Madness

by Kailee Reese Samuels

  Standing before him, I whisper against his lip, “Do they know you’re—Richard Astrophe—Sisy boy?”

  “I have no idea what you speak of, little Lyssa.” He gives a duplicitous wink.

  “… Why are you in my head? Why are you taking up residence when I have no place for you? Didn’t you catch the ‘no vacancy’ sign erratically flashing with that incessant buzz…I have no vacancy for men like you, Dick.”

  He menacingly hovers closer and smugly smirks. “You know you wanted it, Lys…”

  I bite my lip and play his game as I roll onto the table. Silverware and teacups fly and shatter into the ground. Dishes crash…just like when I was a child…so much noise…so much noise… I spread my thighs wide and hiss, “Just come take it already.”

  I hate him because he knows the truth. Raising my gaze, I wish I could fire bullets from my eye sockets. I’d unload a full clip in Sisyphus Mott…or Richard Astrophe…or just Dick. I’d bathe in his blood, flop onto the table, and touch myself until I screamed in ecstasy. My voice would echo and own these lands.

  “This isn’t going to be pretty, little girl.”

  “It wasn’t the first thousand times either, fuckface.”

  7

  Systemic Infection Selection

  His rough hand grips around my neck with lightning speed, and I gasp. My eyes are enormous, refusing to close, as I stay glued to his intense stare. “Do we need a moment of recollection, Lys?”

  My lip quivers, but I refuse to cry. If Sisyphus Mott is going to kill me, then I know my committing suicide was the only option. But I am going to fight like a motherfucker to stay alive because laying down like a pathetic, meek girl isn’t my style.

  “Sure, Dick,” I mutter out as his fingers loosen. “What the hell is with your name, though?”

  Beneath the shadow of his beard, he snarls, “All the best criminals have more than one name.”

  Realizing he was so much more than a small-town drug dealer, I mutter, “Shit.”

  “Yeah, thanks for keeping my ass safe.”

  “… You’re alive.”

  “Of course, I lived,” he laughs, edging his fingers underneath the corset and squeezing my breast. “Did you think you killed me?”

  “I did,” I whisper, understanding how in danger I am. This can’t be happening. “I beat you with the golf club. Blood splattered all over me…” I close my eyes as my head sinks to his arm. “And I ran…”

  “I wasn’t done with you or Mathison.”

  “Stop!” I scream, unable to handle the truth rising to the surface. “Don’t say her name.”

  His maniacal laughter fills the air. “Your sister died in the fire when you were three. You watched from your little pink bed as her skin caught fire, and the smell rooted so deep into your being that you could never escape it.”

  “Please …don’t do this,” I wail.

  The dampness of tears threatens to spill, clinging to my lashes. He’s right about everything—I’ve been talking to a dead girl for years. Maddy is my imaginary playmate that I keep within the cage of my being to deal with the unfathomable pain of loss.

  “You breathed her in…allowing her to contaminate your mind…and welcoming her screams infiltrating every part of your being until you were her, and she was you.”

  “Stop!” I plead as his wild eyes offer no reason. He’s as crazy as they come, and I’m in real trouble. “Please…”

  His fingers pinch and twist my nipple, and I respond with an unwanted arousal. “Your parents blamed you for playing with the matches. Your parents fought all the time after Maddy’s death, but little Lyssa…little Ellison…she just kept on believing her precious sister was alive.”

  Pulling at the strings of the corset, he lowers to bite the aroused nubs as I scan over the table, searching for something to kill him with. I know it won’t do any good outside of The Darkland because he is still alive, wreaking havoc on the world.

  “You don’t know…”

  “I don’t know what?” he asks, peering up from between my breasts. “That you killed your parents, and I gave you every opportunity at Littleton to be my friend.”

  “You were never my friend!” I hiss with contempt. “You were evil!”

