| - Malleus Maleficarum Only the red dominoes
Nancy frowned at the tiny whiny insect enamored with her right ear.
It droned in so close it became loud as a dentist’s drill and she had to chase it away with one finely manicured hand. It fled, only to circle and return with its shrill serenade. Porcelain features agitated, Nancy watched the tiny speck come around for another pass and batted it from the air.
It lurched woozily to the carpeted car floor, promenading heavily about in a bloated drunken stagger.
Nancy genteelly lifted one well-turned leg, and brought the heel of her Italian shoe down upon the pest.
It burst in a minute corona of blood, her blood, a garish red just brighter than her lipstick. Nancy sneered in the lovely way rich women do, and returned her gaze to the neon landscape whirring past her window.
Down below, the tiny drops of blood quivered.
Nancy removed a compact to check her powder-perfect complexion and practice her smile.
Slowly, the blood coalesced into a viscous puddle no bigger than a dime that sat, waiting.
The gaudy hotel marquee rose up like a lit beast before the gas black limo, and Nancy gathered her fur coat and clutch purse as the car slowed.
The tiny merlot spot slipped over the carpet and up onto her black leather pump. It clung to the shoe as she stepped regally from the car and strode off into the dining room with the air of an heiress, haughtily announcing her presence to the Maitre D.
The neatly dressed headwaiter escorted her to the secluded table where stock market king George Falwell awaited her.
He rose as she approached, rushing to pull out her chair for her, and watching her face with sparkling eyes.
Nancy preened.
If he didn’t propose by dessert, she’d sue.
The little blob sat patiently.
George discussed stock happenings over salad, boring Nancy nearly to tears.
She in turn bemoaned the fair trade negotiations in South Africa. They would surely throw the diamond market into chaos, and for what? A few self-righteous, malcontent miners?
George was suddenly very interested in his salad. The evening went much smoother by the soup course, when both realized that the other was vain, and channeled all their energy into compliments.
Four minutes after the main course was served, a brown cockroach trundled under the table in search of high-class crumbs. She sniffed out some crouton dust, and nibbled a scrap of frisee lettuce. Her antennae waved excitedly as she caught scent of the little blood drop. Blood. Excellent source of protein for the myriad eggs she had to schlep around.
The spot slid down on Nancy’s shoe until it was just above the ground.
The cockroach scuttled up, tickling the blob with its spiny little feelers. They dragged through it and drooped with the weight of it. The cockroach reached up to clean them and its legs stuck. The shiny beetle fell on its back, kicking and flailing as the little red spot slipped up over its head. The cockroach thrashed and writhed, then gave a last few twitches and died.
As Nancy teased the last few bites of filet mignon into George’s mouth, the little red spot drew away from the empty carapace and slipped itself into the curved underside of her shoe. It was larger now, and if scrutinized, would prove to be predominantly orange now, intermingled with tiny strands of red. It settled into her left Manolo Blahnik, where sole meets heel, in a thick, sleepy way to wait.
Hours later, after dessert, proposal, acceptance and drinks, Nancy and her spineless new fiancée retired to his grand suite. George, ever the lapdog, opened a bottle of champagne, turned back the sheets, and helped Nancy out of her little black dress. She left fuchsia kisses like oblong welts on his face and neck, crooking her leg and reaching back to undo her shoe straps.
“No.” George grunted. “Leave them on?”
“If you’ll wear your tie.”
They fell to it and made something other than love.
The red orange spot stayed put tenaciously throughout the ugly ordeal, waiting patiently until her leg stopped shaking enough for it to escape. Sluggishly, it slipped down to the toe of her pump, hanging pendulously, stretching down toward the plush white carpet. It jiggled like melting jello, stretching, reaching, almost there…
Nancy suddenly pushed herself off and rolled to the other side of the bed to turn on the television.
The blob did a sticky spiral spin and slapped against the ruffled bed skirt. It hung quivering like a strand of bloody mucus, then slowly detached itself from Nancy’s shoe. The spot made its way to the floor like a gelatinous slinky, end over end down the ruffles, leaving no mark to mar the fine linen.
