by Skye, Mav
“It’s… it’s…” May trembles and points.
I look. There is a picture of May in a halter and tight jeans. She’s wearing movie star sunglasses, blonde hair loose and tousled in the breeze. She’s walking out of 7-11, smiling straight into the camera.
“My God,” I repeat.
Our eyes meet, then both look down at the desk with the closed laptop. She sits, opens it.
“The screen is locked. Any password ideas?” May types in something and snorts.
I shake my head. What does a rich Fat Bastard stalker use as a password? Aerosmith’s “Eat the Rich” comes to mind. This brings a smile to my lips, but then I see Fat Bastard’s face in my mind, pink and distorted, and his thick lips whisper, “Eat the bitch.”
I frown and glance at May’s photograph on the wall. Darkness like a heavy tarp settles upon me—something bad is going to happen. I grit my teeth and determine this: I will protect May at all costs. And if anything bad is going down, it is going down on Fat Bastard.
May types something and snorts again.
“What did you type?”
“Piggy,” she says, but the screen remains locked.
She stands and we both glance over the room, bewildered.
A narrow door with a brass knob catches my eye. It blends into the wall. “The closet,” I whisper.
We both walk to it, look at each other. I open the door. It is dark. A lone pull string hangs from a bulb. It tick tocks back and forth like a grandfather clock tongue. I watch it a second, willing it to stop ticking, but it moves anyway in its own ghostly rhythm. I hesitate. Do I really want to see? Not just inside the closet, but see our lives clearly: May and mine, always looking for the next 7-11 job to get screwed at, flip a trick to pay rent, grab a buck burger for dinner, never having a real boyfriend, the weight of paying for May’s meds. What is the price for a dream, for peace? Our mother’s price (her face appears in my mind, navy blue eyes and a pale pretty mouth, a scar the shape of a kiss on her cheek) was running away. The price, I know, is always hefty and… complete. What would my price be?
The string tick tocks on.
“Maybe we should just leave,” whispers May.
Her statement reflects my thoughts, but in her voicing it out loud, I feel angry. Running away. It’s what we’ve always done, what our mother did. We aren’t going back to that life. No way.
Tonight everything is going to change.
“Not without the money,” I say, and grab the string. The small closet is illuminated. Photos, there are more of them, except in these the women are naked and there are stab wounds and blood. Lots of blood. The photographs lap over each other on the walls. A bloody heel sticks out here, an elbow there. They are thumb tacked on, so each can be taken down, looked at, then tacked back up.
“I’m scared,” moans May.
“Me too.” A small photo album lies at the bottom of the closet. I bend and pick it up. May leans into me as I open it.
Every page is carefully dated with a newspaper column underneath. Each newspaper article is about a murder, a missing young woman. I flip through and notice a change in the newspaper headings. Suspects for the murders, and whom the police arrested are highlighted in yellow and the date circled.
“Sick fuck,” I say.
May gleams a sickly pale color and licks her lips, she isn’t looking at the photograph book, but still looking at the bloody bodies on the closet walls. “Oh my god, look what he did to that one.”
May points to a girl about her own age, about nineteen or so. She’s wearing stilettos, black thigh highs, panties and nothing else. Ribbons of thin slices climb up her thighs above her hose, then again under her breasts, around the top of her cleavage towards her collarbone, then a final smile under her neck. Bruises cover her stomach and ribs like she’d been repeatedly kicked. Her hands and ankles are bound, her blonde hair braids off to the side. Her bright red lipstick smudges just a touch. Mascara streams down her face.
“The deer head says that would have been me if it hadn’t saved me,” whispers May.
Panic butterflies in my stomach. Shit, this is serious. I throw the photograph album back in the closet and slam the door.
I close my eyes and take several deep breaths and look at May. Her pupils are dilated and empty, reminding me of the moose head above the fireplace.
She says, “The deer head says we can’t just let him go.”
My heart flip-flops. “Killing him will make us no better than he is.”
She whines in that little sister voice, “Someone needs to stop him, Jenn.”
