Under The Blade

by Serafini, Matt

Two hands launched straight out of the water and clamped down on her ankles like wrenches. They were pulling her back toward the blue.

  She used her last breath to scream, one final cry for help. One of his hands let go long enough to punch down on the back of her skull. Her eyesight became a blur as another punch landed, and then another—each of them accompanied by an inhuman grunt.

  She kicked at him with her free leg, but he brushed it aside and pulled her closer still. Hoyt rolled her onto her back and climbed out of the muck, pinning her against uprooted branches with a knee to her belly. A strand of puss dangled from his bloodied eye socket, plopping onto her cheek while he slapped her endlessly, giggling in demented glee.

  Her hands fought his face, clawing and scratching to no avail. He merely brushed them aside and somehow, his blows landed harder. Hurt more.

  She did the only thing left to do—launched up and attached her teeth to the tip of his nose. She’d been going for his neck but had miscalculated the trajectory. Without a second thought, she bit down with a wild growl.

  Her teeth sunk into flesh and filled her mouth with stranger’s blood. Undeterred, she tightened her jaw and chomped through the flimsy slice of upper cartilage with as much ease as chewing through a chicken bone. The nose collapsed with a crunch and the killer recoiled, whimpering.

  He crawled backwards on his hands and dropped into the mud, covering his face in open palms.

  Melanie pulled a broken branch out of the moistened earth at her feet. It slipped from the mud with a plop and she fastened it in her grip like a baseball bat.

  The killer had only now lifted his head up out of his hands and the branch connected against his skull, breaking the wood off in shards. Melanie swung a second time. And then a third, not stopping until his face looked like crumbled meatloaf. The branch connected against his flesh with wet smacks that rained blood down on the muddy bank. At last, he slumped over with only a faint wheeze slipping past his mangled mouth.

  Satisfied that he wasn’t getting up, Melanie made a clumsy retreat. It was hard to know how much time had passed, but at last, the overgrown foliage gave way to pavement. Her head was heavy and her survivor’s adrenaline was almost depleted.

  She shuffled down the tarmac, the soles of her sneakers scraping along. Her thoughts were nearly as exhausted as her body, and the only thing that propelled her forward was the thought that she wasn’t yet far enough away from that monster.

  Someone would happen by any minute now.

  But that minute stretched into many. Ten, then twenty. The night was as silent as the road was empty, and her mind began wandering into hopeless places. She was lost and would die out here.

  The explosion of red and blue lights was startling, but she calmed once she saw that it was a police cruiser slowing to a stop in her path.

  “Young lady, are you okay?”

  Melanie dropped to all fours and sobbed uncontrollably. “They’re all dead,” she cried as the police officer made his way over.

  “It’s okay, I’m the police. Let’s just get you over to my car and you can tell me what happened.”

  And just like that, she was saved.

  TWO

  Melanie Holden awoke to the sound of her house alarm and lifted her head up off the pillow. An artificial voice alerted her to an opened patio door. It spoke with the kind of unnerving indifference that made her heart pound harder.

  She climbed out of bed wishing she’d taken those firearm lessons. The prospect of owning a gun was repulsive. Not that she objected to their existence—she held no stance on the issue—but she didn’t trust herself to handle them responsibly.

  An aluminum baseball bat was clenched in her palm as she made her way into the hallway. The house was dark, with only the faint glow from the cat’s nightlight showing the way. Her steps were plunged in ethereal orange glow as she moved forward, chewing the inside of her cheek to stay composed.

  She flicked on every light in the house as she walked, sweeping the kitchen and bathrooms. The spare bedroom was clean and the office was empty.

  The alarm hub crackled to life, “Ms. Holden, is everything okay?”

  She was reluctant to wave their assistance away. The patio door off the kitchen was ajar—as though someone had almost gotten inside and was startled by the alarm.

  Melanie stared at it through watery eyes as the dispatcher tried again. “Ms. Holden, would you like for us to send the police?”

