Women Scorned
Authors: Angela Alsaleem
Women
Scorned
By
Angela Alsaleem
JournalStone
San Francisco
Copyright ©2012 by Angela Alsaleem
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
ISBN: 978-1-936564-38-5 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-936564-39-2 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012935829
Printed in the United States of America
JournalStone rev. date:
Cover Design: Denise Daniel
Cover Art: Philip Renne
Edited By: Elizabeth Reuter
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank my husband. He gave me a year off from work to launch my writing career. In that year’s time, I finished Sanitarium, Women Scorned, and Breaking Thresholds. In the years since, I have been fine-tuning these works to make them ready for publication, as well as working on new novels, all with his support and encouragement. There have been days where I have wanted to give up on the idea of ever becoming an acknowledged author. Juggling a career, a family and my writing has been exhausting, but he never let me quit. Because of that, Women Scorned made it past the cut. He was my first reader, my first cringer. And, most importantly to any writer, he told me the truth about what he liked and didn’t like, what terrified him and what fell flat.
My family has been the best support system a writer can hope for, pushing me toward my dreams and goals, encouraging me every step of the way. I want to thank my mom for reading those dreadful first drafts and loving them anyway, my grandma for always shouting, “Woo HOO” at every success along the way, and my daddy for keeping my website running (and keeping it beautiful) as well as all the work he does proofreading my work for typos and word choice errors.
I want to thank my daughter for always asking how many words I wrote each night and for wanting to read my work (she’s only 10 and so hasn’t been allowed to read it yet, but I have a feeling she’s going to be just as much of a horror fan as her momma). I want to thank my Aunt Nat for always being there, always reading, always commenting. My family has never failed in telling everyone (and I mean even perfect strangers…I have books circulating in Germany and Jamaica because of them) about my work. Every writer needs book advocates as forward as this group. I don’t know where my fan base would be without them.
And, for my best friend and writing companion, Claire L. Fishback, I owe such deep thanks. If I hadn’t been competing against her in a flash fiction, prompt driven, horror contest, this book would never have been written. It was the prompt, “He/She/It stood at the fork in the road…” that introduced Camilla to me. I read Claire’s story, which was fantastic, and knew I had to write something really clever to beat it. The flash fiction story I wrote for that prompt is now a prominent scene in the novel. Camilla appeared to me in another flash fiction piece and I began wondering who was this woman, where did she come from? Claire was with me every step of the way, reading my terrible first draft that only got half written. She introduced me to a writing method that helped me organize my thoughts and really make this story flow. She provided line-by-line feedback. Claire is the best writing companion anyone could ever hope for.
Matt R. Konopka deserves thanks for being honest enough to tell me my characters talked to themselves too much. As a screenwriter, Matt knows a thing or two about how to get the point across when it comes to what a character is thinking without that character needing to announce their thoughts for the audience to hear. And he was right. When I first came up with the idea for Women Scorned, I wanted to write the book like a movie with as little internal thought processes as possible. To make up for the lack of thoughts, I made my characters talk. They are often alone in this story and all their blathering was annoying, a cop-out. Rather than show, I was still telling. Because of Matt, my characters are now more realistic in how they react in stressful situations and what they say and don’t say.
My co-worker, Cheryl Bristow, was kind enough to read my work and find all the typos and word choice errors throughout so that when I submitted the work to the publisher, it would be as free from errors as I could make it. I didn’t want to publish something I would regret. Because of Cheryl, it was much easier to make the later edits necessary for publication.
Thank you to JournalStone for taking a chance on this novel. I am so pleased with the artwork, the editing, and the attention I’ve received. This has been the most positive publishing experience I’ve ever had. I appreciate that they listened to my ideas as far as what I had in mind for the cover art. The fact that they are taking the time to read and re-read the work to make sure it is as flawless as it can be makes me feel secure in the knowledge that this will be the best work I’ve published to date. I look forward to working with them again with other manuscripts.
Finally, I would like to thank you, my reader for allowing me to entertain your wicked mind. Without you and your hunger for terror, Women Scorned would have never left my group of friends and family. Thank you for your support. I look forward to meeting you again.
Dedication
Eelah Habibi:
Anta oumri.
Part One
The Question
Chapter One
A shriek ripped through the night before it was muffled, then silenced. A police cruiser sat behind a beat-up blue car that rocked in the headlights. Grunts and moans came from within. A man’s legs protruded from the backseat, feet grinding in the dirt, police uniform slacks pooled around his ankles. The man laughed. A heavy metallic smell hung in the air.
