Primal (26 page)

He will not expect another weapon. If I can just get to the
basement. Her legs know these stairs. Her body has learned the curve of them
and the width of them. It is ingrained into her muscle memory from going up and
down them thousands of times. The darkness is no impediment. She easily springs
down three stairs at a time landing with exacting surety and sure-footed. At
the halfway point, where the staircase opens up to the first floor, she throws
her legs over the banister and vaults to the foyer floor below easily clearing
the little foyer table she knows is there. She feels a twinge in her right knee
when she lands. She ignores it.

Ben giggles at himself for being startled by the toy robot
as he takes the stairs. He is really having such a good time now. He pursues
her with agility and speed. He vaults over the banister too, but lands on top
of the foyer table smashing it to pieces and getting thrown off his feet.
Knowing every inch of this house intimately is her advantage. This is her home,
her ground. She scrambles into the kitchen. He is only seconds behind her. She
knows there is not enough time to get safely across the kitchen to the basement
door. It would allow for at least one clear shot. One clear shot is all it
would take to bring her down. Immediately as she enters the kitchen and darts
by her microwave she presses the preset timer button. She could do this in her
sleep. It starts automatically at 15 seconds. She dives down behind the far
side of the center island’s butcher’s block and freezes. It is the only solid
thing between them as Ben enters the dark kitchen. The timer: thirteen…twelve…
There is only five feet between them and she tries with brutal desperation to
control the sound of her panting but she must take in air - her body demands
oxygen. She needs a few seconds more.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are.” Confidently, Ben
flips on the kitchen lights, which really panics her - she likes the dark - she
needs the dark - it is her friend and she knows that. It’s so bright. God, so
bright! The timer: nine… eight… He easily figures out where she must be. He
starts slowly to circle the butcher’s block.

“I’m looking forward to seeing your son again when we’re
done here. Such a cute boy reminded me of Kent when he was little.”

Alison slides open the drawer and pulls out the very long
two-pronged barbecue fork. The timer: three…two… He’s at the corner of the
island.

He smiles, “Peek-a-boo.” He looks over. She’s right below
him.

The microwave buzzer goes off. He spins involuntarily toward
the unexpected sound from directly behind him. Alison rises up and jams the
barbecue fork into the flesh of his side. He lurches forward and releases a
wail of angry pain. It is the scream of an enraged and injured beast! She uses
the moment to bolt for the basement doorway thankfully open. Alison dashes down
the stairs while Ben has to pull the fork from the soft tissues of his body and
from where one of the tongs has punctured his right kidney. Game over. He is
injured! He is in a fury of hate. No matter what happens, even if he has to go
with her, he’s not leaving until she is dying painfully at his feet. He stuffs
a kitchen towel under his shirt to quell the bleeding. He turns and moves to
the basement, and then, he stops abruptly. He has underestimated her all along.
He will not do that again. She’s a survivor, a fighter. He knows there is a
chance someone has heard the gunshots. He will need to move it along. His eyes
slowly take in the scene and he considers his options. The basement must be a
trap. Why else would she run there instead of out the back door of the house?
It’s not logical. And she has proven to be logical. Ben walks over to the
kitchen sink and opens the cabinet door underneath. He reviews the products
available to him. He pulls out the can of oven cleaner. He opens the drawer
where she got the barbecue fork and removes the long sticks of matches. “What a
predicable little homemaker.” He ignores the pain in his side and with only the
ghost of a limp, he walks to the basement door where he strikes the match,
points the can and sprays into the flame creating a blowtorch. He moves the
torch meticulously around the door molding setting the paint and wood trim on
fire. He grabs the newspaper from the kitchen table and tosses it on the floor;
the pages catch quickly and begin to burn throwing off plumes of black smoke.

Downstairs, Alison scrambles over all the obstacles and
wrenches open the dresser drawer. She throws Jimmy’s Batman pajama to the floor
and unearths the Mossberg rifle. Gratefully, she grabs it and lifts it out. She
spins quickly around expecting him to be right there! Where is he? Why hasn’t
he followed her? What’s keeping him? Then, she smells it. Smoke! She moves
quickly back to the stairs. Her eyes widen as she sees the flames at the top.
Oh, no.

