A Walk Down Ivy Laine

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Wednesday, October 15, 2015

Early in the morning. Around one or so.

It's an odd feeling stumbling into a spotless bathroom---well, as spotless as a rundown motel bathroom can be---from a room dripping in blood. The small mirror above the small sink shows a demon---red, dripping, with stark, contrasting green eyes. Those eyes drift lower, looking at the aftermath of a brutal sacrifice. A bit of skin---not mine--- is stuck just beneath my eye. It's lumpy, triangular and pink. It's also still warm under my pointer finger and thumb as I peel it back. The sight of it dangling and shaking between my fingers isn't what does it. The other piece I find on my neck isn't what does it. The long sliver on my arm, hidden beneath a dried layer of blood isn't either. Then I notice them all...tiny bits, pieces and fragments of human stuck everywhere on my body. I claw them off frantically until hysteria takes its hold and all I can do is scream and scream and scream. Half an ear---Bill's ear---falls to my feet...That is what does it.

I barely make it to the toilet beside the shower before acid launches into the toilet, followed by a chest wrenching gag that burns its way up my throat. It shoves a violent whimper from my raw throat as my abdomen screams in pain from the effort of the muscles contracting around the fresh stab wound. I force myself onto my feet, disgusted by the prospect of having half an ear under my toes, and stumble the small shower. What follows is another gut wrenching slew of green acid and whimpers down the drain. Reaching up with shaking fingers, I desperately turn the rusted knobs to red. Scalding hot water rockets out, hitting my back, flowing over my wound. The scream that leaves my lips isn't for the faint of heart. I cover my wound with shaking fingers and let the water boil over my skin, enduring the pain. Some sort of sanitation has to take place.

Pain means I'm alive. For now, but i'm dying, I know it. I'll bleed out...but Bill Allen Schmeltzen---my uncle---is dead.

Dead.

The wisps are still here now, pressing into my mind like hundreds of ghosts coming and going on wave lengths of noise. It feels different, comforting somehow. They, we, feel...connected. Even as I attempt to push against them into the corner of my mind to stifle them, they're still there, part of me now. My permanent ghosts. The other realization is they've always been there. Waiting. Protecting... With me, for me, they are me. Unfortunately they're the least of my concerns.

I shift my focus and let them mingle with one another in the back of my mind. If I don't bleed out and somehow make it, what the hell do I do now? Two minutes. I swear that's all the time it took to take a life. But what now? Do I call the cops? Would they believe self-defense? What about the paper? How do I explain the paper?

No, the thought is clear as day in my mind. The wisps echo their agreement with my subconscious.

The bastard deserved it. All of it. Every slice. The smile that comes to my red, dripping lips is an earned one. He needed to die.

A faint noise seeps under the pounding water as I lift my head off the floor and try to stand, bracing myself against the disgusting glass.

Phone.

Somehow the noise spurs something along in my mind. The gears start cranking and tangible thoughts start forming one by one. It feels like a slow process but I know it's only seconds that pass. It's time to move.

***

Ten minutes later and all four shabby motel towels are pink. I leave them on the floor. There's no way to hide any of the evidence in the other room either. I don't know what blood is mine and what's his. My only choice is to make time, get away, hide and heal. Four goals, that's it.