Nancy flipped spasmodically through all 500 channels, adorned in naught but heels and pearls.
George lay beside her in a happy coma, grinning at nothing. He reached across the sheet for her in the dazed seconds before sleep, and Nancy evaded his touch. Falwell fell asleep that way, one arm pathetically stretched out to the cold creature beside him.
Nancy sneered.
Without his suits he was too nondescript; it could be any blue-collar slime sprawled naked but his tie before her. With a grunt, she pulled the 400-thread count sheet up over his slack, tan face. He’s not even that handsome.
The red-orange splotch inched along toward the door, collecting no dust despite its terrible stickiness.
Nancy had flipped through 349 channels again by the time it reached the door. Her rapid-fire thumb froze in mid-air. There was a woman onscreen, a beautiful woman whose face had undergone so much cosmetic surgery it now seemed to move only by the manipulation of an off-screen puppeteer. The woman’s large, unattractive hands belied her true age, yet for the first time that night, Nancy’s skin prickled with desire. Those ugly hands held up a 14k diamond bracelet and Nancy purred. She hooked a glance at the gently snoring lump that was her new fiancée, then returned her lusting gaze to The Jewelry Connection.
The splotch slipped under the door and finally found itself free of the night’s hideous company. It stretched, swiveled around, then began its long journey down the hall.
Thirteen minutes later, Nancy Sloan writhed on the bed and pressed a pillow over her face to stifle a scream, fingers lost in herself and thousand facet diamonds in her eyes.
The splotch crawled along doggedly, flattening itself against the floorboards when footsteps approached. It was still very small, and weak. Even if it had been noticed, it would not have attracted much attention. So long as it held still.
As it approached room 225, the door swung in and a weary man in boxers and a natural fur coat rolled his cluttered room service tray out into the hall, nearly squashing the splotch. It halted, a little penny sized dot on the carpet.
The man blinked down at it.
“Whoops.” He rummaged around on the tray to find a napkin. “Clumsy clumsy clumsy.” He muttered, bending down to wipe up the spill.
It was gone.
He straightened again, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “Time for bed, old man. You’re hallucinating again.” He wandered groggily back inside and gave an admonishing glare to the orange prescription bottles lined up like sentries on the nightstand. “Either too much of one, or not enough of another…” He murmured.
Once 225’s door clicked shut, the clot peered out from underneath the bleached tablecloth. It wobbled over to the dinner remains and nudged around curiously. It recoiled from the remnants of steak and potatoes, cringed from a pile of orange rinds, and crawled, terrified, away from a tooth-marked chicken bone.
Footsteps and the whispering of starched ruffles chased it over the tray and it hid in the steel corner underneath. After a moment the cart was impacted by strong square hands that trucked it briskly down the hall and into an elevator. The doors closed with a ding, and the splotch quivered on its first ever ride in such a machine. Had it a stomach, there would most certainly be butterflies. The doors dinged again, signaling the maid to whisk her cart out and left, through the restaurant’s side entrance and into the kitchen.
The clot drew itself in as much as it could, trying to brace against the repulsive smell of FOOD.
A battered, spattered old radio squatted on the counter, tuned to an oldies station and choking on “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” “Heya, The Beatles. I lika dem.” The maid said brightly.
“Ayuh, you would like those hippie bums, wouldn’t ya?” The cook spat back.
“Yah, maybe I would.” She scraped the dishes free of detritus and stacked them in the huge industrial washer.
“How ‘bout them Doors, too? You like them, Ana?”
“Yeah, I lika his voice some.”
The cook snorted. “Course you do.”
Ana pulled the soiled tablecloth off and shoved it into a laundry chute built into the wall about ten feet past the main kitchen.
“Fet old pig.” She breathed, sneaking him a dirty glance. “Whuzzat?”
“Hm?”
“What’d you say?”
“Me? Oh, Ia say nothing.” She pushed the empty cart into the back of the kitchen and opened a closet. Racks and rows of steel skeletons glittered in the dark. Ana shoved the cart in and left.
