Thunderstorm

“Maybe he won’t show up,” Candy, the dark haired oriental woman said as she unlocked the door to the small cottage by the lake.

“We can only hope.” Jess followed the others inside as the rain began to fall. “He’s probably hoping to see a cat fight when he reveals that he’s been sleeping with each of us.”

Emily closed the door behind them, and turned the collar down flipping out her shoulder length brown hair. “Maybe the road will be washed out and he’ll be washed away with it.”

Jess shook out her long red hair. “That would be too good for him. I say he should end up in the bottom of the lake wearing cement shoes.”

“I think I know where some quicksand holes are out there...” Emily mused as she put her paramedic duffel on the couch.

“If he brings one of the others he’s been sleeping with, we could have trouble,” Candy said taking a deep breath.

“Friends of yours?” Emily said.

Candy nodded.

“I’m sure we can work something out,” Jess said putting a motherly hand on Candy’s shoulder.

"But at least one is a cop."

Before Jess could respond a car pulled up.

The three women moved to the window and watched as Brett jumped from the car and moved around to the other side.

By this time the rain was coming down fast it was hard to see the woman in the other side of the car. Candy gasped as she recognized Trina, the cop. Before she could speak, there was a bright flash as Brett grabbed the door handle of the car. Brett let go of the handle and another bright flash jumped from his head toward the sky. Then a clap of thunder accompanied Brett falling to the ground.

Emily was waiting eagerly at the door of the cottage when Trina finally moved to get out of the car. Emily tried to stay low as she raced to help Trina who had stumbled from the car, and began rumaging though Brett’s pockets.

“We have to get you inside,” Emily shouted.

“I have to get Min out of the trunk.”

Emily raced to Trina’s side as she opened the trunk revealing a young oriental woman with blonde hair wearing a police uniform with short shorts for pants. Emily ignored the ramifications and deftly pulled the woman out of the trunk and put her over her shoulders. “Now let’s get inside.”

Emily crouched down as much as she could. “Stay down!” she said as Trina staggered and nearly fell. Jess was already moving to help Trina, and crouched down to help her as a crack of thunder sounded around them. Jess knew that her height was not helping her in the storm.

They were all drenched as they staggered onto the porch and into the cottage.

Emily checked Min’s vitals and then moved to Trina.

Trina pulled away. “I’m fin...wha about Brett?” she said shaking her dark short bobbed hair.

“No, you’re not fine. Lay down and put your feet up,” Emily said pushing Trina back to the floor. As Emily put a pillow under Trina’s feet, Jess moved toward the door. “I probably better go see if he’s...”

“No!” Emily said. “Not till the storm is over.”

“But...” Candy said.

“Is he really worth getting struck by lightning?”

There was another crash of thunder and Jess and Candy moved away from the door.

Candy stood by the door wringing her hands. “We have to do something.”

Jess had pulled out her cell phone to call for help, then closed it. “No coverage.”

Emily leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to remember Brett’s wounds. “With that hole in his head, I’m betting he never had a chance.”

Candy looked out into the rain, wringing her hands. Now she could see the burned place in Brett’s head and then turned away, her face going white.

 “Jess, why don’t you and Candy go fix dinner while I care for Trina and Min.”

Jess put an arm around Candy and lead her toward the kitchen.

Emily turned and looked at Trina and Min.

“Is Min Ok?” Trina said looking up at Emily.

“Hard to say,” Emily said kneeling beside Min. “Her vitals are coming back to normal, but we should probably get the handcuffs off of her.”

Trina pulled a key from her pocket and handed it to Emily. “Are you sure Brett is dead?”

“If he wasn’t before, he is now.” Emily took a breath as she unlocked the handcuffs. “If he treats Min like this, he deserves it.”

“She gets into that kind of kinky stuff,” Trina said.

“Sorry, but I don’t,” Emily said shaking her head. “And I’ve had to deal with those scenarios gone wrong.”

Tina sighed, “So have I, but it can be fun.”

“I guess to each her own.” Emily looked over at Trina. “I know you’re wondering if we should have done more to save him, but we had to save the ones we knew we could save, while staying safe ourselves.” She cringed as she realized how textbookish that sounded. That didn’t make leaving him out there any easier.

“No, you’re right, I’m still just tying to figure out why he got us all up here.”

“How can they be so callused?” Candy said, as she chopped the vegetables for the soup she was making.

“That’s part of their job,” Jess said. She knew that allowing Candy to cook, would help her friend, and acting as a sounding board for Candy would help Jess as well.

“But that talk of dropping him in the quicksand....”

“We were joking,” Jess said.

Candy stopped and looked at the knife she was holding. “Trina warned me that Brett was up to something...”

