slit your fucking throats."

Tara didn't even bat an eye, which shocked the hell out of the witnessing officer. He had actually managed to record most of the verbal assault.

There was still heavy breathing coming from the phone, and then the sounds of something being smashed, some yelling by someone and then the phone went dead.

At that point Tara decided to take Deanna, to a distant cousin's place for safekeeping, until there was no danger to her, she would be hidden away where he could never find her. So after a couple phone calls and Dee packing a bunch of her clothes and other things they both left in the car for the 2-hour drive. She had an unmarked police escort for the entire trip up and back to make sure there were no problems.

In the meantime there was a massive search going on for Tara's soon-to-be-ex-husband. The noises they had heard just prior to the phone going dead was an officer confronting and making an arrest attempt, but the officer wasn't prepared. He was nearly killed by Tara's husband, and when found by another officer; the search became even more earnest. Not only had he beaten his wife, threatened his daughter, then made death threats to his wife and daughter with an officer listening, he had assaulted and nearly killed a Sheriffs deputy and was now seriously on the run.

When she returned from hiding Dee away at her relatives, she knew she couldn't go home or anywhere near there.

She tried to think of a place she could go that he'd never even try to look for her, and remembered a couple of the women at work talk about a bar about 25 minutes away, so she drove in that direction. It wasn't in any part of town where he'd be likely to be, plus the bar was for gays and if he was anything he was a homophobe so she would be safe in there.

She had packed a backpack with some clothes and toiletries so she parked the car about 2 blocks from the bar, grabbed the backpack and nearly ran to the bar. It was getting dark so the chances that he'd see her if he were anywhere in the neighborhood was slim. But she had nowhere to go.

Tara entered the bar and sat down at the far end of the long wooden bar, and tried to stop shaking. Taking out her wallet and putting her credit card on the bar ordered 2 drinks and slammed one of them as soon as the bartender put it in front of her.

"Something wrong sweetheart?" he asked quietly not wanting to draw any more attention to Tara than she'd already drawn.

"No. Thanks," Tara mumbled shaking. "I'm ok. I'll be ok."

Now sitting at the bar with her face between her hands, Tara sobbed quietly, not quite knowing what to do next.

She'd just sent her only child off to live with relatives to keep her safe from her father who the police were searching for. She came to this place because it's a place that he would never enter...

"Hey, hon," she heard a soft voice, "I haven't seen you here before, and I'm here a lot, you new in the neighborhood?"

Tara looked up at the voice with her tear stained face and just broke down. She put her arms around the stranger, buried her face in her chest, and openly cried like a baby.

The stranger just held on and let Tara cry it out.

She felt very soft and was whispering calming things into her ear as Tara sobbed uncontrollably. For what seemed like hours, but was probably only 5 or 10 minutes, the world was centered on those arms surrounding her so firmly.

The whole time the stranger was calmly comforting her, holding Tara tightly.

The bartender came over with a dry towel and set it on the table where Tara's drinks had been set, and whispered into her ear that, "it's going to be ok young lady, Marie's got you."

Tara started to stir in the firm embrace so the stranger lessened her hold a bit to allow Tara to move and do whatever it was she was going to do.

Tara looked into the stranger's eyes, and thanked her profusely for letting her "be emotional".

"It's ok sweetie," said the stranger. You obviously have a problem, and I'm here to listen. My name is Marie by the way, what's yours?"

"Tara. My name's Tara," she said quietly to Marie as she sat down at the table and related the whole story.

Everything. She didn't leave anything out. She needed to talk it out and Marie was a willing listener.

Then the story ended at the bar with, "So here I am. No place to go. No body to call, and scared to death to go outside for fear he'll be there. Oh Marie, what am I going to do?"

"Don't worry hon, we'll take care of you and keep you safe. Let me make a quick phone call and we can get you to a safe place to hang out for as long as you need."

With that Marie stood up, and when Tara looked up with a look of sheer panic, put her hand on her shoulder and shushed her quietly telling her, "I'm only going to the bar to get the phone, hon, I'll be back in a flash."

The bartender had eavesdropped and had the phone on the bar ready for her. "You going to call Tom?" he asked.

"Yeah, he's not working tonight, obviously. He'll not only know what to do, but how to do it, and he'll also drop everything and come to help. Pity the bastard if he's anywhere around here. Tom will tear him up and spit him out. He hates woman abusers, and this one has a child that was threatened and abused. Tom will go fucking ballistic."