I turned to look at my arsenal of tools for the job housed inside of the wooden structure and sighed, crossing my arms over my chest and thinking of what special treatment I wanted to use this time. I had fashioned the inside to contain not only shelves but hooks and clamps to hold things of different shapes and sizes ranging from a small ice pick to a hand saw and anything in between. I stood there for a moment, taking the time to think about each tool in their entirety and what kind of pain I would want to inflict. These were the times I hated being inside of my own mind. Images of death and blood would flash through it in second intervals like photographs, sometimes even making my body shiver involuntarily. In the blink of an eye, the decision was made. My hands reached out for the electric knife. Hamilton Beach. It the best that money could buy as far as I was concerned and the only one to never break on me. Next Hyde chose a straight razor, the ones that barbers would use when shaving men’s beards at their shops. I could feel myself turn away from the armoire, contentment seeping through mu muscles and my bones. She had only chosen two weapons this time, which was highly unusual.
Now it was time to wake him. The smelling salts were just across the room on a table that had been painted black to hide any blood that I missed when cleaning up after Hyde. That had never once happened, but there was always a first time for everything. The green and white box was practically calling out to Hyde, and I felt my own feet begin to move across the hard tiled floor, still in the same heels I had been wearing earlier that night. I was still mildly surprised that they had managed to stay on at all while I was asleep. The clicking on the floor was beginning to sound like murder, and if I could have, I would’ve covered my ears with my hands to stop the sound. Unfortunately, I would have to listen to it for as long as Hyde felt it necessary to wear them. I took a small paper cylinder in my manicured hand and turned back to the sleeping man on my table. He was out cold, and this would be the only way to wake him. Hyde never killed them while they were still unconscious. There was just something about hearing them scream and looking into their wide, teary eyes as she cut into them. A thrill would run through her that even I could feel, and it resonated through our shared body from head to toe.
Placing the small pellet under his nose, I snapped it open, the sound echoing through the air as he woke up with a start. He shook his head like he was trying to shake the smell away and once he realized he was strapped down he jerked, trying to wriggle his hands-free of the restraints.
“There’s no use in that, Dax.” My voice sounded different, even to me. Hyde instilled this growling quality to it that you couldn’t miss, almost like multiple voices were sprouting from within my vocal cords. His head jerked towards me, and his eyes took in my appearance, and the fear began to spread over his face and up into his eyes, causing his muscles to tense beneath his glistening skin and fists clenching and unclenching.
“Where am I?” he asked. His voice had raised an octave and the fact that it was because he was afraid made Hyde smile. I felt my lips spread into a wide, creepy grin that I wanted to wipe away as soon as it appeared.
“A special place,” I breathed. I leaned over him and took the straight razor in my hand. No work could begin until my hands were covered in purple nitrile and Hyde was getting jittery, shaking with anticipation which caused me to grip the handle even harder. Turning back to the table I took two gloves out of the box and slipped my hands into them, flexing my right hand in the glove as I turned around and picked up the razor once more. “I hope you know you won’t be walking out of here.”
I closed the blade. It was a scare tactic but not the first course of action in this case. Walking back around the table his eyes never moved from me, watching each movement and taking in every detail as I moved. I could tell that he knew I wasn’t the same person anymore. It was my body, but not me. It was an expression that I had seen multiple times before and I was sure it wouldn’t be the last. That and the fear. Hyde thrived on the horror. The terror that penetrated the air in that moment was palpable, and I could feel Hyde’s need to stroke the air just to see her fingers ripple through it. The closest object to her that she would rake her fingers through was right in front of her. Dax was still watching my actions as I moved around the table, his chest rising and falling with an increasing frequency. He wasn’t sure what to think. From what he knew I liked him enough to sleep with him, and now I was going to kill him. I was a black widow, and he was the fly caught in my web. This really wasn’t the case. If anything, I had sincerely hoped that Hyde wouldn’t show her face at all, but I wasn’t that lucky. At least, she had let me get something out of it before she started slashing.
Once I got up to the electric knife, I let my fingers graze it, but didn’t pick it up. It wasn’t time just yet. Wouldn’t be for a little while longer. Hyde’s torture sessions could take hours, and it was a wonder I got any sleep at all. Somehow these kills left me with a renewed energy that could leave me going for days on end, especially once I had the meal of human heart that I kept tucked away in my freezer. There was just something about it that made it easier to keep going the way I was forced to live with Hyde in residence. We were two people trying to occupy one space, and it sure was getting crowded. What Dax said next cause me to freeze in place.
“Why are you doing this?” He asked this question in earnest. When I looked him in the eyes, I could see that the truth was something he wanted, even if he didn’t make it out of this room with a pulse. He also hadn’t seemed to notice the change in my eye color just yet. A small tremor worked through my entire body. This was a question she liked to hear. For some reason it thrilled her and struck loathing into me, making me want to fight against her to stop the madness.
