Living Dead Girl
I'm finally back to working on 21 Faces. Here's the next part, which unfortunately involves borderline necrophilia and robbing from dead people. Sorry if anyone is offended by the content within.



An image through fog. A woman sits at a park bench on a cold day, feeding pigeons. She has a crumbled loaf of bread in one hand and an open prescription bottle in the other. Every few times she tosses out crumbs, she slips one of the pills from her bottle into the food, too fast for the birds to notice. Every few minutes, a bloated pigeon takes to the air, flies clumsily across the street, and crashes head first into a brick wall. White foam bubbles out from its beak as it hits the ground.

Then I woke up, and the pigeons were real. I could hear their greedy cooing by an open window. The bathroom I had passed out in didn’t have any windows. That was the first hint that someone had moved me. The second hint came from the fact that I couldn’t move. Someone had laid me face-up on a wooden table and tied my hands and feet to the table legs with nylon rope. I was in an attic or spare room, maybe. The place was filled with sheets and old furniture.

No, not furniture, I realized as I took a closer look. Coffins. A variety of caskets of different sizes lay neatly arranged around the edge of the room. At the window, a small squad of pigeons sat on the ledge, greedily fighting over birdseed and leaving downy feather and diseased crap along the windowsill.

I ignored the spinning in my head long enough to crane my neck to the left and look at my tattoo. Robin’s eye shifted uneasily. When it noticed I was staring at it, the tattoo formed into some new letters.

I WARNED YOU.

“Where am I?”

“You’re in a repair shop, Edward,” came a new voice, speaking in the type of high pitch a mother uses when she reads nursery rhymes to children. “You’re broken, and I’m going to fix you.”

I turned my head, flopping it uselessly to the right. The woman matched the vision I had seen just before I woke up. She was tall and thin, with light brown skin. She wore black lipstick and nail polish that matched her short hair. She looked at me briefly through eyes that were unnaturally dilated, with only a hint of blue around the massive pupils. Then she turned her attention to the greedy birds at the window. Just like in my vision, one hand held bread and the other had an orange bottle of prescription pills. She shooed the birds away for a moment and then laid the bread out neatly. While she did that, her left hand moved deftly, doling out the poison pills. The birds returned quickly, apparently accustomed to the routine. Some of them managed to pick around the pills. Others convulsed briefly and then fell backwards as their digestive systems exploded. When the birds had either died or eaten their fill, she slammed the window shut and turned back toward me.

“You know me?” I asked.

The corners of her painter black lips curled slightly upward. “We’ve spoken many times, Edward, but you never have the right answers for me.”

“Um…sorry about that?”

She tilted her head to one side, staring at me with an unblinking broken-doll gaze. “You don’t remember. That’s not unusual, of course. That would explain why I found you staring into strange mirrors. The people at the hotel think you’re a lush, you know. I had to drag your half-conscious body out their front door. But it’s okay. They know I’ll take care of you.”

“What are you going to do? Fit me for one of these coffins here?”

“We both know that won’t work.” She opened one of the coffins. There was no body inside – only tools, of which she pulled out a hammer and chisel. “Not yet.”

She walked to the table and crawled on top of me, straddling my waist. Then she raised the hammer and chisel purposefully. Was I a vampire? Was I about to be staked through the heart?

“We need to get rid of prying eyes, first,” she whispered.

She placed the point of the chisel on my left palm, right above my tattoo.

She raised the hammer as high as she could.

She swung downward.

The chisel passed through my hand with a loud crunch, nailing my palm to the edge of the table. Pain surged through my arm as my entire limb felt suddenly dead. A splash of blood hit my cheek and landed on her upper arm. She said something, but I couldn’t hear. I was too busy screaming.

I had woken up without a heart or lungs. I had lain back while Robin cut into me. I could tune pain out, but not this pain. My blood vessels seemed to be filled with angry hornets and battery acid. The pain surged through me, starting in my hand and ending in my toes as my connection with Robin was cut. After a few minutes, I stopped screaming – mostly because I had nearly lost my voice.