Alone in the dark, the splotch shivered. This closet was quiet, and there was no stink of FOOD. It would have to remember this place. It was the perfect spot to rest. The clot wasn’t fatigued though. It could feel itself starting to dry and congeal around the edges. It waited for a spell, enjoying the dark serenity of storage before slipping down out of the corner and spiraling its way to the floor. The cool tile was pleasant and easier to traverse than fibrous carpets, allowing the splotch to wiggle to the door in no time at all. I rolled underneath and back into the bright kitchen where it snuck behind the giant steel refrigerator in search of more cockroaches. It waited, jelloid, in the filthy fur of dust and crumbs.
Wiggling and tapping, two beetles rushed it in frenetic exuberance and it left them as empty brown husks.
The splotch was now infused with a great deal of clear liquid, and the size of a silver dollar. It crept along the wall, quite pleased with itself and ready for more. It slipped into a dank hole gnawed into the corner boards. This hole smelled awfully of FOOD, and of its later incarnations. The clot wobbled around, stretching and reaching, touching wood, fibers, fur…it regrouped and slunk over to the sleeping mouse.
He lay stashed in dreams of safety, just a breathing throb of grey fur, tiny nose tucked into the curve of his hairless pink tail.
The splotch swarmed up and over his head, forcing his airways closed with sticky clots.
The mouse awoke for one unlucky moment, alive and aware of the tacky mess smothering him. He tried to squeak, blowing tiny bubbles in the blood, and scrabbled at the mass with ineffectual little claws.
The clot gripped his head tighter, forcing the mouse to breathe it in. The mouse shuddered, and was still. Slowly, the splotch withdrew, reaching deep and bringing the mouse’s blood with it. The clot swelled to a softly bloated ruby ball and stretched out, feeling for other denizens.
The burrow was empty.
The splotch thinned itself down to slip back out against the wall. It was extremely pleased. The clot oozed out and around the cupboard base. It slunk back to the closet and had to flatten itself again before it could fit under the door. The splotch climbed a cart and spread itself out pancake thin on the underside of the tray. There it rested. And waited.
Nancy could not sleep. She’d watched a nondescript cop show, two more hours of the shopping channel, and a fat chef make hopelessly complicated hors d’oeuvres. She’d showered in the pristine hotel stall, washing all traces of George from her skin. Now she stood at the big plate/pale window watching the sunrise. She felt deadly cold, even with the thick Turkish robe. A man she didn’t love, hell, a man she couldn’t stand, slept boorishly in the broad white bed behind her. Nancy reached back to the service telephone on her nightstand, irresolutely fiddling with the cord. She wanted something, that was clear. Her life story was one long string of wants, like a thirty six year old strand of pearls. She could feel the gnawing crawl of desire in her belly and played with the cream colored telephone. Twice she started to dial, and cancelled the moment before it rang.
George dreamed of rabbits.
After a long while she decided the want was for gooey cinnamon rolls, a steak and champagne. Unseemly for a lady to scarf two steaks in one day, but Nancy wanted what she wanted, and she could put food away with the best of them. One imperial phone call later Nancy stood at the window again, pressing herself against the glass to see if some blessed warmth would seep through her robe.
It did not.
George snored.
Morgan was about to clock out when the call came in. She glanced around the lobby, looked regretfully at her time card, and answered the phone.
“Front desk.” She sang.
“Hello, room service?”
“No, I’m sorry that’s extension 23. If you’ll hold I can transfer you…”
“Well can’t you take my order?”
Morgan glanced doubtfully at the clutter. “I suppose, but it would really be easier if you let me-“
“Great. I’ll have a steak, medium rare, not well done, a plate of sticky buns and a bottle of Dom Perignon.”
Morgan scrabbled for a notepad. “Wait! Please, I’m not ready!” She captured a pen and sticky notes, dropping her time card on the desk. “Okay. I’ve got it now. Could you repeat your order?”
The voice on the other end chilled. “I hope you won’t be expecting a tip after this.”
Morgan forced her voice up a notch on the cheerful scale. “Tips are completely voluntary, ma’am. You’re under no obligation to-“
“Of course I’m not. Are you ready to take my order now?”
Morgan’s frozen smile felt like it was going to tear her face apart.
