One False Step
Jo, Jo Darkling.
That’s the name of the crazy bitch that’s trying to kill me. I swear she’s gone nuts on me. I have no idea what set her off, but she seems to have it in for me. Well, she’s not getting me, oh no. I’ve rigged up this entire house. Next time she tries to get at me – kaboom. Yessir. I’ve got everything; trip wires in the hallways and doorways, mines around the house and even pressure plates attached to explosives on the stairs. No way will she leave this place alive.
I guess I ought to tell you a little about her, huh? Just so you know who she is or whatever. It seems like it’s something that should be done. She used to be my best friend. Believe it or not, she really was. She was the coolest person I had ever known. Tall, busty, confident and flame red hair. The complete opposite of me, and everything I had ever wanted to be. We met in our final year of high school. She was in my English class, and it turned out we both had a bit of flair for the writing. We bonded over it, I guess. Then we went off to University together. We bonded over boys, and heartbreak, and everything else. She was always the popular one, of course, and she would introduce me to the ‘cool kids’. She introduced me to my first boyfriend, Damien. Gosh, he was pretty amazing, left to teach kids English somewhere… sorry, sidetracked.Back to Jo. Anyway, we left university and started working at the same publishing house. She was always over at mine, dragging me out to pubs and clubs, telling me to write, pushing me to get published. She really was the best friend a girl could ask for.
Two months ago, though, things changed. She stopped returning my calls, ignored my texts, unfriended me on Facebook. I don’t know what happened. I tried asking, but she never let me know. Other people started saying she had gotten ‘weird’. She’d stopped going out, stopped talking to almost every one. I don’t know what happened. Then I start coming home to smashed windows and dead animals on my doorstep. The worst of it was when I came home to find poor little Jojo, my cat, crucified in the front garden – and a note from Jo promising worse was yet to come. I called the police, of course. They ‘investigated’. Nothing ever came of it.
A month ago, the worse that was yet to come started coming. She shot at me through my bedroom window – if I hadn’t dropped my earring I would have been dead. And then she bombed my car, it went off a minute too early apparently. A couple of weeks ago she came at me, screaming, waving an axe around. If she hadn’t been wearing sky high heels I would have been headless. So here I am, hiding upstairs waiting for her to come back to finish me off. She’ll be back, I know that. She’s not one to give up either, stubborn as a mule, that one. It’s almost dark. She’ll be here soon. Think I may just pour myself a martini while I wait. Ah, damn the vermouth is downstairs… I’ll go down and get it, I remember where the pressure plates are. Every second step from the top, yep. That’s it…
BOOM.
*This piece is dedicated to the ridiculously awesome Rebecca Clare Smith, who is my best friend but isn’t trying to kill me… I think.
