Manic Terror

    The green Ford Mustang coughed and sputtered.  The young blonde woman pulled off to the side of the road and parked.  The car jerked to a halt and coughed again.  The woman slammed her fist on the dash.
    “Damn it.”
    Of all days to have her car die, Julie Woods had been on her way to visit her sister on the other side of the state.  Generally a ten-hour drive, was now going to take her even longer. 
    She got out of the car and leaned against the door.  She hadn’t seen much traffic on her way along Route 32.  She knew she wasn’t going to see another car very soon.  She grabbed her sweatshirt from the front seat and threw it over her head. She had no reason to grab her purse.  She had never carried one in her life.  She thought of them as access baggage.  She carried everything she needed in her pants or coat pocket. 
    The day had been relatively muggy, but now the sun was starting to go down and the wind had started to pick up.  It had a coolness about it that for this time of year, was very uncommon.  Julie shivered and hugged herself.  She knew that she might be waiting for a while before a vehicle would pass by.  She wished she had bought a cell phone for such an emergency. 
    Just as she thought she would be left to sit in darkness, Julie thought she noticed a pair of headlights heading in her direction.  She started to move away from her car and walked a little ways down the road.  As the vehicle drew closer, Julie started waving her arms and yelling.
    “Hey, over here!  I need help!”
    She noticed the oncoming car was driving a little recklessly.  She stopped in her tracks, but kept waving her arms.  The car came closer and started swerving in her direction, although it didn’t seem to be slowing down any.  Julie began to move to the side of the road.  Just as she reached the white line, the car came barreling along the road and nearly missed hitting her by a few inches.  The car passed and Julie began screaming at the maniac driver.
    “What’s wrong with you, you idiot!!  I need help!”
    She threw her hands up in the air and noticed that the car appeared to be slowing down.  It slowed to nearly a stop and then did an about face in the middle of the road.  Julie decided to make a run for her own car.  She just made it to her door when the other car whizzed by and the driver was honking the horn at her.  She decided she didn’t want to stick around to see whether this person wanted to help her or not.  She darted down the road in the opposite direction of the car and ducked into the trees.  She waited a minute to see if the driver would do another u-turn and head back her way.  When he didn’t, she snuck out and started heading down the road.

    As she walked, the sun had just reached the horizon and she knew it wouldn’t be long before it would disappear.  She began to walk a little faster and thought she noticed a log cabin hiding back behind a clump of trees.
    Julie walked to the mailbox, hoping to find some current mail.  If she did, she would hope that whomever lived in the cabin would be kind enough to help her with her car.
    As she reached the mailbox, she looked around for the mysterious driver and didn’t see any headlights following her.  She opened the mailbox and sighed.  The only mail was an old rain soaked flier for a yard sale in the town of Janning.
Julie decided to check out the cabin anyway.  Maybe she would still be able to find a phone that she could use.  She walked up the sidewalk and onto the front porch.  She knocked on the door.  Waiting about a minute, Julie knocked again.  After about another minute she tried the doorknob.  It turned easily.  She opened the door and peered around.
    “Hello?  Is anyone home?”
    When no one answered, she stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind her.  She looked around the house and thought it quite strange that everything was covered in tarps.  The owner must have used the house as a winter home.  Why the door was unlocked, she didn’t know.  All she really needed was the phone anyway.
    Using the fading light peeking through the living room window, she made her way to the kitchen.  She reached the bar area and found the phone underneath on a shelf.  She picked up the receiver hoping for a dial tone.  She placed the receiver to her ear.  What luck!  She thanked God for the tone and immediately dialed her sisters’ number. 
    “Hello?”
    “Janice, it’s Julie.  I need your help.  My car broke down on state Route 32. There’s this crazy guy that almost ran me down when I flagged him for help.  I don’t know if he might be trying to follow me or not.”
    “Where exactly…”
    “Janice?  Janice?”