My body glided towards him once again and once I was next to his chest I let him in on a small secret, leaning down towards him so he could notice the green hue of my eyes instead of the chocolate brown they had been before. His eyes widened. “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she paused, letting the words stop at the base of my throat. She was going to revel in this moment where the terror in his face would be even stronger once the next few words were uttered aloud. She placed my hand on his chest and dug my nails into his skin just enough to leave small half-moons in their place. My eyes fluttered back up to his, and she hissed, “I’m not Blythe.” He reacted just the way she had hoped. His eyes widened even more, showing whites all the way around his beautiful blue orbs. I felt sorry for him, but Hyde was as happy as a clam.
That was when an “oh my god” was whispered. He had noticed the only change that took place in me besides the personality change. That was what I had been waiting for, and it had finally happened. She took that moment to dig my nails even further into his perfect flesh and drag them across his chest, leaving deep and bloody trails across his chest that looked like he had been slashed by a werewolf. His screams echoed through the room. Thank goodness for soundproofing. It was something I had had done when I commissioned the room to be built, and it would never be found. They weren’t on the floor plans just like I wanted. Hyde was growling outwardly, but I was screaming on the inside. It was a constant battle of wills, and I tried my best to pull her back without succeeding. Walking back down to the end of the table, I picked up the electric knife and turned it on. The sound was menacing and sent a chill through me that I was sure I would feel for days. If I thought I had nightmares about her kills before, I sure would now. No doubt about it.
“Hmmmm, which appendage should I start with?” This was a rhetorical question, of course. Dax was still in a state of shock, recovering as the pain from the initial strikes eased off to be replaced by the burning pain of exposure. His eyes never once wavered from the knife, though. She placed it just above the skin of his left ankle and said, “Eenie.” Then to the right. “Meanie.” Then she placed it right above his left knee. “Minie.” Deciding finally on his left foot, after all, she put the blade right above his left ankle and moaned, “Mo.” Pushing it against the skin, he cried out as
the blade sliced into his skin. The skin and muscle were the easiest parts to get through, and when you hit bone, you had to put some elbow grease into it. Within seconds, the blade began to grind against his ankle bone. Moving it back and forth Hyde found the space right in between the joint and pushed even harder until there was a pop. Even more, shrieks erupted from her victim, and if I could have looked away, I would have. Most of the others I didn’t mind, but Dax was a different story. I had genuinely liked him, and she felt the need to take that away from me. Oh, how unfair life was for someone like me.
After she was finished with his foot, she moved to his knee. This was even hard to work through, but it was easier once you realized you needed to begin below the kneecap and then push up underneath it to the knee joint underneath. I was startled as each joint made that popping sound as the blade serrated them, making me want to put my hands over my ears again. Hyde had control, so this was an impossibility. She made her gory progression from foot all the way up to the hip, and then started on the other leg in the same fashion. At this point he was in shock and unconscious as blood pooled on the table and began to splatter in large drips and rivers onto the floor around my feet, absolutely ruining the shoes. Then the arms. I tried to ignore it all as best as I could, but then the blood spattered onto the coat and my face, leaving it covered in the warm and think film of it. She didn’t seem to mind it at all. If anything, she wanted to rub it into my skin, but I could feel her resisting the impulse to do so. Instead, she used the sleeve of the lab coat to wipe it from my eyes and kept going. After this was over, I knew I was going to be sick.
Once the dismemberment was finished, she looked directly into his face. It was slack and drenched in his own blood, mouth barely parted, and his brow furrowed like it had frozen that way from the pain. A pang of regret emerged from within Hyde, which was a shock in and of itself, but it quickly vanished. “Now, that’s just too bad. Blythe, you really picked a looker this time.” She used one gloved hand to pat his cheek and then stood, placing the blade against his solar plexus, cutting through the bone quickly enough to reach the heart below it. Once exposed she dug my hands into the crevice she removed the heart. It was slippery and hot within my grasp as I felt my arms raise it just to eye level, staring at it intently like it was the only thing that existed.
“Now, that’s going to be some good eating,” she announced, letting the words slither out of my mouth and into the bloody air around us. The walls were covered with the stuff as well as the floor and the coat and apron I had worn. Hyde’s gaze didn’t falter from the heart she held in her hands, buzzing with anxious energy and anticipation. That heart was all that existed.
Chapter Eight
After seeing Dax’s heart in my hands, I had drifted into unconsciousness, letting the darkness take me as my only solitude from the atrocities that Hyde had made me commit. It was something I had dealt with for years but the bloodshed that I woke up to each and every time was beginning to wear on me to the point of a nervous breakdown. I let my eyes blink open and took in everything around me. I had awoken on the chilly marble floor in my bedroom. Hyde had always managed to keep me from ending up on the bed and cocooned in sheets. The floor was much easier to clean and didn’t require me replacing a mattress as well as burning the sheets that I had soiled with blood. After the first time this change was a welcome one, but still highly unpleasant. Blood from the apron and lab coat had worked slightly into the grout in between the marble slabs that made up my floor, a groan fleeing from between my lips seeing that it was six in the morning, and I only had a matter of a couple of hours to clean this mess.
