Protector - Laurel Dewey [43]
As she walked toward the workshop, a cacophony of screeching birds welled up from the surrounding willow trees. She reached the workshop and waited before clinking open the broken, rusty lock and letting the battered door slowly creak open.
Immediately, Jane was greeted by that familiar odor of wet wood, dirt floor and old paint curled at the edges. Sharp shafts of sunlight beat down from the slanted windows on the roof. She crossed inside, minding each step on the dirt floor that lay littered with the broken glass from the impromptu bottle and bullet vandalism she and Mike enjoyed a few days ago. Jane regarded her father’s worktable where parts of a .22 rifle were strewn. Dale’s reading glasses were perched next to a can of gun lubricant oil that was missing its red plastic protective tip. Her eyes scanned the table until they rested upon Dale’s dusty eight track stereo player with the bent handle.
Jane took a long swig of her beer and turned to face the opposite wall. Several boxes sat on the dirt floor in front of a rectangular object covered by an old blanket pad. She nervously dragged on her cigarette for several minutes, staring at the blanket pad. Finally, Jane scuffed toward it, gingerly lifting the padding to reveal the end of a five foot long, unframed mirror. Along the corner section was a curved crack that ran from top to bottom. She pulled the padding off the mirror and sunk to the floor. The fracture across the mirror sliced her reflection in half, distorting her image. It was no use fighting it any longer. So, she decided to give in and live her nightmare to its conclusion once again.
It’s that same snowy night in her 14th year. Dale pushes Jane forward into the workshop. She skids across the soft dirt floor on her shoulder, her face bloodied. Dale closes the door and snaps off his thick black belt. He lunges toward Jane and lays a hard crack of the belt across her back.
“Who the fuck do you think you are!” Dale screams before moving closer to Jane and nailing her with another lick of the belt. Jane covers her head with her arms and tries to get up, but at each attempt, Dale’s belt whips down harder. “You don’t fuck with me, bitch!” Down comes another lash of the belt. “You understand me?!”
Dale hovers over Jane’s crouching body and showers her with a series of punishing blows from his belt. By the ninth stroke, Jane begins to lose consciousness. She fights the feeling and rolls up on one knee, ducking the continuing lashes. She reaches out toward the oncoming belt. Connecting with it, she grabs the belt with both hands and pulls herself up on her feet jerking the belt from her father’s hand and throws it against the wall.
“Asshole!” she screams, slightly dazed.
The words no sooner stumble from her lips when Dale backhands Jane hard across her face. She spins to her right and careens headfirst into Dale’s worktable. As she makes contact with the table, she feels a surge of excruciating pain in her right temple. At the same moment, her hand reaches out to break her fall and hits the “play” button on Dale’s tape player. The voice of Nancy Sinatra fills the workshop, singing “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’.”
“You keep saying you got something for me
Something you call love but confess
You’ve been a’messin’ where you shouldn’t have been a’messin’
And now someone else is getting all your best.”
Jane’s back is to Dale. Blood drips from her right temple and into her eye. The room spins wildly. In the distance, she can hear the faint sound of his voice screaming at her but can’t make out the words. Nancy Sinatra’s recording drones loudly in her ear as Jane tries to focus on the object directly in front of her on the table.
“Well, these boots are made for walkin’
And that’s just what they’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you . . .”
Jane tips her head to the right to force the blood out of her eye and makes out the object that sits within her reach. It’s a Smith & Wesson, 357 Magnum revolver and the chamber is fully loaded. She