The conclusion! For realsies! 

After the third night of nightmares Elaine and Andrew let Anne get a good night’s sleep.

“Are you certain, Signora?” Andrew asked as they both stood over Anne sleeping peacefully.

“Yes,” Elaine said. “I heard they do something like this in the military psychological operations – push, push, push, then let up.” She counted on her fingers, “One, they’re rested so they can better reflect on what has transpired. And, two, it lulls them into a false sense of security – the worst is past, they’re going to be okay.”

“Signora, you were not in the military, no?”

“Nah, I think I saw it on Investigation Discovery channel.”

“Che?”

“Cable.”

“Oh,” Saint Andrew nodded. “What shall we do while she sleeps?”

Elaine shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose we should take the night off and regroup tomorrow.”

“If you believe you will be okay…”

“Sure, Andrew, I’m going to wander but I’ll be fine.”

“All right, Signora. Until tomorrow,” and he winked out of existence.

Elaine turned to regard the peaceful Anne. “Sleep well,” she said. “It’s only going to get crazy from here…”

The next day Anne woke refreshed and reinvigorated, feeling better than she had in… she didn’t even know! Though little things started going wrong almost immediately: Rushing to the elevator the right heel of her stilettos broke, the barista at Philz made her coffee a decaf, her Uber driver’s brand-new Infiniti stalled as he pulled into traffic and wouldn’t restart. Once she finally got to work her laptop wouldn’t start. When IT finally managed to get it running, it wouldn’t connect to the wireless network. By the time she met Steven for lunch at Boulevard she admitted she felt at her wits end.

“Seriously, Steven, good thing this happened after I got such good rest,” she started in on her Italian Mozzarella Di Bufala and heirloom tomato salad. “I can’t imagine what a basket case I’d be if I was as frazzled as I felt yesterday.”

“Indeed,” Steven agreed as he cut into his Wagyu beef bavette. “You were a mess.”

Elaine stopped with fork in the air. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, honey. I’m agreeing with you. You were a mess yesterday.”

She set the fork down on the plate. “So now I’m supposed to be perfect every day?”

“Honey, no, that’s not what I’m saying–“ he was interrupted by a buzz from his phone. He took the black phone out of his pocket, looked at it, and set it down on the table.

“Anything important?” she asked, trying to read it upside down from across the table. The screen went black before she could decipher anything.

“No, just work,” he said. “Look, this has been a rough week for both of us. Let’s get away this weekend. Maybe someplace up north? Mendocino?”

“I’d like that,” she said, argument forgotten.

“Okay. I’ll find us a nice AirBnB or see if we can’t get one of those cottages up there we stayed at when I was away on ‘business’” he added the air quotes with his fingers.

“I knew that fucker wasn’t on business,” Elaine said.

“Sounds lovely,” she said, hooking his leg under the table with her foot.

“It’s a date then. If you’ll excuse me, I have to use the little boy’s room.”

“Emphasis on ‘little,’” Elaine added.

“Signora, would that count as a ‘sick burn’?” Saint Andrew asked.

She shrugged one shoulder, “meh, not my best effort.” She waited for Steven to walk away from the table before she placed her hand on his phone and focused. A moment later the phone vibrated. Anne looked over noticing the phone still on the table. She looked away deliberately. The phone buzzed again. Then again almost immediately.

Anne stole a glance towards the bathroom then reached over and looked at the phone. A number without an associated contact name. Three messages. “See you in Mendo this weekend?” followed by “Does she suspect?” and finally, “It’ll be over soon.” Mouth agape, she hurriedly put the phone back on the table where Steven had left it.

Elaine put her hand over the phone again and focused. Steven came back and picked up his phone, saw no messages, and set it down again. “Miss me?”

“You have no idea,” Anne said, taking a bite of mozzarella and tomato.

Anne dreamt again that night. Steven’s house again. He called to her upstairs as she climbed the stairs. Even in the dream she knew how this would play out, and yet she still moved forward.

“It doesn’t have to happen like this,” the quiet voice came out of a shadow she hadn’t noticed.

She recognized the voice. “Elaine?”

Elaine stepped forward, blood smeared down her head. “It doesn’t have to be like it was.”

“What… what can I do?” Anne asked.

In response, Elaine held out a small Glock pistol.

Anne’s eyes widened as she looked at the gun, then at Elaine, then back to the gun, then to the deformity in Elaine’s head where Steven must have hit her with the hammer. She took the gun, tucking it into her robe.

“Be strong, Anne,” Elaine said, then stepped back into the shadow.

“Honey? Are you coming?” Steven’s voice came from the bedroom. Anne looked back and Elaine was gone. She could feel her heart beating quickly. Taking a deep breath, she gripped the gun under her robe and moved to the bedroom.

