Authors: Angela Alsaleem
The breath, what she needed was in the breath. Life would flow through her again. Her hunger, her need, her addiction drove her forward.
Chapter Eleven
Camilla pursued her prey by way of the yellow cord, seething with anger. Something nudged for her attention, something she couldn’t place, but she brushed it aside, intent on stealing her prey’s breath. The pasty shadow of his house loomed before her but oddly, her sight changed in angle and color.
A mouse followed the man as he walked up the cobbled sidewalk. She saw everything but now from the view of the mouse. She didn’t understand how this was possible but her site was filtering through animals that were close to her, connected somehow.
The man’s giant feet seemed about to crush her. His body extended above his feet, enormous, too big for what she had to do.
“It’s only a matter of perspective,” she whispered to herself.
The bushes hedged on the side provided ample coverage as she waited for an opportunity to get inside. A snoring sound interrupted her focus. She glanced up for a moment but decided to ignore it and focus on what she had come to do.
When she passed through the wall she entered familiar territory. Her body catching up to the mouse, whose eyes were now her window to this world. It stopped on occasion to gain some distance from their victim but didn’t stray too far from the back of his feet.
The pungent reek of sweaty flesh and a disturbance of airflow alerted her to the man’s presence. He must have walked within inches of her location. She followed him by scent.
Her vision changed again. She saw the man from several angles, his body a rainbow, his head and chest red, his arms yellow, hands and feet green. The lamp next to his bed glowed orange. She marveled at the immense amount of color ricocheting off the patterned lampshade.
As he walked into his bathroom and turned on the shower, her vision became obscured from the immense heat coming from the water. She hid in his closet thinking, waiting.
Fear would make his soul taste sweeter. She needed to scare him, but how could she accomplish this if he couldn’t see her? Snakes wriggled over her toes and up her legs. She wondered where they’d come from but decided it didn’t matter. She must focus on her task at hand.
One large snake slithered up her body and settled around her neck. She clenched and unclenched her fists. The breath was in the shower. She would have it. She knew she would. With a heavy sigh to steady her mind, she left the closet, a grin on her face, and walked into his bathroom. She swung the door shut, testing the hinges, not wanting to be detected just yet. Once it was latched, she crouched in the corner next to the door, across from his sink.
Her new friends covered her naked body and the bathroom floor with their writhing forms. She waited, legs drawn up, head on her knees, her continuous flow of blood pooling around her.
* * *
In the shower, trying to wash it all away, Bill remembered the sound of the woman’s skull hitting his windshield as he’d slammed into her. He was sure she was dead. No one could be hit like that and survive. He tried not to think about it. It was a back road. She wouldn’t be found for a while. And by then, no one could connect the accident to him.
And after his wife, after their fight, after… what he’d done, the last thing he needed was to have someone asking questions about Tracy, about where she was, and oh, did you know she was having an affair? He couldn’t stop thinking about it. The last two days had seen him at his worst. He’d done some serious shit and he hoped that life was going to let him forget them.
And why was that woman in the road naked? That, more than anything else, bothered him. His mind insisted on the certainty of her death. And if he hadn’t hit her, she would’ve died anyway, most likely. Naked, in the cold, already bloody. What could he have done to help her without drawing attention to himself? He hadn’t meant to hit her but it was for the best. All for the best.
He turned off the water and opened the shower curtain. His heart stopped beating when he caught sight of the thing in front of him.
The smell of soapy citrus still hung in the steam. Rivulets of water tickled his neck and arms, making him shiver. His skin puckered with goose-bumps as he gaped at the woman in the corner of his bathroom, the woman he had thought dead when he hit her.
Her sitting body blocked the door, thin arms curled around her shins, short black hair matted, bloody head on her knees, naked feet crossed over one another. She looked filmy, patches of brown and gray grime covering her head and arms. Thick, reddish-black matter caked over her fingertips like glove tips.
