Don't Look (Pike, Wisconsin #1) - Alexandra Ivy Page 0,3
the few who were there hurried away as soon as the preacher said amen.
I did warn you that I was the only one who truly cared about you.
Why did you threaten to betray me?
Now you’re gone and my lust is no longer leashed. It’s exploding out of me as if a dam has burst. And I’ve already chosen my first . . . hmm, should I call her a victim? She’s not innocent.
She spread my most private treasures across the snow as if they were trash. She gutted me to reveal my innards to the entire world. And then she laughed. The harsh braying laugh of a donkey.
No, she’s not innocent.
This time I will be the one laughing as I watch her crimson blood stain the pure white snow. Life spills from warm to frozen. The pain is gone.
Don’t look.
Revenge is mine....
Sherry Higgins sat on a high stool in the small office building overlooking the Pike Trailer Park. She was a large woman with a square head and a matching square body she currently had stuffed in a velvet jogging suit. Her father had spent her childhood calling her a worthless blockhead—only one of the reasons she’d spit on his grave. The only decent thing he’d ever done was die when she was a young woman, giving her sole ownership of the park. It wasn’t a great living, but the rent from the trailers, plus utilities, provided enough to scrape by.
On the other side of the counter a young man with a haggard face and messy red hair was glaring at her with bloodshot eyes.
“You . . .” Spittle formed at the edge of his mouth. “Bitch.”
She rolled her eyes, returning her gaze to the television set on the corner of the counter. The idiot had stormed into the office when she was watching her favorite reality show.
“Your job is to throw families out of their homes in the middle of winter?”
“Wanna stay warm? Pay your rent,” she told him.
“I’m going to. I have a new job I’m starting on Monday.”
“That’s what you said last month.”
“Yeah, but—”
She waved a silencing hand in his direction. “I don’t want to hear it. Pay or get out.”
“Where are we supposed to go?” the man whined.
It was the same conversation Sherry had endured a thousand times over the past twenty years.
Boo hoo, I lost my job, my kid is sick, my car broke down . . . blah, blah, blah.
Everyone had an excuse why they couldn’t fulfill their obligations.
“I run a trailer park, not a charity,” she told him. “Call the government, they’re always handing out money to lowlifes who can’t keep a job. People who work never get nothing but the bill.”
“At least give me a few days to find someplace we can stay,” he pleaded. “We have a baby.”
“Not my problem. You have . . .” Sherry glanced toward the large clock attached to the cheap paneling that lined the outer office. “One hour left to pay the rent or I’ll turn off the electricity and water. Ticktock, ticktock.”
Without warning the man slammed his hand down on the counter. “Someday you’re going to get what’s coming to you.”
Sherry leaned forward, glowering at the intruder. “There’s a camera right there.” She stabbed a sausage-shaped finger toward the ceiling where a small hole was drilled. There wasn’t anything there—she was too cheap to actually buy security equipment—but the threat was usually enough. “You say another word and I’ll have you charged with harassment.”
The man’s face turned a beet red, but he turned and stomped across the floor. “I hope you rot in hell,” he yelled as he slammed shut the door behind him.
Sherry snorted. “I’ve been rotting in hell for years,” she muttered.
With a shake of her head she returned her attention to the television. She was far more interested in what was happening with the naked people trying to survive in the wilderness than the people who rented her trailers. Bunch of losers.
Darkness thickened outside, the sound of the wind whistling through the windows. It was past five, but Sherry made no move to go and check if the delinquent tenants had made their exit from the park. If they were there in the morning, she’d have the sheriff kick their asses out. It was too damned cold to do anything tonight.
Flicking off the television, she stood and moved to lock the front door. Her own trailer was at the end of the park, which meant she didn’t have to face the icy