Chapter Nine
That day, Maggie did not see Garrett at all after he left, probably around ten o’clock in the morning. He had disappeared when she went out to the grocery store to get something more to eat. She looked for him at the bar where they had initially met. He was nowhere to be found. On her way home, she was rounding the corner on a sidewalk, when a figure jumped out before her and slammed into her left shoulder.
She looked up into his face and saw a pale complexion, blood-red mouth, skinny cheeks, and eyes that looked as though they had seen death many times over. He was wearing a long, black overcoat. His smell was that of a damp, moldy cloth. When he opened his mouth, she saw rotting teeth and the tip of a white tongue.
She saw it then—a wire wrapped around his right hand and arm. She saw the pierce in his eyes, and with his eyes he was searching into hers, and looking all over her body (not with attraction, but with sick obsession). She put everything she saw together in her mind—this monster-like creature, the strange dress, and the wire—and thought instantly that he might be the killer, the Sidewalk Stalker.
She began to scream.
“So you’re a prostitute, huh?” he said. “You’re that Star girl everyone has been talking about. You’re the friend of that piece of disgusting trash I killed right before you went and talked to the police.”
“How did you find out?” Maggie asked, feeling as though she could both faint and vomit.
“I am intelligent,” he said. “I have been following you around, asking questions. See, you’re the Star. The Star of the show. I bet they called you that because you were the prettiest one. And now…” he said, tightening his grip around the wire, “You’ll be the most disgusting trophy I ever won.”
She began to recognize him then. The same slender features, skinny limbs, and sickly white complexion that had sneaked away after savagely raping her mother, years ago. So she was the one he had been obsessed with, all along. She was the one he wanted from the beginning, not Darlene.
“And your mother,” he said. “She was a rancid smelling whore. But you see, I can always get them. I can always control them. I can always be their god and master, and they will always do my bidding. You will do my bidding.”
“No!” Maggie screamed. She kicked him in the groin. Just then Garrett came around the corner. He punched the guy in the face while Maggie stood back and watched. The Sidewalk Stalker hit back, slapping at him with both hands and wrists. He tried to wrap the wire around Garrett’s neck, but Maggie kicked him in the shin and tore the wire from his hand and arm. Garrett put him in a choke hold.
“Get the police,” Garrett said, as though he had very little breath to force out the words.
They came soon, and took the Sidewalk Stalker away.