Like turning off a light switch, Ed’s jowly face became hard. The amiable smile there faded and was replaced by a deep frown. Carrie felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.
Damn car... she thought, for the one hundred and first time that night.
Ed glared at the snow ahead. “I’m just trying to be friendly.”
Carrie, thinking to defuse the situation quickly, responded, “I know that Ed. I do appreciate the ride...”
“Shut up!” he said, loudly. Carrie, very suddenly, felt very unsafe.
Ed was gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles had turned as white as the snow outside. The wheel made a creaking noise at the strain of his grip.
“I’m just trying to be nice,” Ed muttered. “I’m just trying to be friendly. I’m the one who helped you out. Think there’d be some gratitude...” The tape flipped over and Peter Frampton’s guitar filled the car again. Carrie darted a quick glance out her window at the rushing snow and saw that the car was traveling too fast to jump out of without serious injury. She could feel panic beginning to scratch at the edges of her mind, like some rabid animal outside the walls of a tent.
“Ed...” she began, but he again cut her off.
“Shut up, bitch!”
Carrie very deliberately leaned over and put the pack of gum she was still holding into her bag. As she did so, she grabbed the handle of the staple gun and, leaving it concealed, she grabbed her backpack and hugged it to herself. The idea of jumping out of the car didn’t seem quite so reckless now.
Ed went on, mumbling angrily and more to himself than to her, “I remember girls just like you when I was at college. Junior college. Not some fucking Big Ten school. Yeah, there were plenty of girls like you. Too fucking smart for their own good. Wearing tight sweaters and teasing a guy with their tight little bodies! And, when someone tries to get near them, they sick their brainless, muscle-bound jock boyfriends on them. Yeah, I know all about bitches like you!”
With no warning, Ed ripped the wheel to the right and the car slid crazily to the side of the road. He slammed the gearshift into Park and turned towards her in a rage, “Is that what you’re doing? Going up to see your fucking jock boyfriend and bang him dry?”
Carrie turned to the door and half opened it before Ed grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him. He pulled back a fist and struck her a glancing blow on her brow. Her head struck the door frame and she screamed at the pain. It was a second or two before she could see again, and then her vision was filled with curious floating black dots. She felt a trickle of blood run from her forehead into her left eye and she pushed at Ed futiley. He hit her hand away, grabbing a handful of her hair. She felt his other reach into her jacket and twist her breast sadistically.
“Does that hurt, slut? Is that what he does to you? Do the two of you rut like two perfect little animals and then make fun of the normal people? Do you? DO YOU? ANSWER ME!”
Still dazed and filled with terror, Carrie remembered the stapler. She jerked the stapler up and, without thinking jammed it against the side of Ed’s face, pulling the trigger twice.
Ed screamed and lurched backwards, clawing at his face. Finding herself suddenly free from his bulk, Carrie pawed at the door handle, opened the door, and pushed herself out of the car. She fell from the Olds and landed in a snowdrift at the side of the road. Still dizzy from the blow she had received, she wiped at the blood which was now making her eye sting. She glanced back at the car and saw Ed thrashing in agony on the front seat. He was trying unsuccessfully to staunch the flow of blood from his own face. With a queasy revulsion, Carrie saw that she had put one of the staples into his left cheek and the other into his eye.
“YOU BITCH! MY EYE!” he bellowed, blood and aqueous humor running down his pudgy features. Time to get the fuck out of here! Carrie thought as she pulled herself up and began running away from the car. She found herself slipping and falling in the deep snow as she quickly scrabbled up an embankment at the far side of the road. Before she crested the rise, she looked back through the blowing snow and saw Ed struggling out of the car, his gory features eerily illuminated by the car’s dome light. She plunged down the other side and rolled into another drift, crying out as snow found its way into her clothing.
She struggled to her feet once more and trudged on into the thickening snow. A few steps later, she encountered another snow drift, but this one hid a fence. She struck it painfully and flipped over it, tearing her jeans and gashing her knee on a piece of frigid and rusty barbed wire. She realized that she was crying and paused for a few misery and fear-filled seconds before she was up and moving again.
