Monster (25 page)

M
ary, dressed in blue jeans and a bloodstained T-shirt,
was
hanging by the neck from a thin wire. She had on
bro
wn leather boots; the right one was beginning to slip
off
her foot
.
The blood was
from the gaping wound the wire had
cu
t
into her neck. Da
rn
, tied that thing too tight while
I was
trying to commit suicide. That's what the evidence was
sup
posed to tell everybody. Killed the cop, then felt guilty
and
decided to buy the big one by going for a swing after
jumping off the nearby couch.
Why, the shotgun was lying
right
there on the floor be
neath Mary. Angela bet it even had
Mary's fingerprints on the trigger.

Angela moaned. “
No. Mary.
”
She closed her eyes
and cried. “No.”

Angela didn't believe the ev
idence. In the last few days she had l
earned a
thing or two about those who ha
d drunk too deeply f
rom the lake. They had unique appe
tites. Angela reopened her eyes. The puddle round
the
cop was not big considering the extent of his wound
.
The stain on Mary's shirt was n
ot that wide given the incision in
her neck. The KAtuu couldn't resist having a little snack
–
drinking a little blood
–
in the mid
st of
business.

Angela wished she hadn't thought about food rig
ht
then. The next tragedy started with good intentions. Sh
e
decided she couldn't just leave her friend hanging there
.
She fetched a chair from the kitchen and placed it be
low
Mary's feet. She didn't believe she'd have the stren
gth
to lift enough of Mary's weight off the wire in order to pull the noose off her friend's head. But either Mar
y
had lost more weight in prison than either of them had
realized
or else Angela Warner was now one strong babe
.
Angela had the wire off in seconds. She cradled Mary
in
her arms as they slumped to the carpeted floor. Bea
utiful
Mary
–
Angela had always been so jealous of
her
shiny brown hair, her huge green eyes. At least M
ary
had had a chance to close
th
em before the end h
a
d come. Angela buried her face in Mary's face and
washed
her friend's blood with her tears.

You were the brave one. You went after t
h
em alone.
You didn’t
ask for help, and when you were stopped you
didn’t
comp
l
a
i
n. You were great. I will always remember y
o
u as
great,
even if the world will always despise you. I'm not you, I
can’t
be you, but I swear I will not rest until what you
began is
finished. Until every one of those b
l
ood-su
cki
ng bastards
is lying
in the dirt with a hole in h
i
s heart.

“
Mary,”
Angela cried, uncontrollable sobs
shaking her
body. But these tremors had another cause besides
grief.
Angela couldn't stop
shaking because she was hungry. She
was holding her dead friend, her dead best friend, and
she couldn
't stop t
hin
king about how good it would be to lean
over a
nd open her mouth and...

“
I
w
on't do it
!” she screamed.

S
ti
ll
she couldn't let go of Mary.
She couldn't get up
and run
from the cabin and save what was left of her sanity
. She c
losed her eyes and felt the edge of the incision in
Mary’s
neck with her fingertips. Then she took the bloody
fingers
and pressed them to her own lips. And the thrill
that w
ent through her body was sexual in intensity. An
in
comparably ancient longing quenched for an instant in
time. S
he sighed with pleasure and touched Mary's wound
again –
lightly and with respect
–
and lifted the fingers
once
more to her lips. The elixir
Jim
had let her taste.
She
suc
ked on her fingers
hungrily. Harder and harder. Wantin
g
to get the l
ast drop.

So
h
ard she began to eat her own hand.

“
Angela,”
a voice said.

She
opened her eyes with a start.
L
ieutenant Nguyen
steppe
d into the room
.
Funny
,
she hadn't heard him drive
up. Qu
ickly sh
e wiped the blood off her mouth.

Don
't
mind
me, I was
just
drinking my friend's
blood.

“
H
e
llo,
”
she said.

Nguy
en surveyed the scene and was forced to close his
eyes.
When he reopened them he was the colour of chalk.
He ste
pped to her side and peered down at her.

