Women of the Grey- The Complete Trilogy

by Carol James Marshall

  Abigail knew her brat daughter needed more blood. It was endless and devious and she could not stomach it. Where would the blood come from? The idea that, at some point, she might have to swallow the blood made her feel vomit rise to her eyes.

  Abigail needed the Mother’s guidance, she needed help and there was nothing. This time was the only time, sitting wrapped in despair, that Abigail wished to be home with the women of The Grey. Maybe, hidden in all the dark corners of their home, were rooms with large tubs of blood she could sink in like a bubble bath.

  Wanting and wishing for tears to come, Abigail saw something out of the corner of her eye; she saw someone in her yard. It was an old woman, but not the neighbor—just an old woman, who was suddenly looking in her window.

  Abigail raised herself from the kitchen table and walked over to the window to look directly at the woman. When the woman looked back at her and waved, Abigail assumed she was a friendly elderly woman who was lost. A grandma that needed some help perhaps.

  Opening the front door, Abigail walked out to the porch. “Hello darling…” the woman cooed. “I was just wondering if Jacob was around. I have been wanting to speak to him.” At this point, Mrs. Hanson was flying by the seat of her pants. She had no want to speak to Jacob, only to know if the odd duck was still in his house. To her surprise, the duck looked almost ready to pop with a duckling.

  “Darling?” Abigail hated that sugar-sweet talk. It was full of razor blades. “Would you like to come in?” Abigail opened the door, and the moment Mrs. Hanson was in the house, made sure to lock it.

  All creatures, human or otherwise, do things in despair that they might not ordinarily do. This was that moment in time for Abigail. Offering tea and grabbing cookies from the kitchen, she knew that the answer was sitting on her couch. The only question now was how to get this old lady to lean over the tub while she slit her throat.

  Mrs. Hanson sat on Jacob’s couch, watching the odd duck do odd things in the kitchen. She hadn’t gotten any answers yet on her questions of Jacob, and the young thing was a bit snippy. Mrs. Hanson didn’t believe this girl had the right to be snippy; she was just a friendly town’s folk coming by for a visit. Young people nowadays don’t know how to be friendly. They always act like they have much more important things to do.

  The movie Abigail played in her head—of slitting the old lady’s throat—made Sunny wiggle. She would soon have her way…Abigail was now capable of anything just to avoid her daughter biting her again.

  Far off in The Grey, two Mothers sat eating grapes and watching Abigail on the monitors like two teenagers at a horror flick. They knew they should advise Superior Mother. Someone should sound an alarm that would have Abigail immediately brought back to The Grey. It was obvious that Abigail’s baby was different than most of the babies in The Grey. She seemed a bit more blood-crazed than most. These Mothers, however, were a bit too happy to bother. It all seemed funny to them, like it was a joke—like a murderous baby was something made up in bad movies and was just too funny for these Mothers.

  When sober, these two Mothers were the type of women who would watch a car wreck, then gossip about it, without ever considering the pain of the victim. It wasn’t their fault really; these two Mothers belonged to the largest portion of the population in The Grey, the Mothers with an addictive little secret of their own. Apathy, the name of the game in The Grey, came in the color red.

  Both sat, grape to mouth, grape to mouth, snickering at what Abigail was about to do. Both Mothers were under the influence of foggy thoughts—tepid, too calm, too serene, very much unlike their true nature; the red smear was the cause of that. The smear that these two put on themselves to dull everything they were trained to focus on. If only Superior Mother knew the addiction, the sickness, that was overtaking her pristine halls.

  Abigail didn’t know what she was going to do. Knowing what needed to be done and knowing how were two very different things. She grabbed the meat tenderizer from the kitchen drawer; hopefully it would work. Before leaving the kitchen, she briefly noticed the birds singing—maybe she only noticed because they had suddenly stopped their song. It was as if they were watching her, knowing her intention. It shamed Abigail to know that the birds in her favorite trees would not understand that the ugly thing she was about to do was for Sunny. It was for her daughter not for herself.