As she ran, she tried to pull the zipper on her parka closed, but found that her numb fingers wouldn’t work right. She looked up from her struggles and screamed as a large, dark shape loomed out ahead of her in the whirling white snow.
She jerked to a stop and strained to see it, her heart thudding heavily in fear and anguish. Fear and stress made her almost laughed when she realized it wasn’t Ed, that he hadn’t somehow gotten ahead of her. Towering over her was a sculpted angel, its eyes cast down in sorrow. Through the snow, she saw several evenly spaced lumps of snow and it dawned on her that she was in a cemetery.
She ran on, focused only on escape, dodging headstones and rows of crypts and mausoleums. Finally, she paused between two closely built crypts, hoping that maybe Ed had driven off.
Maybe he’s left, maybe he’s gone to lick his wounds, hoping that the storm’ll finish me off..., she thought, blowing warm air into her cold hands.
“You’ve probably lost him,” she said aloud, trying to convince herself it was true.
Then, almost as though it were in response, a yell came through the chill night, “Caaaarrriiiee! Caaaaarrrriiiieee! I’m gonna kill yooooooouuuu!”
With a whimper, she started running again.
She burst out from the shelter of the crypts and ran into an open area. The snow was deeper here and she fought through the snow only to find her progress halted by a large and imposing wall. She cursed in dismay and began running parallel with it, looking for an exit. From behind her, deeper in the graveyard, she heard the roar of a car and saw twin headlights floating between the headstones.
Realizing that Ed was still looking for her, she started sobbing anew and tried to push forward. Nearly exhausted and feeling the effects of prolonged exposure, she was no longer running. She was shambling at a half trot, half walk; her hand numbly trailing the cemetary wall.
The car was getting closer.
Suddenly, appearing like the angel had earlier, she saw the shape of a building before her. Running to it, she found a dilapidated tool shed. Its roof was bowed with the weight of snow and age, and it looked ancient. She found the door and pulled it open against the deep drift at its threshold just enough to squeeze in and quickly slam it shut behind her.
She scampered to the back corner and huddled down, looking about in the darkness for a weapon of some sort. There was nothing. Her lungs burning from her exertions in the cold air, almost like she had breathed in fiberglass. Now that she had stopped running, her shivering started in earnest.
She began to say a small prayer, but was interrupted when the room was suddenly flooded with light.She scampered across the shed and pressed an eye against the wall. Looking through the chill space between two warped wall boards, she saw that Ed’s car had stopped approximately fifty feet away from her. She heard the sound of a car door squeaking open and Ed pull himself heavily from the driver’s seat.
She looked about again, frantically, and spied a foot long piece of twine. She imagined some grizzled groundskeeper discarding of it in the corner, not realizing somebody would someday find it. She grasped the twine and clasped it to her chest, although she had no idea what good it would serve as a weapon.
Her mind was abruptly filled with the image of her dead body, preserved and frozen in the deep snow until it was discovered some time in the spring. She scrambled back to the wall. Looking out
again, she saw that Ed was standing still, his bulk illuminated from behind by the headlights of the car. He was looking directly at the shed. Carrie was certain he could see her. The cold seemed alive, insidiously seeping through the gaps in the imperfectly built shed walls.
“Carrie,” Ed said conversationally, reasonably, “I see your footprints going in there. Come out now and I promise I’ll kill you quick.”
Carrie heard a keening noise and realized with some distress that it was coming from her own throat. She did not move, feeling like a child who had awakened from a nightmare, afraid to move for fear the ‘monster’ from your dreams will see you. Only this time, the monster was a salesman from Ohio and, in the morning, this wasn’t going to seem like a silly dream. She was quite certain that she would never see morning again.
“Carrie!” Ed yelled, reaching a hand to his seriously wounded face, “get the fuck out here! If I have to come in there, I will tear your head off and fuck your goddamn SKULL!”
Ed started to rush forward and Carrie had a strange thought. She suddenly remembered a moment from her childhood. She was standing barefoot in the kitchen of her parent’s home, the smell of oatmeal raisin cookies filling the warm summer air. Her mother turned to her and smiled, saying, “They’re almost done, Carrie! Be patient.”
