Wiping her eyes, Jennifer got to her feet with his help and got a hold on herself.
“Chad, you have no idea how sweet you are!”
“Sweet? Just what a guy wants to hear. How sweet he is…”
Jennifer realized her gaffe immediately.
“No! No, Chad,” she took his hands in hers and looked up into his crestfallen face. “What I meant to say was what you were saying about yourself touched me so much! I — I had a rough childhood and things weren’t always what I wanted them to be and…I have a few phobias that I probably shouldn’t be alluding to at this point,” she said with a wry grin.
“But, I don’t want you going off half-cocked thinking I’m trying to brush you off. I’m not a fast girl with lots of men hanging onto my every word, or bat of my eyelashes.
“Yeah, like your short blonde friend. She’s one of those.”
“Babs? No, she’s cool. She’s not a femme fatale. She doesn’t use men to placate her every whim.”
“Mmm-hmm. Only when she wants something…”
With a stunned look, Jennifer peered at him closely.
“You sound bitter. But, this is not about Babs. This is about me and my crap. I don’t want you to think I’m bipolar or anything but when it comes to men I’ve had very little dealings. If you want to go out with me, well, you’ll have to take it real slow. I’ve got layers.”
“Like an onion?”
“Nah, more like the layers of bureaucracy.” They both chuckled and Chad pulled her in for a light hug.
“Hurt so bad the federal government looks simplistic next to you? Somehow you’ve made me feel better and more protective of you in one fell swoop. You’re good.”
Jennifer smiled as he slid his finger down her nose then turned to guide him down Court Street. She wondered what he was thinking. She noticed that his eyes had darkened when he had looked at her. She guessed she’d never know. Jennifer shivered under the light caress and tugged him to the left. They crossed Court and headed down Dean Street.
“Where do you live Mr. Chad Fosdick?”
“In Williamsburg.”
“So, that’s the other way, I’m right here in Prospect Heights. Why are you going this way?”
“I’m going to make sure you get home safely.”
“Wow, I finally have my very own knight, huh?” She smiled and patted her Glock which was tucked in her waistband. “I’ve already got a knight and he’s full of hard cold metal. Better still? I’m licensed to carry.”
Chad was suitably impressed but pressed on with his machismo role.
“No, I’m going with you and you can’t talk me out of it.”
“Yeah, I can,” she stopped moving, crossed her arms in front of her chest and waited. “You don’t know where I live and I don’t have any ID on me. All I need is my badge and that won’t help you. So, what’s it going to be, Knight? I have your number and I’ll use it but please, let me go on alone.”
Chad stood his ground looking at her defiantly. He crossed his arms across his broad chest as well and stood still. Jennifer didn’t feel threatened by him but she knew he was determined as a pit bull with a bone.
The Fury came to the fore and nudged the host.
Jennifer lowered her head a bit while staring him dead in the eyes. In moments, her eyes were blood-red.
Chad became uneasy. His resolve began to weaken. He heard a low growl that began deep in Jennifer’s belly. Chad visibly shook. He dropped his arms and stepped back totally unsure of his eyesight when he saw a reptilian red-eyed creature staring back at him. He blinked a few times rubbing his eyes as he looked at Jennifer again. She looked like a petite reptilian she-devil. Chad closed his eyes slowly as the Fury shifted to the background. Chad prayed that he wouldn’t still see evil incarnate staring back at him. He re-opened his eyes. Jennifer looked completely normal in every way. He sighed his relief and made a decision.
“I — I think I’m really tired.” He ran his hand through his hair and put a hand on his hip.
“Yeah, you’ve had a long night and so have I.” She stepped closer to him totally unaware of his unease.
“Let’s call it a night right here and I’ll give you a call in a couple of days, okay?” She touched his arm and the Fury reached through the host and erased the last few moments of Chad’s memory.
With Jennifer’s light touch, Chad’s unease dissipated and a smile formed on his face easily.
“Sounds good. It was a pleasure to meet you, Jennifer.” He brought her hand to his lips and bussed them against each of her fingers sending tiny electrical currents up her arm. She beamed as her cheeks grew warm with pleasure.