  It wasn’t her ugly deed, and she wanted to tell the trees this. It’s not my choice, she wished to tell every inch of mud in the woods—the mud she loved so much—that she had to do this for Sunny, for her daughter. Didn’t all mothers do whatever their child needed? Wasn’t that the motherly way? Abigail would go beyond her breaking point, all for the love of her daughter. She was in despair and the world was falling out from under her feet.

  Tenderizer in hand, quietly walking towards Mrs. Hanson—who was busy looking through Jacob’s family albums. This would become the moment when Abigail decided what road to take. Take a left, and Mrs. Hanson gets knocked out by a meat tenderizer, then dragged to the bathroom for a quick neck slit. Take a right, and Abigail would put the meat tenderizer down, let Mrs. Hanson know that it was time to leave, then wander out into the mud she loved so much.

  It must have been seconds, but for Abigail each step took hours. The simple motion of raising her hand to thrash Mrs. Hanson’s head with the meat tenderizer took years. When the first strike made contact, her scream was the epitome of pain. If pain were a sound, it would have been that scream, and it caused Abigail to pause, but only for a second. Abigail was running, terrified of Sunny; it did not matter how much pain this elderly woman was in.

  Abigail hit Mrs. Hanson again and again, hit after hit, while listening to her wails and fighting her hands until the old woman slumped over onto the floor. Once she hit the floor, Abigail tossed the meat tenderizer aside, pushed back the coffee table and placed her hand on Mrs. Hanson’s neck. There was a heartbeat. Eventually, she’d wake, and Abigail would deal with that if it happened. Sunny knew Mrs. Hanson would never wake up again; so did Abigail. The days of being the town’s Nosy Nelly left with the afternoon breeze.

  Looking at Mrs. Hanson on the floor, Abigail heard giggling. Whether it came from Sunny or the two Mothers watching the monitors would never be known.

  The neighbor had been drinking most of the afternoon. It was a cool day, right before real winter came. It seemed to be the perfect day to forget the past, drink with the wind, and feel snooty about the future. It was a good afternoon for whiskey.

  Afternoon whiskey brought deep afternoon naps. The neighbor’s book slid off her face in time to wake her, just enough to sit up. Looking to grab her book, the neighbor noticed Mrs. Hanson’s car in the road right outside Jacob’s house. It was a field or so away, but that was the only old Toyota beater in town, rusted up and needing new tires. What’s that old hen doing at their house? Is she at their house?

  The neighbor thought that it was odd, but the whiskey made her feel apathetic towards the car, the woman who drove it, and why she was there in the first place. It seemed like such a better idea to lay her head down on a pillow, sink back into an afternoon nap, and laugh at the idea of Mrs. Hanson The Hen losing all her feathers.

  Jacob was tired, feeling not great, or even good. There was a rock sitting on his heart that wouldn’t budge. This rock had jagged edges and felt heavier than it looked. It was weighing Jacob down in every way imaginable. With the rock, a raw onion rested in his throat, and there was no telling either to leave him be. Home and couch was all Jacob wanted. Slowly, Jacob drove home dreaming of a hot dinner of decent beef stew, knowing he wouldn’t get that from Abigail. She tried, poor thing, but cooking was just not something she could do.

  When Jacob’s truck finally crawled onto the dirt road to his cabin, he instantly noticed the old car. It was rusted, uncared for, and driven too hard for too long. The car seemed to yelp for mercy. Wondering who was in his house with Abigail, Jacob quickly got to the door and in the house before the wheels stopped
turning.

  Opening the front door, there was nothing; it was dark, dead quiet. No one in the kitchen, no one on the back porch. Jacob couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe Abigail was voluntarily in the bath. She was a pig-pen of a gal, but walking to the bedroom Jacob heard the distinctive sounds of the bathtub. About to enter the bathroom, Jacob tripped over feet—looking down, there were feet sticking out of the bathroom… and those feet had legs. The legs had a body, a dead body, laying on his bathroom floor. The rock that was sitting on his heart shifted an inch or two, then felt three pounds heavier.

