Classmate Murders by Bob Moats (best authors to read TXT) 📖

at her dining table and ate while talking. I wanted to hear her life story after high school and she gave me all the details. I filled in a few more of the holes in my life that I hadn't covered earlier and then we just sat there staring into each others eyes for a very long time.

The two giants came back in and said that Buck was arriving. I was surprised that it was already 7:00 and went out to greet him taking Penny with me. Buck had seen Penny's show so he was a fan already and was delighted to meet her. Penny was shorter than I was so Buck towered over her and lifted her off the ground when he gave her a friendly hug. She laughed and said she enjoyed the ride. Buck got a big chuckle out of that. He pulled out a 30 pack of my favorite beer from the trunk and handed it to me. I called him a saint and he said more of a devil. We went into the house and one of the giants recognized Buck and told him he was an admirer of Buck's classic cars that he had seen at local car shows. Buck went to various car shows to display his restored 1961 T-Bird and had won numerous awards. Buck was surprised to have to look up at the giants but they started to get along great. We finally found out the giants' names, Tim and Deacon. Deacon's real name was Francis but he warned us not to use it, he was named after Francis Albert Sinatra, a favorite of his Italian mother. We all talked for a while then Penny and I gathered the dishes and went into the kitchen to wash them.

It was almost 8 P.M. and I asked Penny if she would be upset if I had a beer. She said she would be if I didn't offer her one. Ok, now I was really in love. I knew Buck didn't drink anymore and the cops couldn't so we had the 30 all to ourselves. We finished the dishes and stood in the living room making sure everybody was comfortable.

Penny and I excused ourselves, grabbed a couple more beers and went back out to the porch where we just talked until the sun went down. Buck and the cops were talking cars and Buck was relating some of his wild days adventures with the police. The giants were amused by his stories.

I decided to go back in the house as we could be targets on the porch from someone out in the dark. She locked the porch door and we went into the living room plopping down on the couch, Penny snuggled under my arm and we just sat there in the quiet.

*


Chapter Eight

Buck came over and slid down on an armchair and gave us his walrus smile.

"I got a couple of DVDs like you requested Jimmy. A new James Bond movie and that cute robot movie."

"Buck is a softy for animated robot movies," I said to Penny.

"Well, Wall-E is my favorite too, I can watch it again." She excused herself to go make some popcorn.

Buck and I talked a bit about the day's events and plotted for the night's possibilities. Buck said he would camp out on the couch. The giants from behind us said they would take turns napping on a recliner.

"Where you gonna sleep Jimmy?" Buck grinned.

"For sure not on the couch with you," I laughed.

Penny came back in with a big bowl of popcorn and five plastic bags of popcorn, she handed me another beer and set one down for herself on an end table, yep definitely love. She asked Deacon if he would take two of the popcorn bags out to the officers in the car, he did gladly, then she gave one to Buck and Tim. I thought what a great woman this person was, she thinks of others and not just herself.

Penny took the Wall-E disc and put it in her DVD player and turned on the huge LCD TV mounted on the wall and we all settled in for movie night at Penny's. Every now and then Penny would toss a popcorn at my head and pretend she didn't, so I started to toss a few back. After a while it turned into a popcorn battle, with more on our bodies than in our mouths. I called for a truce and she called me a wimp. Taking offense, I said that I would be leaving now and she leaned over and quietly said I had better not, she had plans for me later. I said I was staying.

A short time later Penny and I started talking like Wall-E and Eve, Buck asked us to grow up or he'd send us to bed, without the popcorn. We started mimicking more, saying "send us to bed" in robot talk. Buck just shook his head and watched the movie while he could.

It was almost 11:00 when the movie finished and Penny said she needed to get her sleep for work tomorrow. She looked at me and said, "There's a soft chair in my room that you can sleep on while guarding my precious body."

"Hmm... yeah that would work. Excuse us gentlemen, don't get up, we'll see our way out." Buck gave me a wink as we headed down the hall, Penny giggling under her breath.

"Think they fell for it?" she whispered happily.