She stepped into the bedroom and feigned surprise not seeing him in bed.

“Steven?” she said, looking around.

“Right here,” he said quietly right behind her.

She spun, gun pulling smoothly from her robe and pulled the trigger until the gun clicked empty. Steven collapsed forward, his arm still upraised with the hammer in his hand.

Anne stood over his lifeless body, panting with adrenaline. Bloody Elaine stood next to her. “What have I done?” Anne asked.

“What you had to. Girl power!” Elaine said, and held her hand out for a fist bump.

Anne awkwardly juggled the empty gun to her other hand and tapped Elaine’s fist with her own, then everything went dark.

“’Girl power,’ Signora?” Saint Andrew stood next to Elaine regarding Anne sleeping soundly with a smile on her face. She sighed and turned onto her other side.

“Yeah, that might have been too much,” Elaine nodded. “Still, not bad.”

“No, a few more nightmares and escapes and I think she’s ready for this weekend,” Saint Andrew said.

***

By the time the weekend did arrive, Anne could barely manage to get in the car with Steven. She had tried to buy a gun, but learned about waiting periods. The clerk offered her a shotgun, but Anne left the store with a can of pepper spray and a folding knife. She checked them in her purse before she buckled her seatbelt in Steven’s Range Rover.

“All set?” he smiled broadly.

“Oh, I am,” she said icily.

“Something wrong?” he frowned.

“No, sweetie,” she said with her best happy voice and fake smile.

“Can’t wait to be alone with you!”

“Uh huh…” she said quietly.

“What?”

“Me either!” she beamed.

“This is going to fascinating,” Elaine said from the back seat.

“I hope it is not a long drive,” Saint Andrew said.

“Want to skip ahead to their cottage? Get things ready?”

“Yes,” Andrew said, “Let’s.” They disappeared.

After several hours, they pulled onto a dirt driveway and the headlights shone on a small, dark cottage. Anne knew there were other cottages nearby – she had seen them during the day on previous visits – but the space between them and anyone else never seemed ominous before.

“Wow, that seemed longer than before,” Steven said cracking his neck from side to side.

“An eternity,” she said.

“Well, maybe not that long…” he said, opening his door. The two managed their way into the cottage. When they closed the door, Steven pulled her tightly to him for a passionate kiss. He stopped midway and looked at her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“You seem… distracted,” he said.

She stepped back. “I… I just need to get refreshed. She moved to the bathroom. “Be right out!” She closed the door behind her and locked it.

Steven stared after her as the sound of the shower came on, then shook his head and went to the fireplace. He frowned not finding pre-set wood and kindling like he was used to. He saw logs of various sizes stacked neatly next to the fireplace, but no kindling to get the fire started. Making a mental note to complain to the management, he stepped outside and around to the side of the cottage where the wood was stacked. There he found a small hatchet and proceeded to chop a log into smaller bits of kindling.

Inside, Anne sat on the closed toilet, steadying herself as the room filled up with steam. After a few minutes she took in a deep breath and slowly let it out. Turning the water off, she started for the door but noticed something in the fogged-up mirror: “R U Ready Anne?” Anne paled as she felt her blood run cold. She reached into her purse and opened the knife, just in case. She held the handle tightly. She opened the door and started into the small room, but worried when she didn’t immediately see Steven.

Behind her Steven said, “I thought you’d be in there forever!”

Anne jumped, spun, saw the hatchet in Steven’s hand (but didn’t see the kindling in the other hand) and acted on impulse. She dropped her purse, and lunged at Steven with the knife. Time slowed down as the blade pierced his chest and she could feel the knife graze off a rib as she sunk it all the way to the hilt.

“You’re not going to kill me like Elaine, you bastard!” she yelled.

Steven stared at her, at the knife in his chest, his mouth open in a wordless question. The hatchet dropped from his hand followed by the kindling scattering on the floor. “Anne?” was all he could manage before he dropped to his knees and then fell to the floor, blood spreading onto the carpet.

“Oh my God,” Anne said. “What have I done? What did I do? Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”

Elaine stepped up beside her and whispered, “You need to get rid of the body.”

“Oh my God. I need to get rid of the body.” Anne nodded to herself. “I need to get rid of the body… the ravine!”

“She came up with the ravine on her own,” Saint Andrew asked.

Elaine shrugged, “Apparently so!” They stood by and watched as the diminutive Anne dragged the lifeless Steven out of the cottage and managed to shove his body into the back of the Range Rover. “I honestly didn’t think she was going to be able to do that.”

“Kill him?” Saint Andrew asked.

