Many thanks to Literotica author ‘englander1961' for her help, editorial services, encouragement and a title much better than my original, which has elevated her to the status of House Goddess of Sexy Story Titles. Thanks to Sammi Scott, aka Titsy McYarn, the Cute at the Heart of the Abyss for her help and valuable critique. Thanks to Literotica author ‘KY ridgerunner' for the stories that planted the idea in my head months ago. A belated and much overdue thanks to John Hasty for his peerless editing. Bounteous thanks to Kevin for his incredibly thorough critiquing and voluminous notes.
After you've read this, if you have any inclination at all to comment, please do so, either by email or on the comment board... The best way for me to grow and improve as an author is to hear from the people who read my work.
I welcome constructive critiques and non-abusive comments. I will answer, in at least a semi-prompt manner, any email that comes with an email address.
If you feel you must respond in a hateful or angry fashion, you may put your head down upon your desk and do so, quietly to yourself, for as long as you feel it necessary. This story may not be copied to other sites without my permission.
If you have not read the earlier installment(s) of this tale, it would probably help you to make sense of this one if you did so.
* * * * *
If people on the street were turning on their lights Carol didn't see it. That would have meant turning her head, diverting her focus from home... home and her razor.
She kept blowing the whistle.
* * * * *
Something was nagging at the back of Margo's consciousness... something she was hearing... something that meant... her eyes widened.
"Nicki, stay here, something's wrong."
She grabbed her purse with its mini-arsenal courtesy of Eddy and dashed out the door.
As she made it down the steps and to the street, she saw Carol running towards her, blowing the bobby whistle. The small woman barreled past her and up the steps, barely getting the door open before she was through it.
"Nicki... we were... attacked... call 911... cops and ambulance... the park... 45th & Garwood... the swings..."
Margo had followed her in and heard her message. Carol ran for the bedroom. Nicki sprinted for the stairs, heading to her room and her cell phone.
Carol came out, straight razor in hand and flew out the door. Margo was getting into her car.
"C'mon, this'll be faster. And I've got an emergency kit in the back."
Together they drove off towards the park.
Somewhere in the high-speed drive to the park, a drive that felt endless, even compared to the run back to the house that Carol had despaired of ever completing, she felt Margo leave.
One minute, her lover, Harry's wife was there, and then she wasn't.
The person who replaced her was someone Carol had never seen before.
"Carol, get me the kit from the back floorboards. Yes, that's the one. Just hold that on your lap until we get there."
They were approaching the park and Carol saw this new person swerve, aiming not for a parking place, but for the heart of the park itself.
"Hold on, this could get a little rough."
With a thud that jarred her and tried to bounce her into the ceiling, a scraping sound that reverberated throughout the interior of the Volvo like a scream of pain and another, lesser, thud, the car was over the curb and into the park itself.
"Carol, where are the swings?"
"Uh, to the left... there, past that water fountain, see them?"
"Thank you. Go into my purse; get out the stun gun or the pepper spray, whichever you feel comfortable with."
Whoever this new person was, she was smart enough to know that one of Carol's hands would be busy with her razor. She pulled out the stun gun, putting the strap around her left wrist.
The car's lights were flipped to high beams as they approached and the brakes were gently applied. In the illumination provided, there was only one figure, slumped in a heap on the ground beneath the swing. The car came to a sudden stop and as this new and unknown person leapt out with the kit she grabbed from Carol's lap she said "Cover me."
Carol took a look at the figure on the ground. There was far too much blood. There seemed to be gallons of it. He was soaked in it, and as she felt the panic start to rise in her chest, she forced it back down and looked in every direction but at him, looking for any threat. Finally she looked briefly over at her Master and Mistress, bathed in the harsh light from the car, both now covered in red.
"Carol," the stranger said, "it looks like whoever did this is gone. Nicki and Kelly will be here shortly. Keep them away from here. They don't need to see this and we don't want the crime scene contaminated any further."
"Ma'am... is he..."
"He's alive... I'm hoping I can keep him that way."
* * * * *
The next several hours passed in a blur. Nicki and Kelly got to the park and she was forced to hold both of them back. The police arrived, the EMT's pulled up and everyone was in a blur of motion except for them. They stood there, dazed and helpless at the periphery and watched the maelstrom. There was nothing for them to do. They were bystanders.
The ride to the hospital was an absent memory, a hole in time. Carol remembered being in the park, and then she was in the waiting room, holding on to Nicki and Kelly.
Carol knew she talked to people... made phone calls, spoke to the police, gave a statement... but she couldn't remember anything concerning details.
The stranger who had replaced Margo had disappeared, along with her beloved Harry, and Carol found herself left in the position of dealing with everyone and their questions and she didn't have any answers other than the obvious.
No one had shown up to tell her that Harry was dead. Therefore he was alive.
She held on to that as a life-preserver in a storm-tossed sea.
Nicki appeared... lost... as if she'd been deprived of something vital that somehow defined her place in the universe. Kelly slumped beside her, despair and pain crashing off of her in waves. It was as if Kelly was already grieving for him, as if he were already dead.