  This is what worry feels like, Jacob recognized an emotion he’d never bothered with before. Not the worry of Abigail being hurt, but the worry of what Abigail had hurt, or killed in this case. Then, Jacob spotted Abigail sitting in the bathtub, silently watching him through the worry in her eyes.

  “I had to…Sunny needed it…I had to…our daughter…” Jacob looked into the water. It was steaming hot, red water with what looked like bubble bath. The old lady’s blood swirled in the bubbles, staining the water red, creating unholy, bloody red bubbles that swan around Abigail’s knees.

  “I cut her open… got what I could, put in some hot water, and bubble bath…” Abigail grabbed Jacob’s hand, and for once, it wasn’t ice cold. She placed his hand on her belly. “I love bubble baths…” Abigail poked a bubble with her fingertip, never minding that the bubble was bloody red. Jacob watched Abigail do this. She seems dazed, too peaceful, serene, more docile than normal. The dead person in the room mattered not to Abigail; she was busy humming and wiggling her toes in the bloody bath water.

  While watching Abigail for any signs of despair, anguish, anything, Jacob instinctively rubbed the tissue paper thin skin of her belly with his hand. He felt the baby rub its head against his hand. Then, Jacob thought he felt Sunny kiss his hand. Jacob knew what he felt; it was a kiss… the innocent peck of a child. I am not losing my mind. Jacob stood up, drying off his hand, watching the blood streak his hand towel. This was one of those inerasable moments in a person’s life. There was no getting this image out of his skull, from this day until the day he died—the dead body, the bloody bath water, and his gal in the middle of it all humming to their baby.

  Rubbing his hand through his hair, the worst part was the moment Jacob felt the kiss from his baby; it sparked an endearment in his heart. Their baby—his daughter, this Sunny, who was wanting to rip out of her mama—won Jacob over to her side of this ridiculous freak show, with a simple peck. Sunny had won the first battle, now there was nothing Jacob wouldn’t do for her—no matter what his daughter was, human, alien, or other. Abigail met his eyes while she absentmindedly rubbed blood soaked bubbles in her hair. She gave Jacob a nod, then sank her head under the bloody bubble bath. Jacob watched her do this with a smile on her face.

  Jacob spent the next hours burying Mrs. Hanson in his cellar and driving her car into the next county. Luckily, the neighbor was busy sleeping away her whiskey afternoon, dreaming that her pygmy goat was still happily bouncing around her fields.

  James

  I am king

  Not prince

  Not frog

  I stand now

  I am king

  The mountains shall silent

  To my smallest whisper

  The singing fools will quiet

  The maidens will bow to my every head turn

  I am king

  All shall now heed

  My every desire.

  James sat on the bench outside Teresa’s apartment complex; the world was different now, and it felt like he was having an out of body experience. Everything thing he had done to Teresa in the last two hours was a dirty little thought that stayed in the back of his mind—thoughts he didn’t think boyfriends should have.

  In his heart, he knew he was a poet, not a brute. Those actions, his actions with Teresa, were nothing but brute. He found this hard to swallow. I am poet, not fiend. A lover not a fighter; the type of man to kiss a woman on the forehead while handing her roses—not the kind of man who grabs a woman he loves and powers down on her. James was shaking so violently, he felt like he’d fall down to his knees; maybe that’s where he belonged.

  He couldn’t stop himself. Straightening his back, James wanted to punch himself, shut himself up. There was anger at himself for being such a wimp, for not claiming what was rightfully his. He was a man with nothing, and he was tired of it to the point of allowing that fiend loose. It was time that James claimed what was his, instead of retreating. To spend his days retreating when he should have already won the war.

  Now, how to make it back to Teresa? James wanted to show Teresa that, no matter who she bedded, she would always have him falling off her lips, in the back corners of her mind. Every touch another man gave her, she would think of his fingers wrapped around her hair. The whole night of having the kind of sex he only fantasized about, was all to prove a point to Teresa. The biggest joke in it was that James really didn’t know what the point he was trying to prove was. He fucked like a lion, but was really a jackal.