“No, I figured she’d do it somehow this weekend. We had her so wound up even if Steven hadn’t been dumb enough to bring that hatchet in, something else was going to set her off. No, I didn’t think she was going to be able to get him into the truck!”

“Adrenaline,” Saint Andrew offered as the Range Rover roared to life and backed up in a hurry.

“She’s leaving the cottage wide open?” Elaine asked.

It was Saint Andrew’s turn to shrug. Gesturing towards the Range Rover as the back up lights went off and the big SUV shot forward in a shower of loose gravel. “Shall we?”

“Let’s see what happens next!” Elaine said and then they were sitting in the backseat of the Range Rover. Anne, drove frantically, mumbling and cursing to herself. Elaine looked over into the back of the SUV at Steven’s lifeless body. “That blood is not going to come out,” she said shaking her head. “Wait,” she turned back to Saint Andrew. “Sudden death?” she pointed to the corpse. Aren’t you going to have some work to do here?”

“Possibilmente,” he said, reaching his arm over the seat to get his hand near Steven’s body. “I do not think he is all the way dead yet.” He pulled his arm back and straightened in the seat. “Soon, though…”

Elaine nodded and looked forward, noting Anne’s high-speed driving down the fog-shrouded highway 1. They rocked as Anne jerked the wheel to avoid the guard rail. “Good thing I can’t die twice,” she said, holding onto the arm rest. She peered forward trying to recognize the road. “Do you know how far it is to the— Shit!” she screamed at the same time Anne did. That was all either of them could get out before the Range Rover slammed into an elk. Anne shot through the windshield as Steven’s body flew Up from the back seat, through Elaine and Saint Andrew, taking out the front seat and the remainder of the windshield as it bounced out along the road.

“Wow,” Elaine said, catching her breath. “I am so grateful we don’t obey the laws of physics!” She moved out through the crumpled car walked around to the front of the car where a completely undamaged but slightly translucent elk stood. The front of the car had bent around it, but the elk seemed to glow a little and turned its head to regard Elaine. “Holy shit,” she said. The elk stepped forward passing through the twisted metal and glass around it. It sauntered to the edge of the road, turned its head and glowing antlers back to her before the entire animal blossomed into bright, blinding light and vanished. Elaine turned to see Saint Andrew with an innocent smile on his face. “Was that…?”

Saint Andrew nodded.

“Seriously?”

Saint Andrew nodded again.

Elaine shook her head. “Fucking elk ghost…”

From behind them Elaine heard a man’s voice, “What the fuck? What the fuck?” She turned to see Steven standing over his corpse. “What the fuck?” he asked again.

“Oh my God!” a woman’s voice cried out. Elaine looked farther down the road to see Anne standing over her body.

“Anne?” Steven noticed her.

“Steven?” she said. Then, realizing who it was, “Don’t kill me!” she backed up reflexively.

“I can’t,” he said, anger in his voice as he gestured to his body, “I’m already fucking dead!”

“Oh,” she said. “Me too,” she looked at her body sadly.

“Wait,” he said, “You stabbed me!”

“You were going to kill me like you did Elaine.”

“What are you talking about?!”

“The ax?! That message from another woman at the restaurant?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he bellowed. “I wasn’t going to kill you! I just killed Elaine. We were finally together! Why the fuck would I turn around and kill you?!”

She shrunk into herself a bit and mumbled, “Well… it made sense at the time.”

“And now we’re both… dead?”

“Yes, you are, you two assholes,” Elaine said.

Anne and Steven spun towards the voice. “Elaine?” Steven asked, shocked.

“Surprise!” She said throwing her hands in the air. “You both got what you deserve.”

“Well,” Saint Andrew stepped up beside her, “Not quite…” he was about to introduce himself, when a bright golden light blossomed on the side of the road.

“Andrew? Is that…for me?” Elaine asked.

He smiled, “I believe it is, Signora.”

She turned and gave him a tight hug. “Thank you,” she said. “You have been the best accomplice ever.”

“You have been pretty devious yourself, Signora Elaine.”

They parted and she smiled at him. “I’m glad to call you my friend,” she said.

“The feeling is mutual, Signora. Now hurry!”

She nodded and stepped quickly towards the light, stopping and regarding Anne and Steven. “See ya, jerkfaces!” she said, flipped them off and then stepped into the light which brightened before winking out into blackness.

“What. The. Fuck,” Steven said.

“Hello,” Saint Andrew turned to the two ghosts standing over their bodies. “I’m Saint Andrew Avenillo. Signore Steven, Signora Anne, you may call me Andrew. I am the angel of sudden death. I’m here to help you pass on,” he waved his hand. Two scarlet red envelopes appeared between his fingers. “Oh,” he said, just the corner of his mouth curling into a smile.