I watched as the blood drip,
drip, dripped from the ceiling onto the bare mattress. It landed with a plop
just inches from the tip of my toes. I hugged my knees closer to my chest as my
stomach roiled in disgust.
I swallowed back the bile from
the cafeteria gruel I had choked down during dinner hour as I peeked up at the
source of the dripping blood. Above my head the girl with the hideously
grotesque smile, that looked as if someone had grabbed the corners of her mouth
and ripped the skin wide open, rested against the ceiling. She stared back at
me with her dull lifeless eyes.
Apart from the grotesque smile
and the gaping wound in the girl’s forehead she might have been considered
pretty; like a strong Viking maiden woman. If she weren’t a figment of my imagination
or whatever my psychologist insisted she was. Nobody every believed me and
nobody else had the ability to see her. No, sadly my grim friend was what had
landed me in Harpbrooke Asylum in the first place.
Harpbrooke Asylum sat atop a
massive cliff on the Washington coastline overlooking the cold, dark, dismal
Pacific Ocean. At night you could hear the ghostly cries of widows that had
lost their husbands to the tumultuous, churning waters. If you looked close
enough you could make out their shapes standing on the shoreline in the dark.
I liked to spend hours staring
out my window on the third floor of the stone asylum’s C Ward. They kept the
men and women separated in Wards A and B while lunatic juveniles like me were
locked away in Ward C. I was the oldest in the ward after being locked up just
before my eighteenth birthday.
My day was an endless supply of
pills, sessions with my psychologist, and group sessions. The terms
“schizophrenic” and “bipolar” were thrown in my direction frequently. I played
along and pretended to take their pills; just waiting for lights out.
After the orderlies called
lights out and locked down the floor my grim friend slid to the floor, landing
on her feet with a catlike grace. I jumped off the bed and slipped on a pair of
lace-less gray tennis shoes. Since arriving at Harpbrooke my world was filled
with shades of gray. Gray patient issued t-shirt, gray sweatpants, gray walls.
Hell, the cafeteria mush was gray too. They took the laces out of my shoes in
case ‘the voices’ told me to hang myself.
I snorted at the thought.
Tonight was the night I was getting out of here. I, Jessica Cooper, was finally
going to be free!
My friend reached her bloody
hand through the heavy metal door and jimmied the lock as blood trickled down her
chin and dripped onto the floor to pool under her bare feet.
She bared her sharp teeth and
grinned triumphantly and together we pulled the heavy door open. She raced me down
the ward hallway, my feet slapping angrily against the tile floor as I raced to
catch up. The other patient rooms whizzed past as shadows danced along the
walls.
She stopped and turned when she
reached the end of the hall. For a minute her eyes glowed red. I blinked and
her pupils were back to normal.
Her smile seemed to challenge,
“Hurry up slowpoke.”
I slid across the floor to meet
her in front of the barred floor-to-ceiling window that gave a panoramic view
of the cliffs and the ocean.
My grim friend held out her
hand and together we walked straight out the window and dropped to the ground
three stories below.
When we landed I checked myself
for injuries. Finding none I exclaim, “Oh my god we really did it! I’m free!”
My friend grinned back at me
with her eerie smile.
“Let’s get out of here before
the guards come,” I suggest as I start picking my way down the rocks to the
beach below. When my friend doesn’t join me I turn around. “Are you coming?”
She just stares at me with that
crazy grin on her face. Finally she shakes her head, no.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
Wordlessly she nods and urges
me to be on my way.
“Thank you for everything,” I
tell her as I scramble down the cliff. Every few seconds I glance back over my
shoulder until my grim friend, the only companion I’ve had for so long, is
nothing but a dot on the bluff beside the asylum.
When my feet hit the sand beach
I yank my shoes off and let the cool sand squish between my toes as I breathe
in the fresh ocean air.
Carrying my shoes in one hand I
walk on and on, along the coastline in the dark. The bright full moon shines
down on me and the sound of the waves crashing against the shore fills my ears.
A few miles from the asylum the rocky cliffs along the
beach give way to a rich, deep forest. An owl screeches overhead as it dives
for its prey, its sharp talons capturing some small creature.
I follow a broken path unsure
yet mysteriously aware of where I’m going. I no longer see the bright moonlight
overhead as dark shadows press in on me from all sides.
I walk until I begin to see a
light flickering up ahead. As I get nearer the light becomes a raging bonfire
within the thicket of trees. A lone dark figure sits beside the bonfire with
its knees pulled up to its chest.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t
come,” the figure, a young guy, says as I step out of the tree cover. His voice
stirs something within me.
“It’s you,” I breathe in awe.
“Here I am, on Halloween night,
as I promised I would be. Did you doubt me?” He asks as he stands and lets the
bonfire cast light on his features. I drink up the sight of him. His pale skin
shines iridescent in the firelight as the flames reflect off the metal zippers
that run all over his otherwise perfect body holding his skin together. His
long blond hair covers the old scar on his forehead. He straightens to his full
six-foot-five height and smiles at me; my gothic prince.
“Razor,” I whisper his name. It
sounds foreign to my ears from years of non-use.
