“Once he heard the news, Josiah sought out Abigal, determined to win her heart, soul and child. Before he found her, Dmitri would enter the picture.
“One day, Abigail went into Tom's River—a small town a few miles away from where she was living—in order to pick up some seeds for her garden from the town's general store. While she was perusing the different kinds of seeds, a Greek man named Dmitri offered to help my mother with her garden. Out of the kindness of his own heart, of course.
“He helped tend the gardens and Abigail gave him some of the produce to him as a type of payment for his help. It was not long after Dmitri won my mother's love that he suggested they build a better, stronger and safer shelter, a cabin. This cabin.
“Dimitri started cutting and trimming pine trees into planks which would make up the walls. Mother mixed the and laid the mortar while he set the planks. All in all it took them about two weeks to build this shack and it is still standing so, they must have done it right.
“The Greek lusted after Abigail since the first time he met her in the general store and had grown more amorous everyday. After the cabin was built and the chimney finished, the two sat in front of the fire one night. They shared a stew of rabbit, turtle, tomatoes, onions and potatoes. Dmitri had brought a bottle of native Greek Ouzo and they drank from the bottle. My mother was apparently being a bit too forward and it was not long until Dmitri tried to take advantage of the situation.
“He started innocently enough by stealing kisses here and there then he moved on to groping my mother which made her incredibly fearful and uncomfortable. The harder she tried to push him away, the tighter his grip around her became. He was clawing at her dress and had her pegged to the floor with his knees. She reached out around her for anything she could use to help her get out of this situation. She found the mortar trowel.
“She stabbed Dmitri just under his armpit and sunk the trowel in as deep as it could go. She pulled it out and stabbed at his ribs striking two of them and snapping one in half. Dmitri rolled off of Abigail and her blood soaked dress. Abigail jumped up and tried running for the door.
“Dmitri grunted and tumbled towards her with a coyote-like snarl on his lips. Abigail could see his blackened, knife-sharp teeth as he looked up at her from the floor. When she tried to run, he reached and grabbed her ankle. He pushed his fingernails into her skin, squeezing and cutting into her flesh like an English bear trap. She threw a hand over her mouth and fought back a scream.
“She felt her sock soaking through with blood. His hand was a vice keeping hold of her leg. His index finger slid up over her wet, warm sock and rubbed at the bare skin of her calf. Through the dim light of the fire she could see an insane sneer on the...
