“Where is the message?” she asked.
“Open it. It doesn’t work well, because you stepped on it. Works slowly.”
“It works. Say thanks that I didn’t break it completely.”
While Sylvia was turning on the phone and searching for messages, Corby took out what she had prepared in advance. An ax. The ax that their butcher used to split bones. Meat and bones of the animals that were brought to the store by farmers. Those farmers that Sylvia probably hated because they killed animals.
“I don’t see anything.” Sylvia looked at Corby. “Are you all right? You look like you’re about to pass out or barf. Or both. Sit down or something.”
“There’s something on the wall,” Corby murmured and nodded. Sylvia shrieked and twisted to the wall. “What? Where?”
Corby raised the ax for swinging. Her hands were shaking and no pills could stop it. Tears blurred her vision. The ax seemed twenty times heavier than an hour before, and she wasn’t sure she could do it. Now she wanted none of this, she wanted all of this to be a dream. She didn’t believe she was actually going to do it. She, Corby Mackentile, a diligent daughter and an intelligent pupil, raised an ax to kill her classmate.
“What did you see?”
Sylvia turned to Corby and her eyes rounded, her body tensed.
“It’s your fault!” Corby yelled. “You wanted to kill me! You don’t want me to talk to Jacob! It’s all your fault!”
Sylvia, apparently in shock, stared at Corby and didn’t move. She didn’t move at all.
“Oh, and I killed Vera,” Corby added, dropping the blunt side of the ax on Sylvia’s head, deploying it at the last moment in fear of making too much blood. She did it again and again, after the girl fell to the floor, cutting part of her face off when the ax slipped in her hand. She cried while killing her classmate and then dropped the ax and fell on her knees in front of Sylvia, sobbing loudly.
“Your fault! All your fault!”
She didn’t know how much time had passed, she even thought she might have lost consciousness for a few seconds, but when no tears were left in her eyes and her mouth went dry, she forced herself to calm down. At this point, the phone rang and Corby screamed. She stared at the glowing screen for a long time before she could read the caller’s name. Dad.
Corby grabbed the phone when the call had already stopped and she paused, looking down at her hands. They were covered with ragged red ornaments and they were shaking. Corby decided to ignore it long enough to talk with her parents. She dialed her father.
“Corby? Are you all right? Why didn’t you answer?”
“Sorry, Dad,” she said and fell silent. She took a deep breath to calm her voice. “I’m sorry. I was doing homework in the shop and the phone was in my bag in the room. I didn’t have time to get to it.”
“Okay. Are you coming for dinner?”
“I had a snack here and I have so much homework. I want to sit in silence a little bit longer and finish it.”
“Are you playing games again?”
Corby turned toward Sylvia, but only had the strength to look at her legs.
“Games? Games are over. I’m working.”
“I see. Mom said pizza will be on the table if you want it.”
“Tell Mom thanks.”
“Just don’t stay too long and call when you’re leaving.”
“Okay, Dad.”
Corby pressed a button and the cracks on the glass turned red.
“I’ll clean it later.”
The phone went on a plastic chair and Corby remained seated on the floor, breathing in through her nose and exhaling through her mouth. Sylvia’s legs, her feet in fashionable shoes with thick soles, didn’t move. Corby had to calm down and get to work. Time flew and she still needed to wash the floor and take away the car. She had thought out every detail carefully, but time was her enemy.
And her own stomach.
Once Corby looked at Sylvia’s face, everything she ate for breakfast and lunch (fortunately she wasn’t too hungry and hadn’t put a bite in her mouth in the last two hours) came out in three big rushes. She barely had time to pull a bucket from under the table and lean over it. She remembered what the butcher threw in this bucket and it pushed her stomach to a complete emptying.
Corby stood on the floor on her all fours, looking down at her own vomit through tears that wouldn’t stop, feeling a burning sensation in her throat, and forcing herself to calm down. It took a minute or two. Then she got up with determination, as if planning to climb Mount Everest in an hour, pulled out the plastic roll that she prepared beforehand, and hauled it to Sylvia.