Sitting up, I saw that I was still wearing the heels which were now ruined and the sticky feel of the blood on the lab coat made my stomach turn. It was a good thing I had plenty in reserve. I kept them on hand because every single one of Hyde’s kills ended up just as gory as the last and I had to rid myself of the horrendous coat on every occasion.
“Why me?” I whispered to the empty air around me. Two nights in a row was very rare. It had only happened this way once before now when I had just turned twenty and now, seven years later, here I was again; bathed in the blood of yet another man whom Hyde had used to fulfill her sadistic impulses. When would it stop? I ran a still-gloved hand through my hair, moving it out of my face and not even caring that my hands were still slathered in blood. I even felt it smear across my forehead sick, wet, and cool. There was so much of it that some had dried, but the thicker layers were still extremely tacky. A sound of disgust was uttered unbidden as I pushed myself onto my shaky legs, nearly toppling over before having a moment to adjust to the fact I was still wearing heels.
I ripped them off in one quick move and walked to the gas fireplace in the living room. There was no way I was going to be able to get the blood out of any of this stuff, but I could, at least, save the rubber apron. That could be rinsed and bleached in the bathtub so I could reuse it. The rubber aprons cost more than the lab coats, so I tried to save them where I could. Over time, the bleach started to eat at them so at some point I would also have to replace this one, but till then I was okay with reusing it. I slipped off the apron and dropped it right onto the bloody print of my body on the floor and resolved to burn the damning coat as well as the shoes. There was absolutely no saving them. Blood had a tendency to ruin everything if you didn’t get to it quickly. Hyde made it just way too easy to destroy a lot of stunning clothes, and white coats and I was thanking my lucky stars that she had managed to leave that dress I had worn this time untouched. I could, at least, smile at that small victory, but the smile faded quickly as soon as I reached the fireplace and started the fire, throwing the expensive shoes right into the rolling flames.
I sighed in sadness as I watched them burn, but I wasn’t upset about the shoes. Dax’s death would be one that would haunt me for a long time to come. I hadn’t known him long at all, and most of what we did didn’t require speaking to one another, but I had known enough to begin to actually like him. One of many firsts for me that didn’t end well. Unbuttoning the coat I could see flashes of the kill in my mind, interspersed between images of past murders at my hand that Hyde had carried out using my body as a tool. I felt used and violated when I threw the coat into the broiling fire, hearing the crackle of it as it caught. It didn’t take long before I could smell the iron of blood in the air which would soon be covered by the smell of bleach once I got to cleaning up the rest of Hyde’s mess.
Lauren had always mentioned the constant tinge of cleanliness in the air when she came over but never once asked about it. She knew me well enough to know that certain things you just didn’t ask and kept her mouth shut when it was pertinent. This kind of silent concern was something I was thankful for. She could mention it, but didn’t need to know more than I was willing to share with her. At that point, I was in extreme need of a shower, but first things first. The floor needed to be my first course of action followed by that room. I would have to call into the gallery and let Hannah know that I would be a little late. I then removed the nitrile gloves and threw them into the fire as well. No need to taint the phone with blood when there was already enough of it to go around. The only blood on me was in my hair, on my forehead, and a thin red splotchy layer of it littering my skin, covering my breasts and belly with it. I felt permanently stained with the blood of innocent men that I would never be able to wash away, but it wasn’t just my body that was stained. My soul was too, and that would be even harder to wash away.
My cell phone was in my purse which was conveniently on the couch. Fishing it out I dialed the number for the gallery and left a message that I would be in late. Hannah never minded when I was late for work as long as I wasn’t late for a showing, which I never was and I was rarely ever late as it was. Hyde had a tendency to kill early enough in the night to where I had more time than this to clean up after her, but she didn’t leave nearly enough this time. The exact same thing had happened on the other occasion where she had killed two nig
hts in a row, but there was less of a mess this time because she didn’t use the electric knife and really took her time. It seemed she was becoming more desperate for the kill this time. Was I holding her back and that was why she felt she needed to come out to play again? I sure hoped not.
All of the chemicals I used to clean up the bloody remains of the night’s events were kept in a special place in my kitchen. I walked to the kitchen in the buff and removed bottles of various cleaners from the cabinet as far away from the stove as possible. These were the only times this cabinet was ever opened, and I always felt a sharp pang in my chest when I had to. The only way to really clean the marble and get the blood off of it was to wipe it down with a wet cloth first and then to slather it with some baking soda to make a poultice that I would cover in plastic and wipe away after twenty-four hours. It was painstaking and time consuming to care for marble but it was what I preferred. The next step after cleaning it was to shine it back up with chamois cloth. Once the poultice was applied, I moved to Hyde’s scandalous kill room. It wasn’t as bad as I had remembered it and would take only a good wipe down with a very good cleaning on the floor as well as the metal table where Dax’s blood had pooled and congealed. Jellied blood was always worse to clean up than fresh and the only way I found was best to deal with it was to take a spray bottle of hydrogen peroxide and spray it all over everything, letting it sit and bubble as it ate at the proteins. Contrary to what I had originally thought it worked like a charm.
Hello, My Name is... (A Miss Hyde Novella Book 1) Page 5