The Fury came to the fore but did nothing. Witnessing this first quickening of sexual desire was always a heady experience and the Fury wanted to experience it in full measure.
Chad gave her a mock salute and set off back towards Court Street whistling a happy tune. He turned and waved at her before he disappeared around the corner in front of Starbucks.
Jennifer turned and continued down Dean Street. She passed the Fire Department. All was quiet across the street and she wished for a bit of action. Jennifer paused to listen to see if a fire truck was on the move behind the rolled down Fire Department garage door; she heard not a peep. With drooping shoulders and a bowed posture, Jennifer started walking down the block again.
She felt restless now that she sent Chad home. Jennifer wished she didn’t feel so divided about having a man in her bed. But, no man had been in her bed since the incident when she was sixteen. Even in thought, Jennifer did not care to name what happened, or recall anything from that time. It was as if the memory were enshrined in her mind.
The Fury noticed a pulsating section in the host’s lower brain. The Fury knew this is where the memory lived. The Fury went to the area and extended its claw. The memory was vicious; Jennifer was being molested by her father’s brother. The Fury seethed but knew what it had to do. It extended its claw so its sharp talons breached the brain cell’s membrane. The demon’s claw was now inside of Jennifer’s brain cell. Using one of its unholy powers, it expunged the memory and zapped the emotions associated with the traumatic event into oblivion. The Fury pulled its claw back and watched the cell turn blacken and shrivel to a tiny dark particle that would be swept away by roaming luekocytes. The Fury was pleased with its handiwork and withdrew to the nether regions of the host’s mind.
Jennifer sighed. It felt as if a great weight had rolled off her heart. She walked a little straighter with her head held higher as her stride lengthened. By the time she reached the corner, Jennifer decided she would text Chad her number when she got home. She crossed the street and started down the next block. She felt, more than heard, someone behind her.
The Fury felt the host’s cop instincts kick in and came to the fore. Rapidly scanning the area, the Fury found the dark red streak of murderous intent in the male twenty paces behind the host. The Fury slowed the host’s pace to see if the man would pass. After thirty paces, the Fury saw the man had slowed his pace as well. It noticed his red aura was glowing and pulsating more quickly now. The Fury frowned, then bared its sharp bat-like teeth. The growl started again low in the host’s body. Still unsure if the man was coming after the host, the Fury crossed the street mid-block making the host look around.
The man stopped and was standing under a street light watching as Jennifer crossed the street.
The Fury got a good look at him. He was thin and his energy was coiled tightly like a spring ready to release. His breathing was audible through the dark ski mask he wore. His blood lust was rising and the Fury realized that the man wanted the host…its brand new host!
Snapping the host’s head forward, the Fury made Jennifer shorten her stride. The Fury heard the man’s sure, quick, footfalls cross the deserted street. Pushing its host to the background, the Fury bent the host’s body pretending to tie her shoelace. The Fury chose to kneel near the base of a tree whose roots had upturned a large section of t
he sidewalk. The unexpected move made the would-be assailant falter; just the response the Fury sought. With ferocious animal speed the Fury spun and attacked the tall, skinny man.
A startled cry escaped from the would-be attacker. Although his arm was perfectly positioned to arc downward and pierce Jennifer’s heart with the Mora of Sweden AB Stainless Steel military knife his fear had paralyzed him. In front of him was an image his eyes couldn’t fathom. He blinked. He pawed at his eyes and his vision didn’t change; it was showing him what he knew he couldn’t be seeing. He saw the petite brunette’s flesh morphing from smooth supple youthful pink skin into something dark leathery green, scaly dry and calloused-looking. There were talons where moments ago there were nimble fingers.
His pause gave the Fury the opening it needed. The final little sharp tooth slid in cutting the host’s top lip. The transformation complete, the Fury fell upon the terrified man biting, tearing and chewing as a high-pitched feral hiss emerged from the demon’s thickened throat.
