Women Scorned (18 page)

Then the world faded, five times. She gasped for breath, gasped for life, unable to take in what she needed to live, her nose a throbbing agony under the pillow as he pushed harder and harder. Five times she died.

Camilla came back to the real world, the tangible forest, the wind. She cringed, the taste of the murderer’s spit strong in her memory. She covered her face with her hands and cried. She was on her back, unaware of lying down in the first place. A new, blue cord grew from her core and shot into the forest, linking her to a new source of breath. Daylight would be coming soon. She could sense it. Her night helpers would leave her blind. She didn’t want to be blind in this world.

A multitude of deaths usurped her being. She screamed, fought, begged, cried, spat, clawed, suffocated, bled out, lost consciousness. She gazed into those hateful green eyes, thought about pulling out those white-blond strands in clumps, vowed revenge.

She rolled onto her side and gagged. The green cord hissed as it looped around her waist and dripped into the ground. The snakes writhed around her, agitated, pushing at her back, forcing her up from where she’d collapsed.

She could go after the man. She struggled to her feet and ran in the direction his blue cord extended. The color swirled, making her feel dizzy, drugged like she’d been while trapped in the vision. Branches whipped her torn face, pulling at the ragged flaps of flesh. Her eyes kept pace with her, fluttering, squealing, slithering after her. The forest opened up to a dirt road that forked to the right. Mr. Blue grew nearer, his cable more intense as the distance closed. She faced the fork in the road away from the direction from which he’d be coming. A garden snake curled around her neck. Another stretched up her calf. The others coiled and slithered around her feet. Bats fluttered around her, spread out in the distance, showing her the landscape as a long black shadow among white trees, bushes, bugs. The dark path was cold, so the snakes showed her a black road surrounded by dark purple scenery. The two lines of sight overlapped yet remained separate.

She felt the man but focused on the scene before her, fascinated by all the color. She steadied herself, eager for his breath but needing to wait, needing to time it just right. Her fingers fidgeted at her sides and her head twitched, chin resting on her chest, back hunched. Soon, she’d get what she came for.

*  *  *

Number thirteen clung to his back, her head resting on his shoulder. Eric’s hand crept to his right front pocket and felt the baggie through the denim of his jeans. No. He wouldn’t need it this time. She seemed too tired to even need drugs. And maybe it would be more fun if she were a bit livelier. Give him a bit of a challenge. Yeah, that would rock! His weapon of mass destruction stiffened between his legs as he imagined her squirming and screaming. But first, he needed to get rid of the damn dog.

“That’s right you little bitch. Just sleep it off,” he mumbled.

“Hmm?”

“I said we’ll be there in just a bit.”

“Okay,” she muttered and rested her head again.

Thirteen. His lucky number. After committing himself to erasing the lives of as many people as he could, he’d started with men. Hobos. The filthy scumbags. He’d take them back to his house, have them take a shower, give them something to eat, and then drug their wine. As they lay immobile, he’d cut their bodies, watching their faces fill with pain, helpless to stop him.

But then, after lucky seven, the one he allowed to believe several times that escape was possible, he got the idea that it might be more fun to expunge women. There was so much more he could do to a woman’s body that he would never consider doing to a man’s.

And this redhead would be his sixth woman, but his thirteenth person. No. She wasn’t a person. He couldn’t call someone who wasn’t even human a person. She was a non-human just like the rest of them. Non-humans only existed as imitations of life, which was why they needed to be eradicated. Everyone except him was a non-human. Only he existed. And he could prove it. When he slept, the world around him stopped. If he wasn’t in a room, the people there only moments before ceased to exist. So, how could they be human if he could get rid of them by simply closing his eyes?

Oh, but they were so fun to play with. They acted the way he’d expect a human to act. All a guise, a simple attempt at reality. Just the fact that he could take away their lives proved they were non-human. Only God had the power to take life. He wasn’t God; therefore these things couldn’t have lives. He would die only when God was ready; he was human, he was real.

The little bitch at his back was a pretty one though. He could give her that much. Bored with the old routine, he’d decided to make number thirteen special. Lucky thirteen. No drugs with this one.