Ben revels in the colors of the flames. Exquisite, he
thinks. Even while he was watching Uncle Rafe burn to death tied up inside his
Canadian cabin, Ben had to note how brilliant and attractive the flames were as
they licked their way up the walls. Fire is truly captivating. Something about
the energy, the waving shapes, and bright yellow and blue, makes him want to
stick his hand in it. He did that once as a kid and he remembers it as being
thrilling although he still carries the scars. With the flames eating up the
kitchen wall and steadily on its way, he proceeds out the back door. Once
outside, he turns the corner of the little home, passes the barbecue, and stops
in front of the two wooden trap doors a few feet from the ground that lead down
to the basement. The two doors are partially covered with ivy. He noticed them
a few days ago when he was casing the house. It had been so easy to find the
Kraft home thanks to all the news coverage. It was as if they were pointing him
the way. News teams - really such a helpful bunch, he thinks, it would have
taken him a long time to track her down without them. He would have, of course,
but it would have been inconvenient. He positions himself outside the trap
doors. He is slightly favoring his injured side, but playing in pain has always
been easy for him. He sees pain as a challenge. He knows he will have to get
that side stitched up somehow after he leaves here.

He watches the trap doors to the basement. She will come
right to him. She will have to. He shifts from foot to foot as he becomes
excited. He has always loved the hunt and especially trapping, luring them in,
where they walk themselves right into his arms because they have no choice. He
prefers that to stalking because stalking just seems like the weasel’s way of
winning. He favors inducing the victim to walk to him. Such a yummy sensation
of power as they hand over their lives. It simply confirms the superiority of
his mind. When he thinks about what this bitch has done to his family his blood
heats and surges inside his veins and he swelters. He takes a nice long breath
in - this is going to be luscious.

Smoke billows into the basement and Alison feels it sinking
down into her lungs. She looks over at the steps up to the trap doors that lead
to the backyard. It is bolted on the inside. She knows he’s out there waiting -
certain death. Do what he doesn’t expect. How do I get through those flames?
The smoke alarms sound in the house! Move! She yells at herself. She runs to the
washing machine. The smoke thickens. She opens the top of the machine. A set of
Jimmy’s sheets are sopping wet inside, left halfway through their cycle this
morning by Polly. Yes, Polly stopped in the middle of doing the laundry. She
reaches in and yanks out the wet sheet. She runs to the bottom of the basement
stairs. The top steps of the staircase are beginning to burn. She has no time
to think this through. She throws the wet sheet over her head and knows speed
is her friend. It will be like when you run your finger through a candle flame,
she tells herself, if you go fast enough it doesn’t hurt. With every ounce of
energy, ramped up, she barrels up the stairs in her bare feet while covered in
the wet sheets and carrying the Mossberg. At the third step from the top, she
flings herself through the flaming doorway and onto the kitchen floor. She
pulls off the smoldering sheet and looks around. The kitchen is engulfed in
flames. It’s hot! Her skin is beginning to burn. Too hot all around her! Out -
out now! Out the backdoor or burn alive. She blasts out the back door into the
yard choking on the smoke. She takes a number of quick breaths. She knows there
are some burns on the bottom of her feet and they are just beginning to sting.
She coughs and looks around.

Above the noise from the cracking and popping of the fire as
it consumes the kitchen side of the house, Ben hears her coughing. What, he
thinks? She went up those stairs? How? Goddamn it! He runs back toward the
kitchen door.

