This was not how I was supposed to die.

I wasn’t supposed to go out like this, with my last piece of writing being a suicide note written at gunpoint.

“Let’s go.”

The man standing behind me jammed the barrel of his gun into the back of my head.

I was supposed to die famous, and possibly rich and at least twenty pounds lighter.

“Come on.”

Another painful jab.

My hands were shaking so badly I dropped the pen. The cheap little plastic ballpoint rolled right off the hall table and clattered to the floor.

“Jesus Christ.” the man spat. “Pick it up.”

I sat trembling for a second, tears streaming down my face. My nose was starting to bleed like it always did when I got really scared. I remembered the first time I went through the haunted house at the Fall Festival. 

I waited all week to go through the creaky little chamber of horrors that smelled of used cotton candy and pee. Always turning around at the front door, coming up with one excuse after another to bail. Telling myself I had time. I could come back. I finally went through the haunted house with my older sister, Jeanie, who had already gone through like a million times. I remember squeezing Jeanie’s hand so hard I left her with a bruise in the shape of my chubby little fist. 

When we finally emerged on the other side I was grinning like an idiot, but my nose was running like a tap drenching the front of my Friends t-shirt in bright red blood.

When the other nervous kids waiting in line saw this grinning, blood soaked maniac they all scattered in different directions screaming as if they just saw the devil.

Another jab to the back of my skull brought me back to the present.

“What the hell is the matter with you? What are you doing? You stroking out on me? Pick up the goddamn pen already.”

“Okay! Just give me a second.” I reached down and it was gone.

“Whats the problem?”

“I think it rolled under the desk.”

I had to get out of the chair in order to reach the pen and I heard the man behind me shuffle backwards. I got down on my hands and knees and found the pen flush against the baseboard. I rolled the pen back to me and gripped it like a dagger.

Suddenly I had visions of me whirling around and stabbing the would be assassin. But unless he chose that particular time to check his phone or stare out the window he would see my every move. Still, it was worth a shot. I could do it I thought as I shuffled backward, out from under the desk. I could, I—

He kicked me in the side and all the wind in my lungs exploded out of my body in a wet gush along with any plan of attack.

“I am done fucking with you.”

He grabbed a fistful of my hair and I was yanked backward and upward at the same time. To my credit I did swing the pen around in what I thought was a very deadly arc. I hit nothing but air and then I was up on my knees, suspended from my hair.

“Get in the chair and finish this.” He hissed, close enough to my face that I could smell the onions on his breath.

Another yank and I was up and dropped onto the chair. The paper was still there, waiting for me. Expensive stationary the kind of paper that has the weight of cloth to it.

“Do it.” The man snapped behind me, jabbing me with the end of the pistol again, this time in the back between my shoulder blades.

“Come on.”

I wrote the words he ordered me to write then I signed it. I felt him get closer and pull the ballpoint out of my grip as he read what I had written.

“Good,” he said, his tone changing, calming. “Good.”

Now what? I thought. Was he gonna shoot me? In the back of the head? That would kind of blow the whole suicide angle out of the water.

He was silent behind me for a second, and I was about to turn around when he dropped the noose around my neck.

I opened my mouth to scream but he cinched the knot tight and yanked me backward out of the chair. My fingers flew to the loop cutting into the flesh at my throat, my lungs already burning from lack of oxygen. He had the length of rope pulled so high and tight that I was on my tiptoes as he dragged me backward out of the master bedroom and into the hall.

I heard the man grunt with the effort and decided to double down and drop. Dead weight. I wasn’t a delicate flower after all, but a doughy buck seventy. See how he liked them apples. 

The man swore a blue streak and for a second I thought he was going to let me fall to the floor, but he grunted again and goddamn, he lifted me even higher off the floor until my feet barely scraped the reclaimed wood. I twisted, trying to face him, trying to see where he was taking me. My face felt red and hot like a bloated tick ready to pop.

The railing.

I saw that he had already tied the orange and blue climbing rope around the bannister.

My eyes were on fire and I tried to dig in my heels and stop the forward progress, but a second later and my heels weren’t even touching anymore. I felt vomit and bile rushing up my throat and I was pretty sure I wet myself. I swung my hands wildly at the man’s face but it was no use. We were on a collision course.

I’m not the tallest gal in the world coming in a hair under 5’5” so the railing hit me in the stomach, but it didn’t matter. I barely felt it. One second I was at the railing and then I was swinging out in open air. Flapping my arms and trying to fly. I grabbed at the railing but I was moving too fast. My hands were too sweaty. I rolled awkwardly over the polished bar and then gravity took over.

I’m sure the fall took less than a second, but I remember thinking of my dad. Thinking how disappointed he’d be when he found me. I thought of my mom, and the last time I saw her.

And then the rope snapped tight. There was a sickening crack of snapping kindling and then I died for the second time this week.