“Yes ma’am I am.”
“Good. Steak, medium rare, Dom Perignon, and a plate of sticky buns.”
Morgan scribbled the order down on a little yellow note and pulled it from the pad. “Anything else?”
Nancy sniffed. “If I’d wanted anything else, I would have asked for it.”
Morgan coughed gently. “May I have your room number please?”
“212“
“Thank you ma’am.” Morgan terminated the call with a grimace, and had the distinct impression that someone should stab that woman in the face. She carried the sticky note across the dead dining hall and into the kitchen, holding it between two fingers as if it would bite.
The cook snorted and glanced up from the fuzzy TV he’d found in a back room.
The man made her skin crawl.
“Room 212 has the munchies.” She snapped, pressing the sticky note onto the counter by his feet. “Enjoy your night.”
His lip curled up as she walked away, swinging her hips a little more forcefully than necessary. “Lesbo bitch.” He grunted. For a moment he was sure Morgan would turn around, but she didn’t. He dropped his feet from the counter and levered his paunchy old self out of the chair with a groan.
It never failed. Just when you got comfortable and started enjoying life, some hoity-toity rich bitch decides she’s hungry at some ungodly hour.
The cook grumbled as he began to move about the kitchen, collecting supplies for Nancy’s whim.
“’taint right. Just taint right at all. What am I doin’ here at 3 in the friggin morning? I’m the big man, I’m the kitchen boss, so why am I hoppin’ around taking orders?”
He fumed at the red slab of cow on the skillet. “They should stick that little Soviet girl on night watch.” He pulled a tray of frozen rolls from the industrial size freezer and set them in the oven. “Hell, I’m not asking for the deed to the place. I just wanna go home to my big screen.” He waddled back into the storage section and loudly collected a tray cloth.
Back in the calm, cool dark, the clot resumed it’s own version of consciousness as the cook thumped in and hauled its tray out with a petulant yank.
The splotch rippled.
The cook set cloth, flatware and utensils on the tray, swearing at nothing while he did it. The timer on the buns chimed and he hoisted them onto a plate, drowning them in sticky white icing. A shiny chrome dome fit over the plate, then it was time for the steak to depart its pan. That disappeared beneath a cover as well, and he set the champagne in a bucket of ice. The bottle tipped, pinching his thumb between cold green glass and cold hard steel. He shouted something very offensive. The splotch rippled.
The cook shoved the offended digit into his mouth and nursed it petulantly. He rang the intercom to the maids’ break room. “Service delivery to room 212. Don’t care if you look like shit, I’m not doing it.” There was a weak acknowledgement. He pushed the tray and its passenger out and returned to pilfer the grand liquor cabinet. “Goddamn insomniacs.” He eased his weight back into the folding chair and propped both feet on the counter. He chewed a thick fingernail and watched jumpy infomercials cut through with static.
Sarah struggled with her hair and washed her face in the tiny employee bathroom, tugging her uniform straight. She’d just barely fallen asleep on the lounge couch an hour or two before. Her eyes felt like they were rolling in pockets of rock salt. She checked her watch and moaned. Three more hours until her shift ended. Good God. Sarah splashed some more water on her face and forced herself out of the break room.
The cart sat alone and shining just outside of the kitchen. An ecstatic studio audience cheered from the spacious scullery.
Sarah took a hold of the trolley and guided it down the hall, through the empty dining room, and into the polished brass elevator.
The splotch, which was really more of a puddle now, shivered with joy. It liked elevators.
Sarah sighed. She peeked under the domes and bit her lip wistfully. One finger snuck out to swipe a dab of icing. She closed her eyes and savored the taste with ardor. The door chimed open and she jumped guiltily. The finger came out with a pop and she and the cart sped out into the burgundy corridor. She ticked the door numbers off with a finger, gesturing like a conductor.
“209.” She whispered, stifling a yawn. “210, 211. 212.”
Nancy stood in the doorway, fingernails tapping and one bronzed leg arched out of her robe. She’d feared the room service knock would roust George from his dead dog impression. The last thing she could handle right now would be more of his mind-numbing figures. Up seven, down eight, who gives a fuck? Speak sense! She wanted to shout. Dollars and sense.
