Home | Literature | Stories

Terror
By: Katharine Daimler

“Come in. Now that you are seated and hopefully comfortable, perhaps we can begin now. Would you like some coffee? No. May I suggest that I tell you the entire story, and then you can ask me for whatever specifics you might want.

I go by the name of Katharine Daimler, because of my beloved second husband, but I know that it's my first husband, Freddie, that you're interested in, so let me then, 'cut to the chase, as one might say.

Freddie was a handsome man and I always thought that his best feature was his startling bright blue eyes. I suppose I must have loved Freddie, at least, with the mind of an eighteen-year-old. Due to my strict upbringing, he was the first man I had ever been romantically involved with. When I married him, he was thirty-six, twice my age, and I was so naïve.

From the beginning, he made it very clear he didn’t like me going anywhere without him. Not wanting to bear the brunt of his anger, I became adjusted to staying home, occupying myself with reading and sewing as there was no TV in those days. Soon the babies started coming, so my time was filled with taking care of them but when they started to school I became restless.

At the Post Office one day, I saw a notice on the bulletin board announcing job openings at the Lone Star Army Depot, so on the spur of the moment, I turned in an application. If I could get on, it would be a great opportunity for me because the pay was excellent and the generous retirement benefits were an added bonus. I was soon called for testing and was accepted for employment. However, I could tell that Freddie was less than pleased. But I was very excited, to say the least. A whole New World was opening up to me. Little did I know that fateful decision put in motion the chain of events that was the beginning of the living hell of anxiety and fear that would take over my life.

He was always controlling, but now, I saw his personality begin to change in other ways. He became more possessive, jealous, suspicious, and mean-spirited. I do believe the fact that most of my co-workers were men grated on him. And of course, I had been financially dependent on him, so I’m sure my newfound independence and freedom of movement must have been quite a shock to him.

In retrospect, I see that perhaps I was preoccupied with my new job. So much to learn, and I was working 10-hour shifts. To make matters worse, I was assigned to the night shift with Tuesday and Wednesday off. The Depot was a male-oriented work environment, and I should have been more reticent when I spoke to my husband about my co-workers.

Sometimes, gazing at me intently as if to gauge my reaction, and with an ugly half-grin half-sneer on his face, he would say, "I saw your boyfriend today." He was jealous of all the guys so I would laughingly ask, "Which one did you see today?" Then he’d call off one of the many names I had casually mentioned and I couldn’t help bursting out laughing at my mental image of the man with whom I was supposed to be romantically involved.

Soon, I began to notice something about him that had not been there before I started working. At times, his blue eyes took on an unnatural shine, an eerie brilliance and for some reason, during those instances, I felt quite uneasy when he looked at me. It is said one’s eyes are the windows to the soul and I couldn’t help wondering what evil thoughts were lurking deep in the shadows of his mind. Also, I saw that ugly sneering grin more and more as his actions and words began to take on a sadistic nature.

One day when he came home from work, he told me two of the women I worked with stopped by to see him. We lived on a ranch and he said when he was working on the fence alongside the highway they stopped and asked him if he was my husband. When he told them he was, they then identified themselves as being my co-workers and proceeded to tell him that I was a bitch and that they were going to beat hell out of me and cut my breasts off!

He began describing in filthy language, the gory details of how they were going to do it. His eyes had ‘that look’ again and there was a certain unexplainable excitement about him. It was as if he was actually doing these horrible things to me and he was taking extreme pleasure in it!

The whole incident was just too absurd to believe and I told him so. I told him he was mistaken, that the women he spoke of were my friends and would never be involved in such a crazy scheme. We argued and he kept insisting what he had told me was true. I pointed out the fact that he had never met the two women so he couldn’t be sure it was they. I asked him to stand by the exit door at my workplace at quitting time the next night and I would make it a point to come out with them so he could get a good look at them.

The next night, he stood at the door as we had planned. As we all were coming out, I could hear some of the men murmuring among themselves, wondering who the man standing there was and why was he there. When we got in the car, I asked him if the two women with me were the two who made the threats. He confirmed that they were. I asked him if he was 100% sure and he said he was.

The next couple of weeks were sheer torture. I was near collapse. My stomach was churning with nervousness so badly I couldn’t eat and any real sleep was out of the question. I was so exhausted, mentally and physically, I could barely drag myself to work.

And at work, the stress was even worse. I could tell no difference in the attitude of the two women toward me! That rattled me. I would look at them and wonder what was going through their minds. Maybe they were on drugs? Did they have a ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ personality? What? Were they crazy? If not crazy, then how could they be such hypocrites, smiling so sweetly and joking with me, yet all the while planning those terrible things they were going to do to me.