I know she is right. I know she is. But what business is it of ours? I’m here to save May. No one ever gave a shit about us, why should we stick our neck out on the line? Besides, knocking off bad guys isn’t part of the plan, too much complication. I like simplicity. And maybe, maybe, it is about something else, about that weenie part of me, that part that doesn’t know how to fight or is too cowardly.
“The plan is to find the key and get the money. Tonight everything is going to change, May. I promise.”
I see us in my mind’s eye, May and me, running out of here with a duffel bag of money. Leaving this shitty city forever, finding that house in the country with planters hanging from the front porch…But then Fat Bastard’s face breaks through the vision and he laughs back at me, Eat the bitch. And that horrible feeling that something will go terribly wrong smacks me in the gut again.
May says, “But those girls… look what he did to them. You don’t even know what he did to me, what he was going to do to me.” May’s eyes focus in on something. She shivers and wraps her arms about herself. I look at the wall, but there are so many photos, I don’t know which she is looking at.
I think about what she just said. She is right, but …“And what about us? What about our peace, damn it, May, I can take care of you once we find that key. Even if we don’t find it, forever, always, I will take care of you. But…” I point at the closet door, “we’ll be just like those poor girls if we don’t get out of here soon. And I mean, lickety split.”
She appears to think about it. Her attention shifts on the wall.
“Please,” I say. “Let’s find the key and—“
May points at the picture of herself at the gas station. “I’m already dead, Jenn. It’s just when. Now’s our chance to be Supergirls for real.”
I am taken back again, struck with a disorienting force of nostalgia. Supergirls. It is the game we used to play when we were little, before we knew about her psychosis. We were going to save the world, because no one ever saved us.
And then, standing there in my Godzilla t-shirt, her blonde hair combed to the side, she says, “Supergirls stand together.”
I had to say the rest, “Supergirls stay together.”
It was our secret code of justice, meaning we agree to be there for each other and stick together no matter what. We hadn’t played Supergirls since our mother’s third marriage to Freddie Dean. Freddie liked to steal into our room at night, first my bed, then May’s. It was nothing new to us. Growing up in a trailer park, children were disposable sex toys, sold for cheap addictions. Only Supergirls could save the world. May was into karate moves. She liked to kick bad guy asses with jellyfish shoes. I just wanted to keep my world safe, keep May safe. I stole bad guys’ money (mom’s boyfriends) and bought loads of Double Bubble bubblegum. May and I would smack our gum, and talk about wrapping it around a thousand bad guys and tossing them to the moon. After Freddie Dean, I couldn’t pretend anymore. Bad guys prevailed. May, though, would stay up late in to the night repeating our code, “Supergirls stand together. Supergirls stay together.”
The darkness shrinks from May’s pupils, her irises dance light blue once more. I picture her eight years old, hands on her hips embracing the old superman costume we found in the community dumpster. May says, “Key. Money. Justice.”
Slowly, I nod.
6
The Mud Wrestling Whore Sisters and the Poke
r Face Demon Spec-tac-u-lar!
We both walk back to the living room to check on Fat Bastard.
He’s sitting up on the grizzly rug, sweating and grunting with the apple still stuck in his mouth. The poker is between his feet and he’s sawing his hand binds back and forth against its sharp point.
“Bad! Bad pig!” May marches over.
Fat Bastard gives us a deer in the headlights look, then saws like a madman. The bonds are close to breaking.
May is freaking out. I scramble behind her, clutching at her shirt. “No, May. Let me do this.”
I look longingly at the kitchen knife on the desk. I need the knife, but if I go for it, May will reach Fat Bastard first. If she gets close enough, Fat Bastard will swat her with the poker. If she gets the poker away from him, there’s a good chance she’ll bean him with it. Blood everywhere is not a good option. I need to get to Fat Bastard first.
May’s shirt flies up as she springs toward Fat Bastard. I make a grab for her blue undies and yank. She yelps and slides to a full out stop, giving me the advantage to leap ahead.
As I do, Fat Bastard sneaks a look. He’s staring at my chest. One of my breasts has flown free of the nest. I let go of May and grab my wonder bra.