After a satiated groan, the rocking stopped. The peace officer heaved himself from the backseat, his groin and hands covered in blood. He stuffed a woman’s naked legs inside the automobile and closed the door, leaving behind a red smear. In his other hand, he held chains dangling with charms of various materials and sizes - necklaces. The policeman duck-walked to a bucket filled with sudsy water sitting next to his cruiser and cleaned himself, stripping latex gloves from his hands, scrubbing his face, groin, and arms, careful to remove all traces of
her
.
When he finished, a crimson fleck clung to his cheek. He didn’t notice. He pulled his pants up and patted his legs, smacking dust from the fabric. After dumping the bloodied water onto the graveled shoulder, he placed the bucket in the trunk, rubbed his hand over his Marine-styled hair, and got into the cruiser with a sneer plastered to his face. The red dome lights circled in the darkness, lighting his twisted grin. With a sigh, he pulled away from his mess, his taillights diminishing to pinpricks before disappearing around a bend in the road.
* * *
The moon shone down on the abandoned car, the night hiding the dark secret inside. The wind settled into an ominous stillness. The air grew heavy and something rumbled in the distance, something felt more than heard.
A loud crack split the silence. A dark form materialized, a woman swathed in shadow shifting toward the car, feet crunching through gravel. Her matted hair untouched by wind, her naked body covered in scars, she moved with the darkness. At a touch, the back passenger-side door opened. Naked legs flopped out, covered in blood and new bruises. The body was motionless, vacant eyes staring. The shadowed stranger laid her hands on the legs dangling from the back seat.
The moment she touched the girl’s thigh, blinding light seared the night, radiating from inside the car, illuminating for one brief moment a torn picture on the dashboard of a smiling girl with spiky, black hair and haunted eyes. A man’s hand rested on her shoulder, just inside the tattered edge.
The light vanished. The shadowed figure stood. As the wind blew, she became as immaterial as the night itself and vanished.
Once again, silence pervaded the back road, the only sound the car engine ticking as it continued to cool. Indifferent stars went on their nightly course overhead, and the trees swayed in a new wind. From the forest, yellow orbs glowed in the shadows between the trees. They disappeared as a howl spliced the air, wavering at its peak before it trailed off to mingle with the other noises of the night.
A gray wolf emerged from the forest, trotted to the car, circled it, and then rested next to the open door. It sniffed the dead woman’s toes then howled again. Several howls responded from the nearby trees. Five smaller wolves filed out and took their places, forming a circle. They threw their heads back, their cries echoing through the distance. The dominant male’s voice outlasted the others’. They growled and huffed air out of their cheeks, a chant with almost recognizable words and meaning. The largest wolf’s fur glistened in the moonlight, rippling with an aura of its own. The leader remained fixated on the woman’s toes hovering above the gravel, dripping blood. They twitched. The wolves stood and walked back to the forest.
The woman’s toes twitched again. Her leg jerked.
Blood dripped from the backseat of the car, seeping into the gravel. It came from between the dead woman’s cold legs, saturating the cushion on which she’d died. Her torn shirt exposed her breasts. Hand shaped bruises marred her flesh. Semi-circle wounds covered her belly and shoulders. A gash on the side of her head oozed cold, tacky blood. On her left ear, a silver rose tangled in her spiked hair. The right lobe split and smeared red, matching earring gone. Her arms rested above her head, crossed at bruised wrists.
But her face, dark and haunted, was unmarred. Vacant eyes gazed at nothing, glazed with death's kiss. The shadows cast from the moonlight made her face a foreign landscape, her pointed nose a possible mountain, her lips the foothills, eye sockets the valleys. Black makeup caked her eyes and streaked down her cheeks in tear stains. Her slack mouth exposed a small overbite, white teeth gleaming in the dark.
Camilla sat up and screamed, a drawn out, whistling sound.
This can’t be happening to me
, she thought. San Francisco. That’s where she was supposed to go, to be an artist, to live her life. She would be famous,
….but not as the victim of this cop.
Body tense, she splayed her arms to either side, bracing herself against the seats, drawing her knees to her chest, ready to kick and fight. But no one invaded the backseat anymore. No one was attacking her. She pushed herself against the closed door. Darting glances out the back window, the open door, the windshield, over her shoulder, moaning deep in her throat, she pawed her face, head, breasts, legs.
Where’d he go? She checked the windows again and murmured to herself, her voice high, strained, the words spilling over one another. No red lights, no cruiser. Quiet. All around. Alone in the dark. Surely he’d be back. The last thing she remembered was him on top of her, ripping her shirt off, pressing his palm to her mouth. She tongued the cuts on the inside of her lips where the tender flesh had split, smashed against her teeth.