“You and Vera are two idiots. You come here on your own, threaten and insult me like you are big bosses. See what happens. How do you like it? Huh? Do you like it? I very much doubt it.”
Corby pushed the roll on the floor in a horizontal position, but then she realized that all the blood would be left on the plastic and on the floor while she was dragging Sylvia to the refrigerator. That was why she went to Gaby’s room and came back with a mop and a bucket. She had never washed the floor as fast as she did now, losing her breath, pausing for a few seconds to catch it and get rid of the circles in front of her eyes, the dizziness in her head, and the shaking in her hands. However, blood from the broken head continued to stain the floor, despite the fact that Corby changed the red water and cleaned again.
“I have to wrap her head,” she said, considering the problem. She wasn’t sick anymore. She had no strength for that or anything else, except for the desire to finish with all of this as soon as possible.
She tore a large piece of plastic and gently pulled it under the smashed head. Sylvia was no longer beautiful, she was nothing now. Before wrapping plastic around the beautiful face that was still in her mind, Corby noticed the earrings. She heard Sylvia boasting about her parents giving her diamonds for her birthday. Real diamonds, one carat each.
“Beautiful.”
Carefully removing the stud earrings from Sylvia’s ears, Corby slipped them into her pocket and then swathed the plastic around her head as she would do around a sausage. She knew how to do it brilliantly, because she had spent almost every day since her childhood in the shop.
“Dad said there’s no difference between humans and animals. You love animals, Sylvia. You have to understand that. We are all meat ... You are today for sure. Just meat.”
Blood ceased to ooze from the head and Corby washed the floor then the walls, and the table, and the ax. She decided to take care of herself after she took care of Sylvia. She wrapped her in plastic, but first pulled out her cell phone and a car key. The phone rang a few times, but Corby ignored it. There was no time to think about the little things.
Sylvia’s body was heavier than that of skinny Vera, but Corby wasn’t weak and she dragged her to the refrigerator quickly. It wasn’t difficult at all to throw her on top of Vera. Corby wanted them to lie side by side, there was enough room, but she didn’t have time for subtleties today.
Hurrying, panting, Corby locked the freezer door and then the fridge, and went to wash the bucket and the mop. When it was her turn to clean up, she received a real pleasure, washing away blood from her hands in a large sink for butchers. Blood mixed with water and ran into the drain like a pink stream. Corby liked the feeling of hot water spreading warmth over her body, but she couldn’t enjoy it for long. The next step was to change and Corby did it in a few seconds. She assumed that her clothes would be stained with blood and now she was glad that she turned the ax the other way. Otherwise she would have to clean not only blood from everywhere, but also brain. She thought she was prepared for it, but it turned out that she wasn’t really. With her clothes in a bag, she looked around the room and made sure that everything was clean and shone as before Sylvia’s arrival. Corby crept down the hall to the refrigerator and back on the floor to check for the absence of all traces. Then she turned off the light, locked the shop, and rushed in the direction of the old bakery.
Winter didn’t plan to give up its rights to spring. The weather which met Corby showed that. Even though she knew it was cold outside, and she felt her tears turn into ice on her face, she was still hot. She wanted to take off her jacket and throw it on the ground, staying only in her sweater. Corby didn’t do it. She looked at the ground, so that no one would pay any attention to her. She clutched Sylvia’s phone in her pocket with one hand and held the car keys in the other. When she reached the bakery of her dad’s friend, Corby was relieved to find that it was also closed. She fished the key out of the pocket and pressed the button, holding it down. Corby jumped from a signal near her. A red Mini Cooper stood right in front of her.
“Very good.”
Pulling on the gloves, Corby climbed into the car.