  “Bullshit! You loved every second with me,” he contends, trailing his fingers to my crotch. He cups my pussy hard and kisses my lips. His touch is all too familiar—too much a home I longed to never visit again. I can’t stop the old feelings and sensations from returning. He knows how to excite me and how to control me. I was weak and broken when he took advantage at every possible corner—from being institutionalized for my parents’ death to Dr. Witter-Ratrow allowing my release to him. “You wanted it. You begged for it. You got to stop lying about what you crave most, Ellie girl.”

  “Don’t call me that either!” I angrily lament. “I never begged you for anything, especially that.” My eyes peer down to his crotch and the back of his ringed knuckles smack me hard across the cheek. Shaking my head, I cry, “I hate you!”

  His face softens as he mutters against my neck. “Tell me what you want. Use those words you never had.”

  The skin of our cheeks brush against one another, and it is the rabbit hole I collapse into with fear. He won’t relinquish his grip on me or my sanity. Maddy died in the fire. I killed my sister. And I killed my parents.

  But he destroyed me.

  I didn’t get the joy of death as I was forced to endure years of his tyrannical abuse and misuse of power. He was a young orderly, and I was…so messed up.

  “Just fuck me already,” I sass, wanting the voices inside my head to carry me away from this horrific moment. “Enough talking. Take what you came for and leave me to exist in peace.”

  He chuckles as the alcohol on his breath curdles my stomach. “You won’t ever be in peace, Ellison. I won’t ever leave you or Maddy, alone. You belong to me. Both of you—forever.”

  “Fuck you.” I spit, turning away and trying to escape. My corset falls from my body, and he yanks my leg back just like he did that night in the trailer.

  “You want it rough, my psycho doll… I can do that.”

  I hear his belt come undone, and he rips it from the loops. He draws back and swings, letting the belt lash, and welting my back over and over again. I know how this ends—with his insidious assault of my body. I fear that here, in The Darkland, I will not make it out alive.

  He is the worst foe I’ve ever encountered.

  He is my divine enemy.

  He is the monster beneath the bed, waiting until the quietest part of the night, to sink in between the sheets and consume everything I have. I could have healed. I should have recovered.

  Sisyphus Mott took that away from me.

  He was the thief in the night, running like the wind, with my virginity and psyche in tow. There was no greater evil in this world—or any world—like him.

  But my mind drifts to a sacred place where he cannot touch the hallowed ground in the passages of the pages. I’m bleeding from his rigid structure—his routine, but I refuse to feel the pain. I let the memories of books infiltrate my thoughts as I replace the characters. I am not a wilted flower or a lost soul; I am the princess, beautiful and grand.

  Closing my eyes, I spin in a pink dress, whooshing over the floor, and my fingers are laced with a handsome prince. My mind is captivated by him; he controls this moment. I glance up and see those blue eyes hidden beneath the masquerade mask. “I never thought you would come.”

  “I’m always going to find you, Ellison.”

  In his arms, I whisper the only truth I need to hold onto. “You’re my fairytale, Twig.”

  “And you’re my babygirl.”

  Pressing his hand to my cheek, he leans down to kiss me…

  … When the sting of the belt buckle radiates through my backside.

  “No!” I cry out with a relentless focus to stay within the page. “No! Please! Don’t take him away from me!”

  My constant referen
ces to him only prove to usurp his position of authority and anger his carnal wrath. I feel the bump of his erection against my ass as I stare at the sparkling silverware and porcelain teacups at the end of the table. If only I could reach…but it is so far away.

  His fingers loop under the waistband of my shorts, and he pulls them down without regard. His hand smacks my ass, undoubtedly leaving a print, but once isn’t enough for Sisyphus. He dives down and sinks his teeth into the flesh of my ass until I hysterically scream from the pain.

  “Go back to the fairytale…”

  “Go back to the fairytale…”

  “Go back to the fairytale…”

  Tears bluster over my cheeks like a rainstorm, and I howl as he grabs a broken shard from the ground and slices it into my ass cheek. He’s marking my flesh and claiming my body as his. The sting burns through my veins, and I grip the white lace tablecloth in my fingernails. “Please don’t do more.”