    Julie had heard the click but thought that it was just some interference in the line.  She was hoping…a pounding on the bay window off to her left interrupted her thought.  She jumped and let out a scream.  She started opening drawers to find something to defend herself with.
    “Come out come out wherever you are?”
    At that moment a fist came through the window and started reaching for the window lock.  Julie clutched a butcher knife she had found in the last drawer she had managed to open.  She took hold of the knife with both hands, took a deep breath and raised it above her head.  She lunged forward driving the knife into the man’s hand.  He let out a loud bark and withdrew his hand from the window.
She dropped the knife and cringed against the china cabinet next to the window.  She didn’t know what to do.  She didn’t get a chance to tell her sister where she was and now she couldn’t call the police now that the phone line was dead.
Before she could even finish that thought a pounding began on the front door.  Oh God, she hoped she had remembered to lock it.  She started to scurry across the floor on hands and knees heading to an open door to the left of the main entrance.  She reached the front door and heard the doorknob turning slowly.  She finished her way to the open door and found some furniture that was covered with the same tarp as the living room.  She lifted one of the tarps and climbed underneath.
    The front door flew open.  “Hello there?  I know you didn’t mean to do that.  I just stopped to help a pretty girl out.  Isn’t that why you was flagging me down?  Hello?”
    Julie cringed at the sound of his voice.  It was hoarse and raspy.  She couldn’t imagine what this man would look like and honestly, she didn’t really want to know.
She heard his footsteps as they entered the living room.  He sounded like a very big man.  The footsteps stopped at the open doorway.  Julie could even hear his raspy breathing, like he was trying to breathe through a straw.  He didn’t move for at least five minutes.  She wondered if she was breathing as loud as he was and whether or not he could hear her.  Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she thought it was going to leap out of her chest. 
    Finally she heard his footsteps turning back towards the living room.  They stopped again.  Julie couldn’t be more impatient as she was right at that moment.  The tarp was musty and was starting to scratch her face.  She wanted this man to leave NOW!  Suddenly the footsteps headed back toward the front door and stepped out onto the porch.  She heard the door close.
    She waited only a minute before she flung herself out from under the tarp and ran to the door.  She found the lock and turned it.  Time seemed to transfer itself into slow motion at that instant.  The lock turned so slowly in her hand.  She prayed that she could get it locked before that madman tried opening the door again.  As she actually got to finish that thought, she saw the doorknob begin to turn.  She let go of the lock and slunk to the floor.
    The man starting pounding on the door, gently at first and then with more force.  The sound echoed in her ears like bombs were going off in her head.  She crept back to the kitchen hoping she would be so lucky to find a massive cast iron frying pan or something to use as a weapon.
    Julie found what she was looking for in the first cupboard door she opened.  She grabbed the pan and hurried back to the front door.  She stood to one side of the door, waiting for something to happen.  She was clutching the pan so hard that her knuckles had begun to turn white.  Five, ten minutes went by with nothing happening.  She loosened her grip on the pan and started to relax.  Just as she thought about moving away from the door, she heard a loud bang.  The wood of the front door creaked and groaned.  Another bang and the door seemed to buckle inwards.  Julie clutched the frying pan again with both hands and lifted it above her head.  The third bang sent pieces of wood splinters across the living room floor.  She could now see a gaping hole in the door and what appeared to be a very sharp axe.  She felt her stomach turn, but she kept hold of the frying pan.  The fourth and final blow of the axe caused the door to fall inward and crashed onto the floor.  More splinters of wood cascaded to the floor and the dust rose to a billowing cloud in the now open doorway.
    Several minutes passed and the dust finally settled back down to the floor.  Julie’s arms ached and her back felt like it was going to break in half.  Her hands were sweating profusely and she hoped that she wouldn’t lose her grip on the frying pan.
    “Hello honey?  You in there?  Well now, I know you are.  Why don’t you come on out?  I was only trying to help.”
