by Perrin Briar
He was much bigger than Dana, consisting of circles and no lines. He peered down at her, the lines in his creased brow forming a scowl. His top lip quivered into a sneer. His eyes were bloodshot in the corners, a thin layer of some kind of white milky substance over his irises. Maybe he was disabled? The possibility would have provoked pity in some people. Not Dana. There was no need to be a dick or inconsiderate of others, no matter their ailment.
A sound, gasping, like someone dying of dehydration in the desert, squeezed from his throat. His fat head began to lean to one side, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, his eyelids fluttering. He was having some kind of fit, Dana thought. She didn’t know CPR and didn’t want to be concerned with what was happening to him.
She turned away, ignoring him. The man leaned over, into the aisle, almost to the point of collapsing. The middle-aged lady sitting on the other side of the aisle gave the fat man’s bald bonce a disconcerted look. She turned away too.
The fat man leaned over as far as he could into the aisle. His arms and legs jerked like they were on strings, as if he was just drifting off the edge of sleep and falling into a crevasse. He sat bolt upright. He ran a hand over his sweaty face again to rouse himself. Dana shook her head. Someone had been at the New Year punch that afternoon.
There was an alarm in the distance, approaching fast. Dana listened carefully and identified it as a fire engine. She’d caused enough emergency response calls in her time to know which department the sirens belonged to.
The bus pulled to the side of the road. Dana smiled with self satisfaction when she saw the large red truck wail and zip past them. The bus pulled back onto the road and continued along its route.
It wasn’t another five minutes before another siren screamed into the grey. A police car this time. And an accompanying ambulance. Traffic had come to a standstill. Out the window, people with umbrellas ran through the puddles. People sure had an irrational fear of water.
Dana pressed the stop button. The bell dinged. She decided to get off one stop early. It would be faster to walk than to wait for the bus to make it through the traffic.
She squeezed past the fat sweaty man, whose legs were spread out, taking up most of the space. Dana was thankful to be leaving him behind. The bus pulled over, the doors opened, and Dana was beaten by a wall of cold air. She stepped off the bus and breathed in a lungful of fresh air.
She turned and headed down the road toward the park. It was alive with the usual procession of fitness freaks and time wasters. Some people wouldn’t take nature’s hint and not exercise when it rained. A couple walked arm in arm under a large black umbrella, talking about nothing in particular, big smiles on their faces.
Dana pulled out her cellphone. A tramps corner was taking place under a large beech tree. They rocked side to side, under the influence already. Is that where Dana would end up? Amongst them? Surely anything was better than that. They were pushing one of their number down in an attempt to keep him on the ground.
All this talk of her purpose and what she needed to be doing with her life made Dana feel strangely melancholy. She needed to talk to someone. She scrolled through her contacts until she came to Darren’s cell number.
It was labeled simply ‘Boyfriend’. It was easier to remove and input the details of the next one this way, she found. She could have called him ‘Temporary Sex Partner’, but they tended to find that a little offensive.
She called him. There was no answer. She tried again, but again he didn’t pick up. What was the point of having a casual hook up when they weren’t there when you needed them?
She needed some quality distraction, not that any of her boyfriends were capable of giving that to her. She found she could only climax when she was on top, in control, otherwise it was purely for the guy’s pleasure. And where was the fun in that? But she supposed they were better than a lump of plastic. Marginally.
Dana’s phone vibrated. Finally.
“About time,” Dana said. “I’ve got a major itch that needs scratching.”
“Then you should get a back scratcher,” the voice said.
The voice was young and bouncy, definitely not Darren’s baritone. It was the most beautiful voice in the whole world. Dana thought back over her comment, and decided it was harmless. She smiled. She needed to be more careful in future.
“Sometimes we need people to hit those hard-to-reach places,” Dana said, enjoying the word play. “Hey, before I forget, happy birthday!”
“Thanks!” Max said. “I love the teddy bear you got me. I’ll sleep with him every night, I promise.”
“Glad you like it,” Dana said. “Do you want go to the cinema? The new Disney movie’s out.”
“I can’t today,” Max said. “Mommy and Daddy are taking me to the zoo. Then I’m having a sleepover at Lucy’s house tonight. Mom and Dad are having a party and they thought I might like to stay at Lucy’s.”
“Maybe next time then,” Dana said, genuinely disappointed. She could have done with seeing Max today.
“Max?” a deep voice on Max’s end said. “Who are you talking to, baby?”
“It’s Dana,” Max said. “She asked if we could do something together. Maybe she can come to the zoo with us?”
“I don’t think it’s her kind of thing,” the deep voice said.
Thanks for asking, Pop, Dana thought.
“Come on, get ready,” their father said. “There’s a show we can see at two if we hurry.”
“I have to go now,” Max said to Dana.
“Yes, all right,” Dana said. “You take care. And don’t get too close to the animals.”
“I won’t,” Max said.
“Love you,” Dana said.
“Love you too,” Max said.
She hung up.
A familiar void filled Dana the way it always did when she was parted from Max. She was going to the zoo with her father. Their father. And a prissy mother Dana barely knew. Fate seemed to have dealt the same hand to Max as it had Dana, but fortunately, it hadn’t turned out that way.