May swings ahead of me. She elbows me in the chin, then shoves her foot out, tripping me. I fall to the ground, but as I do, I grab May’s long hair, jerking her head back towards the ceiling. Godzilla roars and we both tumble to the floor.
Fat Bastard has the poker in his hands now. He’s swinging it like an axe. He’s hopping on his ass like a toddler, massive stomach bouncing over his boxers. He spits the apple out and waves the poker, his mighty girth quivering with movement. “Eat this!” He doesn’t yell it like a command, but more like a side show carnie calling out for passersby to play his game. “Eat this, ladies!”
I still have May’s hair, holding her back from Fat Bastard’s swings. She’s on her back kicking her legs out and shrieking. “Jenn! Let-me-go-“ She jabs my exposed breast with her elbow and my body acts on reflex. I drop her hair and grab my boob.
Fat Bastard is closer. He swings again. “EAT THIS!”
May grabs the poker midair with her bare feet, then clutches it with her hands and seizes it out of his. The whole scene is bizarre, like a circus freak show performance.
May, not missing a beat, jumps to her feet, shoves the apple back into his mouth and kicks it deeper with her bare foot. “You eat it, piggy.”
Fat Bastard gags and chokes on the apple, he snorts like a hog, then silences. Blood dribbles from the crooks of his mouth.
May takes a deep breath and raises the poker above his eye, then at his throat.
I reach towards her. “No, not yet. Not like this.”
“You know what he would have done to us?”
Her mouth trembles. Her hands quiver as well, the sharp tip of the poker bounces off Fat Bastard’s Adam’s apple. Fat Bastard lies dead still beneath her. I realize the prick has finally caught on. May is just as sick in the head as he is.
“No, not this way,” I say quietly, reaching for the poker, hoping not to startle her. I picture the iron poker crushing down and popping Fat Bastard’s jugular, blood spurting everywhere. We don’t have time for this.
May’s head snaps up at the moose head. “Okay,” she breathes.
“Okay,” I mimic her voice. I don’t know what made her mind change, but glancing quickly at the moose head and back at her, I have a pretty good guess. When I take the poker from her fingers, she doesn’t resist.
Fat Bastard sighs in relief.
May shakes her head and giggles, then kicks his shoulder with her toe. “The whistling deer head has better plans for you, bad, bad Piggy.” She goes to the kitchen and comes back with rope. She tosses it to me, and I go to work, retying the bonds on his wrists.
May taunts him the whole time. “Are you comfy now? Huh? Maybe I oughtta take the apple out of your mouth and shove this gun in instead? See how much you like the taste of—“
Finished, I put my hands on my hips. “May, are we going to play torture Mr. Piggy or are we going to find that damn key?”
Her mood change is immediate. “Yeah, I’ll help, but don’t you want to know what the whistling deer head told…”
“No,” I snap. “What I want to know is where your meds are?” I give her a knowing look and May flushes red. “Have him,” I point at the moose head, “tell you that, then I’ll be listening.”
“I already told you, the pig burned my things.” She glares back at me and puts her hands on her hips. She attempts the Godzilla look on my t-shirt. The t-shirt rises showing the lining of her baby blue lace panties and bruises from Fat Bastard, giving her nothing like the I-am-firebreathing-dinosaur-god-rising-from-a-volcano-to-fart-fire-and-smite-thee look, but rather a vulnerable little girl look.
“Or you flushed them.” Gawd… I turn and stomp away.
“That isn’t fair, Jenn. You know I wouldn’t do that. Not now.”
I feel a pang of guilt. I know I hit a sore spot. Good. Psychosis or not, this is not a damn game. This is life or death. Why can’t she take this seriously?
I make my way out of the living room, and down the hall. Shadows sway and dance upon the walls like demons, red eyes gleam and horns point.
I don’t give a fuck.
May sees this sort of thing all the time, and it doesn’t bother her. No sir, that’s why she flushed her meds. Demons? No problem. Just find your local stalker psycho and ask the whistling dear head hanging above his fireplace how many licks on a toostie pop does it take to make a demon go away.