  Abigail

  Sunny’s blood bath sedated Abigail, who fell into a sleep that could only be described as new born. The same deep sleep that we see in newborn babes with a tummy full of mother’s milk. Human blood to the women of The Grey was the most seductive, soothing, bewitching of brews.

  When the women of The Grey felt human blood on their skin, slowly melting into their systems, it over took their senses. They felt a rush that could not be compared to anything wonderful, physical or chemical. It was everything the women of The Grey were not; it was lush.

  It was because of this blood lust that the Superior Mothers kept the leashes on the ladies just so. Not too tight, but tight enough that they could not figure out how entirely powerless they were to the feeling of blood.

  Over generations after generations of breeding with human males the lust for the red drug had begun to calm, but sometimes a lady came along with more alien than human of for these ladies. The want for blood became deadly.

  Abigail was snoring softly in her warm bed with the sound of wind and trees in her ears. In her slumbering haze Abigail didn’t think that her daughter was deadly oh so deadly.

  Allison

  Thinking… peeking through the blinds at Lisa’s apartment. There was a faint hint of a lamp on, but it was always on. She wanted to go there, to talk to Lisa, to get answers. BUT how…how could she just demand answers to insane questions?

  How could she pretend friendship? This, Allison thought, is why I’m not a cop. I’m no good at this. Having already pretended ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ before what was next? Pretend sexual interest? Pretend ‘do gooder; I’m worried about you?’ Allison believed in truth—hated lying. Which is why she wanted the truth of these women, at least that’s what she told herself. She wanted truth for the sake of truth, not for the deep obsession of knowing the unknown—for wanting to have evidence of something more than just this air, just this dirt, just this life.

  The truth though didn’t seem like the road to take at this time. She needed a way in to Lisa. A wormy entrance where she could dig up some bones—a way to needle herself into Lisa’s secrets, hoping that they revealed everything Allison needed to know.

  Before she could second guess herself, she saw her hand knocking on Lisa’s door. Before she could quiet herself, she told Lisa, “I know…so can we not pretend and talk…really talk…” Allison was sure she didn’t just do what she did, even as she stood there, eye to eye with Lisa. Eye to eye with what she believed was not human.

  Allison sometimes went ahead of herself in life. She’d spent days thinking about her strategy, and yet here she was showing her ass.

  Lisa

  Days had passed—or not, Lisa wasn’t sure anymore. She had imprisoned herself in the apartment for so many days now that it all was muddled. She was on a self-inflicted banishment, busy in her continual disregard for her mission. Such is my way, Lisa thought as she stood blinking at
Allison.

  When the knock came, a quick pound-pound on the front door, Lisa answered only because she believed the wait was over—it had to be the Mothers, a Mother, coming to call. Then, open door, and no Mothers—not even one Mother, but Allison; only nosy neighbor Allison with sugar in one breath and threats in another.

  “I know…so can we not pretend and talk…really talk…” Allison stood there, words in her hands pretending frailty. It was one of those moments, those split-second choices, that make you or eat you alive. The cosmos could fly either way depending on what words flew out of your mouth.

  Thinking of all the sugar-sweet words the Mothers used, that gave the worst papercuts time and time again, Lisa couldn’t help but find her inner Mother in order to deal with Allison

  “Oh sweet cheeks…” she put her face to Allison’s, allowing her to feel the icy cold pulse of The Grey, “you know nothing. Be a dear and go away…leave those questions for some other day.” Lisa kissed the tip of Allison’s nose, to hand over that icy itch, but also for the self-entertaining creep-factor.

  The look on Allison’s face wasn’t what Lisa expected. She was supposed to scream in terror, run for her life, but Allison stood strong. Keeping her eyes with Lisa, wanting her to push it farther, wanting her to challenge a woman that wouldn’t—couldn’t—walk away.