Sarah looked pitiably ragged, the fine lines that had begun to haunt her face last year were pulled tight and stark with exhaustion. Most people would have sympathized. Nancy noted each flaw and sag with relish. She pushed her leg out a little further, flexing and clenching the well-toned muscles, pretending to work out a kink.
“Oh lovely.” Nancy breathed. “I was wondering when it would arrive.” She turned back into the suite to fetch her purse, tossing her hair back and swinging her hips dramatically. She returned with the leather Prada bag, pawing through the contents and letting it gape open like an idiot’s mouth, exposing her jewelry, perfumes and lipstick tubes. Out came the overstuffed wallet, snakeskin of course, tanned and dyed an alarming shade of mauve.
“How much is it?” She asked with a crocodile smile, opening the monstrosity to display bills packed together like the underside of a mushroom.
Sarah tried her best to be perky. At this hour, she was amazed to pull off conscious.
“There’s no charge right now, madam. It gets added to your bill.”
“Oh!” said Nancy, as if she’d never ordered hotel service before. “Well here, how about a tip then?”
Sarah would have loved to look cheerfully appreciative, but it felt like her mouth was paralyzed. In a restaurant, the steak would have cost $12, the buns, maybe $5, and the Dom Perignon at least another twenty. She figured that if Nancy was a generous tipper, say 20%, she’d get $6 at least, enough to get a little gas for the monster that drags her home.
Nancy stopped rummaging through the ugly wallet and thrust some bills out at her.
“Enjoy your night.” She cooed, and quietly shut the door.
Sarah untangled the bills, and found occasion to sigh once more.
Nancy had tipped her $2 and a crumpled dry cleaning receipt. She glumly stuffed it in the pocket of her uniform and trudged back to the elevator. She couldn’t complain, because tips are strictly voluntary at the Grand Marquee. She couldn’t quit either, this job was the only thing standing between her and the filthy cold gutters.
Maybe she could drink bleach.
If she survived, she’d sue the hotel for damages.
Nancy wheeled the cart in and snuck it past George as he snored bestially beneath the sheet.
He resembled nothing more than a child trick-or-treating for the first time, decked as a ghost in his mother’s spread.
Nancy rolled the trolley to the window and pulled up a chair. She’d exhausted herself of the TV.
Life was slow and placid out there, night-darkened streets broken randomly by late night racers and headlight haloes. Where are they going? She wondered. Off to somewhere where life means something more than numbers and paper? Somewhere where all the world is movement and laughter and whispered abyssmalities? Where a kiss can mean nothing. Or everything. Are they taking the long road, trying to stretch the drive into infinity, never wanting to meet what awaits at the end? Are they rushing to open arms in darkened rooms? Are they heading out to that one special bridge, to watch stars shoot straight up as they fall for the last time? Are they driving back to those cold empty rooms of plaster and glass, armed with a bottle to destroy the last remnant of what they’ve become. Will they wake in the morning with an aftertaste of blood? If they choose to wake at all?
Nancy cut a bite of the steak and mouthed it mindlessly, pouring a glass of champagne as she did. She lifted it to her eye to observe the amber bubbling city.
The view was much improved.
She almost wished George would wake up and see her, his fiancé, his future bride, see how cold and empty she was. She wished he’d leap up and embrace her, infuse her with warmth and some semblance of life. Or that he’d wake up to her blank face and realize just how deep that nothingness sat. With any luck he would spring up and flee without pause.
It would be better for the both of them.
Nancy pushed the tasteless steak away. It had been a foolish choice, eating red meat so late at night. She was just begging for nightmares and indigestion.
Effervescent amber womb. She thought. Maybe I should get some sleep.
George snored in agreement.
She downed the champagne like a shot and glanced in his woeful direction.
No. No rest awaits in that bed.
She dropped the cover (hid the steak) and drew the plate of buns to her instead. This is how people get fat. She thought. They self-medicate with food until there’s nothing left but a flesh balloon. “Pop.” She whispered, sliding a morsel of cinnamon through berry tinted lips. She hadn’t meant to re-apply the lipstick after her shower, yet had done so anyway. Force of habit. It had reached the point where her face looked ill and foreign without it.
