You Only Die Twice

Chapter FORTY-THREE





The moment she began to squeeze, his eyes came partly into focus, his body bucked out of instinct, but Cheryl Dunning clung on.

“Die!” she screamed in a voice so hoarse, it didn’t sound like her own. “Die!”

But he wasn’t ready for death. Not now. He grappled with her. Railing on pure survival mode, he brought his own hands down onto her throat, but hitched back when she spit in his eyes.

Probably because of the dried blood in her mouth, it was enough to sting and make him rear up, but because her hands were attached to his throat, she came up with him. She kicked her good leg beneath her, swung it beneath this legs and then pushed herself down on top of him when he fell back.

Now he was flailing while she squeezed. Even in the raging orange light, she could see his face turning bright red.

“GAW!” he managed. “GAWD!”

“F*ck you and your god,” she said. She hunched over him so the bulk of her weight was fully pressed on his throat. She squeezed as hard as she could, but it was difficult. He was strong. His neck was almost too thick for her small hands to choke and to crush.

Like a beetle on its back, he furiously tried to get up. His eyes began to bulge. Her thumbs pressed directly on his windpipe, hoping to flatten it. To throw him off guard, she spit in his face again, which took him enough by surprise that she was able to bear down harder. One of his fists flew up and smashed against her ribcage. It was enough of a blow that it nearly knocked her off him, but Cheryl Dunning was in the fight of her life. When she died the first time, there had been no opportunity to fight back. Mark Rand simply knocked her unconscious, raped her, removed his blade, sliced her throat, and left her to die.

But not this time. This time, she fought.

“Die!” she screamed.

His fist again, out of nowhere, this time connecting with her face and casting her off him.

Dizzy, she fell to the ground. Her face burned from the punch. She could hear him gasping for breath, starting to get up behind her.

The gun. He’s going to go for the gun.

She whirled around and looked for it herself. She found it just a few feet from her. She scrambled to her knees and grabbed it. Turned and pointed it at his face.

He was on his feet now, swaying. On the side of his head, where she struck him with the limb, there was blood, but not the crushing dent she hoped to see. As hard as she hit him, it wasn’t enough. She was too weak to do any real damage. What she did was enough to knock him unconscious, maybe give him a mild concussion, but nothing more.

She failed.

But the gun was a game changer. The gun would kill him. She was ending this now.

“You are so dead,” she said to him.

He rubbed his neck and started to come more into focus. “No, I’m not.”

“The hell you’re not.” She pressed lightly on the trigger and placed the laser beam in the center of his forehead, where it trembled. He cocked his head at her, smiled that horrible smile she destroyed with a well-thrown rock, and held out his hands on either side of him. Right now, with his body sheeted in the light of the fiery forest, he looked like a burning cross.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Shoot me. Send me to heaven. He’ll just resurrect me. And then I’ll come for you again. I’ll make it worse for you. I’ll filet you. I’ll strap you down to a table, take a knife, and I’ll eat you alive.”

She pulled the trigger.

Nothing.

Horrified, she pulled it again. And again.

Click, click, click.

The magazine was empty.

Click, click, click.

It had been empty all the time. He spent his last few bullets in the woods. He must have known that. Of course, he knew that.

Their eyes met.

A blue light flashed across his face and he glanced past her, his arms lowering at his sides. She wanted to look behind her, but she didn’t. The blue light kept flashing and it was getting brighter. She could hear the sound of an engine. A siren. Finally, the police were coming their way. Someone had spotted them.

It was over.

Only it wasn’t.

He lunged at her, threw his full weight on her body, and she felt a bone in her damaged leg snap as she fell back. Her back struck the road, then her head, which caused her to skate deep into the long gray road that led to sleep. She heard someone shout. She heard someone say, “Freeze!” And then she started to spin into a familiar darkness.

She’d been here before.

I’m dying.

The thought was not calming or reassuring―it was a jolt. The idea repelled her. How could this be happening again?

But it was happening. She knew this feeling of weightlessness. She remembered this unwanted slight against her life. She took a breath, but not her last. Not yet. Not yet.

Not yet.

Before she fully left her body, she opened her eyes, looked up at the rage on his flashing blue-and-orange face, saw that triumph had returned to his eyes, and with whatever part of her still had the strength to move, her hands reflexively darted up, she turned her thumbs into spears, and she buried them deep into his eyes until she could feel them collapse, squish and then mash under the sheer pressure of her own rage.