Knocked Out Dead
By Amanda Lawrence Auverigne © 2008
"I already told you, Steve. Its over." Mallory said.
"And I already told you that it's not over until I say that it's
over!" Steve yelled.
"I'm calling the cops." Beverly said.
"No one is calling anyone! Bev, put that phone down!" Steve shouted.
"Don't you tell me what to do!" Beverly screamed.
"Steve, just leave before one of the neighbors calls the cops! You
know she has an order against you. You know that you're not supposed
to be here! Just leave! Just go!" Sara shouted.
"No! I'm not leaving unless she comes with me! Come on!" Steve yelled.
"No, let me go!" Mallory shrieked.
"Steve, let her go!" Beverly shouted.
"Stay out of it, Beverly!" Steve yelled.
"You're hurting me!" Mallory howled.
"I just want to talk. All I want to do is talk and you're just
trying to make things hard like you always do! Why do you do this to
me? Why?" Steve shouted.
"He's choking her! Beverly, do something!" Sara cried.
"Let her go, Steve. Ow!" Beverly yelled.
"Beverly!" Sara howled.
The sound of a loud crack filled the room just before a resounding
thud echoed in the space.
Mallory stood over Steve's motionless body and she held a broken beer
bottle in her hand.
"Good shot!" Beverly said.
Sara rushed to Mallory. She looked at her friend's bruised neck
before she stared at Steve.
"You knocked him out cold." Sara said.
"Looks like you busted his head open pretty good." Beverly said.
"Look at all that blood." Sara said.
Beverly held her jaw as she rose to her feet. She moved across the
room and she fell onto her knees in front of Steve. She looked at
Steve's swollen face and she saw a large bleeding cut on the side of
the young man's head.
"He'll be out for awhile." Mallory said.
"He's bleeding all over the place. That beer bottle cut him up good.
There's still pieces of it inside his head." Beverly said.
"Is it really that bad?" Mallory asked.
"We need to call the cops. And maybe an ambulance too." Beverly said.
"Where's the phone?" Mallory asked.
"Steve threw the phone out of the window." Sara said.
"Yeah, after he hit me with it." Beverly said.
Beverly rose to her feet and she held her jaw with a wince.
"I have my cell. Damn. The battery's low." Mallory said.
"Uh. Mall." Beverly said.
"I have my cellular. It still works. I'll call." Sara said.
"What?" Mallory asked.
"You didn't knock him out cold. You knocked him out dead." Beverly said.
"What do you mean, dead?" Mallory asked.
"Dead. He's dead. You must have hit him pretty hard." Beverly said.
"He is not dead!" Mallory shouted.
Mallory fell to her knees. She looked at Steve's bloody head before
she pressed her fingers against the side of his neck. She removed her
hand from his throat and she looked at Beverly with wide eyes.
"See? No pulse. He's dead." Beverly said.
"He can't be dead! All I did was hit him with a beer bottle! I've
done it before and he just got back up!" Mallory shouted.
"See the big pieces of glass sticking out of the side of his head?See all the blood? See this pink stuff? And how bout this little white
stuff that's all over the carpet." Beverly said.
"Yes, we need help. There's a man here who's really hurt. He could
be dead but we're not sure." Sara shouted.
"What in the hell is she doing?" Mallory asked.
Beverly rose from the floor and she rushed to Sara. She pulled the
phone from the young girl's ear and she pressed the power button atop
the device.
"We're at… What? Why'd you do that for? I was just telling them what
happened! Give me the phone, Beverly." Sara yelled.
"Do you even have a brain, Sara? Dude over there is dead. And we
just found out and we would have liked a few minutes to get our
stories straight before you started mouthing off to the cops."
Beverly said.
"Beverly is right. We just have to really think about this. Just
for a few minutes." Mallory said.
Mallory rose to her feet. She stared at the large pool of cooling
blood that oozed beneath Steve's wounded head.
"Think about what? He's dead. We need the cops here. And besides,
they tape those calls which means that they are probably on their way
here right now." Sara said.
"But you called from your cellular and not from the apartment phone."