  “Why, because you’ll be worthless to an appropriate suitor?” He skids the sharp edge over my spine, and I feel like I’m being split in two, dissected at my backside, instead of his typical annihilation of my core. Hot streams of blood gush over my sides as I gasp, breaking a fingernail off, and pray for mercy. “You already were.”

  Enduring the pain, I beg, “Just kill me already and leave me for dead.”

  With a deviant tenor, he growls, “Who is asking, Ellison? You or Maddy?”

  “Me,” I sob, decimated. His fury is too great for me to stay within the binding and lose myself in the arms of a prince. I am lost, unable to find Maddy to keep me safe. I don’t know why I cannot find her in the recesses of my cerebrum, but the lack of her shield elevates my vulnerability. “Please… don’t do this…”

  “You should never have gone against me,” he roars, slamming his cock against my ass. He doesn’t penetrate me, but he will. The only good part is it will only be a matter of time before he discards me. Maybe I will live. Perhaps I will die. Regardless, my trip through his hell will be over. “I’m not sure who you think you are anymore.”

  I think about my journey with strangers. Twig is a man I do not know, not really…and yet, I do not doubt his protection. The Mistress and The Merrymen quiescently vowed to save my spirit from being obliterated. They were my shelter, my safe place, and my secret escape. I didn’t need the old me to hold the fortress any longer because I had an entire army, waiting at the garrison and willing to go to battle on my command.

  A bubbling fire erupts in my belly, traveling up my esophagus, and burning my throat as I spew out the poisonous words, “My name is Ellison-fucking-Kingsley.”

  The legal facts mar the agenda, yielding and disturbing his trajectory. I’ve halted his plans with my unexpected derailment, but I offer no detour. The only way through this will be Ellison’s way. If he is going to detonate the bomb, Ellison will be holding the fuse. Not Lys, Lyssa, Ellie, Mathison, or Maddy. “You seem to think your name matters.”

  “My name is the only thing that matters anymore.”

  “Right, Lys…”

  “You can call me whatever you want,” I calmly say, glancing over my shoulder. “But the old me is dead. I killed them all and found my god.”

  He snickers under his breath as the wounds on my back seep with bloody tears, purging my spirit, I let the past diminish to nothing more than facts. I give them no weight or ground for which to stand; they brought me to this place, and I pay my respects, but I do not have to listen to the voices. The only words I need are my own.

  “Your prayers will do nothing to alter the course.”

  “Then I throw a Hail Mary and cross my fingers because it is all I have left,” I whisper, crying. He is going to kill me, and the saddest part of it all is I just found me. “You have stripped my soul since I was seven, but I forgive you. I sincerely forgive you. Let me die, just let me go, please. Follow your intended path and kill me now. Our roads never should’ve crossed, but they did, and you stole every step I took. Give me one last breath.”

  “You’re begging me to murder you…”

  Closing my eyes, I lower my head in reverence and mutter my last words, “I am giving you permission to save your soul.”

  “Like fucking hell!”

  My head flings back just in time to see Zig coming at Sisyphus with a serrated scimitar. With one divisive strike, he slices a deep gash into Sisyphus’ ruffled shirt and moth-eaten coat. He isn’t dead, but he falls to the ground, and his hat falls from his head.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Saving you,” Zig replies. I have no clothes on, and the corset and shorts sound—painful.

  Twirling the blade in his fingers, he hands it to me. “Do it.”

  “You want me to do the deed?”

  “Yes,” he answers, stepping away to scout over the pastries set out on tiered dishes. “I do not kill men,” he states matter-of-factly. “Exclusively pink.” He winks and sinks his teeth into a cupcake as my eyes alternate between the two madmen, the moaning Sisyphus and the bizarre Zig.

  “Kill me.”

  Licking the icing from his fingers, he accuses, “You really are insane.”

  “Undoubtedly,” I contend. “Now kill me.”

  He picks up a palmier and nibbles the edge. “This is amazing!”

  “Dammit! Kill me, Ziggy!”

  Standing at the table, he leans back with his long, scrawny build and peers at the boots. “Those are The Mistress’ boots.”