The rolls were good. Better than she expected.
“Pop.” She cooed.
“Pop.” She moaned.
“Pop pop pop.” The first was gone and she tore into the next, unraveling the sticky-spicy mess in a reverse maelstrom. She gurgled pleasure through the mouthful.
“More champagne, Mrs. Falwell?” What was she thinking? George? Marry George?!
Above her knees, the blood puddle moved. It split down the middle with a ripple and spun itself down the trolley’s rear legs. It collected on the carpet and pooled back into a deep scarlet pile, creeping and eddying around her feet. It slipped silently past her and stretched up to touch the bed. Reaching and crawling, it climbed beneath the sheets with George, drawn to the hot promise of his breath. Had she turned, Nancy would have noticed a slinking dark silhouette under the hotel’s fine white linen sheets. Would she have seen it for what it was?
The night sky beckoned, and Nancy watched it with rapturous eyes, mouth making silent love to the gods of cinnamon and bread.
Slick as a shadow the clot slipped tendrils of itself into George’s nose. The thick, grunting snores took on a nasal whine, but Nancy paid no mind. The clot rallied its bottom half together into a viscous ball. The sheet over George’s face distended to make room. George drew in a lungful of blood and tried his best to cough.
A chunk of roll caught in Nancy’s throat just at that moment. She pressed a hand to her chest and gagged. A pinprick of acid struck her throat and she shoved away from the cart with a belated gulp.
George’s chest hitched and his eyelids fluttered.
Nancy bolted past him and into the hotel bathroom.
Hidden beneath the sheet, George valiantly tried to draw breath. His abdomen sank with the effort and could not recover. George Falwell gave one last shudder, and was gone.
In the bathroom Nancy knelt by the pristine toilet bowl, hands hovering protectively over her hair. The smell of wet porcelain brought back memories of her model days. The chunk of roll had gone down at last, but she didn’t know if it would stay there. If it did show up for an encore, she prayed it’d have the decency not to bring reinforcements.
The clot withdrew itself from George’s chalk-clay form, pulling with it the ten pints of Hawaiian Punch he’d been so selfishly hoarding in his circulatory system. It spread, a brilliant red, engulfing the bed like a fresh service of scarlet sheets.
Nancy ran some water in the sink, cupping her hands and taking a sip to ease her strained throat. She shook the droplets from her fingertips and flicked off the light.
Quick as a snap the pool slipped off the bed and retreated to the darkness beneath.
Nancy didn’t notice immediately that George had stopped snoring; in fact she did not even glance in his direction. She stalked over to the haunting window and viciously snatched up the nearly full Dom bottle. Nancy turned with a catwalk snap, striding into the bathroom where she drew a scalding hot bath and upended a bottle of salts. Down cascaded the robe and in went Nancy.
The clot tipped a tendril out, verifying a clear coast. It slithered to the wall and oozed along the wainscoting, wrapping up onto the doorjamb.
Nancy stewed silently in the tub, glowering at her fuchsia-polished toes against the tile wall, slugging back huge draughts of the champagne.
A tiny tendril tiptoed into the bathroom, investigating her still-warm robe, the bath rug, the tile.
Nancy let her arm fall from its place in the air. Diamond patter overflowed and struck onto the tile. The splash cleanly severed the seeking tendril; it disintegrated instantly and messily on the bathroom floor.
The clot recoiled defensively, backing away from the damp room, leaving a vermilion stain on the carpet from where its surface had been breached. It writhed and rolled, enveloping and reforming itself until the accidental wound was tucked securely inside itself.
George’s blood resented her. It cried out for action, for justice. Drown her! It cried. Make her die airless and alone!
The clot rippled and fought with the urge to catapult itself onto Nancy, holding her head underwater until her last scrap of air floated up to join the bubble bath.
The majority of its makeup was George. George Falwell, Georgie boy, George the lapdog, George the piggy bank. Its very cells cried out for vengeance.
What animal sense the clot had said no, no, you’ll destroy yourself. It rippled, and fought.
