Catharsis

TWENTY THREE

"OH, GOD! -- NO..."

Scream. Blue.

Lightning. Red.

Blood. Water.

Sinews.

Pleasure. Satiation.

I'm starving.

Aching.

Don't let me leave before I can finish ;

killing and eating and still in pain.

Regret, regret, regret.

Let me back, let me back, let me back!

I squirm on my back. My body painfully hemorrhages mass. Fireworks flash behind my eyes. Howling shudders through me.

Gasp.

Dying white light flickers overhead. It burns the image of the room in my vision. Even when my eyelids fall, there's nothing but blood. Nothing but blood. I think I found hell.

Iron fills my mouth and my nose. It's overpowering, the smell of entrails. Despair washes through me when the memories come back. Sammy. Her hands on my neck.

I flip my aching bones onto my hands and knees, spitting mouthfuls of blood. I retch over and over. Stomach contracting, rejecting pieces of flesh that splash into the red pools on the floor. I puke and puke some more. Suffocating, I cough up bile that burns like battery acid. Curses and screams and gags spill out of my mouth.

When my intestines stop spasming I draw in short gulps of air. Kneeling on the bloody cement, I pull my mangled hands out of the liquid beneath me. Mindlessly, I wipe them on my body only to find my numb flesh dripping red. A thin strand of tendon clings to my shoulder. My heart jumps and I swat it away, scuffling backwards on the floor. Rapid breathing and the low hum of the blinking fluorescent light echoes off the four walls of my mind. At last, it crosses my mind that this is her blood when it should be my own.

What have I done? I hold my head in my hands, blocking out the nightmare, but the sounds still ring in my mind. Her shrieking and gurgling. Wet screams. Slopping liquid. There's tension in my jaw. Tear, chomp, tear, chomp. Skin tears like paper. She's gone and I killed her.

I scream. I scream and scream like I've never screamed before until my throat goes raw.

"Jesus, God, Jesus, fuck, fuck, fuck!" My voice is failing. Choking. Sobbing. "I'm out of my mind. Out of my mind. Fuck! Sammy! Please, please, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't remember..." Palms to my temples over and over. "I don't remember. I can't... "

Holding my head in my hands, I block out the sight of the corpse. I can sense its presence. The rich, sour scent wafts around me. It's the same smell that came out of our garage during hunting season, when Dad would go turkey hunting and gut the thing on the floor. Sickening warmth lays on my bare skin.

"Forgive me, please. Please, please! Sam -" My voice gurgles as pieces of meat begin to pour out of my mouth again. Blood. Saliva. Sliding up and out from the inside of me. She drops onto the floor in fragments. I don't want to be alive.

In the midst of my convulsive crying, a firm hand lays on my shoulder.

"Jesus Christ!" I cry out in a broken voice that's barely recognizable.

The touch sends me flailing as I stumble to my feet. I slam my back against the nearest wall. I'm fighting for air. Unfeeling lips. I look up in the shadow of his tall frame. My eyes are so swollen from crying I can barely see through the hazy film. The only thing that registers is the smile in his gaze, the surgical mask, thick gloves, green scrubs.