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  FAINT OF HEART

  by Jeff Strand

  Faint of Heart copyright 2012 by Jeff Strand

  Cover design by Lynne Hansen http://www.LynneHansen.com

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the author.

  For more information about the author, visit http://www.JeffStrand.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  "Wake up, you lazy bastards! Get your lard-filled asses out of bed and greet the sunny new day! Except that it's not sunny, because the freakin' sun hasn't even risen yet! Get the [bleep] up anyway! I don't give a flying [bleep] if it's Saturday! If I have to be up, so do you! And call us and request a song so that we know what you lazy bastards want to listen to! Come on, pick up the [bleep]ing phone!"

  Rebecca decided that she didn't much care for this weekend deejay, any more than she liked the way Gary left the alarm clock on the other side of the bedroom. His rationale was that actually having to get up to shut it off would keep him from endlessly hitting the snooze button every morning, while Rebecca believed that snooze alarms were a God-given right to everyone foolish enough to have a job that required getting out of bed.

  Gary got up, tiptoed across the floor to make as little foot contact with the cold wood as possible, and shut off the alarm. His briefs had ridden up during the night and transformed themselves into a makeshift thong. She whistled appreciatively.

  "Don't look at me like I'm some piece of meat," Gary said, in mock annoyance. "I have a personality too, somewhere."

  "You can't bite into a personality."

  He tiptoed over to the closet. "Why do we keep this house so cold?"

  "Because the sane members of this household stay in bed on weekends. You should join them."

  "If I could cancel, I probably would." He took a towel down from the upper shelf. "Do I need to save you any hot water?"

  She snorted. "Do I look like I'm getting up any time soon?"

  "I thought maybe you might make me breakfast, pick out my clothes, pack the car for me..."

  "Good. Healthy fantasizing keeps a marriage strong."

  He grinned and tiptoed into the bathroom. Rebecca snuggled deeper into the covers. She loved cold autumn mornings when she didn't have to get up. She particularly loved cold autumn mornings when neither of them had to get up, but for some deranged reason Gary wanted to spend the weekend camping with a couple of his buddies. She couldn't even call it temporary insanity, since they'd been planning it for over a month.

  Weirdos.

  She lay in bed, listening to the shower. She was briefly tempted to sneak in there with him, but unfortunately an extremely cold floor stood between her and the man to whom she'd pledged her eternal love. It might as well have been the Grand Canyon. She wasn't going anywhere.

  About ten minutes later, Gary stepped out of the bathroom, hair combed and a towel around his waist. He hadn't shaved (probably going for the rugged outdoorsman look already) but he still looked damn good. Though he was on the thin side, playing racquetball three times a week was certainly keeping him in shape.

  "Stop right there. That's an unauthorized towel," she informed him in a stern voice. "Drop it immediately."

  "No way. It's freezing out here. I thought you were going to fix breakfast and get my clothes and pack the car and all that stuff?"

  "The blankets overpowered me."

  Gary walked over to the dresser and took a pair of socks and clean underwear out of the top drawer. Then he dropped the towel.

  Rebecca sucked in an exaggerated breath. "Oh, gracious, what is this heavenly sight before my eyes?" she asked, adopting a Southern belle accent. "It would appear to be my darling husband's ass! Glory be!"

  Gary stepped into his briefs. "So what are your plans this weekend?"

  "Well, first I thought I might sleep in another ten, fifteen hours. Then I figured I'd get up and daydream about going back to bed. Then I'd make my dream come true."

  "You know," said Gary, sitting on the edge of the bed, "if you ever tried camping, you'd probably love it."

  "You're joking, right?"

  "Yes. You'd hate its guts." He began to put on his socks.

  "Anyway, you wouldn't want me out there interfering with you and your buddies getting in touch with your masculine sides. All that belching and scratching and spitting and tugging. No place for a woman."

  Gary patted her foot, or at least the three layers of blanket on top of her foot. "Are you going to be okay by yourself?"

  Damn. Why had he brought that up?

  Of course, it was a perfectly legitimate question, but not something she wanted to think about while she was all warm and comfy in bed. She didn't want to think about spending the weekend alone.

  "I'll be fine."

  "You sure? You won't be too scared?"

  Terrified...

  "I'm twenty-eight, I think I can handle staying by myself for a couple of days." She tried to keep the edge out of her voice, but didn't completely succeed.

  He frowned. "Are you sure there's nobody you can stay with?"

  "Gary, I'll be fine, really. I've stayed by myself before." And jumped at every noise, and didn't sleep for a second, and nearly died of a heart attack every time the phone rang.

