Little Lucy and the Big Bad Wolf Ch. 06

*This is the final chapter of the story. If you haven't read the others, I recommend doing so as this is only here to complete the tale for those who are interested in the fate of the characters. There is no sex in this chapter but rather a consideration of the whole point in its composition and a response perhaps to previous comments. I hope you enjoy and, as always, comments are welcome.

Lucy felt her eyes opening but nothing was revealed but a blackness as deep as the unconscious void from which she had emerged. Her mouth was dry and she became aware of rough cloth between her teeth- a gag. Her wrists hurt and she was puzzled then anxious when she realized that she couldn't pull them apart. She was bound and drowning in darkness.

The air was close and hot and she panicked. She struggled against her bonds but hit her head on something metal and pain detonated behind her eyes.

She groaned and tried to take control, forcing herself to take deep and calming breaths. She felt a jolt and became aware of the deep buzz of an accelerating engine. Realisation blossomed- she was in the boot of a car!

The image of her grandmother's corpse came back to her; the ragged gash at her throat spilling crimson blood, and Lucy sobbed as she realised it was all true- this was her reality.

The car boot stank of oil and old cigarettes and her mind raced as she tried to comprehend what was happening to her and why.

This can't be real; it's not happening! The thought spun in her mind like a scrolling LED display but she felt the coarse lining of the boot beneath her head and smelt the stale smoke and felt the lurches and jolts and knew that it was real, that it was indeed happening as her abductor took her heaven knows where.

She brought her bound hands up to her face and tried to slip her fingers into the dirty cloth gag in her mouth but then she heard the brakes groan and felt the car come to a stop. The handbrake clicked but the engine kept running. A door slammed and she heard heavy footsteps falling on wet earth and a second later the boot was open and cold air was flowing onto her face. The boot light flicked on and her eyes stung from the sudden brightness. She blinked and the image of a man slowly coalesced before her.

He towered over her, clad in black. He was unshaven and his grimy hair fell about his face in lank curls. He stank of drink and his eyes were bloodshot and wild. His right hand rested on the lid of the boot as he stared down at her and she moaned with horror at the sight of dry blood on his palms. In his left he clutched the terrible blade with which he had ended her grandmother's life. Fat and heavy rain fell about him as he leered down at her and she whimpered.

Then his bony hand was grabbing her by the collar of the red hooded sweatshirt and dragging her from the confinement of the car boot. She fell to the wet muddy ground and her bare knees stung from the sudden impact. She bore the pain and stole a glance at their surroundings. It was dark and raining but she could discern the shadowy silhouettes of trees about them, and could hear the violent wind stirring their leaves. She frowned through her shock and felt that, despite the hellish nature of the place, it was somehow familiar. She panted through the gag as he slammed the boot shut above her. Her lungs felt lacerated by the fumes of the exhaust pipe next to her face and she coughed awkwardly through the cloth between her teeth.

Then his fingers were in her hair and wrenching her to her feet; needling pain latticed her scalp. Still painfully clutching her hair, he pulled her along with him, across the muddy and slippery road and into the uneven ground of a forest.

"Please," she tried to say but the gag muffled and distorted her pleading into an unintelligible groan. She tried again but it was no clearer and by focussing on this she lost her footing when her foot snagged on a tree root. She fell forward and was suspended for a moment as his hand in her hair took her full weight. Her scream was muffled but unmistakeable and his fingers released. She fell forwards and, without her hands to take the fall, her face slammed into the damp mulch of the forest floor.

His hand was at her throat in an instant, pulling her into a sitting position. His palm came sailing through the air and impacted with her cheek leaving the skin pink and stinging.

Then his face was before her own, spraying spittle as he hissed, "Concentrate you little cunt... and keep your fucking mouth shut or I'll cut your fucking throat just like..."

Tears ran down her cheeks as she winced from this terror before her. He couldn't finish his sentence but the image of her grandmother's ruined body returned.

She sobbed once, twice... but that was all he'd allow. His fingers gripped her arm and she was wrenched once more back to her feet, the cruel blade held in his other hand, always ready for a slicing violation of her flesh.

