Pieces of Hate (15 page)

Margaret backed away as well, confused, frightened and sickened by what was happening to Natalie on the floor . . . but mostly frightened. She turned away, clamping her hands over her ears to block out those horrible cracking and popping sounds. She closed her eyes as well as she stumbled along, putting some distance between herself and the tortured woman on the floor.

What did I do? she thought as tears fell down her cheeks. What did I do to Natalie to cause that? I hardly even talked to her! I didn’t say anything to her, I just —

She froze, opened her eyes and stared at nothing, holding her hands an inch from her ears as her mouth opened in realization.

Margaret had said nothing threatening to Natalie, but she had thought some awful things as they spoke. And she remembered exactly what that thought had been:

. . . I hope you shrivel up and die, you cunt, I hope you shrivel up to the little doll you always thought you were, and I hope it hurts, too!

The words kept running through her head sharply, cuttingly: I hope you shrivel up and die . . . I hope you shrivel up . . . shrivel up . . .

“Oh, no . . . no, no . . . no,” Margaret whispered.

A hand touched her shoulder and she spun around to see Marty.

“Margaret, what’s wrong with — ” His words got caught in his throat as he stumbled backward, away from Margaret.

“Marty, please help me,” she said quietly, her voice barely audible above the yammering voices in the room. “Something’s wrong. Please help me.”

He stared at her in horror. His face became pale as he continued to back away.

“Marty?”

Finally, he turned his back to Margaret and stumbled away, glancing over his shoulder only once as he disappeared into the thinned-out crowd that seemed to be wandering around the room, talking, constantly talking, their voices combining to form a jittering hum.

He was gone.

Margaret stumbled forward. She was unable to control her legs as well as she had just minutes earlier; they felt heavy and artificial, as if someone had removed her own and attached wooden legs to her body.

She slammed into a chubby man with a nametag on the lapel of his suit, but she didn’t have time to read the name.

“Hey, lady,” he said, pushing her away gently, “this is a high school reunion. You shouldn’t even be in here!”

She started to give a nasty response, but he was already gone.

What did he mean by that? she wondered. That is was a high school reunion . . . that I shouldn’t be in here?

Margaret decided the best thing to do was to get out of the room, as soon as possible. In fact, she decided to get out of the hotel, to get back into her car and put it all behind her.

It was a mistake, that’s all. Just a horrible, horrible mistake. She hadn’t really meant to do anything to anyone. She was still unaware other abilities, unaware of whatever it was this “gift” allowed her to do, so it wasn’t her fault, it couldn’t be her fault because she hadn’t meant to do anything to anyone!

It was all just a mistake, and she had to put it behind her as soon as possible . . .

32

Lynda had been rushed into the operating room only minutes after vomiting blood all over herself and her bed.

Everyone moved quickly, smoothly and professionally, until Lynda was lying anesthetized beneath the bright lights of surgery.

Dr. Plummer — talking constantly, asking for Lynda’s vitals, giving orders — opened Lynda’s abdomen.

He usually had Bach playing in the operating room as he performed surgery, but he hadn’t taken the time to slip a disk into the stereo.

Even if he had, he wouldn’t have heard the music . . . not as he looked inside Lynda Donelly. In fact, none of the others in the room would have heard the music either . . . not over the sound of Dr. Plummer’s voice.

“Jesus Christ!” he blurted, his eyes gaping over his surgical mask, his forehead beaded with perspiration. “Holy Jesus Christ!”

Then, he just stared silently down at his patient, at her insides, his mask puffing out then sucking in with his rapid breaths . . .

33

In the lobby of the Royal House, people were hurrying back and forth frantically; some of the women were crying; some of the men looked horrified; nearly all of them were wearing nametags, but they passed Margaret this way and that so quickly that she recognized none of them. She felt like a city girl on a dude ranch caught in the middle of a stampede of cattle.

As she headed for shelter in the restroom, she stumbled in her heels. She suddenly felt very uncomfortable in the tight velvet sheath. In fact, it felt tighter in places than it had before; her hips felt squeezed by the material, as if they might rip through at any moment. She pressed a hand on the strapless top, afraid that it might drop down over her breasts.

Margaret pushed through the restroom door, vaguely noticing that it seemed much heavier than it had before. Once inside, she heard two female voices, one crying while the other spoke frantically, trying to sound soothing. They echoed slightly in the large tiled room. As she walked along the row of sinks, she saw no one else around, and assumed the voices were coming from a stall.

“Now, stop crying, stop crying,” one woman said. “I’m sure it’ll stop, I’m sure it’s just . . . oh, God . . . okay, we’ll get you cleaned up and call a doctor and — ”

“But it’s not stopping, Beth, it’s not!”

Margaret recognized the voice of the woman who was crying: Libby Shore.

“My God, it’s not stopping!” Libby cried, her voice shrill and cracked.

“Please, calm down, Libby, I’ll have to leave and get to a phone and — ”

“No, God, no, please don’t leave me!”

As they went on — Libby crying, the one named Beth consoling but sounding very nervous — Margaret bent forward, one hand on the edge of the sink as she stepped quietly along, looking beneath the doors of the stalls.

She saw the blood first. It was puddled and spattered on the beige and white tile floor in the last stall, the one against the far wall of the restroom. And it was running down the unmistakable stick-like legs of Libby Shore, running over her almost frail-looking calves and shins in rivulets.

“I think I’m gonna faint, Beth, I really do, I do,” Libby said, beginning to pant instead of sob.

Margaret stood up straight, frowning as she leaned her hips back on the edge of the sink, her hand still pressed to her chest.

Her heart thundered inside her as the crying and the talking went on and on . . . and the bleeding.