She had learned to drive a car two years ago. When they stopped at her mother’s parents’ house in Cape Cod for a week during the summer break, her father was bored and taught her to drive his car over a large perimeter of the parking lot of the house and then out the gates. Corby couldn’t get her license yet, but if she did everything right, no one would stop her. She wasn’t going to go far, but a bit farther, somewhere near Jane’s house. Corby knew where she lived. She knew a lot about her main enemy.
Corby started the car and drove out of the parking lot carefully, reached the corner and turned in the opposite direction. She drove slowly, paying attention to the traffic lights and pedestrians, mainly tourists, but no one paid attention to her. She was just another driver in another car, creating traffic jams.
She didn’t think about anything except where to park the car and how to get to the house. She assumed she could take Uber and pay for the trip from her own savings, but hoped she could manage without it. You never know, they could remember her.
As she thought before, it was the best option to leave the car near the subway. It was easy to find one of the parking spaces near the houses on the narrow street. Corby didn’t know how to park well and she was sweating while correcting the car along the curb, trying not to damage cars in front and behind her. She left the car hurriedly when there were no people around, and headed toward Charlie station.
The phone rang and Corby stopped for a moment, realizing that the signal was coming from her pocket, but the melody was different. Then she remembered that she took Sylvia’s phone. She pulled it out and saw that it was her mom. After the ringing stopped, the screen covered with numbers, meaning that she needed to choose a password. Corby didn’t have a password on her phone. What for? Her parents didn’t care who called her, when or why. Or maybe they were just assured that no one ever called or sent messages to their daughter, especially with some of the provocative subjects they had to be aware of. She pressed a few combinations of numbers that weren’t successful and didn’t reveal secrets of Sylvia’s personal life. Then she remembered that people could trace any phone and learn its location. She walked over to the booth that sold tickets to tramway tours, which was closed now, stopped beside it to hide from people passing, and wiped the phone. She looked around and saw only one man hurrying to the subway, so she threw the phone on the ground and stepped on it, then again and again until it became a handful of plastic fragments and small parts.
“It’s called karma, Sylvia. My dad would tell you all about it,” Corby said, collecting the remains of the phone from the frozen ground. She shook them into the trash can next to the booth and continued further along her route. Ten minutes later, she went outside from the subway and called her father when she approached the shop.
“You took longer than usual today,” her father said.
“I had problems with math.”
“You should have called me, I could have helped.”
“Dad, you couldn’t solve second grade math problems.”
“That’s not fair Corby!”
“Dad. I’m coming home. It’s cold outside.”
“Okay. I’m waiting.”
Five minutes later, she sat at the kitchen table, drinking hot chocolate. At first Mom refused to make it for her, sweets at night were bad for you, but apparently Corby looked so bad in spite of all her efforts to act as if nothing had happened that her mother made hot chocolate and put it on the table in front of her daughter with a bowl filled with fresh biscotti.
“Are you sick?” she asked, standing in front of Corby and combing her hair. Dad settled on the couch and browsed something on his phone.
“No I am not. I’m tired. So much homework.”
“Of course. What is that on your face? Those red spots? It looks like paint. Or blood.”
Corby went cold despite the hot chocolate gently going down to her stomach. She washed her hands, changed her clothes, but never looked in the mirror. She didn’t have the habit of looking in the mirror. Now she understood why a couple of people in the subway looked askance at her. She ran her hand over her cheek, trying to find an explanation.
“Did your pen explode again?” her mother prompted.
“Yes.” Corby lowered her head.
“How many times should I tell you not to chew on anything? All those germs. You are almost an adult.” Mother shook her head, smoothed her carefully combed locks, then pulled hair out of the brush and threw it in the trash. “You gnaw on these pens, they explode in your face, and it could get into your eyes. Finish your snack and go to bed.”
Corby watched her mother leaving the kitchen, thinking that she was blind. How can she confuse blood with ink? The last time she really did chew on her pen down to the core and ink burst onto her face in hundreds of small splashes.