“So we’ll ask her over dinner. Whatever it was his being struck by lightening put an end to it.”

“I hope,” Candy whispered as she tossed the finely diced vegetables into the pot.

Emily looked out the window. It was raining too hard to see past the porch in the late dusk. At least the lighting has stopped, she thought, turning away. Then there was another crash of thunder outside, and Emily jumped. “I guess it’s not done yet.”

“So does anyone really know why Brett brought us up here?” Jess said.

Trina shook her head. “He just said he wanted us all in one place for a change.”

“He had to know that we would all find out about each other,” Jess said.

Emily scoffed. “What he did to us was inexcusable, and he’s gone, but there’s no reason to dwell only on that.”

Jess smiled. “I came here for a vacation. I’m not going to let him ruin it for me.”

A sly smile crept across Trina’s oriental features. “I’m off duty for the next three days...”

Min moaned before the others could join in. “God, no....”

Trina moved over to her side. “Min, it’s alright.”

“No, it’s not,” she whispered. “He brought you all here to kill you.”

The others had surrounded Min and looked at each other in shock.

Min took a deep breath. “He was going to make sure that I saw each of you die in the most insidious way he could think of then he was going to kill me.”

There was a crack of thunder and the lights in the cottage went out.

Each woman held her breath as they waited. Finally the lights came back on as the emergency generator came on.

Trina reached for the gun she carried in her boot. “We’ve got to go make sure he’s dead.”

Emily put a hand on Trina’s shoulder, then pulled it way. “Let me get a flashlight so you don’t hurt yourself with that thing.”

A moment later the two women dawned ponchos and moved slowly from the porch toward the cars. The others watched the bright beam of the flashlight as it marked their progress.

“What if Trina is helping him?” Candy mused.

Before Jess could answer a shot rang out, and Min whimpered.

Candy hesitated a moment then scratched her leg and raced for the kitchen grabbing a knife. By this time Min was trying to hide under the couch when Trina and Emily stepped back onto the porch.

“He’s dead,” Trina said. “I had to scare off a coyote that was trying to eat him.”

“When the storm is over we can put his remains someplace safe,” Emily said. “In the mean time I propose we hold a wake and forget that piece of garbage.”

The others relaxed as Trina quickly put her gun back in it’s hiding place.

Min smiled. She’d waited till she heard the shot. Then she quickly shoved the needle into Candy's thigh and injected 50ccs of air into her. By the time it killed her, the others would be dead as well, and if not, they soon would be.

Following the after dinner drink and conversation, Jess announced that she was going to spend a long evening in the spa on the back deck. Trina was going to bed, and Emily was going to read for a bit. Min could not believe her luck. Once Emily was engrossed in her book Min wandered back to the deck. It was too simple. She stripped the wires from a simple extension cord, then plugged it in and dropped in into the water. Min watched Jess convulse in the pool, and was pleased that she hadn’t made a sound. The circuit she’d plugged the cord into was to the outbuilding near-by so when the breaker blew, no one inside noticed.

Emily was hesitant to approach her new-found friends about overdoing it, but it was one of the hazards of her job. It had been over and hour since Jess went out to sit in the spa, so she went out to see if she was alright. She figured if nothing else a dip in the spa would feel good. She stopped as she realized that Jess was motionless in the spa.

“Jess?” she said as she touched the body. “Oh, Jess....”

Emily turned to go get her bag, and felt two wires pressed against her chest, before the pain of her heart stopping made her gasp. She fell backward into the spa, as her world went black.

“Poetic justice,” Min mused. “Two of the five electrocuted.”

Trina knew that she slept too soundly. It was the only way that she could deal with the realities of her job. But tonight she was on vacation. Then she opened her eyes and found herself staring down the barrel of her own gun, pressed between her eyes.

“Bye,” Min said as she pulled the trigger.

Candy woke with a start at the sound of the gunshot. She forced herself to breathe despite the pain in her chest. Trina had killed one of them, but she won’t kill me, she thought as she reached for the knife under her pillow. When Min entered the room carrying Trina’s gun Candy gasped.

“You’re still alive.” Min said.

“So are you.”

“I couldn’t let Brett getting hit by lightning deprive me of the fun of watching you each die,” Min said lowering the gun. “And the air in your system will kill you much slower than the others.”

“Then you shouldn’t miss out on the grand finale,” Candy said as she pulled the knife from under her pillow and threw it into Min’s chest.

Min looked down at the knife as the gun fell from her hand. Then she looked up at Candy and then fell over, dead.

Candy reached over to the nightstand and opened the bottle of heart pills, and popped two into her mouth. Then she sat up and put her legs over the side of the bed. She reached down and secured her prosthetic calf and foot then stood and kicked the gun away from the body.

qed.