I was afraid to confront them, afraid of the consequences of making a scene at my workplace, so I kept quiet but the pressure kept building up inside me. I finally reached the point when I decided I simply had to face them. The fear and anxiety was killing me, and sometimes it felt like I was losing my grip on reality.

The next day, I saw an opportunity to talk to them when they were alone. When I was telling them what Freddie had told me, I tried to keep my voice from rising, but it was trembling with anger when I asked them the question that had been tormenting me. ‘Why would you want to do such unspeakable things to me,?’ I asked.

I could see by their expressions that the two women were completely taken aback. They were outraged and vigorously denied saying such things, saying they had never met my husband. One of them was so angry, she said she would be at my home the very next morning with her husband to confront Freddie. Fearing the two men might come to blows, or even worse, I told her not to come. I told her I believed her when she said she had no part in the incident and I said we should just forget the whole matter.

However, I couldn’t put it behind me because the erratic behavior of my husband was becoming even more bizarre. I won’t go into the details but his tales of strange and disturbing events happening around the house became commonplace and it wasn’t lost on me that they were always occurring when I wasn’t there. And always, day after day, there were the accusations about my ‘boyfriends.’ I was being reduced to tears on a daily basis because of his bullying and I didn’t know where to turn. It’s a long story so I won’t go into it, but he had isolated me from my family so I took refuge in my job. It was my lifeline to sanity. The lady I spoke of earlier had become my close friend and confidante and we spent hours discussing Freddie’s odd behavior.

One night, getting ready for work, I was dressing and putting on my make-up. Freddie was sitting on the bed, watching me. That extreme brightness was again in his eyes as he said, "You really do need to quit work. If you keep insisting on going, one of these days something really bad is going to happen to you. You know, traveling at night like you do, someone is going to rape you."

I scoffed at the idea. "That's impossible," I said, "I'm safely locked in my car, and I would stop for no one even if I had to run them down to avoid it."

"But there are ways to force you to stop,” he insisted. “It would be so easy for someone to shut and wire the gate across our road leading to the highway. Then what would you do? Tell you what. If that ever happens, get on that horn and I'll run down there to help." I agreed, thinking to myself how ridiculous the whole scenario was and as I left for work I noticed he again had that strange excitement and his eyes were still glowing with that strange light that I had come to dread.

A few weeks passed, and I had forgotten about his ‘prediction.’ Then, on my way to work that night, my headlights picked up something that made my blood run cold. The gate was closed and wired shut, completely blocking my passage!

Terror stricken, I slammed on the brakes and frantically blowing my horn, quickly put the car into reverse. I gunned the engine and as the car went backward, it became entangled in the barbed wire fence that ran along the roadside. Desperately trying to turn around, I tried to go forward to untangle but the wheels would only spin.

I was trapped! I could feel the fear in my throat, choking me so that I could barely breathe. Only a few seconds had passed but it seemed like an eternity. Peering out the window, I could see there was not a soul in sight. There was no man beating on the car window, trying to force his way in to rape me as had been suggested. As my panic subsided, I was able to think with some clarity, and I recognized the plot that my mad husband had woven around me……

Then I saw him! My husband! Dressed only in his skivvies, and running toward the car as if all the demons of hell were after him. He was shouting and waving his hands wildly. Then the headlights caught a gleam on something clutched in his right hand. It was a machete! Fear came rushing back inside me and I felt so faint, I thought I was going to pass out.

He appeared at the driver’s window, slashing wildly at it, and as he reached in and unlocked the door, I cowered back against the opposite door, desperately trying to reach the door handle behind me.

My husband, this madman, his eyes blazing with that eerie brightness, was looking at me, not in a steady gaze but in glances darting from side to side. As he raised the machete with both arms, I started screaming and he paused and looked straight into my eyes. In bewilderment, it seemed to me.

Then stepping back and making a wailing sound that still sends chills up my spine, he ran on down the road, and into the night. That was the last I ever saw of him.

As for the rest, you know as much as I. It's all there, in newspapers and police reports and magazines. They know what happened during the remainder of his life, that ended that night, better than I.”

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

Please Rate this Article

 

# of Ratings = 7 | Rating = 5/5

Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Stories Articles Via RSS!
Additional Articles From - Home | Literature | Stories
Sign Up as an Author.
Submit Articles
Member Login
Top Authors
Most Popular Articles
Submission Guidelines
Ezine Notifications
Article RSS Feeds
New Stuff
Forum
Link to Us
Contact Us

Powered by Article Dashboard