She clutched the cold metal in her hand, knuckles white, pulse pounding. She would be ready this time. She would be ready.
Her vision white hot with rage, she held her breath, hoping to hear his steps. Too many times it had happened. It would all end tonight. That she might fail had never even crossed her mind. Everything hinged on this one moment, and she refused to think beyond it. Dread was her constant companion: a coldness in the center of her stomach, gooseflesh on her bare arms, a shudder running up and down her spine. Yet as cold as she felt, sweat ran freely, casting her skin in an ethereal glow. Her diaphanous nightgown clung tightly to her, but tonight she didn't care. Only one thing mattered: the end.
Suddenly her breath caught in her throat. Had she just heard a movement? She tensed even more, amazed that it was even possible, and raised the 34 inches of formed aluminum even higher. The first blow would be the most important. She would never be his again.
A shadow. A flicker. The hair on the back of her neck stood impossibly erect. A whisper. A current of air, suddenly changing direction.
He strode confidently into the room, belt already half undone. He never had a chance. With a nauseatingly wet sound the metal connected and he dropped to the ground, motionless. She raised the bat again, prepared to swing. But still he did not move. She couldn't believe it only took one hit. Doubt and fear ate at her, gnawing at her psyche. He was pretending, just waiting for her to get closer. Then his hands, those terrible hands, would grab her, claim her, make her theirs once again.
Not tonight. With a primal, feral growl she took one step closer to his limp form and the metal connected again. His right hand suddenly took on a grotesque, claw-like shape. It made her sick to think he had touched her with that malformed limb. She struck it again. And again. Soon it was nothing more than dark, moist mess in the moonlight. Now the left. Those hands would never work again, if you could even call them hands. But a more hideous thought gripped her still: he might still use those arms to reach her with his stumps. She tasted bile in the back of her throat and new one touch and she would go mad.
She did the job right. The bat became leaden in her hands, arms weighed down as the adrenaline coursed out of her system, spent. Too many swings, too many to count. With a final, feeble attempt, she connected and let the metal drop from her cramped, numb hands. The mass at her feet was almost unrecognizable now. She looked at herself, drenched in blood and other matter she cared not to think of. But it was done. She had finished it up right.
A sigh escaped her clenched lips and a sound from far away caught her attention. A buzzing, buried under cotton, began to cut through the haze that surrounded her. She shook her head, trying to clear the fog she felt so acutely. The sound became clear, the clarion of her alarm clock, warning her it was time to get up. But why would she have an alarm clock here? And why did she feel dipped in moisture? She licked her lip, tasting salt, but something more, something metallic. She looked at her hands, covered in something dark, thick, and quickly becoming sticky as it dried.
The lump at her feet. What was it? Suddenly realization hit. The bat, a man. Death. But who? She looked closely, recognizing the pattern in a bit of cloth. Flannel pajamas, purchased last Christmas. For her husband.
She tasted more than bile in the back of her throat this time and could hold it in no longer. She stumbled back from the heap on the floor, vomit and blood dripping from the front of her nightgown. Tears coursed down her face, washing it clean. Shuddering, wracking sobs. Could it have been? Was it possible? Had it been . . . only a dream?
