Choices

Maggie moved her arms. They weren't tied yet. His first mistake she thought. Hank wasn't the type to make them. Was it luck? She moved her head toward the end stand by the bed. Her fingers moved down her trim waist, and when she felt between her legs, she noticed her pubic hairs have been cut down to stubble. Hank planned to shave her. He planned to do to her, exactly as he'd done to all of his victims.

She turned her head toward a noise she heard coming from inside the closet. Time was not her friend, and she knew her life was meant to come to a dramatic end. Although that had been her plan; to be prepared like his other victims, to die by the hands of this monster, a doubt now formed that he might actually get away with it no matter that she had planned it so carefully. That thought grew. Somehow, someway, Maggie didn't want to end up dying after all... A spark of life flamed and soon it took hold. She closed her eyes. Maggie changed her mind. She wanted to live.

Hank returned. He leaned over her and grabbed her by the chin moving it back and forth.

"Guess I hit you harder than I thought. Well, it won't be long now. Only a few more things to do. You okay with that?"

Maggie lay motionless and silent, determined not to grimace in pain.

"Good. Glad you're seeing it my way."

Hank worked her panties over her shoes and then up to her knees. She heard the pop of a flashbulb, and the crinkle it made as it instantly cooled. She heard the spent bulbs drop onto the floor. He splayed her legs and the camera flashed again and again. Maggie still didn't move. He pulled her legs up and apart, to photograph the most intimate places on her body. The camera clicked.

"Nice, very nice," Hank said, "I'll remember you for a long time."

Hank went through all the packs of film, and neatly stacked his latest instant photographs with the rest on the end of the bed. He returned to his collection in the closet to retrieve several lengths of white rope.

"You should be waking up soon, and we sure don't want you to run away now do we?" He leaned over her, and took Maggie's right wrist and began to wind the rope around it.

Maggie knew this was her chance, perhaps her only one. She reached out with her left hand, grabbed the alarm clock from the end table, and with all her strength, smashed it into his left temple with such force that the plastic dial broke into pieces and lodged into his flesh. He howled in pain. Maggie hit him again with what was left of the clock, stunning him. He slumped. Adrenaline kicked in as she rolled off of the bed and heaved Hank back upon it. As quickly as she could, she tied Hank's hands to the bedposts.

"You bitch! You fuckin' bitch. Let me go! Untie me!"

Maggie remained silent.

"Untie me you psycho bitch!" The bed frame rattled as Hank tried to free himself from his bonds. His legs thrashed about in the air. "Are you deaf?"

"No!" She smashed her fist into his balls. He screamed and instantly curled his legs. Maggie tied his legs to the bed. "Hurts, doesn't it?"

Downstairs, she found her purse still hanging on the doorknob. Deep down inside she felt for her gun. She flew back upstairs.

**************

At the doorway, she stopped and slowly walked, hands behind her back, over to stand beside the bed. She watched Hank continued to struggle against the ropes.

"How's it feel? How does it feel being the victim?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. We were going to have some fun. Remember at the bar, you said you'd do anything I'd like? Only fun, that's all! Now untie me and we'll call it a night. What do you say?"

She walked over and with one hand, fanned out the stack of Polaroid photographs across the bed. "From these, I don't appear to be having fun." She moved her other hand from behind her back, and now Hank could see the small .25 caliber gun. His body stiffened as his eyes grew to the size of dinner plates.

"Fun you say? Okay, let's have some fun." Maggie jerked the front of his boxers down, and she lifted his flaccid dick by its head and placed the cold steel barrel of the gun to it. "Now, this would be fun, wouldn't it?"

Spit and snot exploded out from Hank's mouth and nose as he screamed, "You're fucked up! I'll fucking kill you!"

She snatched the scissors from the end table and plunged it into his shoulder. He screamed as the sheet underneath him turned crimson. "The only one that's going to die around here is you!"

Maggie straddled Hank.

She pressed the steel barrel of the gun to his forehead.

"You don't remember me do you?" Maggie began, "I was only six. The time you followed my mother home and then took her life. I hid in the closet. I listened to what you did to her. I was six, and that night has festered in my mind like a rusty nail every minute of every day since." She pressed the gun harder into his forehead.

Maggie leaned down to get her lips a little closer to his face and quoted Shakespeare, "I'll never pause again, never stand still, till either death hath closed these eyes of mine or fortune given me measure of revenge."

She pulled the hammer back, cocking the gun.

The bedroom door exploded open with such force that the doorknob became lodged in the lath of the wall. Several police officers entered. Their guns draw.

"Put the weapon down, miss."

Tears of frustration welled up in her eyes. "No. I can't. He deserves to die."

"Put the weapon down!"

But Maggie refused. She heard someone running up the flight of stairs, but she didn't look. She didn't care. All that mattered was to see this though to the end.

"Maggie! Don't do it!"

That voice. She recognized it. It was Darrell, her boyfriend.

"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be working? I had it all planned out," Maggie said.

"It doesn't matter. I'm here now. I read your note. Maggie, throwing away your life—for him?"