“People post all kinds of crap,” her father said, not taking his eyes off the phone.
Corby finished her chocolate in one gulp and ran to her room while her father didn’t remember she was there and didn’t pay attention to the red spots on her face. He could see they weren’t ink stains at all. He had a lot of experience with blood.
“Good night!” he shouted to her back.
“Same to you!”
Corby flew to her room and rushed to the mirror in the bathroom. Her face wasn’t completely splattered as she thought. It was only on one side of her chin and cheek. She probably wiped everything else with the hood of her jacket or gloves. At first she just wanted to wash her face, but then she undressed and climbed into the shower. A jet of hot water hit her head and Corby closed her eyes. She wanted to enjoy the shower as she always did, but closing her eyes took her back to the shop, in a small butcher’s room, to the body of the murdered girl on the floor. She turned the ax slightly at the last moment and chopped one half of Sylvia’s face. She ignored it then, but now it surfaced in her memory. She turned a once beautiful and lively girl into a pile of meat.
“We’re all meat,” Corby said and sobbed. “I’m a murderer. I killed a person on purpose.”
She was a murderer. How fast it happened. Maybe faster than Sylvia’s blood cooled down in the refrigerator. She was a murderer. Was it what she dreamed about? Was it what she wanted? What would her parents say if they found out? What would her mother say? What would their neighbors say? She would become a character in crime shows on TV, where some unknown fat actress would play her while Corby herself would go to jail and try to survive among women even more terrible than Jane and Sylvia. At the same time Vera and Sylvia’s parents would curse her and even her parents, who didn’t have anything to do with this. Dad would probably quit eating completely and Mother would quit her television job, so she wouldn’t have to answer questions about her daughter—the murderer.
“Why did I do it, why?” Corby sobbed while hot water gushed on her face and body, blending with tears. “Poor Sylvia. Poor Sylvia.”
Sobbing and choking on water, Corby took the shampoo and washed her hair. The idea that the shampoo smelled of apples pushed the bloody image of Sylvia to the side. By the time the water washed away all the lather, Corby had stopped crying. When she put on a warm robe and walked out of the bathroom into the bedroom, sh
e just sobbed quietly. She observed the room as if with a set of new eyes and realized that nothing bothered her. A big, fat problem about the way her room looked was small and insignificant. Everything that had happened before today was small and insignificant. She took the laptop and sat on the bed to check her homework and then remembered that she had finished it. She could browse the net or open her own Facebook account finally. She could take a nickname and her parents would never know. Only what was she going to do there? She needed to collect friends on Facebook and she had no one there. Maybe she could become friends with strangers, put a photo of some model there, and accept compliments that didn’t belong to her?
“No.”
Corby’s thoughts transported to the bathroom. She left her sweater there and she had earrings in the pocket of that sweater. Small, diamond earrings.
Corby brought the sweater into her room, laid it out on the bed, and stuck her hand into the pocket. She panicked, not finding the jewelry there, but of course they were in the other pocket.
She put the earrings on her open palm and examined them in the light. The diamonds were real and sparkling. Corby went back to the bathroom, washed the earrings with soap and water, hauled her silver studs out of her ears, and replaced them with the new ones. The earrings shone and Corby stared at herself in the mirror, almost without blinking. That was her. Corby, who was bullied at school. Corby, who cried every day and who, sometimes, didn’t want to live. Corby, who had earrings glistening in her ears that she took from the girl she had killed. Corby—the killer.
She removed the earrings so fast that her ears hurt, and brought them back to her room, where they went into the black velvet bag.
After putting the earrings inside, she opened the bag, moved it under the lamp, and studied the jewelry on the bottom.
“Honey, are you asleep?”
Corby jerked and the bag fell to the floor when her mom’s soft voice came from behind the door.
“Yes! Almost!”
“Your light is on. Can I come in?”
Mean girl_A dark, disturbing psychological thriller Page 10