Nancy tipped the last golden drops into her mouth and blindly set the empty bottle on the floor beside the tub. It made a very pretty clinking sound. She began to wonder what it felt like to slit one’s wrists. They say that the proper way is down, not across, and that if you’re relaxed enough, it doesn’t even hurt. Nancy let her head loll onto her shoulder, blank brown eyes catching sight of the bloodstained bathroom.
She sat up with a jolt, checking arms and legs, playing her fingers wildly over every inch of skin, searching for a wound. She looked at the wonder of a mess on the floor, leaning sudsy and crooked from the tub.
The hotel’s silence struck her. The lack of snores.
“George?”
The clot shook.
Nancy craned her head around and her muscles locked. She and the blob stared each other down. Her eyes stung and watered as she forced them immobile.
The blob shook violently.
Nancy mouthed on nothing, jaw dropping into a useless O.
The clot launched itself through the steamy air and spread, hitting her and covering the bath like a fat blood parachute.
Nancy caught a mouthful as she screamed. She flailed and raked her hands like claws through the mess. It stank like hot death on her face, clinging to her skin and seeping into her eyes. Her fingers couldn’t find purchase on it; they passed through after the briefest resistance, like breaking through an egg yolk.
The clot held tight as it could to the slippery ceramic, making a lid to her sloshing coffin.
Nancy’s thrashing splashed its underside; it started dissolving and the tub frothed pink with run-off. Nancy struggled against it and the clot pressed harder on her face, shooting blood ropes up her nostrils. She clawed maniacally, scratching herself open as she tried to peel it away from her airways. The blood pounded in, fast and viscous, until it weighed her lungs down. Nancy’s stark face worked uselessly. She began to sink in the water, eyes wide and helpless.
The instant they were submerged, the choking ropes dissipated, bubbling up from her traumatized throat in a cloud of rouge. Nancy’s vision was going black at the edges.
If she came up for a breath, the clot would invade again.
If she stayed under much longer, she’d die.
George didn’t care. He could wait for the bitch.
Flickering grey spots sparkled in Nancy’s sight. She couldn’t remember any of they prayers they’d taught in Sunday school. She hoped God could smell fear.
The giant clot rippled. If it could, it would have loved to laugh. Nancy kicked her legs up through the thick, disturbingly warm blood-film, pulling the shower tab up with her toes and groping for the knob itself.
The clot doubled back to stop her.
One strong tug, and millions of deadly drops peppered its raspberry surface.
The clot twisted and writhed, collapsing into her tub with a sickening slap.
Nancy scrambled up and out of the tub, sobbing and slipping on the slick tile.
Feebly, it tried to follow.
“No!” She screamed. “Stay down, you bastard!” Nancy’s folded arms stuck tight to her chest. “ Stay down!” Her sobs killed anything else she might have begged.
The clot’s red arm stretched, stretched, and Nancy screamed and screamed, until it snapped. The arm split and spilled across the tainted floor.
Nancy grappled with the doorknob, still screaming, still screaming like she’d never breathe again. Blood-soaked and naked she tore down the hall, wide rolling eyes raving white at the edges. She cast a glance over one shoulder, and God of Gods, it was following her. She fell into a wall and shoved away, stumbling, drawing in a deep piercing breath, and realizing that it hadn’t followed her. Those were her bloody footprints on the carpet. It was over.
The thing was dead in her bathtub, dissipated beyond recovery.
Nancy slid against the wall, eyes on the door. Inch by inch she edged towards the stairs, thinking it had tricked her, that it would appear out of nowhere again and pounce. Her feet scraped numbly against the carpeted risers, easing down. One more step and the door would be out of sight…
Nancy turned and ran for it. Eight steps later her feet tangled and she went down in a blur of limbs.
Six steps later her right elbow shattered.
Nine steps later and she was dead.
The cook came wheezing out of the kitchen, drawn to the screams and panicked by the heavy thuds. He staggered to a halt in the doorway of the slumbering dining hall, gaping at the stricken red form and its unnatural pose.
“Dear God.”
Nancy’s last rites.
March 13-April 27, 2006
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