“Jess,” he murmurs as he
studies me for changes since the last time we came face to face.
Unable to wait any longer I
launch myself into his burley arms. “Oh Razor I missed you so much. Why didn’t
you come visit me?”
Razor breathes me in, as
unable to get enough of me as I am of him. “You know I couldn’t. There are
rules you know. It doesn’t mean I haven’t spent every second of the past
eighteen months thinking about you.”
“Have you come to take me home?”
I ask.
“Yes, it’s time.” Razor’s reply
is muffled by my thick hair, “but won’t you miss all this?”
He looks down at me
questioningly as he sweeps his arm around us all-inclusively.
I snort, “Being locked away in
a looney bin with only a mutilated ghost for company? No way.”
“Oh right, her,” Razor mutters flatly, looking away.
“Do you know her?” I ask. Razor
gulps and plays with the zipper holding his right cheek together; zipping and
unzipping it anxiously. “You do know
her,” I whisper.
Razor nods slowly, “She’s one
of the Keres, personification of violent death. She’s working as an agent of
the Greek death goddess, Melinoë, bringer of nightmares and madness. Melinoë
sends her to hunt and retrieve teens with certain… gifts.”
“What kind of gifts?” I ask
nervously. A log on the bonfire crackles and burns.
“Don’t you realize it Jess?”
Razor shakes me. “You’re straddling the veil between our two worlds. You can
see and communicate with those that have crossed over. It’s why you can see me.
And the Keres sent to pluck your soul out of your body.”
“But – but what does this
goddess want with me?” I ask as the hair at the nape of my neck prickles.
“Melinoë will use you as a
messenger to spread the madness that swirls around her. She’ll turn you into a
monster,” Razor hangs his head and adds, “like me.”
Horrifying realization dawns on
me, “is that why you’re covered in zippers?”
Razor’s eyes snap to mine, “You’re
the only person who never ran away screaming after seeing a glimpse of me. I
won’t let her hurt you; I’ll get you to safety.”
The flames from the bonfire
flicker and rise, distracting us. My grim friend, the Keres, emerges from the
flames stepping over the logs like wobbly steps. Razor steps in front of me to
protect me as I see the Keres’ true color for the first time. She’s
unbelievably beautiful with flowing golden hair and sharp bloody fangs. Her
hands that appeared bloody earlier in the night are clearly visible talons in
the firelight. Her long white shift is now more ripped and blood stained than
before.
“No, get away! You can’t have
her,” Razor announces angrily.
“Silly boy, that’s not your
decision,” the Keres replies, speaking for the first time in my presence.
Razor clenches his teeth, “I
said leave. Her. Be!”
The ground begins to shake
violently as the Keres begins to laugh manically. “You’ve stepped in it now
silly boy.”
A hand shoots out of the ground
followed quickly by another. At first I think zombies are rising to attack us
but the skin is smooth and fully intact.
“Run,” Razor commands as the
hands start to push further out of the ground revealing elbows and the start of
a shoulder. I freeze like a deer in the headlights propelling Razor to grab for
my hand and drag me away from the bonfire as fast as our legs will carry us.
Mine feel like Jell-O as I try to keep pace.
Something drops from a tree
onto the path ahead of us, blocking our passage. The figure, a woman,
straightens to her full height. A black Grecian style dress covers her olive
colored skin. A pair of bronze gladiator sandals peek out from under the hem of
a gray underskirt. A crown of skulls sits atop her flowing hair; a few shades
lighter than my midnight strands. Her face is breathtaking; wide eyes sit above
a strong Roman nose and full, plush lips.
Razor gasps and backpedals but
the Keres appears out of thin air behind us. We’re trapped.
“Join us little girl,” the
woman, Melinoë, says. Her tone is musical, hypnotizing. “It’s an honor really.”
“You’ll be immortal,” the Keres
hisses in my ear. I shiver at her icy breath on my skin.
Melinoë raises her hand and
rips Razor from my side. “Come with us or I will destroy the boy.”
“Don’t listen to her,” Razor
yells. “Run as far and fast as you can.”
“Shut up,” Melinoë snarls at
Razor. Electricity pulses across her skin as she grips him by the neck.
“Let him go!” I demand as I
raise my hand defiantly. I feel the anger flowing through my veins and into my
outstretched hand. A force strong enough to stir up the leaves on the forest
floor kicks up and crackles splitting up into two directions; it hits Melinoë
and the Keres simultaneously making them burst into a million pieces like
confetti.
Free from Melinoë’s grip Razor
drops to the ground and gasps for air. “What did you do?” Razor pants.
“I don’t know,” I reply,
shaking my head.
Razor pushes to his feet, “We
have to get out of here.”
I clasp his hand and follow him
into the night. I don’t know for sure where we are going or where we’ll be
safe. We race away, further from the asylum on the cliff, and I know I will
never return.
A sickening feeling tells me
this won’t be our last run-in with the dark goddess or the Keres.
_________________________________________________________
Happy Halloween Everyone! Tomorrow is November 1st, the beginning of NaNoWriMo, so I'm enjoying my favorite holiday before immersing myself in non-stop writing.
