“Are you okay?” Jeph asked as he looked down at Julie.
She cracked her neck and felt her head, “No. I’m not okay. I just got hit by a car.”
Jeph looked back at his car, looking for dents, “That was me. That was my car.”
“I know whose car it was,” she said as she sat up and looked at him. She could feel a few muscles, but no bones were broken.
Read from the start to get a better experience, Joker Joker Deuce Halloween Series Part I – A Monster Awakens…
“Do you want me to take you to the hospital or something?” he asked as he knelt down to eye level.
She looked at him as she rolled her neck. Then, her voice softened, “No. I do not want to go to any hospitals. I just want to go home.”
“Why don’t I take you home?” he offered.
“Well,” she thought. “If I’m in the car, I won’t be able to get hit by the car.”
She stared at him as his mind raced through thoughts a million miles a minute. What a way to meet! That’s the story we’ll tell our kids. No, Dad didn’t say he hit on your mom. He said he hit your mom.
“That was a joke, silly,” she added.
His mind finally caught up to the real conversation happening right in front of him, “Oh, right.”
“Hey, give me a break,” she said. “I did just get hit by a car.”
“Here,” Jeph shook his head as he put his hand on her arm. “Let me help you up.”
Her face hardened a bit, “Tough crowd.”
He helped her to her feet and walked her to the passenger side of the car, where he opened the door like a gentleman and gently guided her into the seat. When he closed the door, he got a little pep in his step. His heart was singing as he walked around the back of the car to the driver’s side.
He climbed in and looked at her for a moment. Then, he reached over and grabbed her seatbelt, “Buckle up! You look great in that seatbelt.”
Jeph remembered that line from an old Don Johnson Driver Safety video from the late 80s that schools were still recycling. Julie smiled at the corny attempt. She actually appreciated it because she had a similar sense of humor. As he drove away, he looked over and they exchanged a glance. Forget the fact that he ran a stop sign, and a car almost hit him as he ventured his way down the street.
“I saw you the other day at the gas station,” he mentioned to get the conversation going.
She looked over at him with a strange look, “That was you. I thought you looked familiar. I remember thinking about you as I left, but I felt weird about striking up a conversation.”
“You did?” Jeph reacted with surprise. “I felt weird about saying something to you.”
“You should have,” she urged. “I would have liked that.”
“I should have,” he agreed. “But I have trouble with that part. I can imagine having an entire conversation, but when it comes to really having one, that’s when I fall apart.”
“You’re having one now,” she said with a soothing hum to her voice that made his heart stop.
He looked at her and admired her smile. Then, something started to change. Her face was doing weird things. Suddenly, bursting through his imagination, he could hear her scream, “What are you doing? Where are you going? You were supposed to take me home? Where are we?”
When he looked out the window, he saw a familiar tree. He looked through the back window and then up ahead to confirm that he was on Sandmont Hill. He shook his head, and his eyes darted around. Then, he focused on her.
She was still yelling, “Will you say something? Where did you bring me?”
“This is Sandmont Hill,” he pointed at the tree. “I thought you’d like it. We came here one day, remember?”
“What?” she said, startled.
“Yeah, we had a picnic. Right there,” Jeph pointed again at the tree.
“No, we didn’t,” she protested. Then, before thinking, she blurted out, “Are you losing your mind?”
She suddenly froze. She immediately remembered something she had learned in one of her classes. If he were a psycho, that would have been the last thing she wanted to say to him. She studied his face and watched as his eyes darted in different directions. His breathing seemed normal. His face had no twitches. Do crazy people really twitch like they do in the movies? Is that a real thing?
She thought it would be best if she just sat in her seat quietly. So, she addressed her situation. She was in the middle of nowhere without a way to get home. When she realized that, all the survival tips she had learned over the years started to come back to her. But she was already too late. She should have been paying attention to landmarks and counting seconds, all of that stuff.
The silence in the car was deafening. She could see his wheels turning like he was trying to reconstruct reality, “A picnic? We had a picnic right there? That’s a nice place, a beautiful spot for a picnic. Maybe we can do that?”
He looked at her in defeat, and she suddenly saw a flash. But she didn’t remember much after that.
Jeph studied her as she slept peacefully in the wooden chair across the room. He had parked the car in the garage and carried her through the kitchen so that nosy neighbors had no idea he had brought a date home. As he sat in Dad’s old recliner in a room he hardly ever entered, he remembered that chat on the forum when a thought suddenly occurred to him, “I’m glad I followed their advice and got the drugs. This would have been a whole lot harder.”
Then, he watched as she started to struggle awake. She lifted her head a little, and then it dropped again. This time, when she lifted it, she opened her eyes and looked around the room. She suddenly felt a sharp pain in her face. When she went to move her arms, she realized she was tied to the chair.
Looking across the room, she realized her worst nightmare. She had been kidnapped and was being held hostage in some psycho’s house. When she looked around, the first thing she noticed was the 1970s décor. The smell of clean dust assaulted her nose, which was something she had never smelled before. But if she had to describe the smell, that would be it.
Then, she looked down and realized that she was in a sundress. Shockwaves went through her mind. She closed her eyes and thought the worst. If she had this sundress on, she could only imagine what else might have happened.
“That was the dress my mom wore on her wedding day,” Jeph’s commentary split the contemplation, disturbing her peaceful trauma. “Imagine Mom trying to become a homemaker. She was a working girl for years. In fact, I think my real father was one of her clients. That’s why I never got to meet him.”
