Disclaimer--I do not own anything afiliated with the Ginger Snaps movies or the characters therewithin.
Most color had fled with human appearance, and now moon-eyed Brigitte swam in shades of grey and red. One tiny window sufficed her basement prison--through this daylight crawled, creeping into the dismal abyss, illuminating a corner where dried brick blood spattered the walls, seeped into the dirt of the floor. It was too small—for any purpose other than reminding—and was the reason she spent most of her endless days crouched against the opposite wall. The window, the accusing glare of its open gaze, became a source of hate for Brigitte. She grew to prefer the darkness of midnight, when the ghostly white bitch-girl who thought she was boss lay restlessly in her attic haven, and Brigitte could howl her misery to the unseen moon.
The woman and the wolf reached an unstated compromise sometime during that first week crowded together in her dual conscience. Perhaps both aspects of her nature, the surprisingly strong-willed human and the deadly, instinctive canine had concluded separately that each part's survival depended upon the other. Or perhaps loathing for the bitch-girl and her deceptive schemes had driven them to an agreed upon destination. Either way, Brigitte had timidly begun to feel at ease within her new form.
Comfortable, even.
Granted, the loss of opposable thumbs warranted lament, but there was an odd satisfaction in digging claws into the supple dirt beneath her misshapen dew-clawed feet. Shuffling around upon all fours, digits of forepaws splayed wide, whip-tail dancing back and forth aiding her balance, she dug herself a little hollow, where the heat from the house could not seek her, where she could hide when the bitch-girl descended half a dozen stares and whistled for her. Brigitte's wariness kept her from responding, from trying to tear her captor into tender pieces. She knew there was a gun with an endless supply of bullets, and the bitch-girl did not need to melt down jewelry and cutlery to obtain means to dispatch of her makeshift pet. Often a shock-collar accompanied the child down the steps, open and ready for its unwilling occupant, but Brigitte knew Ghost would never be able to catch, let alone restrain her to snap the vile collar around her neck. Low belly-rumbling growls made the resilient bitch-girl stink of fear, even when the cocked rifle sat in the crook of her arm, ready.
Whenever Brigitte's stockpiled energy surged through her taut, conditioned muscles, she would assault the trapdoor—scratching, banging, and biting her fury into the thick wooden boards. Sometimes the bitch-girl would yell shrill warnings. Sometimes she would merely drag a piece of furniture onto the doors as a second security. She always, however, tried to starve Brigitte the next day, force her to gnaw in desperate hunger upon the rotting flesh of silly Alice and her fellow wolf in the window corner. Even in her wildest throes of pain and delirium, Brigitte still possessed enough of her former self to keep from allowing the scent of carnage to compel her, tempt her, every time she wandered over to lap from the nearby rain barrel. Her only source of water, she would have forsaken the area altogether if not for her thirst.
She caught hints of frustration, anger upon Ghost's hollow face more and more as the days sloughed by minute by excruciating minute, and the child began to yell down into the basement even when Brigitte lay quietly curled in her hollow, savoring the remnants of a bloody hamburger or the butt of a juicy roast. The bitch-girl seemed to think that the woman-wolf would grow docile under her supervision, but Brigitte's continued disobedience pointed to the obvious contrary. Delusional, Ghost bided her time, unaware that Brigitte's reconciled selves were scheming and doing the same.
If Brigitte found a fleeting moment of total human consciousness upon her, she searched the darkness for Ginger. Sometimes out of the corner of her moon-eyes, she could catch a glimpse of her slender sister, smiling as wickedly as ever. The apparition faltered in seconds, though, morphing more often than not into the grim grey specter of her sister's final moments. This awakened the sleeping wolf within her, and then Brigitte's hold upon her own mind would slip softly until she once again served their common purpose and that purpose only. Imprisoned, a cellmate inside her demon's body, Brigitte knew instinctively that time, and only time, would provide the means for her freedom.
So she listened half-heartedly to Ghost as the child went about the machinations of her strange routine upstairs, and let the majority of those minutes glide away in silent contemplation.
Brigitte began, without warning, to relieve herself upon the rickety wooden stairs where Ghost would most certainly stand to throw down dinner. The first few instances, despite Brigitte's planning, the bitch-girl managed to avoid the strategically voided excrement.
"Bad Brigitte!" The child would scowl and scream this as if she were speaking to a fucking puppy, as if she had erased Brigitte's former state from her memory with pleasure at having something to care for again, whether it appreciated her guidance or not. "Bad Brigitte! Why are you doing this?" A thoughtful pause punctuated Ghost's less than persuasive comments.
"No matter how many times she opens and closes her eyes, she sees only the hell she created for herself. She will serve her mistress." And, solemnly: "She belongs to the girl." At this, Brigitte would curl up her blackened lip and send a shiver-inducing snarl from the darkness of her pit, expressing her many problems with that possessive statement. She belonged to no one, not to lovely Ginger, certainly not to the bitch-girl. And most of all, Brigitte did not belong to the wolf.
Its subtle hold had decreased of late. Brigitte's human side flushed from the cover of dusky fur with increasing regularity, allowing her to remember details of the schemes and plots calculated when at her clearest mentality, even during moments when the wolf reigned supreme within her. She began howling whenever Ghost walked by the basement entrance, often causing the child to jump audibly or begin one of her yelling tirades. The bitch-girl stopped leaving the first rung of the stairs, just chucked down whatever parcel of meat she deemed worthy with a mighty heave, and let the covering bang down behind her. The crunch of the bolt made Brigitte's teeth gnash, caused her heart to cry in frustration, but their higher calling, hers and the wolf's, lent her strength.