Ever on he dragged her and she knew it was no use struggling, not with the knife promising pain at every step; on and on, stumbling between the trees, the branches flailing above them like the limbs of silent, screaming children. The rain lashed down between the boughs, drenching them both, mixing with the cold sweat of her skin. Her hair hung, tangled and dripping about her shoulders. The only light was of a full moon that peeked between clouds now and then, illuminating the nightmare that unfolded before her eyes and on the tips of her nerves.

Eventually, after an age of terror and pain had passed, her abductor dragged her before a large tree on the edge of a clearing. He cast her to the ground before its spreading branches and she panted in exhaustion and pain. She glanced about and realised with mounting confusion that she sat beneath a chestnut tree. The chestnut tree. The tree under which she had first consummated her love with Richard.

Oh, Richard; if only he could be there now to save her from this misery.

The meadow of blue flowers was barren now autumn had worked its power. The clearing was dark and mockingly cold. No longer would it be her favourite spot. No more would she collect those flowers for her grandmother... unless it was for her grave... if, of course, she ever had that chance.

The evil stood before her and the wet blade glinted in the intermittent moonlight. He leant forward and pulled the gag from her mouth. It fell about her throat and she took deep breaths and tried to gulp the dryness away. His hand went to an inside pocket of his jacket and she regarded her phone as he withdrew it.

"We need company for this," he snarled and his yellow teeth were bared. "I need to make a call. You stay right where you are."

She watched as he began to tap on her phone, frowning as he navigated whatever menu he had discovered. She tried the bindings at her wrists again and realised that the rain and mud had afforded her more freedom; she could slide her wrists more easily against each other. Furiously she began to work at the bonds but not so vigorously that he might notice.

His eyes returned to her as he raised the phone to his ear and she froze. A moment passed and then he spoke.

"I'm not your baby... Yes, it's me. I've got something of yours- I think you know what it is and I'm going to gut her... Listen! I'm going to cut this little whore unless you come and meet me. It's time to stop running, Richard. It's time to confess your sins and be judged. Come find us. We're where you two first met. How romantic. Oh, and I hear one siren, I see one uniform and this little cunt gets her throat slit. Understand?"

Without waiting for a response his finger pressed a button and he cast her phone to the ground.

"Now we wait," he breathed and she noticed his hands were trembling. "Shouldn't be long, I think. He won't be able to stand the idea of his little whore at my mercy."

Her mind swam with pain and confusion; he had called Richard but for what purpose? What was the connection?

"Why do you call me that?" she croaked.

"What?" he snapped, seemingly surprised at the sound of her voice.

She gulped painfully and spoke again, "Whore. Why do you call me that?"

He released a hiss through his teeth.

"Because that's what you are. A whore. Giving him your disgusting little body. Letting him corrupt you. You repulse me."

He spat at her and his saliva landed on her mud streaked legs.

"Who are you?" she asked him, steeling herself against the fear.

He smiled; a twisted leer that mocked lives of joy and contentment.

"I'm the retribution your corruptor has been running from all these years. I'm the one who will finally bring him to justice."

***

The cold started in his heart and crept outwards along his veins until the phone dropped from his paralysed fingers. Richard's breath caught in his chest and he was frozen for a moment of shock and horror and disbelief. Guilt gripped him. Lucy's face, twisted by betrayal, swam before his sight, distorted by tears. His presence had ruined a life. Again.

Feelings of the night before, that morning, recurred; the warmth of her next to him, in his arms, astride him, in loving embrace. They mocked him in retrospect. They became torn and twisted by the undeniable eventuality of that voice on the phone.

In the end those feelings spurred him to action even as his heart shattered. He shrugged on his jacket automatically, pulled on his shoes without lacing them, and ran from the house, the door swinging unlocked behind him. He leapt into his car and the wheels spun on the wet tarmac as he charged towards a fate he had postponed for far too long.