The sharp stench of rot and something else, something metallic, permeated the mist about him. He crinkled his nose. Her shoulders rose and fell with heavy sobs. Snakes hung from her arms, coiled and slithered on the floor by her feet. One slithered out of her hair and over her knees, then to the floor, toward him. Her sniffles were wet, and when she swallowed hard, it sounded like she was gulping her favorite drink. His stomach clenched. Acid burned his throat as he suppressed a gag with one hairy hand cupped over his mouth. The smell was thick, something he could taste, like putrid meat and sour milk.
“Who are you?” His voice came out in a trembling whisper, though he wanted to demand, to shout, to show authority and make her move out of the way. The faucet dripped in the clogged bathtub. Harsh gasps stuttered from her body.
As if on a rusted hinge, she lifted her head. The slowness of the ascent, the way her neck seemed to get stuck, unnerved him. When she fixed him with what should have been her gaze, he screamed, his throat tight, the sound barely escaping. Where her eyes should’ve been were gory holes. The flesh around the sockets was torn; flaps of skin lay open, revealing bits of bone. Blood covered her face. As her spine creaked straight, he could see bite marks and bruises through the red drying over her breasts.
His feet splashed in the water and his hands squeaked on the blue tiles as he tried to back away. His body turned though his head remained facing her, features stretched in a silent scream as he tried to claw through the wall. He recognized the woman he’d hit and knew Tracy had sent her revenge.
“I’m sorry,” he cried.
He slipped and fell backwards, sloshing water over the floor. He chomped through his tongue, pain flooding his mouth with the warm taste of pennies. His head connected with the faucet.
The last sound he heard before the world vanished was an open palm slapping the side of the tub and soft giggles chasing him into the nothingness. Her stinking mouth sealed over his. She inhaled. And then he saw his wife, became his wife, felt her hatred as he choked her over and over again.
* * *
Camilla shivered as she drew the delicious breath into her body. Again, she was alive and warm and free. She could fly. So much better with fear. Fear was the spice that made everything nice. She stood, a red string of spit connecting her mouth to his before it broke and turned into a runnel on his chin. When she left, the snakes followed.
Only one thought coursed through her mind. She lived for the breath and would have more of it, so long as it didn’t come from the woman at the end of the green cord.
* * *
“I’m sorry,” a man shrieked from behind the wall where Libitina slept. Laughter filled her head. Screams, splashing jangled her nerves, but the silence that followed made her mouth dry and her eyes water. She knew what those sounds meant. Seconds later Camilla affirmed her suspicions as she walked by without slowing or even glancing in her direction. Snakes and bats her entourage, she headed toward the road.
Libitina gathered her dog and backpack and ran in the opposite direction.
She needed to go home, needed to rest, to eat a healthy meal. No, what she really needed was to escape Camilla’s presence. Whatever she was, Libitina no longer wished to document the nightmare life of Jane Doe. She half-ran, half-stumbled in what she hoped to be the direction of town, already trying to convince herself that the last few days were nothing more than a dream.
A side street here and a side street there, she sought what she couldn’t find. After a while, she gave up attempting to navigate the unfamiliar territory in the dark. Hitchhiking seemed like the best solution in the moment. Whoever drove through here would surely know how to get to town. And she could rest while she waited. Aside from the exhaustion, she desperately wanted a shower. With a shallow sniff at her armpit she decided that she’d never smelled so bad in her life.
A motor rumbled in the distance after what must’ve been an hour. Moments later, a single headlight emerged. She stuck out her thumb and waited. The motorcycle slowed, then came to a stop just in front of her. The guy on the bike looked to be about her age. He didn’t wear a helmet and his blue hair was shaved on the sides and curly on top.
“Need a ride, sweet thing?” His broad grin showed all his teeth. They looked sharp, predatory. Maybe she didn’t want to go with him but it wasn’t like she was on a busy street with several other options. “Can I take my dog on that?” She thought he’d say no, figured it might be a way for her to say no. But he surprised her.
“Oh, I’ll take you, My Pretty… and your little dog, too,” he cackled with his hands in front of him, fingers hooked and wiggling like an eager witch.