  She pushed the door back into its jamb and threw the deadbolt. Her heart pumped so fast that she felt the blood streaming. Somewhere, the alarm voice was talking, but she couldn’t focus enough to hear it.

  Was this the night he finally found her? Nobody was in here and they couldn’t have gone down to the cellar, because that door had its own sensor. If it had been opened, the system would’ve detected it the same as the patio door.

  The alarm company wasn’t taking any chances, though. The voice called out again, stating that the police have been dispatched to her location. She might’ve saved them a trip, but her confidence was nonexistent. It was best they came out here.

  She kind of needed that peace of mind.

  Melanie ran a hand through her straight blonde hair, remembering how red and curly it used to be. It wasn’t long after Forest Grove that she changed it, hoping she could stop thinking of herself as a victim by changing the person she once was.

  She tapped quick-bitten nails against the kitchen countertop and counted the minutes until the police arrived. These feelings of violation were as infuriating as they were terrifying. And that dream. With it on the brain, it was no wonder she thought Cyrus Hoyt had come back to finish the job.

  He’s. Dead.

  That mantra had been repeated enough throughout the years. But in twenty-five of them, she wasn’t sure she ever believed it. Her psychiatrist insisted that the ongoing feelings of vulnerability were normal because of the way she escaped. That killing Hoyt in self-defense had been necessary and she should never feel guilty about it. She never had. The problem was that Melanie never saw him die.

  In that last glimpse of him, bashed and bloodied on the shore of Lake Forest Grove, the bastard had been breathing.

  She went back into her room and grabbed her phone. It was 3:47 am and there was no getting back to sleep now. Lacey, her eighteen-year-old half-Siamese, half-Burmese cat lifted up off her paws and surveyed the situation. When she saw that Melanie wasn’t coming back to bed, she folded her head back down against her chest and went back to sleep.

  Charmed life, you little shit, she thought.

  She brewed a cup of coffee and dropped into a chair, fiddling with some new apps on her phone while her mind was back in 1988. Details of that night ran through her head, rehashing all kinds of bloody imagery that she had never truly escaped.

  The police showed up twenty minutes later and gave the place a once-over. They were quick about it, telling her about some downtown punks who enjoyed trying their luck in the suburbs every now and again. It was likely that they wouldn’t be back, because they usually just moved onto their next mark. That assurance was empty and brought little comfort.

  By the time things were squared away and her heart rate returned to normal, it was close to seven and that meant she had class in just over an hour. The would’ve-been thieves hadn’t left behind any traces, although they had succeeded in picking the deadbolt. Even the officers thought this showed more skill than evidenced in local break-ins. That was all she needed to hear, making a mental note to add additional locks to the patio door this afternoon.

  After a quicker shower than she would’ve liked, she dropped a can of Fancy Feast into Lacey’s purple dish, scratched the kitty on the head, and grabbed her professor’s satchel. The cat meowed an audible approval as Melanie headed out the door.

  ***

  The faculty parking lot was always filled, no matter the time. Since there weren’t classes before eight, Melanie had no idea why her colleagues got here so early, but getting a go
od parking spot probably had a lot to do with it.

  She found one among the student cars on a side street and parallel parked her cherry LaCrosse. She had five minutes to get up to the library’s fourth floor or those enthusiastic learners would be quick to assume they were getting the day off.

  This was the last class before finals, and Melanie couldn’t wait for this semester to be over. Her days of teaching Introduction to Journalism were at an end, and they wouldn’t be missed. It wasn’t her forte and she never wanted to teach kids how to be muckrakers. Instead, she’d stepped in for the English department when another professor went sick. Turned out to be cancer and watching it eat away a woman of fifty-six was a hell of a thing.

  She was only fourteen years away from that age and didn’t want to think she’d be fighting for her life again anytime soon.

