Girl Psycho

Big bang style (Dlamini)

She would rather die than land up in a place like this...

Oaklands retirement community. With its perfect lawns and roses and bird feeders in the trees. Perfect little houses all in a row. Pottery classes and choir practice and outings to the local grocery store once a week. And she would rather fucking drown than retire here and do aqua aerobics in a pool with a whole bunch of grey -haired woman who talk about their grandchildren all day. No, when it was her time, she would take herself out, big bang style.

She walked up to his front door and climbed under the crime scene tape. The owner of the retirement community had called her superior twice today asking if they could take the red and white tape down, as it was frightening the other villagers. God forbid any of them had a heart attack or something, he had said. Of course, no one could tell him why this was a crime scene either.

She reached for the door handle and it struck again.

"Owwe! " she winced and grabbed her stomach. Not again. She was getting these crazy stomach pains, that when they struck, they almost knocked her to the ground. She reached for the wall and steadied herself to let it pass. She'd been to every doctor she could and they'd stuck shit down her throat and up her ass and still no one could tell her what was wrong with her.

Her *Gogo had a theory, though. "You have a snake in your stomach because you are not listening to *the call."

Her pain started to subside and she straightened up. Superstitious crap. She came from a family with a long line and history of Sangoma's and when she had been born, her Gogo had had a dream in which the ancestors had come out of the sea and called for her to come with them...

"Hlengiwe, Hlengiwe, Hlengiwe."

Hlengiwe, that was her traditional Zulu name, but back then, choosing a name that the white people could say was what you did. Somehow, it had become Abigail, she had no idea how, but it just had.

She shook the pain off and unlocked the door. She stepped inside, it was dark and she felt around for the light switch, and when she turned it on...

"Fuck!" She reached for her firearm and took it out. The room was a mess. Cupboards had been pulled out and emptied onto the floor, the pillows had been thrown off the sofa. She heard a noise coming from the bedroom down the hall. Someone was there.

She crept down the hall and stopped outside his bedroom. The bedroom door was slightly ajar and she could see someone digging in the closet. She pushed her way into it and shouted.

"Hands up." She flipped the light switch on at the same time and a startled looking man fell out of the cupboard and rolled backwards, she recognized him from somewhere.

"Please don't shoot, don't shoot." The guy whimpered putting his hands in the air and crawling around on the floor like a baby. This was not a professional thief.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Edward Junior, this is my father's house." Yes, she'd seen his picture on the wall. He was the one with the hot wife and three pretty daughters. (His wife was a redhead, she had a thing for redheads.)

The guy looked so revolting crawling on his hands and knees and now he was tearing up, that she wanted to shoot him just because he pissed her off.

"Do you know this is a crime scene?" She kept her voice firm and he squirmed some more.

"Please don't shoot me. Please....." The guy let out a long whimper and she couldn't take it any longer.

"I'm not going to shoot you. Get up. I'm Detective Dlamini." She showed him her badge and helped the guy off the floor. He stood up and was shaking. She got a feel for this guy immediately. He was probably some high paid, geeky accountant who had never been in trouble in his life. He was that annoying lick-arse guy at school that got everyone into trouble and tattled to the teachers while Billy was smoking behind the school hall. He was that guy.