Libitina forced a smile, though she wasn’t sure she thought him funny. Not just yet. She swung her leg over the back, laced her arms around his torso, and squeezed her eyes shut as he sped away. She chanced a peek at the blurred scenery. The single light lit the trees in muted hues of green that looked more silver in the darkness. Life sped by. Her hair whipped her cheeks and neck. Cerberus shuddered in her backpack and she hoped he wouldn’t jump out again.
“Where you headed?” he asked, turning his chin just over his shoulder to make for easier conversation.
“Away from here,” she said. She’d heard that in a movie once and had always wanted to say it but now that she had, she found it frightening. “I don’t care. I’m just tired and hungry.” She shrugged. He smelled like dust and cigarettes. And something else she couldn’t quite place but that reminded her of Camilla for some reason.
“I can fix that. You mind if we go back to my place? I’ve got peanut butter and jelly and some bread.” He laughed. “And you can choose where you’d like to sleep. It can be in my bed with me or the floor. But I’m going to be in the bed no matter what. I don’t give up my comfort for anyone.”
She didn’t know what to say. The guy scared her. After all, they had just met and he was already propositioning her for sex. The jerk. She wanted off the bike but the lure of food and a comfortable place to sleep called to her. If things turned bad she figured she could take care of herself. Self-defense classes went a long way. She ignored her instincts and hoped he wasn’t as creepy as he seemed. After the last few days, seeing things no one should see, things she could only hope to forget, she was too tired, too hungry, too numb to care.
The night melded into one big shadow around her. She almost slept with her face pressed into his back. She closed her eyes and let the wind soothe her mind.
Chapter Twelve
The night sucked Camilla into a world of craving. She licked her lips, tasting the last man she’d kissed, his fear, his soul. The tingling in her limbs reminded her of life. Giggles emanated from inside her, echoing against her flesh, drowned out by the fluttering and chirping bats.
The elation ebbed from her mind leaving her cold, empty. She stopped laughing, stopped walking. She looked around. Where the hell was she? Horror welled from her depths and spilled forth in a whisper.
“What am I?” She shuddered. Sobs, almost as violent as dry heaves, clawed their way from her throat. On the one hand, she burned to take another breath, to feel the electric current flowing through her once again. On the other hand, the nightmare she’d become tormented her sanity, made her long for the death that should’ve been hers when that cop had pulled her over in the first place.
The acid-green cord hooked around her side, shooting a trail behind her, directing her toward her desire and her deepest fear. The wrongness of taking a person’s breath ate at her conscience. And the visions. Those were the worst. When she thought of them, she became all those women suffering at the hands of the one at the end of the acid-green cord. She knew how to make those visions stop but she couldn’t suck breath from the blond woman. Not yet.
“But it’s so good,” she whispered. “So tasty.” She licked her bloody lips. The skin on her face wiggled in the driving wind.
Her feet seemed to know the path her conscious mind did not. The plant life thickened around her.
Five different women all at once. Her head swam, vision blurred. She saw curly blue hair and thought of a clown’s wig. A handsome face hovered above hers. He licked her neck. She cringed but couldn’t move to push him away.
“I’m going to have so much fun with your pussy,” he laughed in her face. “You’re going to LOVE it.” She watched, helpless, as he unzipped his pants, pulled hers off, and violated her, tearing the flesh with his force. Once he finished, he squatted over her head and smacked her face with his flaccid, sticky appendage. “Wasn’t that fun?”
She couldn’t move. She tried to close her eyes, tried to look away. All five women screamed in her head at once. All five women wanted to die, wanted to turn away, but couldn’t. All five women felt the heat as he burned her neck with a cigarette. Just one burn right below the jaw. All went dark as the pillow came from above and pressed over their faces.
Air felt hot in her throat. She tried to scream and couldn’t. Tried to fight and couldn’t. Didn’t want to die. Confused. He’d seemed so nice. So nice. Such a sexy man. What happened?