He came around the corner. Someone stood in the road. He squeezed the breaks making the rear tire fishtail. Dust plumed around his bike. The bitch screamed behind him. He wanted to laugh but didn’t.

“My dog,” the non-human yelled when it leapt from her backpack and ran into the bushes yelping. She went after it. He didn’t care. He focused on what had disturbed his evening, hoping it didn’t ruin his chances for lucky thirteen.

A naked woman slouched at the fork in the road, form bathed in the yellow glow from his headlight, her back to him. If all worked out well, maybe he’d have number fourteen too. And she looked like someone had already messed her up.

Bats swarmed around her for some reason. It somehow seemed like they were attracted to this woman. They obscured his vision, but despite their hairy, disgusting bodies, he could see bruises and blood. Tree branches clacked in the wind that whipped his blue curls about his head. He took a step forward and stopped. Snakes. It looked like a dozen snakes or more curled around her feet. One hung from her neck.

“Miss?” he said, with a plastered smile over his face as he approached. Then he paused halfway between her and his bike. His heart sped up and his mouth went dry. He could hear every sound, could taste his spit, the sourness of too much whiskey and cigarettes. It wasn’t too late to turn back. He shook himself. No reason to fear a beaten up non-human. Crimson smeared her legs and scratches adorned her calves and arms. Though the cold bit into him, she wasn't shivering. How could she not be cold? She was naked for fuck’s sake.

”Miss? You alright?” What a stupid question. Of course she wasn’t all right. He congratulated himself at playing stupid and stifled a laugh. But she didn’t turn. She waited, head bent, arms at her sides, hands twitching. Though the wind nearly knocked him over, she didn’t sway. He took a hesitant step forward, smacking at a bat that swooped in front of his face, breathing in the unsettled dust, tasting road grime. A branch snapped to his right and he jumped. Stupid bitch and her stupid dog. Lucky thirteen clutched her dog to her chest and gaped at the woman in the road. He licked his lips and reached for the bloody woman but still not close enough to touch her. He took another step.

“Miss?” His voice cracked. He shivered all over and clenched his outstretched fingers, not wanting to touch her, but not wanting to miss this opportunity of having two for one. He hated himself for feeling the tiny twinge of fear beating in his head, screaming at him to leave her, just leave her, turn and drive away. Besides, he was real and she wasn’t.

The strange woman had to be in shock or something. Her skin looked slimy. Brown smears as well as red covered her arms and back.

"Eric." Her voice came out a choked whisper. He stopped, arm outstretched. His eyes widened.  His arm lowered by itself, a will seemingly of its own. An echoing giggle seemed to come from all around him. He took a step back. The giggling persisted, one moment loud in his ear, the next far away.

“No,” he breathed.

“Don’t you want me anymore?” Her voice was a hideous husk. She began turning around as though half asleep, and he saw her breasts were purple with half-moon bruises - bite marks. Something thick congealed black and red over her fingers. He shook his head, no longer able to speak.

Her shoulders shook with her chuckles. Just before she turned her face to him he heard a wet snap as her neck came fully erect. She looked at him over her shoulder, then her feet pivoted, turning her body toward him.

When she fixed him with her gaze he trembled at the sight of bloody holes and flaps of flesh. Her steps made squelching sounds.

He closed his eyes as her fingers clamped down on his shoulders. Her rotten breath filled his senses as her slimy mouth sealed over his. She inhaled. The inhalation lasted an eternity as he felt himself pulled from his body, down her gullet.

And then he became the women, drugged, helpless, raped, burned, beaten, suffocated. When she finally released him, he sank to his knees, unable to think or move or be. Was this real? Was he real?

And then everything became clear to him. This woman must be God. She had to be, for surely she’d just taken his life. He’d felt it leave him.

Again, he became all the women he’d tortured. Again, he felt the fear and pain. He looked at her as she walked away and knew he was trapped forever, doomed to relive those women’s lives, those nights of erasure over and over again.

He’d ceased to be real.