In a timid voice with very little volume, Julie asked, “This is your mom’s dress?” She started to feel the age of the fabric, and then a thought hit her hard. When was the last time it was washed?
“Yeah, Dad liked it,” he answered. “He liked a lot of the things Mom wore, like her skirts and her high-heeled shoes. I remember him telling her to wear them because they made everyone look at her. But he really liked that dress because I remember him saying it was easy access.”
“Ew,” she stomped her feet lightly as the thought of his mom wearing the dress ran through her mind. Then, she had another thought. Didn’t he just say he didn’t know his dad?
She was not going to be able to piece that one together. And she realized that she shouldn’t even try. She was staring at a man who was seriously screwed up in the head. Asking him questions would be her worst mistake.
But she didn’t have to ask as he volunteered, “She found a man who didn’t care about her past, or at least he didn’t think he did. It eventually got to him. I found them in the room. He had shot himself, and what he did to Mom before that, I can only imagine. I found her on the bed with the life choked out of her.”
Julie’s heart started pounding.
“The only guy I knew who was even any kind of father to me went to prison one day. I never saw him after that. He died in there,” Jeph reminisced. Then, he continued, “So, I was all alone and I was doing pretty good with that. Being all alone until you came into my life.”
He smiled. Julie looked at him, concerned. She was starting to wonder if she was losing her mind. Where had she met this man? She couldn’t place him anywhere?
“It was really good at first. I met your father,” he continued. “That was a nice day out on his yacht. But I really liked that moment we had in the bathroom when you followed me in there. That was…that was pretty great. You have some skills.”
Her heart beating faster. Fear rising up in her.
“But what I don’t understand,” he started. “You sent me a message and then, you didn’t even read what I sent you back.”
She knew she was talking to a madman, but what was he talking about?
“Why would you do that?” he insisted.
Her silence was no longer appreciated. He was staring at her like he wanted answers. She had none, and her mind was racing, but what could she offer him? “I don’t know what message you’re talking about.”
He slammed his hand down on his phone and picked it up. He scrolled through his apps until he found it, then he searched and found the message. When he stood up to walk toward her, she flinched, but her eyes were steady on the phone. She looked in horror as she saw a message from her to him, “I must have been hacked. I don’t know what that is. I didn’t send it.”
Jeph looked at her lie and steam rolled off his neck. His nose started to flare like a raging bull. Julie watched as Jeph’s face contorted, and she had no idea what was going on, but she knew she didn’t have too many options.
Her blood-curdling scream startled Jeph out of his moment. His temper tantrum was going to have to wait. He looked around the room, and there sat an old washcloth. On the other end of the table was duct tape. That was convenient.
He shoved the washcloth in her mouth and started taping. It wasn’t pretty, but her voice was muffled, and that was all that mattered. That’s when his entire reality came crashing down around him. He looked at this girl in his mother’s dress, tied to a chair with a washcloth taped in her mouth. This wasn’t good. Not good at all.
There was no way he was going to get out of this one. If he just let her go, the first thing she would do would be to go straight to the police. But then he wondered, what was he actually thinking?
Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?
I don’t know.
Because if you are, that’s a place you can’t come back from.
I don’t know, I said.
Well, know. Figure it out. Because that’s a place you can’t come back from.
“Okay,” he yelled as if talking to thin air. “If I let you go right now, would you go to the cops?”
She shook her head. Her mouth was trying to say something, but he couldn’t make it out.
“What?” he asked.
She tried to say it again until she realized that wasn’t working. So, she just shook her head slowly as her eyes remained on him. Then, tears started rolling down her face. It was as if she had been crying, then ran dry. Now, she was finding water reserves to cry some more.
“So, you’re saying I can let you go and I don’t have anything to worry about?” Jeph clarified.
Again, she shook her head slowly. She was fighting for her life, but anxiety rose up in her. Her breathing quickened like she was about ready to start hyperventilating. All his times of playing cards with Stone, he knew that was a tell.
Then, he repeated the words that had somehow been stored in his mind from way back when he was a kid, “Can’t trust a damn woman.”
He walked to the kitchen, and Julie could hear him rummaging through drawers. Then, she heard cabinets opening and slamming shut. When she heard his footsteps coming back to her, she braced herself and started screaming with everything she had. That’s when he put the plastic bag over her head and held on tight. When he got tired of holding the bag, he put a zip tie around her neck and tightened it until he cut off any air.
He walked around her and watched as she struggled. Her body was fighting to get free. Her neck was doing all it could to get air into her body. But nothing was working for her. She was slowly slipping away.
She looked like an angel. She was still beautiful and sweet. They had had some good times. What would one last goodbye hurt?
He drew close to her and touched his lips on hers. He could feel her love even if it was through a plastic bag. The moment was special, if only for him.
Staring down into the open drawer in his desk, he shook his head as he thought back to that time. Julie was special. His first one. He had really made some mistakes on that one. But how else was he supposed to learn anything?
He reached into the drawer and dropped a new pair of panties into his collection. He touched each one as he said their names until he got to Julie’s. He ran his finger over the fabric and then pulled them up to his cheek. He remembered each one, but she was the one who gave him the fondest memories.
This series is inspired by Joker Joker Deuce, a psychological thriller set in a college town where students are being targeted by a serial killer. Available now on Amazon!
