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Mary Beth looked up at John and saw that strange smile on his face that he never smiled before and knew that he was going to kill her. She could struggle or scream, but no one would hear through the gag and she was bound up too tightly to move. She was going to be killed by this monster that she never knew was a monster and she didn’t know why except that victims of monsters never really knew why. He told her in a voice that wasn’t his that she should be joyous, that her glory would be the town’s salvation. But he was a monster and he was going to kill her and she didn’t understand how her death would mean anything other than the end of her life. It didn’t make any sense to her.
That’s what really bothered her, even more than the fact that she was going to die. She always worked to make sense of the world, to see the way things worked and she loved teaching because she thought she understood something about the world and when she could give that understanding to someone else, it was like another light going on and she turned it on, which gave her a purpose that seemed far more valuable than to be the victim of some monster. The one thing she was never able to grasp was why there had to be monsters. Not like the ones in movies. She didn’t need those because she knew that there were real ones out there who did so much evil on the earth and people saw them doing this evil and some stood by and watched and others helped and others were too afraid to stop it. And those were the monsters with public faces and she thought there might be a reason for them that she could sort out just a little but her mind wasn’t twisted enough to make those connections and she was glad of that. The ones that nobody knew about until it was too late, like this one that was going to kill her, she couldn’t even begin to understand. He could tell her everything and every reason and still he would be unknowable because it could never occur to her to take someone from their lives, their happy lives, her happy life and take her from her love and take her and…she was going to die and she didn’t understand.
For a moment, she saw the road through the trees and saw Gil there by his car. If only he could see her he would at least know the monster had her. But she knew he wouldn’t. She couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound and the monster had her and she was going to die. All she could do was try to send Gil a mental message. “Look at me!” She yelled it in her head and even though she didn’t really believe it would work, she hoped that it actually might and that he would turn his head just for a second and see her.