***

The murderer paced back and forth before her, turning the point of the blade against his opposite palm. She could see a trickle of blood run from its contact and she knew that he was truly mad. The rain was falling heavily now and she shivered as her legs became marked by gooseflesh. He seemed to be ignoring her as he psyched himself up for the confrontation he had arranged with her love, but she kept her eyes fixed on his person as she worked her wrists against the bonds that held her. The wet mulch beneath her acted as a lubricant and she suppressed a laugh of relief when she finally felt the coarse bonds slip over her right wrist and onto her fingers.

The relief was consumed by more burning fear as he spoke again.

"They tried to cut my claws. They called it a hospital but it was a prison. They didn't understand what I told them; their only answer was dope. Make me drool on my chin and pat each other on the back at making it all go away. But it didn't all go away, don't you see?"

Lucy met his eyes but didn't move a muscle lest it arouse whatever temperament might be unleashed in him.

"Well, in the end, I stopped trying to convince them. They clearly were all infected by the same cancer as him. I played my part and spoke the pleasantries and in the end they let me go. It was so easy. So easy to fool those with blinkered sight. Well, my eyes are open.

"All this time I've watched you. I followed him to this place, to this spot, to kill him. I stood across that clearing." He gestured beyond the naked branches of the tree. "Right there with this knife in my hand. And then you came along... in your little dress with your little basket and I watched. I couldn't help myself. I watched as you transformed from the innocent girl you should be into... into the whore you are now."

"Then why," her voice trembled, "why didn't you... kill us both then and there?"

He looked startled at her words and looked down at the wet blade in his hand.

"I... maybe I should have. But..."

"But you like to watch, don't you David?"

Richard's voice came from behind him and he stepped out from the shadows of the trees, his hands at his sides. His eyes flicked to her and she saw the sheen of tears that covered them but also something else- resolve?

Her abductor spun round to regard him and though he lifted the knife he did not move any further towards his prey. Rather, Richard stepped steadily towards him. Lucy suppressed the natural desire, need, to run; fleeing now might help save her but what of her love? She desperately felt in the mulch beneath her for something, anything that might be of use. As her fingers dug into the soil her nails scratched on the surface of a rock, embedded in the earth.

"That's what you always liked," Richard continued and his voice was eerily calm, as if he had prepared his speech. "Alice told me."

"You shut your filthy mouth!" David shouted. "You took her from me. You and your disgusting, sordid depravity. You twisted my sister until she had nothing left."

Realisation blossomed and Lucy's eyes went wide; this was Alice's brother, Richard's brother-in-law. Looks like madness runs in the family, she thought in a moment of black humour.

Richard stopped and looked down at the wet earth beneath him and she saw a tear fall from his face. She could feel her hands tremble behind her as she regarded how close the two men were now to each other. Then he looked over at her and their eyes met and she saw his guilt-ridden face transform into one of strength. He took a deep breath and his voice came clear as he pushed his emotions away.

"No."

"What?" David's voice was quiet as it sunk to a deeper level of anger.

"No, David. I didn't. I loved Alice, and I wanted to share my love for her in the best ways I could. We were happy, at times. But do you know what it was? Do you know what took your sister away from you and from me? The same reason you and I are standing here right now. The same reason you have that knife in your hand. The idea that we should be ashamed. Ashamed of the way we feel, what we fantasise about, what makes us come. That undeniable urge, expressed in different ways, but the same in everyone. And the more we accept that shame, the more we convince ourselves that we must fight our own nature, the more we twist into balls of hate and pain and loathing. For ourselves and for those who aren't restricted by the same so-called morality. That's the reason you didn't kill us when you saw us here in the summer. The reason you used to watch your sister through the crack in the bathroom door. We're all victims in this, David. You think cutting me out of this life like a cancer is going to save her, or you? You might as well cut yourself. Just like she did."

David snarled and lunged forward, bringing the knife up to Richard's throat. Richard's arms spread wide as if he accepted this fate.

"No!" Lucy screamed and he stopped but the blade still pressed against his throat.

"What is this?" David spat the words into Richard's face but they were directed at both of them. "You think this is love?"

"Yes," Lucy said quietly.

The monster looked round at her.