Dana had been a trial run. Her father had never taken Dana to the zoo when she was young. He had been incapable of doing anything for her that didn’t revolve around a whisky bottle. It was because of Max Dana was even still in his life.
Dana was a constant reminder of his failure in his first marriage, and he was not a man who liked to accept failure or wrongdoing on his part. Dana reveled in that fact. She could see it every time she looked at him. Max was her baby sister and Dana loved her dearly. Their father treated Max well, as a father ought to have treated both his daughters.
Perhaps it was the unspoken threat posed by Dana that made him act like a real father to Max. He knew what Dana was capable of, especially when it came to Max. Dana would do anything for her, wouldn’t hesitate to exact bloody revenge upon any who harmed her.
In the past, Dana had dealt with unruly schoolmates. Not bullies exactly, but they had given Max a hard time. She had confided in Dana, who quickly identified the bully and spoken with him. No violence was necessary. She didn’t consider the trap she’d set for him, so he dangled by his ankles upside down, to be violent. No blood had been spilled, therefore it was not violence.
Dana had prevented the boy from bullying Max in future, and him from becoming a bully in later life. In her mind she had done them both a service. How’s that for some light vigilante work? One of the many events not in her folder.
Dana shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her leather jacket and trudged through the park, heading for Darren’s place. Maybe he was at work, she thought, though she could swear it was his day off. It was wet and drizzling and she wasn’t in the mood for wandering around, nor could she afford a coffee in one of the overpriced bistros. Darren’s place it would have to be.
She entered the apartment building and went up to the third floor. She approached Darren’s room and rifled through her pockets.
“Shit!” she said.
She’d left t
he keys somewhere or, more likely, lost them. She pulled a pin from her hair. This was the only reason she kept pins there. Her hair was otherwise a straggling mess anyway.
She inserted the pin into the old lock and began to pick it. It was a trick she’d learned in juvie from one of the other inmates. Who said crime wasn’t educational?
Dana heard the satisfying click of the lock. She reinserted the pin into her hair, pressed the handle, and let herself into the studio apartment.
It was dark and dim, one of the cheaper apartments, facing away from the sun. Darren was lucky if he got ten minutes of natural sunlight a day.
Dana gasped, her eyes going wide.
Darren was home.
And he wasn’t alone.
A woman lay beneath his crouched body on the bed. They were both naked. Her thighs were spread limply around him. Darren’s head was bobbing up and down, between her legs.
Dana watched the muscles move beneath his skin, tightening and flexing and relaxing. The muscles that should have been working on her, not this floozy.
The woman lay limp, rocking gently in place. Her eyes were wide open and staring at the ceiling, like she couldn’t really see it, no doubt in the throes of ecstasy.
Upon Dana’s entrance, Darren didn’t even look up, didn’t turn or stop. He just kept going.
“You shit!” Dana said. “We had an agreement! We see just each other, no one else!”
Darren didn’t stop, and kept licking and munching away.
“Can you at least stop when I’m standing right here?” Dana said. “Jesus.”
He must have heard her this time, because he stopped and turned to look at her.
Dana’s hand covered her mouth. She took an unconscious step back.
“Darren?” she said.
Blood dribbled down his chin and neck, like a horrific nightmare’s rendition of a clown, flesh dangling from between his teeth. He had been eating the girl, and not in a good way. His skin was pallid, a light sheen of sweat over the surface, dripping down his face. His skin was red and bright, his eyes cloudy with a thick white membrane, reminding Dana of the fat man on the bus.
Dana had been wrong. The girl hadn’t been staring at the ceiling in blind pleasure. She hadn’t been staring at anything at all. Her eyes were open and blank. And dead.
“You sick necrophiliac bastard!” Dana said. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Darren tumbled off the bed and fell to the floor. He clambered to his feet, like a child learning to stand for the first time, and began to move toward her, slow and shambling, but picking up speed.
He was full of rage.
Chapter Three
DARREN HISSED, eyes wide and leering. His head fell back, resulting in his mouth flopping open wide, cavernous. His lips fell back from his teeth. One had cracked, another fallen out. Blood dripped from his chin and dribbled down his torso and dangling penis.
Dana didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. It was all so wrong, so surreal, like a strange dream.
A dream she knew she wouldn’t wake up from.
“Darren?” she said, her voice quivering. “What’s going on?”
She backed up, moving away from him. Darren traced her steps. He groaned again, deep, mournful and sad. He raised his arms like they were great weights and ambled toward her.
“Is this some kind of STI?” Dana said. “I swear, if I’ve got it I’ll kill you.”
She bumped into something. It made her jump. It was just the wall. But now Dana was trapped, with Darren about to fall upon her.
“Darren?” Dana said. “Darren!”
She held up her hands. Some primitive instinct made her push away from the wall with her shoulder. Darren hit the wall where she had just been standing, a mere few inches away. Dana shuffled out of range, keeping him in sight.
“Darren, what’s wrong with you?” Dana said.
