F.L.Y.N.N [ Book no.1 of "The Fouling Damned duo"]

02: 11 | a strange ritual, a headless body

~ Tempest's POV, weeks after~

O' yonder till.

O' yonder till.

Oh! Will the time come again?

When she is alive?

God forbid that in her next life,

O' thou monotonous eyes,

Will open once... More.

IT WAS in that moment.

A moment in which I saw HIM chuckle from the back of the crowd, wearing his infamous monkey mask.

It's been a couple of weeks since I've last seen that bastard.

" Tem, can you lead the prayer for tonight? So, you know, the feast can begin?" Detective Kim asks as she nudges me with her elbow, hard. She's a bit frantic, I know. With the way she's anxiously biting on her fingernails, as sweat drips from the nape of her neck, there's no telling, that tonight is the last night, for the ritual.

I gulp, trying hard to hide my also anxious, and rather, worrying self; my anxiety is betrothed to this thing we call dread, after all.

" Sure."

That's all I can mutter in the end, really.

****

About three weeks ago, news broke in through those metaphorical already-broken windows when Sheriff Hernandez was told by Detective Jeremy Jenkins that both Granny Dorothy and her husband had been burnt alive, not one or the other.

But... The strangest thing about the way they died, has yet to be revealed.

Granny Dorothy's half-burnt body was found: headless. The cause of this? Well, unfortunately for me it's somewhat of a mystery. But really, what could be more obvious than a chopped-off head?

Her husband sure was psycho.

A killer of sorts.

"Tch. The monkey man is behind all this, that's for sure..." I mumbled under my breath, quivering in fear. Speaking of which, I could still feel the sensation I got after witnessing the leftover, half-burnt bodies, with the foul smell emulating from their broken down intestines, all blood trodden and black grime forming on the burnt areas of grey-ish, moldy skin, as it is already being eaten by cockroaches that have started to make their way from outside the hole in the broken down apartment wall, munching their way down skin and juice.

It's what happens to the best of us, it's what happens when we all end after all. Our existence... Faded; disintegrated, digested by maggots, cremated by the likes of those we call family, those innocents we call friends and acquaintances.

This ritual is what has been started two or even, four months ago, way before I even met the Floyd detective agency, way back when I first woke up from my coma and didn't even know who the hell I was.

The reason why they insist on doing this ritual, I will never know. Alas, the only thing that is tried and true, is that even as the blue flames rise, and the paste smeared across my forehead, and the small golden wine cup rimmed with small diamonds, possessing the cremated urn of Granny Dorothy and her husband, there's a darkness resting within me, and I can't help but imagine that they who've died... That they've who've lived so healthy and happily, leaping across those rosy memories of golden gardens, aren't going to heaven...

Or whatever the heck they believe in, that is.

*****

When the ritual is over, everyone else, including Detectives Jenkins and Kim, and even Sheriff Hernandez, make their way through the black double doors at the back of the temple, were the feast is to begin, in celebration for the end of the ritual; the end of infinite torture upon those young souls forcing themselves into going along with the prayers and shit.

I don't follow them; as I walk out the exit door and make my way to the parking lot where my car, a silver Toyota van, is parked smack dab in the middle of two small oak trees, most likely, newly planted.

However, before I'm about to get into the car, an elderly woman, who looks similar to Granny Dorothy makes her way over to me.

Except, the only difference between her and Granny Dorothy is the fluorescent red eye patch that's covering her right eye, and her cropped short snow white hair that's cut all scraggly and jagged at the back. Damn, someone must've cut their own hair I'm betting.

Anyway, the whole story goes like this: old woman striking a creepily resemblance, a rather, duplicate version of Granny Dorothy walking with a bended hump in her spine, so low that she could've done the limbo if she wanted to. Black cloth dress. Crimson seeping through the ugly cut slashed across her countenance. Glass eye. No pupils.

Looks like the devil, sure.

But is she, really?

" Hi deariee, I-I don't think I've introduced myself to you b-before," she drawled, as she slowly extended one wrinkly hand to me. I take it, and she squeezes it so hard that her long witch-like nails etch into my skin.

Yikes. Probably don't wanna mess with this old woman.

" Um... Yeah, I don't think we've met-" I begin to say, however, I'm cut off instantly by a sudden high pitch voice squawking from the likes of this woman.

" Oh really?! I believe w-we h-h-have m-met before missy. I clearly recall seeing you here before... Or, would you rather not trust my memory, but the memory of Ms.Palmer herself, eh?"

" Um-"

" Ha, I ought to thunk that you've been joking yourself d-d-dearieee! You've been foolin' around too much, ain't it?"

" Fooling... Around? Pardon? I'm sorry, but I think you've got the wrong person. Ms.Palmer is actually my Grandmother, I'm her granddaughter, Tempest," I give her a weak smile when I tell her this, and my eyes twitch as she chuckles darkly.

"Haha, well, whatever ya say d-d-dearie... But as her twin sister, I know my dear Emily well, and she has never been married, so I'm not one to thunk that she got a grandbaby!"

She snorts, and suddenly, she leans over to me, and whispers in my ear, smelling of weed and roasted chicken, warm, sticky air-breathing upon my skin, saying, " Well, let me tell you this, dearie. At least try to understand that my sister, Emily, died to the hands of her ex-lover, who chopped off her head and gobbled her eyeballs whole. Don't know how the fire started, but I saw the whole damn thing, next door, in the apartment buildin' next to hers... Look me up, I'm in room 129, floor 4."

"Eaten? By her lover? T-that's impossible! That's pure lunacy, idiotic even!" I start to exclaim, my heart pounding out of my chest over and over, and even as I take a deep breath-in-and-out-in-and-out Ican'tbreathcan'tthink.

How can I.

" But...Can you at least tell me... How do you know-wait I mean-"

I turn around, expecting to see that ugly, distortion of a woman behind me, but... She's gone.

And then, I suddenly receive a call, from Detective Kim.