    The man stepped on the threshold and stopped.  Julie could just make out the man’s face.  It was rugged, scraggly hair topped his head.  His nose protruded unnaturally from his face.  It looked like it had been broken on several occasions.
Julie reclaimed her grasp on the frying pan and swung as hard as she could.  The pan hit the man square on the top of the head.  He grunted and dropped the axe.  Before she knew it, the man was on the floor face down.  She let go of the pan and ran outside.  She didn’t have time to go very far.  A car had started to pull into the driveway.  She ducked into the bushes on the far side of the porch.  The car came to a halt, headlights shining on the broken down front door. 
    A dark figure climbed out of the car.  They started towards the front of the car and stopped.  “What the hell?  Who’s in there?”
    Julie hoped this gentleman knew what he was getting into.  If he were smart, he’d get back in his car and find some police.  When he didn’t get back in the car, Julie crouched down farther behind the bushes.  He slowly walked towards the porch.  He took each step carefully and stopped on the landing. 
    Julie was so enthralled with this man for some reason that she hadn’t really noticed that the car was still running.  When the man began to enter the house, she darted across the lawn and made it to the car just as she heard a blood-curdling scream.  She didn’t dare look up.  She opened the door quickly and slid in behind the wheel.  She made sure that she locked both doors before starting to put the car in gear.
    As she put the car in reverse she looked up and saw the maniac standing before the car with the axe in his hand.  She caught a glimpse of a figure laying in the grass at the foot of the porch stairs.  She felt so sorry for the gentleman who happened to stop by his own home to find this person laying in his doorway.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the scraggly haired man beginning to start coming towards the car.  Julie slammed her foot on the accelerator and the car shot backwards towards the road.  The man dropped the axe and jumped on the hood of the car.  Julie swung the car around when she reached the road and put the car in first gear.  She pushed the car to go as fast as it would.  She swerved back and forth trying to get this maniac off the hood.  He clung on as long as he could for about a mile and finally got thrown off down a slight embankment.
    Julie didn’t look back.  She drove to the nearest town, which happened to be Parson.  She found a gas station halfway through town that happened to have a cop car in the parking lot.  She pulled in, put the car in park and jumped out yelling and screaming.  The officer had just stepped out of the store and looked at her.
    “You’ve got to help me.  There’s this crazy guy and another gentleman.  He killed the man.  He tried to kill me.”
    “Whoa.  Slow down miss.  Take a breath.  Start over again.”
    Julie was getting irritated.  How many times was she going to have to explain this?  She gave the officer an angry glance.
    “Why don’t you just come over here and take a seat in the back of my squad car.  Catch your breath and then we’ll talk.”
    Julie let him lead her to his vehicle.  As she sat in the seat, she watched him walk over to the still running car and look in the glove compartment.  After about five minutes he returned to his car.
    “Okay.  Let’s start here.  Do you know this gentleman?”
    Julie looked at the man’s driver’s license.  He appeared to be in his late forties.  Graying hair at the temples, glasses, and mustache.  She looked at the license for what seemed an eternity.
    “He’s the man that came after I hit the crazy guy with the frying pan.”
    The officer looked at her as if she were crazy.
    “Don’t look at me like that.  My car broke down about two miles away from this guy’s house.  I tried to flag someone down to help me.  When a car finally came, this weirdo almost ran me down.  I ran to this house.  The door wasn’t locked.  I needed to use the phone is all.  I called my sister.  We got cut off.  This guy punches his fist through the kitchen window.  I stabbed him with a butcher knife.  Then he bangs down the door with an axe.  I hit him with the frying pan.  This gentleman here pulls into the driveway, I hide in the bushes.  He walks into his house; I ran over and got into the car.  The man screams and I hightail it out of there with this maniac on the hood of the car.  I swerved until he finally fell off and here I am.”

TO BE CONTINUED>>>>>>>>>>