Shelby had her back to the wall and was trying to think fast how to keep this monster away from her.
“I am a lawyer” she said “whatever your problem, whatever you have done, I will help you to sort it out. Let us leave together now and I promise you, I will find a legal way out for you”.
Chase roared with laughter “a legal way out for me you crazy bitch? My LEGAL way out is a 210 years jail sentence and no parole” he snorted “can you make THAT go away?”
Shelby’s eyes widened in horror and recognition. “You are Chase Cotter” she stammered.
He is the psychopathic rapist and killer who has shown no mercy to any of his victims nor any remorse for the crimes he had committed and Jason and her were at his mercy in this remote place.
But she had to try once more.
“Please, please take the money I have on me” she pleaded “take the car, you can be far away by daylight. All law enforcement agencies are searching for you in and around Portland. Your description is all over the radio and most likely TV, the sooner you leave here, now while it is still dark, the further you can go before they widen the search”.
Chase just grinned at her, “You stupid cunt you, I take your money and your car without your permission, but first I get you to shut up”.
He kicked her legs from under her and then pulled her up onto her knees. Standing in front of her he opened his pants and before she could take any evasive action he shoved his already erect cock between her lips.
“That’s the only use I have got for your mouth you bitch, now suck it”.
He grabbed her head with both hands and pushed in with all his strength. He felt her gagging, heard her trying to scream.
He was blazing with lust. Yes! Yes! Fuck the slut with it. Ram! Ram! Fucking cunt, fucking lawyer bitch. He pushed and pushed, her fingers tore at him, he did not care. He felt her strangled scream as she tried to close her teeth.
Chase gave her one punch to the head and pulled out of her mouth, “Oh no, you won’t” he panted, pushing her head down, tearing her jeans open he entered her from behind. Shelby let out one horrible, ear-piercing scream, dying away into whimpers of pain as he pounded into her again and again. His big hands found her breasts, squeezed them painfully with all is strength, mauled her nipples with his fingernails until blood started to dribble to the floor. And still his cock was driving into her faster, faster, deeper, deeper while he was moaning and grunting “fucking bitch, fucking whore” until he started to buck as he emptied himself into her.
Jason, bound and gagged, his eyes bulging with the effort to get free, could only watch helplessly as his wife, his beloved Shelby got brutalized by this barbaric monster.
***
“Did you hear that” Jake said to Bill Logan “that was a woman screaming” and he was about to charge straight up to the cabin when the Sheriff put a restraining hand on his arm.
“You can’t help anyone getting yourself killed. We have to check out what’s going on inside first, without alerting Chase Cotter, presuming it is him in there”.
***
Chase, having spent himself inside Shelby, pulled out and snarled “You whores are all the same, pretending not to want it, but getting your kicks from of a real man fucking your brains out” and turning to Jason “you enjoyed the side show admit it. You can have your turn with this bitch of yours once I am finished with her, bet there won’t be much left of her to enjoy” and he roared with laughter.
“But first we get a move on. You two come with me, will make the law think twice to shoot on sight in case the spot us and you better hope they don’t, otherwise I kill your bitch first and you after”.
***
Logan and Spencer had made their way towards the cabin and avoiding the porch pressed themselves close to the log walls.
Lifting his head carefully Bill Logan glimpsed through the window and took in the situation with one look.
He moved away and motioned for Jake to follow. Both men silently retreated into the cover of the trees.
“Cotter is in there alright” he whispered “he has got two hostages. A man lying on the floor bound and gagged and a woman” he swallowed “by the look of it she just became another one of his rape victims and seems in bad shape”.
“We can’t just charge in and get more people killed, Cotter is armed to the teeth” he carried on “go back to the car, call Annie and tell her to alert John Bailey with our location. It’s sunrise soon enough, they must get the chopper in the air as fast as possible. Then come back here, I’ll keep the surveillance up in the meantime”.
“But Sheriff ….” Jake started to argue.
“That’s an order, Deputy” Sheriff Logan barked “git going”.
***
Cotter gave the motionless Shelby a kick and snarled “put your clothes back on or come like you are, all the same to me”. He cut the rope from Jason’s ankles “get up”.
Shelby moaned in pain as she tried to move and covered herself with what was left of her clothes.
“Please”, she whispered again “take what you want, but just go and leave us here. Even with us as shields, the Marshalls will not let you get away”.
“Did I ask for your opinion or permission of what I can take?” he snarled “you two come as my hostages in your car and I’ve got your money already. I’ll take my chances with the law and if I don’t make it, neither will you”.
“Now enough lip flapping, out you go” he opened the door and motion them with his gun to get out and off the porch towards the car standing in front.