With tears in her eyes, she realized this memory of her mother was going to be one of her last thoughts.
Just then, the door was pulled open and Ed was there. He paused, glaring at her. He had wrapped his thick necktie around his head and eye and he was breathing raggedly. Carrie could almost smell the rage rolling off of him. He smiled maliciously, his face and form jigsawed by the light that peeked through the warped wood of the shed. He began pulling at his pants, undoing his belt and fly. With absolute terror, Carrie could see that he was aroused.
“Time for a lesson in humility, bitch,” he yelled, “Time to show that you stuck up, snobby whores are the same as any other woman when you’re on your fucking back!”
Carrie started to scream, and held the piece of twine out in pleading hands. He took a step forward but abruptly stopped as though he had been poleaxed. Just as suddenly as he’d appeared in the door frame, his body was sucked from the egress. It almost looked as though he had been plucked up by an errant wind. In her confusion and terror, it took a few seconds for her to realize that she and Ed were no longer alone.
She scrambled to the door and looked out into the storm.
Ed was lying on his back in the snow near an overturned tombstone. Balanced like some strange bird on another nearby tombstone was a person, their shape concealed by a bulky overcoat with a voluminous hood. Across the individual’s back was a backpack. It was the person they had passed earlier on the road.
Ed struggled up, his face still filled with that insatiable rage. Carrie’s savior jumped from the top of the slick grave marker, crossing the distance to Ed with unnatural speed and agility. The person struck Ed across the face with a brutal backhand and he was propelled against another mausoleum. He crumpling to the snowy ground once again.
Ed was seriously injured. His left arm hung limply to his side and he clutched his chest with his uninjured right arm, more than likely in an attempt to stop the knifelike pain of bruised or broken ribs. He rolled up to a sitting position and spit out a gob of bright blood that stained the turned up snow.
The newcomer stopped moving forward and stood stark still amidst the falling snowflakes.With a shake of the head, the stranger’s snow covered hood fell and Carrie saw that it was a woman. She was beautiful and in her early to mid twenties. She had a long mane of blond hair that was so light it looked almost white. This mane cascaded down the back of her jacket and fell in straight lengths almost to the small of her back. She turned to Carrie and smiled.
“It’s an angel,” Carrie found herself whispering as she was struck by the almost unnatural beauty of the woman.
Then the woman returned her attention to Ed.
She walked to him casually, grabbing him by his injured shoulder. Effortlessly, she pulled him to his feet. He cried out at the pain and grunted heavily as she slammed a fist into his not inconsiderable gut. He fell to his knees again, crying and coughing and throwing up in the churned snow. The woman looked at him in disgust and as Carrie watched, the woman’s face changed. It became almost feral and Carrie was dumbstruck as the woman opened her mouth and her incisor teeth seemed to grow longer and sharper. Ed was kneeling before her, looking at Carrie in pain and horror.
Just then, the stranger growled like a wild animal and brought both of her fists slamming down onto Ed’s collar bones. He squealed in pain and Carrie flinched as she heard the bones there snap. The sound was incredibly loud in the cold and silent air and Carrie almost felt sympathy for Ed.
Almost.
His eyes rolled in pain and horror like those of a trapped animal and he slumped forward with a gurgling moan.
His attacker grabbed his battered body once again and lifted him by his hair as though he weighed nothing. The woman savagely sank her teeth into his neck and began drinking while Ed kicked in a futile attempt to escape. He screamed and fought, but to no avail. The woman held him tighter, like a lover in the grips of passion. Carrie finally squeezed her eyes shut as Ed’s screams began to change in pitch and tone. They grew weaker and weaker until they were gone completely; replaced by a wet, slurping sound. More disturbing than this was the woman’s excited grunts of pleasure.
They grew and grew and Carrie hazarded another look as the woman finished feeding on poor Ed. She pulled away from him, her face covered in gore and, looking up, laughed into the snow filled night sky.