Fury Abatu enjoyed the blood-thirst-kill-pain exuding from the doomed man. Abatu drank its full of the man’s thick rich blood streaming from his jugular then went for his belly. With one swipe, the man’s innards spilled out spraying his blood all over the trunk of the tree and the sidewalk; the warm wetness of his life essence ebbed away in the darkness of the night. Abatu greedily devoured the man’s entrails but left his genitals untouched. Satiation was a potent drug and the demon’s laughter came out in gurgles as the blood oozed between its needle-pointed teeth. It slid down the host’s elongated jaw and dripped onto the light grey fur covering Abatu’s upper body.
Peering around with eyes that could see in the dark as well as any feline, Abatu’s almost silent attack seemed to have gone unnoticed by any nearby humans. Fury Abatu made Jennifer stand upright and walk away with an air of nonchalance. As the demon put distance between itself and the body, Abatu made the host wipe away the telltale signs of the murder. The Fury made Jennifer wipe the blood off of her morphing face and hands. There was not much that could be done about the torn shirt and the bits of coagulated blood from the small flesh wound across Jennifer’s stomach and right thigh. However, the darkness made the blood specks less noticeable to the few that the demon-infested human passed on its way home.
Abatu knew what to do with the damaged clothing. As soon as it got the host indoors, it would make sure that there would be no trace of blood left. Checking on the host’s spirit, Abatu saw Jennifer was sleeping soundly far in the background. Smiling its disarming, chilling, smile, the Fury was pleased that the host did not know she had just killed a man.
***
Friday, November 9th, Midday
Something was buzzing incessantly. Jennifer groaned and swatted around her ears. Coming out of a thick bilious slumber, Jennifer couldn’t fathom how a fly or mosquito got into her apartment in early November. The buzzing continued and the ineffectual swatting brought Jennifer up out of her sleep drunk mind and body. She bolted upright when she realized it was her landline phone. She leaned over and grabbed it.
“Yeah?!”
“My, don’t you sound fetching.”
Jennifer flopped back onto her fluffy stomach sleeper pillows before responding.
What is it, Feinster?”
“So much for getting a text when you got home last night or, was it this morning? Was he that good?”
“What are you talking — oh, you mean Chad. We said goodnight right near the bar. I didn’t even let him see me home.”
“Why? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I take offense at that. Why does something have to be wrong with me because I didn’t jump into his bed the first night I laid eyes on him?”
“Because you haven’t been laid in all the years I’ve known you. You must be clamped so tight that the next time might kill you. That’s why.”
Jennifer snorted and some of her ire dissipated only to usher in the beginnings of a pounding headache. She immediately groaned and put her free hand to her forehead.
“Uh-huh. That hangover’s kicking in. You do know its 12:30 right?”
“As in P.M.?”
“Always thought you were a sharp cookie…”
“I slept all day?”
“Apparently. And what’s worse…by yourself.”
Jennifer sat up and looked around searching for the outfit from the night before. She racked her brain but had no recollection of getting home. She remembered the pleasant good-bye she shared with Chad and her walking off…but nothing else until her phone started ringing this morning. Her outfit was nowhere to be seen.
“What was I wearing last night?”
“Damn, the Bomb and the Hurricanes did you in! Oh yeah, and the Lynchburg Lemonade. Chick, you were downing them left and right —”
“Feinster. Clothing. Focus.”
Betty sighed.
“Jeans, ripped white-T, cute boots and a bolero-style denim jacket oh, yeah, and hot smoky eye make-up done by Babs. Why? You came home naked?” Jennifer could practically hear the leer through the phone.
“Me? I wore make-up?”
Jennifer flung the light comforter back and hopped out of bed wincing as the movement made her head and right thigh throb. She peered into her vanity mirror and saw her face was scrubbed clean. The pain made her check. She lifted her white tank top and saw a faint scratch that was scabbing over. On her right thigh was a longer scratch; a bit deeper that was smarting. She looked back up into the mirror. Jennifer saw panic in her own eyes but there wasn’t a trace of make-up to be seen. She strode into her bathroom and flicked on all of the lights; still not one iota of make-up anywhere.