"You would have called the cops like you did tonight, and they would have found my body, he wouldn't have had the time to get the evidence cleaned up. Hank is going to pay for what he done to my Mom." She tightened the grip on the gun. "You don't understand. The cops wouldn't believe me then, perhaps after he killed me, they would."

"Maggie, give me the gun?"

"I can't." She ticked her head to one side, toward the closet. "Inside the closet you'll find what you need."

"Then, it's over. Give me the gun, and let the police handle it."

Tears welled in her eyes and slowly they flowed down her face leaving mascara-tainted trails on her cheeks. "No...it's been fourteen years ago. I've planned it all. I'm no longer that cubby little girl that hid away while he hurt Mom. No one would believe me back then. No one!"

Darrell looked at the cops and with his hand gestured for them to lower their guns. They did so, but still kept them at their sides, ready if needed.

Darrell took a few steps closer to Maggie. "Give me the gun, please."

She moved her head side-to-side. "I don't remember what she looked like."

"Who?"

"My Mom. He beat her so badly. I remember her begging him so he'd stop. But he didn't. It only made him hit her harder. He hit her again and again until—I don't remember what she looked like. After he was done— She didn't have a face!"

"Don't! Ah, Maggie, please don't do it."

"Revenge is a dish best served cold."

"Then you must set two plates, one for yourself."

She sensed Darrell retreating a small step back, and missed his closeness. She heard the sounds as the police brought their guns back up. She twisted her head slightly and caught sight of their stance, then quickly turned her head back toward her victim.

Darrell was running out of options. It was only a matter of time before the cops reacted. He took two steps closer to Maggie. Softly he said, "Remember catching frogs along Sippo Creek? And what about those mud patties we use to make? We'd let them dry on the rocks, by Reservoir Park. You remember that don't you?"

She nodded.

"You and me. We've been together since first grade. We'd talk about what we'd be when we're grown up. Maggie, if you pull that trigger, all of our dreams, everything, will vanish like dust in a windstorm. He took a breath, making a quick decision, and continued." I did something the other week. I was going to keep it a surprise until Fall, 'cause I know how much you like to see the trees change colors. Maggie, I planned on asking you to marry me.

"If you kill him, you'll go to prison, and I'll never be able to hold you again, to weave my hands through your hair. To kiss your lips on a warm Fall evening. You have every right to pull that trigger, but the cost? Revenge isn't taking his life, it's living yours—and mine. Together. Didn't Shakespeare say, 'Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it doth singe yourself.'"

As he spoke, he had inched up so that he now he stood beside her. Maggie's arm remained outstretched, still pressing the gun to Hank's forehead.

"I've loved you since we were kids. I can't imagine life without you, Maggie. Isn't love stronger than revenge? I love you! Maggie, I love you. Don't let the hate you have overpower the love I know you have for me. Make the right choice, put the gun down, and be with me."

Darrell's fingers touched her arms as gently as he could, and then slowly moved down past her elbows. Gently, he pried the gun from her fingers, and gave it to one of the officers. Maggie leaned into him and began to cry as she wrapped her arms around Darrell's neck. Another officer handed him a sheet to cover Maggie's nakedness as Darrell lifted her from the bed.

**********

They were downstairs on the main floor, Darrell with his arms wrapped around Maggie, smoothing out her matted hair, touching her cheeks.

"Did you really buy me a ring?"

"Sure did."

"You still want to wait until Fall to ask me?"

"What do you think?" Darrell asked.

Maggie bit down on her lip. "Not here. Not in this house."

Darrell looked about. Maggie was right. Now was not the time. He reached down and took her hand, and they moved toward the door. They paused once, and for a final time they turned to look around at the busyness of the police. There on the floor a few feet away lay the now-open boxes hidden from view for decades. This house... it should be destroyed for the evil it contains.

************

Majestic old oak and maple trees lined both sides of Wellman Avenue as it cuts through the middle of the historic northeast end of town. Children rode their bikes over the red brick pavement, never to know the evil that had lived among them. On that warm Saturday morning, June 12, 1971, Hank's rein of terror came to an end.

When the police had inventoried through the boxes, they found photographs of fifteen women that Hank had killed. In each box, was a collection of souvenirs he had kept. For some reason, known only to him, he had kept their shoes.

Each had perhaps been a runaway, or a prostitute. He had waited and watched for that perfect victim...exactly like what Maggie had pretended to be.

*********

The years slammed together. Life continued to move along as surely as the water that flowed over the spillway of the Sippo Creek Dam. So it was on a dismal November morning in 1995, at the Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville, Maggie and her husband, Darrell, took seats in the front row. They held hands. Before them Henry Merridale lay supine on a bed, an IV needle in his arm, ready to administer the lethal injections. They watched through a window. Maggie watched as the button was pressed, and the life he once knew slowly ebbed away. A tear slowly meandered down her cheek...but it wasn't for Hank; no the tears were for her mother, and all the others who hadn't come home.

Maggie returned home later that day. She stood in front of a window and watched her children play in the yard. She felt a warm hand slip into hers, and then kisses on her cheek. Her life, her family, all possible because of the choices she and Darrel had made.

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together:

our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not;

and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our own virtues.

—William Shakespeare

Story edited by Rex Brookdale