The Patron Saint of Monsters

Chapter Eleven Part Two

            Oleander looked at Rebecca’s unmoving figure on her floor, she noticed the halo like pool of blood behind her head and was filled with nausea, and she was overwhelmed with vertigo. Her knees began to buckle and before she was aware of what was occurring she was a heap on the ground. The group followed suit, all sitting down on the cold floor, careful to stay away from the blood.

            “Is she dead?” Trina asked growing more hysterical.

            “Shh.” Valerie said wrapping her arm around the meek girl’s shoulders.

            “Are we going to hide the body, Trent?” Oleander asked him curiously. She did not seem like herself, it was as if the congealing crimson liquid had hypnotized her into regressing to a younger state. She gazed at Trent with a dreamy admiration that he adored, despite his worry for her. It reminded him of the way she stared at him when he sat across from her during their tea parties all those years ago, the days of unconditional and endless trust, the nights of whispered secret fright when knew that Trent would always fix everything for her without her needing to do anything like ask.

            “Why would we hide the body? Ole! Are you fucking crazy? We need to call the cops the cops will take care of things.” Ian insisted. Oleander looked frightened by his loud tone and scooted closer to Trent.

            “We’re gonna go to jail!” Trina wailed! “Why didn’t we do anything? Why didn’t we grab her when she started beating herself against the glass! We’re murderers! We man slaughtered her! All of us are going to jail. Good bye guys. Fuck my mom won’t come back if her daughter is in fucking jail! She left because she couldn’t handle Rebecca and now I’m going to jail for killing her! Fuck!” Trina said, Valerie began to rub circles on her back to soothe the girl but Trina continued to shake her head horizontally and chatter quietly to herself.

            “We aren’t going to go to jail, the cops will know that we didn’t do anything wrong.” Valerie said naively.

            “We didn’t do anything wrong sure but we didn’t do anything right either.” Trent interjected.

            “Trent you aren’t even a fucking person so shut the fuck up!” Valerie yelled, she surprised even herself with her outburst.

            “Not a person?” Ian asked only to be temporally ignored.

            “Nothing wrong?” Trina squealed, “Since when is tying a screaming girl up and throwing her into a car not wrong! She’s got fucking ligature marks I’m sure! We watched her beat herself against a mirror while she giggled like a school girl on her first date and we didn’t stop her! Our lives have been a series of doing the wrong things since the moment we brought that Ouija board here!” Trina told the group spitefully, momentarily forgetting that she had wanted the adventure as much as the other girls, if not even more.

            “Ouija board?” Ian asked?

            “We have to bring her back.” Oleander declared, sitting up straight with new clarity.

            “Oleander you’re in shock baby. You can’t bring people back to life. It doesn’t work that way.” Ian said slowly.

            “We have her blood and her hair.” Oleander whispered looking at her friends and ignoring Ian.

            “It can’t hurt to try.” Valerie agreed.

            “No if it doesn’t work then it’ll be worse for us.” Trina argued. “We’ll seem crazy! Wait, we’ll seem crazy. Crazy is good. Crazy girls don’t go to jail, they get treatment.”

            “Exactly cookie! Either way it works. We either bring her back or we just plead insanity.” Valerie suggested.

            “No, if it doesn’t work we’ll discard of her corpse.” Oleander told the group. Ian shivered at her coldness, it was as if she was an entirely different girl.

            “How are we going to do this?” Valerie asked after composing herself.

            “We need dirt and water, a razor, some matches, candles.” Oleander told them. Ian shoulders began to softly shake for he was so scared and confused. Valerie stood up and began to gather the items, “Straight razor is the mirror.” Oleander called out, it sounded very cryptic at first but then Valerie realized that she meant it was in the bathroom cabinet above the sink.

            “What did she mean when she said that you weren’t human?” Ian hissed in Trent’s general direction. Trent snapped his head to examine Oleander, who appeared to be distracted by fiddling with Rebecca’s body, pulling out strands of the corpse’s hair by the root. Trent looked back to Ian and shrugged his shoulders.

            “Exactly that, I’m not human. Not anymore.” Trent told him nonchalantly.

            “Why not? What happened? What are you then? Was there like an accident? Are you more man than machine?” Ian asked the series of questions in rapid succession.

            “I killed myself and then came back to protect Oleander. There was no accident, I am no machine.” Trent answered honestly.

            “Goddammit!” Ian whispered to himself angrily, “She fucking lied to me. It was you! I did see you in the window that one night! What do you mean protect Oleander?”

            “I mean to protect Oleander and I do not understand what it is about that you are not comprehending.” Trent replied.

            Trina watched the exchange with wide eyes, she wanted to laugh and quip about them being catty little girls but when she turned to align her body to do so her foot slipped in the pool of Rebecca’s blood and she burst into tears. Things were getting too real again, for a few blissful moments things had felt unreal and like a game. Trina knew how absurd it was to try to bring a body back to life, it was playing at witchcraft. Witchcraft like magic that wasn’t real but was clearly deadly. Trina almost wanted to stop everything that second, desiring to use Rebecca’s unfortunate outcome like a warning she knew she should heed, but more than she wanted to be safe and good and do the right thing, she wanted to avoid getting in trouble. “If you gotta make trouble to avoid the law’s repercussions it’s okay and kinda not even trouble at all.” Trina whispered to herself with a shaking voice.

            Valerie returned with an armful of supplies. “I got everything I think.” She said sounding out of breath.

            “Set it down, we’ll check.” Trina suggested while rolling back on her now bloodied ankles. Trina felt peculiar and restless as if there was a scream building within her body. Her head lolled back and she sighed heavily in an attempt to calm herself down. The air felt thick and charged with more than the scent of blood and the eerie aftermath of scream like laughter. Trina gazed at her two friends, she could tell that they felt it too.

            “We all have to believe it will work or we have no shot whatsoever.” Oleander commanded. Trina couldn’t help but shiver, Oleander’s voice sounded different but she sounded confident and sure of herself, so everyone nodded in agreement.

            “Are we really going to do this?” Ian asked.

            “If you don’t want to help then leave.” Trina snapped.

            “No! He must stay, remember what Rebecca said. We need his blood.” Oleander reminded the group.

            Ian gulped so hard that he caused his throat to grow sore, “How much?” He asked blanching.

            “However much is enough.” Was the reply he received.