"Oh I'm sure they don't suspect a thing," I chuckled. I couldn't believe this fifty eight year old woman was acting like a giggly teenager, I was really hooked on her now.

Once in her bedroom she went after me like a sex maniac. I was stripped down and we were rolling on the bed in record time. Then we took things slow. Real slow. Oh boy, twice in one day, this woman would kill me if she could. After a session of fantastic love making, we cuddled and rested. She was asleep quite fast and thankfully she didn't snore. I laid there holding her for a long while, I was not a good sleeper. Some nights it would take me hours before I would drift off then wake a couple hours later.

I was just drifting off around 2 A.M. when I heard a noise. Being a light sleeper also helped. I sat up listening, it seemed like it was outside the bedroom window. I quietly woke Penny, who sprung wide awake, and told her to get out of bed and throw on a robe. She did. There was a bathroom off her bedroom that had no windows to the outside, I told her to go in and lock the door. She did. I was pulling on my pants and shirt and shoes when I heard a noise outside again. I softly went to the bedroom door and listened. I could hear the TV playing quietly and went down the hall but not out into the living room.

From the hall I could see that Buck was nowhere in the room, Deacon was sitting at the snack bar watching TV, and Tim was crashed out on the recliner. I came further down the hall just as I heard glass breaking and from the kitchen a figure stormed in firing a stun gun, hitting Deacon and incapacitating him. Tim jumped up groggily and before he had time to think the figure fired a second stun gun hitting Tim in the chest and knocked him out. I turned quickly back down the hall and hid behind the almost closed door in Penny's bedroom. I could hear soft footsteps coming down the hall and up to the door, I was trying not to breathe or pee my pants and wondering where Buck was. There was a long pause at the door, then it slowly opened. I waited till it was half open then I threw my body full force into the door bashing whoever was on the other side. I heard a howl then the door came back at me forcing me against the wall.

I was trapped, he was strong. His head came around the end of the door, he wore a ski mask.

"Well, Richards, you didn't heed my last warning to you? Now you can die with the TV bitch." He shoved the door again crushing me, which took my breath away.

"Yes, I'm going to enjoy this. Maybe I'll have my way with Wickens, she is a looker, eh? I'll let you watch."

He brought his hand around the door edge, he had another stun gun. He laughed and suddenly there was a sound from the hall, I looked over to the crack in the door and could see Buck. He lunged forward at the killer and they both fell into the room and wrestled around on the floor. There was a small pop and Buck fell back with the stun gun cord in his side. He roared at the killer and wouldn't go down. He reared back up but the killer swung at him, Buck ducked, fell back and that gave the killer the opening to jump up and head out the door. I caught my breath and went to Buck who was trying to find his legs but they seemed to go in different directions. His gun was tucked into his belt, I grabbed it and fired once into the ceiling to see if the outside cops were still awake. I went to the door and carefully looked down the hall with the gun held out, I heard a noise coming from the kitchen. Summoning up my nerves, I ran out and was ready to fire the gun when the outside cops came busting through the front door. I held my hands up and yelled my name, and said the killer went out the back, they ran that direction. I went back to the bedroom, Buck was sitting on the floor in a daze.

He was babbling nonsense and then laid over on his side and lost consciousness. He was still mumbling but I knew he was going to be all right . I wasn't going to have Penny come out of the bathroom until I was sure the killer was dead, caught or gone. I yelled to her through the door and told her to just wait till I said it was safe, I could hear her say she would. I went back out and into the kitchen and saw that the large window was busted in, the killer must have jumped through it into the room when he did his commando raid. I heard a shot from out back by the water, then two more shots. I tried to see what was happening in the dark of the backyard, when I suddenly felt dizzy and short of breath. I moved back to the snack bar and had to sit and try to catch my breath. I heard a female voice from the hall calling my name. Penny came down the hall and saw me looking pale and heaving my breath. She ran to me and I had trouble talking, I was in pain, the patrolmen came back in and rushed over to me. They did a check on me and determined I had broken ribs that was causing pressure on my lung. They had called for EMT's already and laid me down on the couch.

Penny was fretting over me as the patrolmen checked the giants, now looking rather small on the floor. I felt sorry