Exposed in the open yard she whips her head all around. The
overhanging branches of the large trees surround her. They reach out their many
limbs toward her. Her throat tightens and she struggles for clean breaths of
the cold night air. She turns for the garage, opens the door, and stumbles
inside. She just needs to hold on now. Help is coming. Help must be coming. The
smoke alarms are blaring. The fire rages. She looks for a safe nest, a place to
wait, but as soon as she stands still in the two-car garage, she realizes this
was a grave mistake. Bad choice. There is only one way in or out of this
garage. A very bad choice. And he is coming. The two-car wide rectangular space
is just as crammed with a wide range of miscellany as the basement of her
house. One small window, high up on the far wall, allows in the flickering red
and gold light from the flames consuming her home and making the garage look
ghoulish with large undulating shadows. She could never reach that window with
all of the boxes and lawn equipment stacked in front of it. It will not serve
as an escape route. The hairs stand on her neck and icy fingers run down her
spine as she senses him walking toward the garage now. She knows he is coming.
The garage feels like Hobbs’ shed; it even smells like the shed with the scent
of gasoline, paint, and rusting metal from the gardening tools. She imagines
Kent and sees him nailed to the side of the garage wall. No, she reprimands,
no, think straight. Then, Gravel is there in the doorway. No, not here. You are
not real. Stop, she pleads with herself. Focus. It is Ben. Ben is real. Ben is
here! This is happening, right now, isn’t it? Or have I gone mad? Have I set
the house on fire? Have I gone mad and set my home on fire? No. She jumps over
the lawn mower and ducks under the three bicycles suspended from the ceiling by
ropes. The skin on her bare burned feet stings as she shuffles around the
snowboarding boots. She begins to breathe through her mouth to keep up with her
pounding heart and to expel some of the inhaled smoke that tastes dirty on her
tongue. She burrows in toward the back wall of the room behind the old
broken-down Ford, which hasn’t moved in two years. She shrinks down into the
corner with the Mossberg sleek and heavy in her hands. And this is when it all
becomes clear. This is the exact instant when she finally realizes that it is
not about her life. It is an epiphany: this has never been about her life. It
was a fluke that she survived. It was not meant to be. Everyone knows that, and
that is the reason why people look at her strangely, and why they do not
understand her. It created an imbalance. It was one enormous cosmic mistake.
Yes. And that is what has prolonged this nightmare, and that is why she has
been in a half-alive condition all of this time; because she was
self-concerned, because she was not focusing on what was really her task, her
function, her responsibility. It was her destiny to trade herself for Jimmy and
Hank. It was supposed to be her life for their lives. She has thwarted fate and
so she has been stuck in this altered state of delusion and hallucination,
suspended in a half-living, half-dead form all this time because she was
unwilling to commit her own self, unwilling to make the needed sacrifice. She
looks back over the course of the last month and realizes she was not meant to
survive the island. If she would have stood out in the open at that one moment
in front of the lodge, and if she would have taken the clear shot at Ben that
was offered to her in that moment, then that would have ended this when it was
meant to end and how it was supposed to end with both of them dead. That is why
this is not over, that is why this has all felt unfinished, and that is why she
and Ben are tied to each other in this cyclical death dance. She wanted more
than she was meant for; she wanted it all, to save herself and her family. She
wanted too much. She should have been grateful to step out from behind that
rock and take out Benjamin Burne no matter how many bullets he sank into her
chest while doing it. That is what Hank would have done. That was what was
required. She has not really been alive since she left the island that night
and this is how she knows that what she is thinking is the truth. She has not
lived one single day in a whole state. He is coming, yes, he is supposed to
come, and it is time. It is past time. Instantly, she feels lighter. She has
all the time in the world and calmly she waits for Ben to step into the garage.
Now, she understands what is meant by destiny, by fate, what is truly meant when
someone says, “It is written.” It has been incomplete because she has been a
coward. She has been uncommitted. What was needed was an unconditional
commitment to end it. She asks herself, am I ready for that now? Am I strong
enough to stand up and take the bullets into my body so I can end this? Do I
have the courage to stand there and shoot? Will it hurt? I know I have to die
to get him, because that is what he does not expect me to do, and that is the
only way to beat him. I know that. I know if I don’t end his life he will never
stop tracking me, never stop hunting my son, my beautiful son, and my loving
husband. There is no other option. He will be back again and again until it is
over. I have to do this tonight - now. I have to stand and take that shot
regardless. Am I ready? There is nowhere left to run, no more tricks to
surprise him, and no place left to hide. There is only what is meant to be. I
see this vividly, and I know that he does not see it, and that is my advantage
- the only advantage I have left, and the only one I will need. He will not
expect me to reveal myself to him and put my life on the line to get the clear
shot. He will assume I will hide, run, fight for self-preservation and that has
been my flaw. I can see that now. I am at peace with that. My life has been
good even if it has been short. I have been truly loved. And I have loved truly
and now I will prove that. I will need precisely the right shot so I am certain
to kill him, so he cannot be resuscitated, so no form of him survives. When I
stand, he will want that moment to gloat — that will be my moment, the
moment for that final surprise. And so, she commits, that as long as she can
take him with her, then she will gladly go violently into that good night.