“Shhh,” she said, over and over, touching my face gently and shaking her head. “Shhh…it’s going to be okay, Edward. My name is Naomi. You don’t understand yet, but I’m going to help you.” She leaned forward and kissed the wound she had created, but didn’t pull the chisel out of my hand. When she sat up again, a trickle of my blood ran down her cheek, ending in a deep red dangling drop at her chin.

“You…jammed and spike…through my hand,” I said, breathing heavily as adrenalin did its best to cover up the pain. “How does that…help?”

“We need to find her, yes?”

“Find who?”

“What’s her name now…Mona, is it?”

I remembered my brief moments with Mona. I remembered jumping to my doom, just to make sure I wouldn’t remember where she was hiding. I said nothing.

“The two of you are broken. I think I might need both of you together if I want to fix you.”

Something wasn’t right. The mook that attacked us at the hotel knew nothing. He was a gorilla, proficient in physical pain but oblivious to people who were immune to it. But this woman…she knew all about me.

“Don’t know where she is,” I mumbled, closing my eyes in an attempt to shut out the hurt. “Already trashed some guy who came looking for her.”

“Her husband, or one of his associates,” she said.

My eyes snapped open and stared at her void-like pupils. “Husband?”

“Of course. She’s an adulteress. You knew that, or should. But that’s not the worst of her sins. Or yours.”

The physical pain finally disappeared, replaced by a short emotional stab. I didn’t even know Mona, but I knew I wanted to be more than a fling on the side to her. I had died for her. What did that mean to her?

“Poor Edward,” Naomi said, clicking her tongue and shaking her head. “A broken mind to go along with a broken body. You don’t know where she is, do you? I suppose I’ll just have to deal with you one at a time instead.”

“Deal with us? How?”

She put her face against my chest, smearing the blood on her chin into my shirt. Then she slid slowly down the length of my body until she was off the table entirely. A part of me worried that she might unhinge her jaw and swallow me like a snake.

“You just won’t stay down. Your body keeps coming back, just like her mind does.” She opened the lid to another casket. I saw a glass-eyed corpse inside. She shook her head and closed it. “Silly me…that funeral isn’t until next Tuesday.”

She continued walking through the maze of caskets, finally opening the proper one and producing a set of tools. Catching a glimpse of the items she produced, I recognized most of them from the autopsy that I had interrupted by waking up. Scalpels, stitches, a rib spread – she produced them one by one and rested them on a nearby table. I struggled harder against my bonds, none too eager to get my organs cut out of my body again.

“You have a problem, Edward,” she said, gathering the tools into her arms and advancing back toward me. She placed each instrument delicately atop the nearest casket. “You don’t accept the way things are supposed to work. We’re going to find out what keeps bringing you back. Then we’ll end it, and you’ll see how pleasant death can be.”

“Thanks, but I’m happy with the way things are now.”

She drew one of her scalpels and climbed back onto the table, straddling me again. “You’re so naive,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “It’s charming, really. But I can teach you.” She leaned over, pressing her breasts against my face as she whispered into my ear. “What a pretty corpse you will make.” She bit at my earlobe like a playful lover. I kicked and struggled even more than before, but still gained no extra leverage against the ropes that held me.

When Naomi sat up again, she was breathing heavily. Her cheeks had a light pink flush to them. “If you struggle, I might slip.” She raised the scalpel high. “If I don’t kill you right, you’ll just come back again without your memories, like usual.”

I stopped moving. I even held my breath. My eyes stared fixated at her face, watching the glow of her smile from whatever strange necrophiliac excitement was building within her. Pain would come soon. I was getting used to that.

I closed my eyes and felt the scalpel run down my chest. It didn’t cut my skin yet. Instead, she sliced through the thin cotton of my t-shirt, leaving the stitches on my chest exposed. I imagined that Robin’s tattoo hadn’t been destroyed moments earlier. I tried to think of what advice she might give me.

TAKE A DEEP BREATH.

CONCENTRATE.

