LITMIR.BIZ

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moaned.

      “Shut up! Shut up!” Connie screamed. “You saw what he did! We all saw it!”

      Betsy couldn’t believe this was happening. Twelve long years of slogging through an education all the way to their high school graduation, and three hours after getting their diplomas they were going to die. Her only consolation, even though she’d had to get drunk to do it, was that she wouldn’t die a virgin.

      All of a sudden the car began to slide sideways.

      “Connie! Take your foot off the gas!” Dick screamed.

      Instead, Connie jerked the wheel in the other direction, and suddenly they were airborne. Her foot was still on the accelerator, the engine was roaring like the backwash from a jet, but the sensation of flying, if only for a moment, was real.

      Paul Jackson woke up just as the wheels left the blacktop to find Betsy’s foot in the middle of his chest.

      “What the hell?” he groaned, and then leaned over and vomited all over the both of them just as the pink Cadillac went nose-first into a tree.

      Connie went through the windshield, landing facedown on the hood as steam from the broken radiator rose up around her.

      Dick’s head slammed against the dash, cutting a gash across his forehead as he slumped down on the floor, pinned between the dash and the seat as it crumpled around him.

      Betsy was ejected through the back window onto the trunk and then bounced off onto the ground a short distance away, awash in the exhaust from the tailpipe.

      The back door popped open on impact, throwing Paul out against a nearby boulder, breaking his arm and his shoulder, and cracking his skull.

      To add insult to injury, a dead limb knocked loose from the impact dropped, landing on Connie’s back, although it was overkill. She was already gone.

      A few moments later, headlights swept across the scene of the wreck as the driver of the other car finally caught up. He slowed down only long enough to assess the scene and assume they were dead, then disappeared into the night.

      * * *

      Betsy Parr woke up to bright lights and heart-stopping pain. She could hear her mother’s voice; the fear in it was palpable. She heard her father, and then the sound of choking and moaning. It took a moment for her to realize she was the one making that noise. She heard her mother cry out, begging them to do something, and then the pain was gone as she sank into unconsciousness.

      * * *

      By midmorning, news of the accident spread through town like wildfire. One of Mystic High School’s brand-new graduates was dead, and three more critically injured.

      Everyone was in shock, including the driver of the second car, who had been so sure they were dead. He thought about running. He thought about coming out with a story to lay blame on them first, and then decided to wait and see what happened. They could still die.

      And when all the shock and drama was over, and the rush of gossip had long since cleared, waiting was what saved him.

      Connie Bartlett took what she knew to the grave, and the three others had been so drunk, and then suffered such critical head wounds, that later on when they were questioned, none of them remembered anything after receiving their diplomas. The ensuing three hours of their lives had been erased.

      His future had been saved by a quirk of fate, which made everything else he’d done worth it.

One

      The cackle of hens and the occasional squawk of a pissed-off rooster were the beginning to Dick Phillips’s day as he went about his morning chores. He opened the coop and began scattering chicken feed, laughing at the rush that ensued as he went in to gather the eggs.

      A few years back his wife, Marcy, had got an itch to raise chickens, so he’d built a coop and bought her a few hens to make her happy, and then she died. Afterward, he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of them, so they stayed. As time passed, the flock grew, and now, with over forty laying hens, he was selling the surplus to regular customers, who came to the farm to pick up eggs for their family use.

      He took the fresh eggs down to the barn to what he called the egg room. He was favoring his right shoulder. He’d taken a bad fall last week and was certain he’d torn something vital. He couldn’t lift his arm above his head, and it hurt to carry anything, although there was still work to be done. He stood at the worktable, sorting, cleaning and crating eggs, and then stored them in a small walk-in cooler at the back of the room.

      He’d just walked out into the breezeway and was getting ready to feed his cows when he heard a car. He paused in the doorway, absently scratching at the old scar on his forehead, and then raised his hand in greeting when he recognized the driver, then eyed the large sack he was carrying, thinking he was about to make a big sale.

      “Hey, how goes it?” he called. “You comin’ after eggs?”

      “A couple of dozen, please.”

      Dick turned to get the eggs from the cooler, unaware that the man had reached into the sack and taken out a long braided rope with a noose at the end. Dick heard the footsteps behind him, but before he could turn, the noose was around his neck.

      The man gave the rope a hard yank, and Dick fell backward, landing hard on the back of his head, and at the same time reinjuring his shoulder and cutting off his air. Dick was in shock, uncertain what was happening. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t think what to do. Unaware of what was happening behind him, he began fumbling with the noose.

      The man had tied a weight to the other end of the rope, and when he threw it up, it sailed over the rafter and right back into his hands as if he’d practiced the move for days. Then he took off running toward the loft, and when the rope tightened, Dick was yanked off his feet so hard that he momentarily blacked out.

      It was the reprieve the killer needed. He reached the steps leading to the loft and began climbing them hand over fist with the rope in his teeth. He glanced down once, and as he did, his heart skipped a beat. Dick was not only conscious but struggling to get to his feet. With no time to spare, the killer threaded the rope through a step and then jumped.

      As he went down, Dick went up, high enough that his feet were dangling almost two feet off the concrete floor below.

      Dick was moaning and kicking as the man wrapped the rope once around his waist for added leverage, then pulled Dick even higher as he ran back toward the ladder and tied off the rope.

      Now Dick was dangling almost six feet from the ground. His face was turning blue, his eyes were bulging and his arms were flailing as he clawed desperately at the rope, trying to relieve the pressure.

      “Die, damn it,” the man muttered. And then, in a fit of impatience, he made a run for Dick’s legs and jumped. As he did, he grabbed hold of Dick’s ankles, and when he came down with all his body weight, Dick’s neck broke with a pop.

      It was done.

      The killer stepped back, looking all around the area to make sure he’d left nothing of himself behind, then pulled out his pocketknife and cut off the weight, taking it with him as he left.

      Long after the sound of his car had faded away, the chickens still clucked, the rooster crowed and the cows were still waiting to be fed.

      * * *

      Betsy Jakes had her cookbook out, going down the list of ingredients she needed to make her famous Italian cream cake. Tomorrow was her son Trey’s birthday, and it was his favorite dessert. She glanced down at the recipe, writing needed ingredients onto her grocery list, and made a note to stop by Dick’s house to buy eggs before she went home.

      She had known Dick for most of her life, and in her youth had even survived a deadly crash with him the night they graduated from high school. His girlfriend, Connie, who’d been driving that night, died in the wreck, while

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