Bleeding, she thought. My God more bleeding. What . . . have I done now?

She closed her eyes and thought back to her conversation with the three women in the Royal Lounge.

“You’re so beautiful!” Libby had said just before embracing Margaret.

And Margaret had thought, while hugging Libby Shore, the once beautiful, popular Libby Shore, who had always been so proud of her periods in a complaining way, Margaret had thought, Oh, yeah, you too, you fucking twat, and I hope the next period you have gushes like a river and you drop dead in the puddle! Let’s see how proud you’ll be of that one!

Margaret’s eyes moved down slowly as she covered her mouth with a hand, moved down until they were looking at the blood that was gathering on the floor of that stall.

She started to move sideways, hips still pressed to the lip of the counter, hand still over her mouth.

“You’ll have to stay here while I — ”

“No, please, don’t leave me alone, I’m gonna be sick, I’m gonna faint, I swear!” Libby babbled.

“Just sit down on the toilet and try to relax,” the woman named Beth said. “I’ll just be a few seconds. I just need to find a phone — ”

The stall door opened and a non-descript woman with silver-streaked brown hair stepped out. Her eyes widened when she saw Margaret standing against the sinks, staring at the stall.

“Oh, thank God,” the woman said. She blinked a few times and looked Margaret up and down quickly with what looked like disgust. But she recovered quickly. “Ma’am. I’ve got a sick woman in here, could you get help? Find a doctor? Or better yet, just go to a phone and call an ambulance, okay? She’s really sick.”

Margaret just kept moving along the edge of the counter, walking like a crab, her heels making staggered clicks on the tile.

“Ma’am, could you please do that for me?” the woman asked. “Ma’am?”

Margaret reached the end of the counter and stumbled slightly.

“Are you all right, honey?”

There was a sound from the stall then, from behind Beth.

Libby fell. The sound of her head cracking on something hard was loud and unmistakable, and more than a little sickening.

Her bloody legs slipped out beneath the door of the adjoining stall having slid under the partition, and began to kick rapidly. Her heels made a clickety-clattery sound on the tile, the sound of a drunken tap-dancer, except that it was a moist sound, cushioned by the blood that now clung to Libby’s shoes like a skin.

“Oh my God!” Beth cried, spinning around and looking down at the now limp form on the bloody floor. Without looking at Margaret again, the woman bent over Libby and shouted, “Get someone! Please get someone!”

Margaret staggered through the restroom’s small lounge and back into the lobby.

The ambulance had arrived and its lights were spinning outside the glass doors of the entrance. Paramedics were rushing through the crowded lobby with a stretcher and their equipment.

Margaret turned away from them and began to walk, just walk as quickly as she could. But that was not very fast. She could hardly take a steady step. Surely she hadn’t had that much to drink, had she?

Her dress felt tighter around her hips, so confining that it was difficult to walk. And the top felt even looser than before. She knew that if she took her hand away, it would fall open.

She kept walking, stumbling, staggering, until she found herself in a narrow, dimly lighted corridor.

She smelled food cooking. There were muffled voices nearby, and the sounds of clattering metal and plates.

The kitchen, she thought. The kitchen’s around here somewhere. Maybe there’s a back way out. Yeah, I won’t have to go through the lobby again. Just get the hell out of here, get to the car and leave. Yeah.

A shaft of light came from an alcove up ahead and to the right. She hurried toward it, turned, saw the big door with the window in it, saw people scurrying around inside, in the kitchens and she moved forward, hand out to open the door.

Her foot kicked something and she tripped, falling against the wall to the left of the door as she looked down.

A man was sprawled on the floor, sitting up with his back to the wall opposite her. His legs were spread, but not very far, because his pants were pulled down to mid-thigh.

He was murmuring, voice garbled, words unintelligible.

He was covered with blood.

Margaret saw that he was holding something in his bloody right hand, something small and limp and glistening with blood.

She looked at his face.

His eyes were wide and his mouth was working in a rubbery sort of way. He was white as flour.

It was Brandon Lyons.

“Oh, no, oh God no!” Margaret groaned. She spun around the corner of the alcove and into the corridor, doubled over and vomited onto the carpet. Her hand dropped from her chest and when she finally stood and leaned against the wall, exhausted, the top of her sheath crumpled down around her breasts. But she didn’t notice, and she wouldn’t have cared if she had.

She knew only one thing: she had to get out of the hotel.

Margaret turned and went back the way she came, though she wasn’t quite sure where she was. She ducked into one corridor, then another, realizing they were the wrong ones, all the while wondering what else she had done, what else she had thought, what other use she had made, however inadvertently, of what Mrs. Watkiss had called a “gift”.

As she finally staggered into the lobby, a woman screamed.

Margaret remembered a thought she’d had while hugging Vikki Robinson earlier, a thought that had been hidden behind a gushy smile:

. . . I hope you lose that figure, you cunt . . .

There was another scream.

. . . I hope you blow up like a balloon — your fucking sagging cheeks, too . . .

As Margaret made her clumsy way to the lobby’s entrance with the top of her dress sagging beneath her bare breasts there was a third scream, this one sounding as sickened as it sounded horrified. It was quickly joined by others.

. . . I hope you get so fat you explode, you manipulating slut!

There was a commotion in a far corner of the lobby where two sofas and some chairs were arranged by the large front window.

. . . explode.. explode . . . explode . . .

Oh, God please no, Margaret thought.

The sound was sudden and unlike anything she’d ever heard before. It was an explosive sound, but a muted one, a wet one. It was followed by several thick splashing sounds as something splatted onto the side of Margaret’s face with enough force to knock her sideways.