“Edward,” cooed Naomi, surveying my patchwork torso. “We have so many possibilities…”

My heart rate slowed down even as the scalpel bit into my skin, cutting through the stitches closest to my collarbone. Naomi’s breathing got heavier as the first spurts of blood spilled out from my skin.

Spurts of blood.

Blood is liquid. In the right circumstances, blood can be a lubricant.

I tugged at my left hand, where the metal chisel still lay imbedded in my flesh. The wound was still open, blood running down my wrist. I felt my wet hand slip back and forth against the nylon bond.

My other senses filled me in on Naomi’s progress as she continued slicing through Robin’s stitches, as though she were unzipping my heart.

“The answer is inside somewhere,” she said. “It’s always been there.”

I tugged hard against the rope, twisting my wrist and dragging the chisel along with it.

“I told you before Edward – I need you to stop struggling. Otherwise I might have to get violent.”

“Like this?”

With one more yank, I pulled my left hand free. I swung blindly, keeping my palm open so I could use the embedded metal as a weapon. The head of the chisel struck the side of Naomi’s head, right under the ear. Stunned, she gave out a small shout of surprise and fell sideways off the table. With her off me, I turned my attention to my right hand. My free arm hand only the barest of functionality – I wasn’t even sure if I could move my fingers if I tried. The chisel had gone completely through, though, leaving its sharp tip exposed on the other side of my hand. Working quickly, I ran the back of my hand across my bonds. As Naomi recovered and stood up, my blood smeared across the side of her head, I gave a triumphant tug and pulled my other arm free. I sat up and lunged forward, catching Naomi before she could scramble away and clamping both hands around her neck. My left hand only provided the barest of threats, little more than an inactive stump now. My right hand, though, clamped firmly across her throat and squeezed.

"Drop the knife and let me go," I hissed. "Or I'll just break your neck."

She smiled. Inwardly, I winced. Threatening this woman with death probably just turned her on.

"Edward," she cooed even though I tightened my grip. "You're not a killer. That and your...current condition are the only things that keep us from being a perfect couple. And we–"

I cut her off by yanking her head down and toward me, slamming her temple against the corner of the table. Her head snapped back and her eyes glazed a little when I pulled up. When she blinked, I slammed her head down again. And again. After the next time, she gave out a groan and went limp. I let her go, watching her body collapse to the floor.

Then I turned my attention to the metal spike in my hand. Gritting my teeth, I grabbed the head of the chisel with the first three fingers and thumb of my right hand. A howl built up within me as I pulled the metal out of my hand. I let loose the shout as it came out, giving myself over to pain for a few minutes. Eventually, things went back to normal and I found myself able to tune the agony out. With that resolved, I started working on the ropes around my ankles.

Naomi didn't move during my escape. When I was finally free, I rolled her over and checked her pulse. Her heart kept a steady pace, and her breathing was normal. The black and blue on her head wouldn't go away for days, though. I glanced at my own left hand. The black ink of Robin's tattoo swirled aimlessly around the edge of the gaping hole where the eye had once been. I could see clear through the other side. When I moved the single finger that still functioned, I could see the tendon tense and stretch. Then I looked back at my captor. We weren't quite even, her and I, but I didn't have the time or the sadistic tendency to exact revenge. I needed to get back to Robin. And, looking down at my torn t-shirt and blood-stained pants, I needed some new clothes.

The room was large, with caskets spreading out from wall to wall. I looked at the coffin Naomi had opened. That man had looked to be about my size. I whispered an apology to the family and took a step forward.

***

A few fat pigeons wandered the parking lot of the Naomi Mara Funeral Home. They watched me as I stepped through the door a few minutes later, my left hand wrapped in bandages and wearing a suit that was a size too large for me. I pulled a set of keys from my pocket and walked around back to where a hearse sat gloomily in the garage. I opened the driver's side door, grabbed the rear view mirror, and twisted until it broke off in my hand. Then I kicked the mirrors off of each side door, got in the car, and sped away.

A pigeon flew past the windshield as I left the parking lot, flying up toward the attic window and wondering where the nice lady with the bread was.