  "But not for an entire weekend."

  "Again: Twenty-eight. Not six. Don't worry about me. I want you to have fun." She grinned. "Now hurry up and get dressed!"

  "I'll try to give you a call tonight. In case we have reception problems don't worry if I'm not able to, but hopefully the cell phone should work fine."

  He crawled over her, gave her a quick kiss, then got off the bed and went to get his clothes out of the closet. Rebecca was going to have a good time this weekend. She was going to sleep, watch television, read a book or two, and contribute nothing of any productive value whatsoever to society. She was a mature adult, she didn't believe in the Boogey Man, and she'd be perfectly fine staying at home by herself for two short little days.

  And one night.

  God, she hated the dark...

  * * *

  While Gary threw his camping gear into the back of the car, leaving barely enough room for the unfortunate guy who got stuck sitting in the back, Rebecca hurriedly got out of bed, scampered into the cold kitchen, and went to work preparing a bagel with grape jelly. Let it never be said that Rebecca Harpster was a woman who didn't know the meaning of sacrifice.

  She peeked through the window at the outside thermometer. Thirty-two degrees. A typical October morning in interior Alaska, which meant that you'd have to be completely nuts to want to go camping. She and Gary had already been through one Alaskan winter, so she knew that much colder temperatures were on their way, but she was still a thin-blooded Florida girl at heart. At least there wasn't any snow yet.

  She handed Gary the bagel as he walked back inside. "Wow, thanks!" he said. "I knew you loved me."

  "Yes, I do." She gave him a kiss. Followed by another, longer one, with a bit of tongue.

  He pulled away. "You're making it really difficult to go out wandering through the woods with a couple of ugly guys."

  She kissed him again. "Is that so?"

  "Yeah. Wretched temptress."

  "Then ditch them. Tell them your wife was so alluring that you couldn't help yourself. They'll forgive you."

  "That does sound fun. Maybe just a quickie..."

  She gently shoved him away. "Go. You don't want to keep your friends waiting
. Tell Scott and Doug that I said hi."

  Gary gave her another kiss, a quick slap on the rear with his Hands of Ice, and left the house. She watched through the window as he got in the car and drove off.

  She'd be fine. Perfectly fine.

  In fact, she'd be fantastic. How often did she have weekends with nothing to do? No errands to run, no papers to grade, no social obligations to fulfill...this weekend was going to be absolute paradise.

  And when it got dark outside, well, she'd turn on all the lights, pop in a Marx Brothers movie, and enjoy herself. She'd been married to Gary for five years, and if she couldn't handle him leaving for a weekend every half-decade, then she had serious problems.

  She went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Now, see, if there was anything to truly be scared of during Gary's absence, it was her reflection. Her brown hair looked like somebody had taken an electric mixer to it. She also had a bit of dried drool on the right side of her mouth, and she could stand to lose a good ten pounds (taking her to a place where the health experts said she could stand to lose another ten pounds, which was fine with her).

  Well, she'd get rid of the drool, but the freaky hair was staying all weekend. And if she did start to get scared, she'd confront her fears by adding a couple of pounds to the amount she could stand to lose.

  She didn't have any childhood traumas to work through, no scars to the psyche--she was just your standard-issue chickenshit, and she wasn't going to let that ruin her weekend.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Rebecca woke up again around eight-thirty. She lay in bed for another ten minutes, but the dark specter of guilt began to hover over her--God, her conscience was annoying--and she reluctantly got up. She cranked up the thermostat, took a long shower, brushed her teeth, and got dressed in sweatpants and a heavy t-shirt.

  Then she got back in bed, leaned some pillows against the headboard, and sat up to read the smutty romance novel she'd been looking forward to for the past couple of months. Pauline and the Tailors. Good stuff.

  As the newly deflowered heroine strained toward the legendary heights of her blossoming womanhood and the hero's member throbbed (Gary had previously confirmed that a sensation of throbbing in that particular region was abnormal and would prompt him to seek medical attention), Rebecca began to feel guilty again. Damn. It wasn't fair. She had an entire weekend to do absolutely nothing, to live the life of a lazy bon-bon gobbling housewife, and her brain wasn't going to let her enjoy it.

  Maybe she'd paint the house.

  No, probably not.

  Somewhere there had to be a happy medium between painting the house and reading smut.

  Maybe she'd paint smut on the house. After all, they were a good half-mile from the nearest neighbor, surrounded by enough trees that you couldn't even see the house from the road. Nobody would complain.