“What’s wrong, Jennifer?”
She ignored Betty and said, “Let me call you back. I gotta figure something out.”
Jennifer clicked off before her friend could complain at her. She opened her hamper and stared into it not believing what she saw.
There was nothing in it.
She knew that it was half-full yesterday morning; she had planned to do the laundry today; her day off. She walked into the bedroom and pulled open the closet. Nothing was out of place. She walked out of her bedroom through the living room and into the kitchen. She checked the tiny garbage bins that were never full due to her lack of usage of this particular room. Then, she checked the bin in her combo den/office; all were empty. Spotless. Pristine.
Jennifer walked back to the center of the apartment, the living room, and stood there gazing at nothing in particular. She crossed one arm across her chest and used the other to rest her chin. She blinked rapidly as she tried to stem the flow that was threatening to come. She blinked faster and out-blinked the hot salty stream that threatened.
Looking at it from the most objective angle, it almost appeared to Jennifer as if the only heterosexual fairy she knew of — Mr. Clean — had come through, did a very thorough deep clean and then had thrown everything away.
She grabbed her trench coat out of the small vestibule closet and rushed down the stairs in the 3-family house she lived in on St. Mark’s Avenue off of the ever bustling Flatbush Avenue. She was intent on rummaging through the trash receptacles in the front of her building.
Jennifer stopped cold when she opened the front door. The trash cans were by the curb. It was Friday; garbage pickup was Monday, Wednesday and…today…Friday.
Back upstairs, Jennifer sat down in a slump on her couch; her trench still on. Even her stylish futon with the tan fabric, reminiscent of burlap, with the dark brown leather and the snazzy hand placed rhinestones to make the initials of her name twinkling at her on each of the front planks of the couch didn’t bring the usual smile to her face. She grabbed her favorite embroidered throw flower pillows in gauzy dark brown organza and hugged it close as she stared again into the distance.
Why would I come home well after two in the morning, take off my clothes, scrub my face, shower then empty all the trash in my apartment including the clothes I wore last night, and the small
thing of laundry? Only to come back in and play the role of Mr. Clean with the magic eraser sponges making everything spotless?
Looking at it with her cop eyes, she knew the behavior was to cover up something possibly criminal. But Jennifer had never committed a crime other than jaywalking and defending her childhood self from an unprincipled uncle…
Refusing to recall the gory details, Jennifer refocused. She knew certain things about herself. By nature, she was a neat freak; everything had its place and there was an organizational system for everything including her color-coded rubber bands. Jennifer pursed her lips and crossed her arms. Her cop-mind took over. It shouted, Murder cover-up! Why else would clothes be thrown away, and all surfaces scrubbed with such efficacy? She tried to ignore her twitching eyebrow and shoved the memory back of the huge bottle of bleach the younger Jennifer had hauled out of the pantry and wobbled up the stairs with…
The other tack her cop-mind pulled was that she could she have simply thrown up all over the place including into her hamper so wasted that she thought it was the toilet. And, because she was so wasted she simply had forgotten the whole untidy affair.
Jennifer mulled over this hypothesis. She didn’t remember getting home so if she had thrown up again when she reached home her instinct would have been to clean it up immediately no matter how dog-tired she was.
Jennifer got up went into the kitchen and began preparing a pot of coffee with her twelve-cup Hamilton Beach 2-way Brewer. It came with a commuter cup and brewed a pot of coffee or filled her commuter cup. Every time Jennifer used it, an uncontrollable silly grin spread across her face.
Six minutes later, while pouring her first cup, she realized that if she were thinking about anyone else, she may have had to go down the road of criminal activity. But this was her good ‘ole self. She was the anal Jennifer who couldn’t stand a hair out of place. That was how she escaped the trauma of the oft-repeated molestations in her childhood. She had always cleaned up afterwards using the strongest antibacterial soaps and creams with copious amounts of hot water. She had scrubbed until her skin was well past the normal healthy, rosy glow.
Fury From Hell Page 6