A door looms at the end of the hallway, my mind focuses. It is tall and narrow, dark green with a brass knob. I walk straight to it.
A single demon dances on the door, reaching its sharp claws for the handle. I look behind me, trying to determine what trick of lighting makes the shadows appear to dance, but there is no light, no windows, just a dark hall. I feel dizzy and consider turning around, asking May to come with me. Then I hear it.
“Jennifer…” says a light, wispy voice from behind the door.
That’s it. I’m going crazy, like May. Or… someone is in the room, perhaps one of Fat Bastard’s victims, still alive. I cling to that thought even as the shadow demon continues its dance on the door. I reach for the knob and twist.
“Jennifer!” the voice screams, and the door swings open.
7
Sisters of Pain
I fall into the room. “It’s okay. You’re free!” I cry out to… no one.
Dark.
A strangled gurgle draws my attention to a backlit tank of water. It stretches from one wall to the other, floor to ceiling. Bubbles froth up through the water, bursting at the top. The tank casts a faint glow, giving the room an eerie midnight-in-a–haunted-forest-with-a-slice-of-moon feel. My eyes adjust as I glance about the room. In this forest of midnight are tall, shapely creatures. No one moves. No one breathes. The room is crowded and empty at the same time.
I become aware of a creature standing beside me, by the door.
“Oh!” I catch my breath and stand very still, staring at it. I squint in the moonlight of bubbles. The figure is curvaceous like a female form. I can make out shoulders, arms, breasts and smooth stomach melting away into the black forest. It can’t be alive, but could it be something dead?
I reach out to touch it.
“Jenn?” says May. I hear her footsteps down the hallway behind me. “I can’t believe you think I threw my meds away. I don’t do that anymore. That really hurts you know.” She sniffs.
She is in the doorway behind me. Fear cracks her voice. “What is that?”
“Shhhh…” I reach out into the darkness and touch it.
The creature’s head rolls back, crushing my fingers against its shoulder blades. I belt out a Jamie Lee Curtis scream.
“OMG!” May grabs my arms and tries to yank me back out of the door. “It’s got you! That thing’s got you!”
&nbs
p; I bounce between May and the creature. “May, calm down. It’s not alive. I think I can--”
“It’s going to eat you! OH MY GOD!”
She pulls at my bra straps. The straps Pop! and my girls are freefalling in the haunted forest. I scoop them up with my free hand and wonder where May went. But don’t wonder long, she barrels through the doorway and bearhug-tackles me.
Several things happen at once: my hand comes free, and we go tumbling into the room. As we fall, a loud BANG! explodes the air. The room smells of gunfire, and… the lights flip on.
The light is blinding and the gunshot, deafening. Everything blurs together, black and white bodies, some headless, some with mouths screaming, reaching for something, someone. Their tortured faces melt into torsos, as if they are burning in a lake of fire. Women surround me beauty and agony in stone. I feel I am slowly spinning, surrounded by funny mirrors at a carnival.
Hanging from the ceiling, like icicles, are daggers, sharp and serrated. I feel vulnerable in my sprung wonder bra and sexy getaway jeans. I wrap my arms around the bare girlies, and feel my nipples harden with cold panic.
A whistling rapes my mind. It coos and caws, rises and falls, opens and slams doors until, deep in my mind’s eye, I see mother, the day before she leaves. A rattle melds into the whistling, creating a chaotic chorus of venom.
Mother bends over our coffee table, snorting snow. She pauses, needling me with her pin prick pupils. Her voice is poison, a rattler’s shake. “Know what your fuckin’ problem is, Jen-Jen? Your plans never work. They suck. You can’t do anything on your own, piss pants. You need me. Me! Me! Me!”
Enter into the chorus, drums. The drums are Fat Bastard’s voice, pounding out a rhythm of words and melody. “Eat the bitch! Eat the bitch! Eat the bitch!”
I drown out their music with my own. It sounds like violins. It feels like cello. “Tonight everything changes. Tonight everything changes.”
The whistling grows like a hurricane between my ears, drowning out all our voices until I feel my head bursting into stars.