  I don’t understand why he is wasting so much time, and my frustration grows as I lift my arms and pace towards him. “Does it…matter?”

  “Quite.”

  Propping against the table, I argue, “On the contrary.”

  I start to unbuckle the boots when he lays a sticky hand on me. “Contrariwise. I cannot and will not harm you in those boots, nor can I kill a barefooted woman.”

  I sigh. “You’re the one who is fucking insane.”

  “Tell me,” he quips, like he has accepted his sociopathic tendencies. Dipping his finger into the pudding, he moans, “Good shoes are hard to find.”

  “So, you will only kill me if I am wearing shoes that do not belong to The Mistress.”

  “Exactly.” He smiles and pops a chocolate-covered strawberry into his mouth. “Those boots on your feet are sacred, but I don’t think you need to die, Ellison.”

  “What the fuck! I’m not Cindy with the slipper! Fucking maim me already!”

  Laughing, he scoots onto the table and finishes chewing. “Let me explain,” he says, swallowing. “You wanting to kill yourself doesn’t make me want to maim you. It doesn’t even make me want to harm you. It makes me want to save you. If you want to go harakiri in the woods, then you can try. But I will stop you. I will stop you today. And I will stop you tomorrow. I will chase your ass, peel my blade from your fingers, and sink my dick into you against a tree as punishment.” He snorts.

  My toes involuntarily curl in the boots as I ponder running just to see if he is telling the truth. “You’re an odd one.” I slide slowly up onto the table and bump his thigh.

  “Says the girl with fifty-six personalities.” He scans over the lacerations on my back as Sisyphus yowls like a dying animal. “How do you feel?”

  “Like someone tried to practice carving a turkey on my backside.”

  “That’s hot,” he muses, slowing down on eating the snickerdoodle cookie in his fingers. He hastily tosses it and makes a putrid face before grabbing the small bowl of pudding. He dips his finger into the orange cream and places it on my lips. “Eat this.”

  “Will it shrink me?”

  “No,” he replies as I savor the pudding by suggestively sucking his finger. “It’ll turn you into a nympho.”

  I giggle and almost choke on the sugary goodness. “You’re alright, Zig.”

  “I know I am.”

  “Arrogant as fuck too,” I counter, licking my lips.

  “The trick is getting you to know you are alright.”

  �
��What do you mean?” I ask as he feeds me another bite. I lick his finger and flick my eyes to meet his gaze. The chemistry is undeniable between us.

  “I mean, it doesn’t matter if you’re fucked up because everyone is fucked up. There isn’t a single person alive that isn’t fucked up. Once you accept that and stop trying to be what you think you should be, shit falls into place.”

  Zig has never talked much until this moment, but I’m getting to know his theories and discovering—there is some mysterious dark magic at work in his head. It’s appealing and arousing. Maybe the pudding was tainted because my thighs dampen on every syllable this man speaks.

  “How did you get so smart?”

  Staring out into the forest, he smirks and blinks to me. “I’m fucked up, and I don’t make apologies for it.”

  “… Good shoes?”

  “Good shoes,” he chuckles. “But even in good shoes, I won’t cut you up. You’re one worth saving, Ellison.” He sets the bowl down and runs his finger along my jawline. “You’re an innocent, victimized by circumstance, and a survivor by choice. Good shoes on an evil bitch, and you’ll trigger my madness. But you won’t ever be an evil bitch, so no go.”

  I diminutively glance at his mouth, wanting to kiss his lips, forgetting my bloodied back and bruised body. Being with Zig takes me out of the headspace, where my death is the only option. I slowly lean in as he does until our lips meet and we ignite with a passionate, fiery kiss. He carefully pulls my body to straddle his lap. His hands cup my ass and draw my body to his as he grinds his erection against me.

  “… Poison pudding?” I grin in his arms and lay my head on his shoulder. My fingers twist in his hair. “Are you going to have your way with me, Zig?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “Yes,” I whisper against his neck. “I need to feel something other than this pain.”