Sheriff Logan, heard the door open and saw the movement in the increasing light and against the candle lit opening. He lifted his shotgun and squinted to get a better look.
‘Damn, damn, damn’ he thought ‘was a bad move after all to send Jake away, that bastard is leaving with his hostages. Together we could have outflanked him’.
He tried to shift his position and in doing so stepped on a dried branch. Cotter heard the noise and went rigid.
He put his face up and sniffed the air like an animal. “Who is out there, show yourself”. With one arm around Shelby’s neck, her body sagging like a rag-doll’s, her legs not able to support her, pointing the gun at Jason’s head with the other he started to retreat to the cabin, but there was too much open ground to cover and the morning light was already increasing.
“Let them go Cotter, you are surrounded” Sheriff Logan knew that was a desperate move from his side, a gamble, but he could not let the convict get away.
Chase pushed his two hostages towards the car.
“Get in” he snarled at the same moment as Bill Logan pulled the trigger and the blast of the shotgun rang out.
The shot was aimed high as not to endanger the two hostages. Chase’s attention was diverted for one split second. Jason took the chance, turned and tried to head butt him but Chase moving faster, trained the gun back to his head and pulled the trigger.
“No” Shelby managed a strangled scream as Jason’s already dead body hit the ground. She collapsed on top of him, but Cotter wrenched open the passenger door, pulled her up, shoved her into the car and got in after her, forcing Shelby into the driver seat.
“Drive” he roared, drooling like a madman as she slumped over the wheel. He leaned over and started the Jeep.
Sheriff Bill Logan had only one thought in his head, he could not let that savage rapist and killer get away, not again. With that in his mind he threw all caution in the wind, left his cover and released another blast of the shotgun trying to hit the tyres.
Cotter saw the movement from the corner of his eyes, spotted the flash of the blast, turned and emptied his gun towards the moving figure of the Sheriff.
“Drive” he bellowed again. He pushed her limp foot down onto the gas pedal and the Jeep jumped forwards.
The wind stopped and the heavens opened up again with a cloudburst.
Jake was on his way back from having radio contact with the Annie, the Sheriff’s wife, when he heard the boom of the shotgun once, the sound of a handgun, the shotgun again and then rapid handgun fire. It all happened so fast that by the time he managed to race the couple of hundred yards up the steep slope and reach the open ground in front of the cabin, his breath was coming in ragged gasps, he saw the Jeep roar away, already disappearing into the pouring rain.
His searching eyes spotted one dead body in front of the cabin and Bill Logan lying motionless in a pool of blood, with bullet wounds all over his chest, close by.
“Sheriff” he rushed to his side and went down on his knees. Sheriff Logan opened his mouth trying to speak, but only blood came spurting out. Jake had seen too many men with this sort of wounds not to know that any help was too late for Bill Logan.
The rain drummed against the sodden earth, joining the blood of Bill Logan and Jason Hadley, forming bloody rivulets cascading down the slope.
Jake turned his face to the dark and forbidding sky, cold rain pouring down on him and his mouth opened in a primeval scream of agony.
He got up jumped into the second Jeep and managed to start up the engine.
“You are not going to get away you scum of the earth” he screamed on top of his lungs while he put his foot down and roared after the fugitive’s car.
Shelby was in shock, her mind paralysed. Jason, her Jason was dead, dead before she could tell him how much she still loved him, before she could tell him that she has forgiven him and ask him to forgive her for not being prepared to discuss their problems sooner. Problems that seemed so small, so unimportant now.
That slobbering monster in the car had not only violated her in the most brutal and vicious way, but also killed her man, the love of her life and now he is forcing Shelby to help him to get away.
‘No, no, I will not help him to get to safety’ was the only thought in her numbed mind repeating itself over and over. She tried to stop the car and did not care about the gun being put to her head.
“Drive” Chase bellowed, spraying spittle all over her.
“Kill me you bastard” she whispered, there was no strength left in her, but then her mind jolted awake and screamed inside her head ‘no, no, no, even if he gets caught again, he will live while my Jason is dead’ a thought she could not bear.
Her vision was blurred, but she remembered the sheer cliff dropping to a deep gorge just off and parallel to the trail they were on.
Shelby wrenched the car to the right with what little fortitude she had left, narrowly missing a rocky outcrop. She gathered the last bit of strength left in her abused and battered body, pushed her foot down, the car gathering speed, trees rushing past and before Chase realized what she was doing and tried to grab the wheel out of her hands the Jeep was airborne, shooting far out over the gorge before starting to tumble down, down, down.
‘Jason wait for me, I am on my way to meet you’ was Shelby’s last though before they hit the rocks below and exploded into an enormous fireball.
And then there was silence, broken only by the sound of the rain.