Still looking up, she grasped one of Ed’s arms and, with the ease of a child pulling the wings off of a fly, the woman pulled it off of Ed’s torso with a ripping, crunching noise.
It was too much for Carrie. She fainted.
Carrie woke to harsh light, jumping in terror as her memory of the night’s gruesome events returned. She screamed in panic and flailed about, hitting her injured leg painfully on the dashboard of Ed’s car. It took a long moment for the terror to subside and for her to realize that she was all right and that she was still somehow alive. The car was running and the heater was blowing blissfully hot air. She was alone. Looking about, she saw her backpack. Grabbing it, she pulled frantically at the doorknob and found, to her dismay, that the car door wouldn’t open.
She looked through the windshield and saw that she was in a rest area somewhere. She recognized the blocklike, mid-1960’s look of the main building and gas station. It was the same generic design and architecture shared by all rest areas. Carrie saw that it had finally stopped snowing.
Suddenly, the driver’s side door opened with a rush of cold air. The terror of earlier returned full force as the strange and beautiful woman from earlier slid into the driver’s seat. Carrie yelped like a kicked dog and pushed herself as far into the passenger door as physics allowed.
The woman smiled at her innocently, like an angel painted by Boticelli.
“Hello,” she said sweetly.
Carrie was speechless with terror. The woman placed a cup of coffee on the dashboard and clicked on the radio. The speakers crackled once and the car was filled with the sounds of The Cure.
Of course it’s The Cure, Carrie thought ironically. Vampire music for a vampire…
The two woman stared at each other for almost a full minute before Carrie found her nerve and squeaked out a question, “Are you going to kill me?”
Her voice broke on the last syllable and she felt a single tear roll down her face.
The woman didn’t respond right away. Carrie felt the silence grow uncomfortably until the woman smiled again. Lightning quick, and before Carrie could flinch, the woman’s hand shot forward and stroked the side of Carrie’s face. Carrie was frozen, the touch of the woman both disturbing and, worse than that, alluring. Carrie couldn’t define the feelings the cool fingers brought to her. The woman leaned closer and con
tinued stroking the side of Carrie’s face; almost like they were old lovers.
“I won’t kill you, sweetie,” the woman breathed, her lips inches from Carrie’s. The only sound was the radio, the gentle rasp of the woman’s finger nail on Carrie’s cheek, and Carrie’s jagged breathing. Suddenly, the woman darted her head forward and kissed Carrie. Carrie, to her surprise, found herself kissing back.
In the back of her mind, she didn’t understand what was happening. She had never, ever, found herself attracted to a woman before. Almost instantly, she realized that this was different. The woman before her wasn’t a woman. She wasn’t even human. And yet, Carrie couldn’t explain the desire that suddenly filled her core at the strange womans touch.
The vampire finally pulled away, leaving a sparkle of moisture on Carrie’s lips. Carrie’s head spun and she gasped, as though she were coming out of a dream. She started in fear, recognizing the woman for the dangerous predator she was. The woman simply smiled sweetly and leaned over, unlocking Carrie’s door.
“We’re about ten minutes outside of Detroit. Time for you to get out.”
Carrie stared at the the woman before her, speechlessly.
“Go on, honey. It’s all right. I won’t hurt you.”
Carrie scrambled behind her for the door handle and fell out as the car door popped open. She sprawled in a drift of snow, her bag clutched to her breast tightly. The vampire smiled at her toothily, reaching over for the door.
Before she pulled it closed, Carrie croaked out, “Why?”
The vampire cocked her head, as though it were apparent, “Us girls gotta stick together, sugar!”
The door creaked shut and the woman drove off. As the vehicle pulled away, it began snowing again.
WORKING STIFFS
I love this story. Originally published in The Daily Tourniquet, Working Stiffs was an exercise in two techniques. I was suffering from some writer’s block at the time and decided to try my hand at some flash fiction. Additionally, I wanted to write something that was dialogue heavy. My goal was to break the writer’s block and try to convey two separate personalities based solely on the way they talk. This will, someday, become the basis for a novel. Enjoy! - DAC
Disturbed Graves: Tales of Terror and the Undead Page 3