  Or maybe she'd just entertain herself all day with this kind of pointless mental conversation. Gary could come home, give her an I-missed-you kiss, and then drive her to the local sanitarium.

  Maybe if she watched some educational programming on television she'd be able to be a worthless lazy bum without feeling bad about it.

  After all, People's Court taught important lessons about the legal system...

  * * *

  By eleven, she was pretty much bored out of her mind, so she trashed her idea of staying inside all weekend and drove the twenty miles into Fairbanks to do some shopping. She ate lunch at the Mexican place she adored but that always gave Gary a good twenty minutes of bathroom time, bought two new blouses, and went to an art gallery, hoping that one of her students would be there and assume that was how she normally spent her weekends. None were, but she did get to see some fascinating artistic renderings of jellyfish, unless they were supposed to be pipe cleaners.

  Then she went to see a matinee of the chick-flick she'd been unable to drag Gary to see because he thought the lead actress had weird lips. It was predictable but amusing and she left the theatre in a good mood.

  As she pulled out of a fast food drive-thru a few minutes after six, it was just starting to get dark. She hoped Gary was having a good time camping, and not having too many beers. The only time he ever overindulged was in the presence of his buddies. At least she knew they weren't drunkenly stumbling around the woods with rifles. Worst-case scenario, they were playing flatulence games.

  She drove home, singing along poorly to the classic rock playing on the radio. She pressed the button on the visor to open the garage door, drove inside...

  ...and suddenly had a creepy sensation that somebody was in the house.

  This was nothing new.

  There was no evidence to indicate that anybody had broken in, there was nothing even remotely out of the ordinary, and Rebecca knew perfectly well that nobody was inside waiting for her. The alarms would have gone off.

  She also knew that she'd spend the next fifteen minutes searching the house, and would probably be uneasy for the rest of the night.

  She shouldn't have gone anywhere.

  Of course, she would have been just as paranoid if she'd been inside the entire time, so it didn't really matter, did it?

  Maybe Gary would come home early.

  She shut off the engine, closed the garage door, got out of the car, and proceeded to check every possible location that an intruder could conceivably be hiding in her home. And then double-checked them.

  Nobody was inside.

  She didn't feel any better.

  She almost wished she and Gary kept a gun in the house. Unfortunately, guns scared her more than hidden intruders.

  She turned on the television and watched the tail end of Only You, which was one of her all-time favorite movies even though most people didn't like it. But the romantic comedy did nothing to keep her from looking over her shoulder every thirty seconds. From checking the windows. From cringing every time she heard a noise, most of them probably imagined.

  She should never have let Gary leave.

  No. That was ridiculous. She'd be fine. If Gary ever suspected just how much of a scaredy-cat she was...well, he'd probably never leave her alone in the house ever again. Which would be nice, but he hadn't married her so he could be a babysitter. She didn't want him thinking she was some timid, cowardly wife who couldn't take care of herself.

  Around nine o'clock, she brushed her teeth and prepared to get in some comfy pajamas and read some more delightful smut. She unbuttoned her pants, tugged out the bottom of her blouse, and then hesitated.

  What if somebody was watching?

  Oh, for God's sake, there aren't even any goddamn windows in the bathroom!

  It didn't matter. She was still uncomfortable.

  She'd be more vulnerable while she was naked.

  If anybody was going to get her, they could do it in that second of darkness as she pulled her shirt over her head.

  Which was, of course, completely absurd, but her entire life had been spent suffering from these absurd fears, and it didn't matter how many times she told herself she was being an idiot, she wasn't going to feel any less scared.

  Remaining dressed, she got back in bed and resumed reading her novel. So she was pathetic. There were worse things in life than being pathetic.

  Shouldn't Gary have called by now?

  * * *

  At exactly ten o'clock, after about an hour of forcing herself not to check the clock every thirty seconds, she dialed his cell phone number. His voice mail came on after five rings, so she disconnected and dialed again. Still no answer.

  It wasn't a big deal. There were plenty of perfectly good reasons why Gary might not have answered. Most likely the cell phone reception was crap. It often was. Or they were doing some night fishing, and he'd left it back at camp. The battery could have died. He could have dropped it in a lake. He may even have accidentally left it in the car.

  He'd never forget to call, but he was out in the wilderness, and he couldn't exactly jog over to a pay phone to let her know he was all righ
t.

  Everything was fine.

  She dialed once more and this time left a quick I-Just-Called-Because-I-Was-Thinking-About-You message, trying to keep her tone upbeat. She got out of bed, went into the bathroom, and shut and locked the door before she changed into her pajamas.

  At least nobody could see how pathetic she was.

  She hoped.