Darren recovered, standing and turning on the spot. He approached her again. Dana needed space. She needed to think. If she could get to the door… But Darren stood between it and her. Dana edged back, glancing at the kitchen.
An alternative idea formed. There was a small table in the center. If she could lead him around it, she would be able to get to the front door and escape.
She turned her back to him and ran into the kitchen. It was the only pristine, decent-sized room in the place. Darren was a chef, and he practiced what he preached. Everything was stowed in its rightful place, carefully and strategically stacked and organized.
Dana ran to the opposite end of the table and waited. Darren made strange little grunting noises as he approached the door, snorting when he collided with the doorframe. He shuffled inside and wandered halfway into the room before turning to face Dana.
He’d always had a natural grace. It’d been what drew Dana to him in the first place. He was good at sports, so Dana figured he’d be good in bed. It hadn’t turned out to be the case, but he was still pleasant to look at. Now, his natural grace had been replaced by this lumbering monster.
What was wrong with him? Had he caught something? Was it infectious? Had she been infected by it already? She hadn’t noticed any symptoms, and refused to consider them now when she needed to focus on getting the hell out of there.
He bumped into the table, his head colliding with the pots and pans hanging from hooks on the ceiling. He looked up at them with something approaching confusion and touched them with his bloodied fingertips. The pans made loud tinny noises. Darren growled at the back of his throat.
Dana still couldn’t believe what she was seeing with her own two eyes. What was this thing that had taken control of Darren’s body? Was he possessed? Had a demon risen and taken him as its host? A chef from Brooklyn? What purpose could a demon have for someone of such lowly means?
“Wake up!” Dana screamed. “Darren!”
He looked at her. That’s when Dana realized that whatever he was now, he wasn’t Darren any longer. The Darren she knew was gone, faded like stonewashed jeans. She could see it in his eyes. There was no substance there, no soul, like it had been sucked from his body.
Darren pressed himself against the table. He reached forward to grab Dana, but his arms were too short, the table too long. Dana still quailed back. Darren seemed intent on reaching her from his side of the table. He gripped some of the pots and pans and pulled himself forward, the hooks standing firm. He fell onto the tabletop and began to crawl toward her.
Dana didn’t realize the situation till it was almost too late. Darren’s head collided with the cooking utensils, some falling from their restraints and toppling to the floor. He kept coming, closer and closer. He was going to get her unless she did something.
Dana turned to run down the narrow aisle, but Darren was there with his hands, grasping. Dana turned to run down the other side, but he was there again.
And he was shuffling closer all the time.
Dana’s eyes grew wide at the realization: there was no escape. She was trapped. And Darren was closing in.
Dana pulled back and leaned against the window behind her. She turned to face it. The glass was reinforced with metal bars. She couldn’t break it. And even if she could, a plummet of more than fifteen yards greeted her. She turned to face her aggressor.
She was going to have to stand and fight.
She heard a light tinkling sound, like playful raindrops on a skylight. Her bracelet on the metal toaster. Max. How would Max feel if she were to die now? How would she feel that her older sister had been eaten and butchered like the girl in the next room? And when she got old enough and she did her own investigation, she might see the photos of how Dana ended up.
No. Dana wouldn’t let that happen, couldn’t let that happen. She clenched her teeth, jaw muscles turning hard. She reached down and picked up a saucepan that had fallen to the floor. With her other hand she dragged a knife from its wooden block.
Dana had done some dangerous and stupid things in her life, but she had never done serious
harm to a person before. With her fears of Max witnessing her end fuelling her, she felt no qualms in picking up the torch of GBH now. Her other less violent acts had softened her to the concept of doing harm to another human being.
Perhaps Miss Jenkins was right. It was only a matter of time before she graduated to more heinous crimes. But even she couldn’t have predicted today was going to be that day.
Darren came to the end of the table and floundered forward with his palms, reaching for more table that simply wasn’t there.
“Darren,” Dana said, her voice strangely calm and controlled. “If there’s any part of you still inside, please come out now and stop this. I won’t be responsible for my actions in protecting myself.”
Darren gave no outward sign he understood. He flopped forward, onto the floor. If Dana was going to attack, she would have no better opportunity than this. But she hesitated.
Could she honestly bring herself to attack her boyfriend? They’d had many intimate moments together, had made a pact. Though Darren had broken his side of it, he nonetheless had been there for Dana when she needed him. He was a part of her life. Could she sever him from it, and him from his own life in one simple act of violence?
Darren rolled to his hands and knees and looked up at her. What she saw disgusted her. A creature spawned from some other plane. Not an ounce of her boyfriend was left in this creature, so she wasn’t really attacking him.
Besides, she didn’t need to kill him, only incapacitate him enough for her to get away. It might result in his death, but she found herself unconcerned if that turned out to be the case.
It was with a slight sliver of vengeance for his cheating on her—how else could Darren have ended up naked in bed with a girl?—that Dana screamed and burst forward, swinging her arms down as hard as she could.
The saucepan struck his head with a solid thud, knocking his arms out from under him and onto the floor. The knife she brought down at random, catching him high on the meatiest part of the shoulder.