  The campus library was all but abandoned at this hour. A volunteer student sat behind the front desk, scrolling through his Facebook feed. She skipped past the elevator and opted for the stairs. Anything to get the heart rate up, if only for a few seconds.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she announced on her way in. The students offered no visible reaction, but there was disappointment in the air as she dropped everything onto the desk and climbed atop it. Her business skirt clung to her thighs, putting her in complete discomfort as she took quick attendance.

  She concluded the course with a lecture on libel, and a few of the kids appeared genuinely stunned that they couldn’t slander people or businesses on a whim.

  “Why not, Ms. Holden, that’s just, like, my opinion, you know?”

  A very twenty-first century mindset, she thought.

  But the kids were mostly concerned with the grading of their final assignments and found creative ways of asking for them along the way. When she admitted that she hadn’t yet graded any, a wave of displeasure rewarded her honesty.

  “I need to make sure I have you all back here on Thursday, yes? That’s when finals technically begin, and that’s when you’ll get your papers.”

  She dismissed them fifteen minutes early because she was anxious to get down to her office and make an appointment with the locksmith.

  She walked past two straggler students—scruffy-looking teenage boys in long-sleeve t-shirts—and flashed a polite smile. Once she rounded the corner they remarked how “nice and juicy” her ass looked in that skirt, their voices bubbling with more lusty excitement than she was comfortable hearing.

  I’m never wearing this thing again.

  The snug fit was bad enough, but that kind of dodgy attention never failed to skeeze her out.

  Riley flagged her down as she walked past his door on the way to her office. Melanie thought he smelled faintly of patchouli and weed. Unsurprising, considering he occasionally wore bellbottoms without a trace of irony.

  “Can it wait, Riley? I’ve got to set up an appointment for this afternoon. Kinda important.”

  “Nada, professor.” He tossed Melanie a doorknob hangar that read: Out to lunch—back in one hour. “Put that on there and shut the door. Trust me, you want to hear what I’ve got to say.”

  When she was seated, he fished a sheet of paper out from the bottom of a stack. “You remember when I agreed to play the role of part-time admin in this department. Something about ‘doing more with less’?”

  She did. It was that same mantra that brought her into the folds of journalism. In a sluggish economy, everyone in the department was putting in more labor to fill the gaps.

  “Look, Mel, I’m just going to blurt this out, okay? Even though it, like, totally goes against my energy. Negative feelings and all that.”

  Melanie thought her eyes would burst if she widened them any further. There was a point to be made here, and she wished he would hurry up and make it.

  He pushed the paper across the desk and pointed to it. “That’s a list of all the summer courses.”

  Her heart skipped a beat when she realized where this was going. Morton, that bastard, had cut Dissection of the Epic off the curriculum, hadn’t he? The course she’d been developing and planning for the better part of two years was, at last, gearing up for a trial run next month. The course that had reached its max number of registrations in one afternoon wasn’t ready for collegiate prime time, apparently.

  Melanie held the printout with wobbly hands. Dissection of the Epic was listed there among the other summer courses.

  Riley must’ve noticed her confounded expression. He shook his head and avoided her eyes. “It’s still there,” he said, “but you’re not teaching it.”

  Melanie followed the line across the page to where the corresponding professor was listed. It didn’t read HOLDEN. According to this, Jill Woreley was teaching her course.

  “This is wrong, right?”

  Riley’s face was blank.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because Morton was in here this morning with Woreley. Said he was confident that she was up to the task of running a narrow course like that, and it would lead to ‘bigger and better things’ at this college. His words exactly.”

  Melanie felt like she’d been punched in the gut. Jill Woreley was an assistant professor, same as her. They started here together six years back—with Melanie beating her to seniority by three months. The only difference being that Jill had been fished right out of college. Word was that her father had worked on the mayor’s re-election campaign. Once that happened—successfully—the green graduate became a professor.