Mallory said.
"Don't you watch those crime shows? They can trace the signal. And
since Sara used the word dead during the call, I'm sure they're
probably on their way right now." Beverly said.
"Sara, how can you be so stupid!" Mallory shouted.
"What? I'm not the one dating a psycho. And I'm not the one who
squashed his head with a beer bottle either. I'm sure glad my prints
aren't on it." Sara said.
"You're just as much to blame for this as I am!" Mallory shouted.
"How? I didn't do anything!" Sara cried.
"You let him in here when you knew that you weren't supposed to."
Mallory said.
The sound of a distant siren filled the room.
The three young women turned to an opened window that lay in the
center of the room. They stared at the glass portal with as the noise
became louder.
"We gotta hide the body." Mallory said.
"Hide the body?" Sara asked.
"What? Are you on crack?" Beverly asked.
"You have to help me. Beverly, get something to wrap up his head.
Sara, help me drag him. Somewhere. Just outta here." Mallory said
quickly.
"And where are we supposed to put him? In the kitchen?" Sara asked.
"We can take him to the basement. And then the cops will think that
he just got mugged." Mallory said.
"Mallory, I just told the cops that there was a man in the apartment
who was dead. When they get here, they're gonna get suspicious if
they don't see a dead guy." Sara asked.
"But its gonna take them awhile to trace the cell phone signal." Mallory said.
"Don't you hear the police siren outside? What is wrong with you?"
Beverly asked.
"Please, just help me hide him. I can't. I can't go to jail. Not for
this." Mallory said.
"No way. I am not gonna get mixed up in some crazy plot to hide
people's bodies and try to lie my way out of something. When the cops
come, we tell them the truth. He tried to kill you, Mallory. And you
stopped him by killing him first." Beverly said.
Mallory turned from the opened window. Her shoulders shook and she
bit her lower lip as she stared at Steve's blood covered form.
"But what if I go to jail? What if we go to jail?" Mallory asked.
"Jail? What are you talking about?" Beverly asked.
Mallory looked at Beverly. Her lower lip trembled and her eyes were
filled with tears.
"I killed him. It was me. I'll probably be the one." Mallory said.
"The one what?" Sara asked.
Mallory turned from Beverly and she looked at Steve.
"Look, you need to calm down. You're making too much out of this.
No one is going to jail. At least I won't. My prints aren't on the
bottle." Beverly said.
Mallory let out a loud whimpering noise.
"Beverly! Don't say that! She needs our help right now!" Sara said.
"Not the kind of help that could get us in trouble. Look, you are
overreacting. It was a case of self defense. Everyone in the building
knows how much of a creep Steve was and I know that they heard what
was going on. It was self defense. He was killing you and you did
something about it." Beverly said.
"But the law? What if I go to jail? The electric chair?" Mallory asked.
Mallory stared at Steve's bleeding head for a few moments. She turned from the motionless man and she looked at her blood covered toes. She wriggled her gore soaked limbs and she shook her head.
"The cops are almost here." Sara said.
"Good. We'll just tell them what happened." Beverly said.
"I can't." Mallory whispered.
Mallory ran across the room and she let out a shrill scream just
before she jumped through the opened window.
A resounding crash filled the room just before a deafening thud filled the air.
Beverly and Sara rushed to the window. They leaned through the pane
of broken glass and they stared down at the street that lay eight
floors beneath them.
They saw Mallory's twisted form resting atop the bent roof of a car
that lay near the curb.
"No." Sara whispered.
"I can't believe it. He wasn't even worth it." Beverly said.
Beverly turned from away from the window. She looked around the
cluttered apartment and she screamed when she saw Steve sitting on the
floor.
The young man sat erect atop the blood covered floorboards and he
rubbed at his bleeding head with a groan.
He pulled a large shard of bloody glass from the side of his head.
He stared at the ragged object before he tossed it to the floor. He
raised his hand and he pressed his palm against the gushing wound that
lay atop his head.
He turned towards the broken window and he looked at the two young
women with wide eyes.
"What happened?" he asked.