"But you're a child. Don't you see how he's corrupted you?"

"I'm a woman and I make my own decisions. I chose him and he never forced me. This man has made me happier than I've ever been. And I know that he won't ever leave me. Don't take him away from me."

His resolve seemed to break as his brows softened for just a second and his knife hand lowered. But then his mouth trembled and he spoke.

"Disgusting."

His arm pistoned back behind him and then, in an instant that lasted an eternity of shocking pain, stabbed forward and the cruel blade pierced Richard's side with a wet snick. Richard's breath rushed out of him and he bent forwards like a deflating balloon into David with his hand on his shoulder.

Lucy knew it was her scream that tore the night but only later, in her nightmares. She gripped the rock behind her body, withdrew it with all her might from the sodden earth, brought it up before her and cast it at the monster that had destroyed all the joy and love she had left. His arm had withdrawn the knife from his enemy's side and was swinging forward again for another penetration when the rock struck the back of his head with a horrific crack and he stumbled forward into Richard, knocking them both to the ground. The knife tumbled from his fingers and embedded itself in the soil.

Lucy leapt towards her fallen lover, tears of fear and horror and shock running down her face. David rolled over as she approached and grunted, a deep animalistic sound, blood running from his mouth where he had bitten into his tongue.

Lucy pulled back from him and fell onto her backside. He crawled towards her over the body of her dying love, his laboured breathing rendered into deep guttural panting by his head injury.

She whimpered in panic and pushed herself back across the forest floor, her bare legs sliding in the mud. Her hand fell upon the rock where it had fallen and, without thought, with only the basic instinct of survival, she hefted it in her right hand, cast herself towards the insanity that approached and brought the rock down with all her strength onto the top of his head. There was no scream from him, just a deep moan as his head fell forwards into the mud but his hand found her throat and gripped like a vise before she brought the rock, now covered in dark and viscous blood, back down onto his skull. This time his scalp gave beneath the force of the rock and his hand instantly released as his body simply shut down and he limply collapsed to the ground.

She took gasping breaths and dropped the rock with disgust. There she sat for a moment before she became aware of ragged breathing.

"Richard!" She threw herself forward so that she was by his side. Her bloody fingers ran into his hair and his eyes opened. At first they only looked up but then they swivelled to regard her and focused.

"I'm..." His voice was barely audible beneath the falling rain. "I'm sorry."

"No... no," She frantically pulled off her sweatshirt and held it onto dark wound at his side.

She looked about them and her eyes found her mobile phone lying on some dead leaves where the murderer had carelessly tossed it. She grabbed it and prayed it still worked, wet as it was. The screen lit up at her touch and she punched in the emergency number.

His fingers weakly gripped her own as the call went through.

***

Months passed. Months of staring at the peeling paint of the hospital walls, the police station walls, the psychiatrist's walls. Months of nightmares and sweat, when the leering grin of His face stretched into an oblivion from which there seemed no escape. Months of holding her love's hand, his eyes always closed, the respirator pumping beside the bed.

They didn't want her there. They wanted her to being taken into some sort of care. A hospice or flat where she'd have a woman to talk to and her meals made for her. But she refused and they couldn't make her. Couldn't make her do anything or go anywhere. College ended for her just as much as it had ended for him. Their sympathy and understanding only stretched so far for a teacher and pupil in love, no matter their ages.

All the outstanding issues were taken care of for her. Her grandmother was buried in the local cemetery; David's was eventually cremated and given to his family. Her grandmother's will and estate was divided up between the taxman and herself. The newspapers had their fill and finally left her alone.

So there she sat, beside him, his hand in hers, and the whole universe condensed until it was just the two of them with the beep of his heart monitor as the soundtrack to their limbo existence.

"I miss you."

Her voice came out cracked with underuse and quiet with loss of hope.

"I love you. You made me the happiest woman in the world. Why can't we just be happy? Why can't we all just let each other find their own way? Be who they want and how they want and with whom they want? Life isn't fair... but only because we make it that way."

She lowered her forehead to rest on his hand and her tears fell silently onto his skin.