*  *  *

Libitina crouched next to the dirt road with Cerberus. Camilla, surrounded by bats and snakes, stood at the intersection. The blue-haired man she’d been getting a ride with walked toward her with his hand outstretched. When Camilla began to turn, Libitina knew exactly what was happening. She was going to feed again.

“God, no.” He’d been a nice guy. Strange, maybe a bit perverted, but nice. But she couldn’t stop it. The wind blew her hair into her face. She stood and ran back into the woods, not noticing the blond woman crouching behind a tree to her left.

She took out her recorder and pressed the little red button. “Can’t I get away from her? I think she’s following me for some reason. It seems everywhere I go she goes there, too. I just want to be away from her. I just want to go home. If someone finds this, know that I did my best to get away. I tried to leave her. I tried. I know I fucked up. I know I should have found a way to stop her before she even got started in all this. But, I didn’t, okay. I was fucking curious. And I shouldn’t have been.

“I should’ve been terrified like any normal person would be. But I wanted to know what she was going to do and how she worked and if she was contagious. She fascinates me. Even now, while I’m running away from her, I still want to know what she’s doing, where she’s going to go, what’s going to happen to her. I want a sample of her skin. I want to know how she does what she does.”

She stumbled over her own feet and almost dropped her recorder. Cerberus yelped when she clutched him too tightly to keep from dropping him.

“Anyway. I don’t know. I just need to get my head on straight I think. I’m such a fuck-up. I can’t even get the hell away from this strange thing. That’s why I think she’s following me. I don’t know how she’s doing it, especially since she tore out her eyes, but she’s always there.

“Ugh. I can’t talk about it anymore or I’ll go crazy. Right now I’m just going to find my way back home. I just want to go home and forget this whole mess ever happened.”

She clicked off her recorder. Just as the sky was graying, she found an abandoned shed in the midst of the wilderness. It loomed before her as if it had been waiting for her to find it, was there only for her. She crept into the musty darkness, tied Cerberus to a rusty lawnmower, lay down, and slept using her backpack as a pillow.

*  *  *

The electric pulse of the blue-haired man’s breath lit up Camilla’s body, made her alive all over again. She could hear everything and, for a moment, could see the world as she had when she’d had her own eyes. His hair was as blue as his cord had been.

Camilla licked her lips and ran her hands over her breasts, head tilted back.

“Oh, it’s so good,” she whispered, panting. “That’s just what I needed.” She drew circles in the blood over her belly with her middle finger, then paused. Her breath stopped in her throat. She snapped her head up and looked around with her empty eye sockets; then her head tilted and collapsed onto her shoulder. Her body sagged under its own weight.

“No,” she whispered.

The man ranted next to her. He screamed and laughed just like the others. He carried on conversations that existed only in his mind, taking on the roles of himself as well as his victims. She couldn’t stand being around him any longer. His body threw a rainbow of color at her feet as he huddled, hugging his knees, rocking back and forth. His bike lay forgotten in the middle of the road.

“How did I get here?” she asked no one. She had vague memories of running toward something or away from something. She knew why she’d come here: for the breath. But the memory of the journey escaped her. A sense of otherness pervaded her mind, a sense that something outside herself manipulated her actions. She felt sticky, dirty, used, though the sensation of the breath remained. She looked down at what she’d turned her victim into.

“No, I don’t feel like drinking,” he said in a girlish voice.

Camilla ran back the way she’d come, in the direction of the green cord, but at a slight angle. It rotated around her to the left as she passed by her unseen follower in the forest.

“See me,” she heard someone whisper in the dark and knew it was the one she fled. The visions whipped through her mind again and she saw the one, the hateful, green-eyed woman.

“Go away!” she shouted, pulling at her hair. She fled, seeing and feeling the last moments of so many women, not allowing the sensations to hinder her any longer. “Leave me alone!”

“Feel me,” she heard the woman yell from behind her.

Why isn’t she coming after me
, she wondered, realizing that the last time the woman yelled she’d been further back than before.
I need to get away, need to find sanctuary
, she chanted in her mind, searching, running, crossing the road she’d traveled down before winding up here. After running for what felt like forever, just before her vision faded into something less tangible, she saw the vague shape of a shed and went inside.