“What
happened here?
” he asked.

“Jim
Kline was here
,”
she said.

“You saw him?”

“No.”

“How do you know, then?”

“It’s a
long story.
”
She eased Mary off her lap and on to
the floor.
She would have liked to kiss her friend good
bye,
but not with company in the room
.
Nguyen helped her
to her
feet.
“
Have you been following me?
”
Angela
asked.

“Yes. Did you know?”

“No.”

“Tell
me what happened,
”
Nguyen repeated.

Angela stared him in the eye, and suddenly she fe
lt a power go up her spine and into her head and out from
her as if she were a magnetic field with claws. The
strange
thing was that it didn't s
urprise her when it happened.
It was as if it were a psychic muscle that had always been
th
ere,
even before the madness had started, and she had
simply
never used it before. The power gave her new sensi
tivity;
she felt as if she held Nguyen's mind in her palm. She couldn't read his thoughts, but she could
touch
them
as i
f they were made of matter. She suspected she could
make
h
i
m believe wh
at she wanted him to believe just by holdin
g his eye and talking in a certain way.

“
I
can't,”
she said simply.

Nguyen blinked
. “What's happened to you, Angela?”

She swiped at her mouth again. She had missed
a bit of the blood. “
I've become a naughty little girl. I thin
k I lost my virginity l
ast night.
I
lost something, that's for
sure.”
Her eyes bored into him
–
inside his brain she could actually feel his confusion, his horror of her
– and he
took an involuntary step back.
“
Let me go, Nguye
n,” she
said softly.
“Quit following me.
Let me do what I ha
ve
to do. By the time you know enough to believe
what
is happening you'll be dead.
”

He was sweati
ng heavily. He gasped, “
I don't
know what you're talking about.”

Staring down at Mary one last time, she said,
“
For yo
ur sake I hope you never do.”

Angela left the cabin
. Nguyen didn't try to stop her.

When she got home Plastic was waiting for her at the
front
door. She ran inside without pausing to shut
the door
behind her and went into the bathroom, where
she saw
in the mirror someone she hardly recognised. Wil
d blu
e eye
s
, the colour of Earth's sky
.
But what colour wou
ld the
sky be that she would look out from tomorrow? She
still
had Mary's blood all over her, on her nose, in her
hair.

“
Christ,
”
she swore. She turned on the water, scald
ing
hot, and splashed
it on her face again and again, all the while
crying pitifully. Her fingers were bleeding from
where
she had bitten them; nevertheless, she pounded the
counter
top with her fists and heard it crack
. She didn't wan
t to be like them
!
She w
ould kill them! She would kill herself
first!

“
Oh,
go away,
”
Angela moaned. Plastic had come into
the
b
at
hroom and was trying to lick her hand. She had
ne
ver
seen the dog so friendly. Plastic must have known
s
he w
a
s
upset. Angela knelt to pet the dog on the head
and sc
ratch the fur on her back
–
Plastic just loved to
be scra
tched. But the heat
of the dog's tongue, the faint sce
nt wafting off
it
.
W
hy, it sme
lled of beef blood. Plastic
must
have been chewing on her bone just before Angela
drove
up. Oh, why, Angela asked herself as her brain once
mo
re
b
egan to do the unthinkable voodoo dance of death,
couldn’t
the dog have been eating dry dog food? Just the
sm
ell
of the blood — Angela didn't want to.

“I’m sorry,” Angela cried.

She
grabbed the dog hard. It began to fidget
,
then to
whimp
er.
Angela reached round and dug her nails into
the dog’s
neck. Plastic started to cry, heart-piercing wails
that An
gela tried to quiet by reaching deep inside the
dog’s
mouth. She was going to snap Plastic's face into two
piec
es...

“
Angie,” a voice said.

An
gela let go of the dog, and Plastic dashed away as
if
she
had a devil on her tai
l. Angela was breathing heavily. She
looked up, although it was not necessary; she had
reco
gnised
the voice.

“
Hello,
Jim
,
”
she said.