  Melanie paid her dues, working twelve years in the public school system as a high school teacher. A gig with many lows and only a handful of highs. It gave her the proficiency that she needed to step onto the college circuit and offer her students a compelling experience. Far too many of her peers failed to grasp the concept of an enjoyable academic lecture and it was easy to spot them. Theirs were the classes that never filled and always thinned as the semester wore on.

  Melanie prided herself on being better than that, working hard to keep her students interested. She couldn’t cope with the misery of being branded a “boring teacher” and fought to avoid that stigma every second she spent inside a classroom.

  She even checked herself compulsively on RateMyProfessors.com to make sure she was succeeding. If she wasn’t good at this, after all, what else was there?

  “Where is Morton?”

  Riley frowned. “Taking Woreley to lunch.”

  “Son of a bitch,” she said. “He gave me permission to build this course. Told me I had carte blanche. Said it would be my stepping-stone to tenure. And he hands it to the girl who tried teaching Beowulf off that CGI cartoon?”

  “I helped grade some of those papers. Not one, but two essays absolving the title character’s sin of sleeping with Angelina Jolie.”

  Melanie cupped a palm over her mouth. She snickered, but only at the absurdity. “I can’t believe she’ll have tenure before me.”

  “Not even Dennis Morton can keep that from you. Numbers don’t lie. The students love you. Attendance is high, feedback is great. Semester after semester. Probably doesn’t hurt that you’re cute as hell. I play for the other team and even I’ve thought about what it would be like to take you for a roll in the hay.”

  Riley attempted a seductive grin and Melanie burst out laughing.

  “Well, I’m glad I never waited around for you, Melanie Holden, you never took my advances seriously.”

  “Oh stop it. Unless you want me to tell your husband you’ve been sexually harassing me again.”

  “Point taken.” Riley reached out and took Melanie’s hand in his. “This is bureaucratic nonsense. Just keep showing this college how much of a rock star you are. That’s all you can do, and it’ll be enough.”

  “I don’t know how many more papers I have to publish. How many more conferences I have to attend. I would’ve thought six years of bringing my A-game would’ve been plenty. Apparently, I just need to be younger and better connected instead. What the hell does Woreley even kno
w about epic poetry? Her concentration was Women’s Studies.”

  Melanie’s face was flushed. Having a naturally pale tone, she never bothered to perfect a poker face. No point when her complexion went rose red the second she got upset or angry. Her body temperature was an unavoidable tell, and she had grown to accept it.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Riley said. “We’re going to get the last laugh.”

  Melanie appreciated Riley’s supportive outlook, although it was far too optimistic for what was happening. She went down the cramped hallway, ducked into her office and slammed a fist down on her desk. Jill Woreley had somehow snaked her baby out from under her. That twenty-eight-year-old tart, with constant Facebook status updates (partying with my bitches all night long!) that proved more dedication to eroding her liver than honing her craft. Once, she even bemoaned the process of reading entirely, longing for the day when it was obsolete.

  Your professor of Dissection of the Epic, ladies and gentlemen.

  There wasn’t much to be done until Dennis got back from lunch. So she went online and got her locksmith’s phone number. When the appointment was made, she got to thinking about outdoor cameras, warming to the idea of them monitoring her yard.

  She closed her eyes but saw him there, with the gore-stained mask and hungry blade. She felt that rotten blood seeping into her mouth, staining her tongue like it happened only yesterday.

  He’s dead. Don’t do this to yourself.

  Melanie wanted to be sure of that. But the way she’d left things—there wasn’t any way to know for certain. It was absurd to think that Cyrus Hoyt had been outside her door last night, but the thought filled her with dread all the same. It was just too easy to imagine him in her back yard. The army jacket, jagged knife, dirty mask—everything.

  An ugly thought.

  She pushed it away, knowing it would always come back. Just like it had every day for the last twenty-five years.

  ***

  It was a little after four when Melanie got home. Her locksmith was waiting in the driveway. While he went to work, she sat down with the intention of grading those damn journalism finals, but her mind wandered, and soon, she was shopping for outdoor surveillance equipment.