I stared blankly at Dylan’s lips as he smiled at something Bree said. My vision blurred and I wrapped my arms tightly around my waist trying to focus on the way his accent lingered on each word, but he was just too pretty to watch. Too bright and shiny… “She just had a little run in with an old boyfriend, that’s all…everything is fine now…She’ll be fine…yeah, we need a place to stay…”
“Ladies room?” I asked, barely above a hoarse whisper. Dylan stared wide-eyed into my glazed expression and quickly pointed to a back hallway.
The bar stool crashed against the floor, making a horrible clanging and banging sound as I pushed off and rushed into the hallway. Racing into the bathroom, I locked myself into a stall and emptied my stomach into the toilet. A cold burst of sweat broke out across my forehead and I dropped hard against my knees on the cold tiled floor of the bathroom, trying to brace myself up with violently shaking arms.
I slid down against the vileness of the cold porcelain and squeezed my eyes tightly, swallowing down the hard knot of disgust. Panic tightened my chest into fast pounding explosions and desperation to stand up away from the dirty-filthy stench of my insides and the white watery bowl that held them was overwhelming.
Life as I knew it was over.
My life.
Over.
That woman I once was, Samantha Matthews, was gone. Left for dead.
Everything and everyone I ever knew…Everything I had ever worked for…gone. Just. Like. That.
Poof.
Gone.
What happened?
It was building like an unstoppable freight train in the pit of my stomach and I clenched my fists tight. I couldn’t focus on clear thoughts. Frantic visions clouded my mind and my brain went off like a gunshot, fast and lethal. Thousands of images, words, and emotions fired out of my mind like a machine gun. Adrenaline surged through my body and my heart pounded unevenly. The dark gloves of panic gripped my entire body and squeezed. My head hit the floor with a wet thwack, and the edges of my vision blurred like reels of an old movie.
“Fuck you, Samantha,” he says coldly, when he finds me in the living room with all my packed bags. I won’t even face him. I can’t look at him at all.
I choke out a laugh, “No thank you. I don’t want to catch anything.” Jen will be here any minute; I hope there’s no traffic.
“Samantha, you’re sick, baby. You should have taken all your medicine,” his monotone voice drolls.
“You’re the one that’s sick…” I spin on him as he’s clamping his heavy hands around my throat, cutting off my words. Thick fingers press into the skin of my neck, crushing my esophagus. I kick and thrash wildly, frantically clawing my way to break free. Pure panic rushes through my throat as I gag and gasp for the air he is stealing from me. Lifting me easily off the ground, he slams my back against the bookcase, my head and shoulders landing on the spines of all my books. Pain explodes across my body; bursts of light blurs my vision.
He’s yanking me by my hair, dragging me along the coarse carpet of the floor, burning my palms and the skin on my knees. I pull away, digging my heels into the plush rug, but his fists just twist my hair tighter around his hand and my body lifts off the ground. Swinging my fists out, I fiercely try to connect with his flesh, clawing and punching.
I stopped loving him.
When I knew what he did, it was instant.
This, this is him just getting rid of the evidence.
Images of that monster clawed their way into my skull, how could they not? It was because of him my hands trembled so much. It was because of him that there was death all around me. Monster. A fucking vicious troll; a beast who I once loved, like an evil mythical creature that lied and waited until he thought I was powerless and struck me hard and fast, like the poisonous bite of a cobra. Deadly.
Me. Unknowing. Foolish.
My panic turned into hysterics. Tears streaked down my cheeks, raining down on my lap. I let myself breakdown in the solace of the small closed off room, where no one would be witness to my weakness. Even strong people needed to break sometimes.
I didn’t cry from fear, or hurt, or pain.
I cried for Samantha Matthews, the woman that they forced me not to be.
For everything I lost.
There are only a few words I have left in my mind for them:
You never should have underestimated me.
Chapter 2
The puddle of blood that lies beneath the limp bodies of my friends is quickly spreading thickly across the floor. There’s a heavy pool of blood in my mouth that spills out over the corner of my lips to mix with the seeping blood bath along the cold slabs of tile. My breaths are noisy, raspy and there’s no oxygen in the room. Did someone turn the oxygen off? Why can’t I breathe? Why can’t I get enough air? I want my mum.
My math notebook is lying near my head and pages of my algebra equations are scattered around the room. All at once, they absorb a swell of thick red blotches that cause the ink to blur and disappear. The pungent smell of some sort of acrid odor lingers thickly in the air, weighing heavily on my stomach.
Haunting, mumbled singsong crooning, whispers through the room. “Did you ever think, when a hearse drove by…that you might be the next to die…they’ll cover you with a big white sheet…after I splash through the puddles of life beneath my feet…”
I can hear the clip clop of footsteps. The squish-squash of two boots squeaking and sliding over the bloodied tiles. “Pl…ple…ease. Please, don’t.” I hear a shaky voice whimper. I can’t tell if it’s a female or a male’s voice, but I know it’s an older voice, so it can’t be one of my classmates. I know it’s not Mrs. Turner’s voice, because Mrs. Turner is lying in front of me with her dead glazed eyes staring at me. She tried to shield me from what was happening, but I don’t think it made a difference, something still got through. My body trembles with the coldness that is drifting up through the tiles. “Please! NONONO!” The voice begs as a loud click echoes across the room. Then POP! POP! POP! POP! Click! Click! Click! Click!
Click!
Click!
Click!
Click!
CLICK! I jerked against the steering wheel, my pulse pounding against my temple as I pulled up to the parking lot of the bar with heavy anxiety. Yanking the gearshift into park, I ran my hands over my face to focus back on reality, trying to bury the flashback in my head. My mind was heavy with thick red images as I tried to rub the blur of them from my eyes.
Focus.
I told my brother I would stop at the bar.
I have to go in.
I hated going there. I hated the long day I’d been through already and I just wanted to be alone, but I promised my brother. So I stepped out, still dressed in my tuxedo, the one my agent said I had to wear to the prior day’s festivities, and I dragged myself into my brother’s den of hell.
I knew I was being irrational about everything, especially about the awards dinner the night before. Any normal man would have been rattled with pride receiving the highly coveted Bram Stoker Award, but I was far from normal. I was barely able to sit next to Gary, my editor, and his wife Mable with her glazed over eyes that reminded me of a corpse staring vacantly into the nothingness. Every time she spoke to me, her whiny voice clawed at my self-control, which I had very little of to begin with. It took just about all my energy not to shove my napkin down her throat, and watch her gasp and flail about for breath.