CHAPTER 12
Her back burned like someone had poured gasoline on it and struck a match.
Can you imagine the fear that ran through my body? While at that same time I felt what was like fire burning all over my back.
The worst was yet to come, however, as far as any physical pain Jimmy would put her through. Anne Bridges just didn’t know it.
Within seconds Anne realized Jimmy had fired his weapon, and dozens of steel BBs had launched out of a twelve-gauge shotgun shell toward her. Many of these had struck Anne all over her back.
She was lucky to be breathing.
Anne had hit the ground and curled the back of her legs underneath her bottom and screamed as loud as she could. By now, she was just across the street from Jimmy’s house on the other side of the road.
Paralyzed by shock and fear, as she winced and twisted in agony, Anne could hear Jimmy running.
Toward her.
Footsteps in the brush. Moving quickly.
No . . . no . . . my God, no.
* * *
“Damn you . . . ,” Jimmy said when he reached Anne. He held his weapon on Anne, as if she were some sort of wild creature he’d hunted and shot.
Anne could not speak. All she could do was scream. The burning sensation of metal BBs lodged underneath her skin, tearing into her flesh and muscle and organs, was unbearable.
Jimmy grabbed Anne by the crook of her armpit and dragged her across the road. She could not stand.
“Get the hell up on your feet,” he said through clenched teeth. “Get up on your feet right now, Anne.”
“Ow . . . ow,” Anne said.
She tried to stand, but kept falling down.
“Get your ass up on your feet.”
Anne screamed in anguish.
They made it to the porch. With the shotgun in one hand, Jimmy opened the door with his other, as Anne fell to the ground.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing her by the arm, his right leg holding the door open. “Get up.”
Inside the foyer Jimmy dragged Anne into the house and she fell in fatigue onto the carpeted floor.
The shotgun pain was bad—I don’t even know how to explain how painful it was. But what Jimmy did to me next, I cannot even begin to describe how horrible and how bad the burning was—it will always be the worst thing I have ever felt in my life. Death would have been less painful.
Jimmy said, “Get up off that floor—right now.”
Dizzy, weak, and wobbly, Anne stood.
“Walk,” he said.
Anne could hardly move. Her back was bleeding, her shirt drenched in blood. She didn’t know it then, obviously, but several steel BBs had penetrated a lung, her liver, and her shoulder. One pressed against the subclavian artery, a major source of blood flow to the arm, hands, and heart. Anne was losing blood fast, growing weaker by the minute.
Jimmy walked out of the room and disappeared into another section of the house.
Anne stood and watched him leave.
This is my only chance, she thought, then made a dash for the phone.
She picked it up and dialed 911.
Shaking, she held the phone up to her ear. Her eyes were on the doorway into the living room, anticipating that Jimmy would come back and catch her. Dispatch answered her call.
“I’ve been shot . . . ,” Anne said frantically.
As she spoke, Anne turned her back to the living room’s entryway.
Just then, as she was about to say something else, Jimmy grabbed the phone receiver from her hand and hung it up.
“Damn it all,” he said, his intimidating shotgun now back in the picture. “What have you done?”
The phone rang.
It was the 911 dispatcher asking if everything was okay. Jimmy said yes. The call had been a mistake.
“And no one ever came,” Anne commented later. “I thought they’d trace the number and come, but they did not.”
Jimmy grabbed Anne by her injured shoulder and dragged her toward the bathroom. She could hardly stand, let alone walk.
The bathroom? Anne thought. What is he thinking?
“Get into the shower,” Jimmy said.
“What . . .”
“Take your clothes off and get into the shower.”
Anne did as she was told.
Jimmy made Anne turn and face her back in the direction of the water flow. He’d turned the water on piping hot and made Anne stand still as the water splashed onto her back.
That water hitting those fresh, open wounds on my back was excruciating. Like nothing I could ever explain in terms of words. Nothing but terror in my body at this time.
I do not know what his reasoning for doing this was—maybe for merely torturing me or what? But the water beating on those wounds, like when you have a cut and you put peroxide on it, that incredible burning, well, this was ten times that pain.
“Please stop the water,” Anne begged through tears and screams.
“Shut up.”
“Please, Jimmy . . . please stop this.”
“Shut up, Anne. Don’t be a sissy.”
Done torturing Anne in the shower, Jimmy turned off the water and told her to get out.
“Go into my bedroom.”
Jimmy’s shotgun was never far out of his reach and he routinely reminded Anne that he could finish her off at any time. He had a plan, that much was clear to Anne, but she had no idea what it was.
Anne sat on Jimmy’s bed. He gave her a pair of his shorts and a T-shirt. He told her to get dressed.
Just putting the clothes on was difficult and painful.
“Please, Jimmy, don’t kill me,” Anne pleaded.
As she sat on the bed, whimpering in agony, shaking from the throbbing of her wounds, in shock, Jimmy must have felt he could contain her without the weapons. He did not keep any weapons in the living portion of the house. He kept all of his weapons out of sight in the attic, because he was not supposed to be in possession of them.
“Don’t you try to go anywhere,” Jimmy said as he walked out of the bedroom with his shotgun.
Knowingly or not, he left a pistol on the bed, to Anne’s right side. As he walked out of the room, Anne took a glance at it.
Leave, she thought. Leave so I can grab that gun . . .
“You be a good girl now, Anne,” Jimmy said.
Anne faced another problem: her breathing. She noticed how shallow and slow it had become. She could feel something in her lungs was terribly wrong.
My breathing was getting more and more difficult. I had a hard time catching my breath. I prayed and prayed, and all I could think of was my son. Myself and my mother were the only constant people in his life, and I was so worried about what would happen to him if I died.
Jimmy had left the room.
Anne could hear him pull down the attic stairs in another section of the house. She assumed he was putting the shotgun away.
Certain Jimmy was not going to catch her, Anne scooted over and picked up the pistol. Then she turned off the safety. Checked and saw that it was loaded.
Was this some sort of sick test or plan on Jimmy’s part? Had he left that pistol there on purpose?
Anne cocked the hammer back and trained the weapon on the door into the bedroom. As soon as Jimmy walked back into the room, Anne was going to get the hell out of that house or blow the son of a bitch away.