One particular evening, when the light had played upon Alice's pallid skin longer than ever during their lengthy confinement, Brigitte knew she would not have to wait much longer for her chance. The season, shifting to spring, would yield little run off for the water barrel, which already proved difficult for Brigitte to infiltrate without tipping over. She and the wolf both remained confident that Ghost would do as little as possible to keep her deviant charge alive, but the bitch-girl would keep her alive nonetheless. Brigitte had become part of the child's alternate reality, some sort of sidekick to aid Ghost in missions of death and destruction—a monster, a wild mesh of murk and muscle beneath the floorboards, to be unleashed upon innocent people. But if Brigitte retained little else, the one thought that sustained her was that, despite her gruesome appearance, Brigitte was not the only, or most dangerous, force within that house. Ghost's agitation grew slowly, but riding along the swell of that anger was eagerness, anticipation. Brigitte could sense this, too—in the sweet smells emanating from the kitchen, in the rumblings of a vacuum cleaner, in the way the child's tone, even when she yelled, contained a cheerfulness. Poor burnt Barbara would return home soon, to assume her role in the bitch-girl's sadistic game, and then the fun would really begin.
When pacing back and forth across the cellar, Brigitte let the wolf point out the child's weaknesses. Her long, gangly limbs—easy to catch with terrible teeth. Her weak eyes, poor sense of smell—advantages for Brigitte in her dungeon den. The child had cunning, surely, but lacked any indispensable weapons if surprised. Even if Ghost carried the gun, that Brigitte could dispose of easily enough with a little misdirection. Brigitte knew her plan forwards and backwards, and yet her imaginings ceased when her liberated self approached that front door. As for what followed the fury and the fight, Brigitte supposed it to be glorious freedom. Where she would go, how she would eat: she would worry later about the technicalities. To run with the wind rifling her fur, course on until her heart ceased to beat; those were her only wishes, her motivations.
Besides revenge.
She slowly reversed her strategy, whining whenever the bitch-girl deigned to open the door. This move certainly piqued the child's curiosity—her voice took on its former, more persuasive tone whenever she crooned empty promises to Brigitte. It took a great deal of self-control to bury the bodies of Alice and the other wolf without indulging her hunger, but Brigitte managed to cover them both in shallow graves. Alice's curly-haired head she chewed from the neck resolutely, rolling it to a spot several feet from the stairs where it lay gaping in wait for Ghost, should she step down into the darkness, as Brigitte knew she would.
Ginger stood to the side, smiling with devilish moon-eyes, as Brigitte planted her front paws firmly on the side of the water barrel, and giving a mighty heave, made mud of the basement floor. As her sister faded into the black of night, Brigitte managed a panting wolfish grin before settling down to whine away the hours until dawn and her day of reckoning.
Brigitte listened to Ghost pacing the floor above off and on through the following day. For someone normally as single-minded as Ghost, this act of indecision made Brigitte wish to howl with satisfaction. She curbed her delight at this turn of events, though, and continued her high-pitched assault upon Ghost's ears. The bitch-girl may have been crazy, but she hadn't been hardhearted enough put an end to Brigitte's retched life when presented with the ultimate choice. Brigitte, her dual consciences working like cogs in clockwork, slowly repeated the plan, a continuous stream of short commands for her tightly wound muscles. The sun crested the lifeless sky, sank into the horizon, and still Brigitte appealed to Ghost's motherly instinct with the fortitude of a fucking lap dog.
Finally, the footsteps cease; the bolt slides sharply from its sheath. Brigitte lowers her complaining whine an octave as minimal light pours in from the open trapdoor.
"Brigitte?" The bitch-girl asks this with concern edging upon annoyance. Brigitte pushes whatever sympathy she had once felt for Ghost behind a convenient screen of predatory thought. The child could not distinguish reality and fantasy—she meant to use Brigitte just as Ginger had done. As a fucking excuse. But the bond between the Fitzgerald sisters was unbreakable—and in Brigitte's opinion, whatever debt she had owed the bitch-girl for their escape voided itself when she realized that Ghost had barbequed her own grandmother. The child deserved nothing from her, not after holding the woman-wolf underground for months, expecting submission.
"Brigitte? Are you all right?" A flash light beam arcs through the room, but Brigitte lurks in shadow. Light, she realizes almost sadly, will never reach towards her again.
"Brigitte, why are you…" The barrel rolls conveniently into Ghost's view, lurching along empty-bellied. Brigitte's whines slow, soften.
"Oh. I, uh, I…" The bitch-girl's heart seems about to beat free of her chest, and Brigitte shifts silently into position as she waits for the girl to make the first move.
Not surprisingly, she foregoes returning upstairs for the gun. She's irritated at this sudden development, but as Brigitte previously guessed, Ghost wasn't about to let her die and ruin her grand plan. The child does hold the shock collar in one hand, but to set the barrel upright she must abandon it, if only for a moment. A moment, however, is all the time Brigitte requires. Everything rests upon that delicate fraction of time. Brigitte's jaw clenches, her claws dig deep furrows into the dirt, her calves and forearms tense.
Ghost, arriving at the bottom of the stairs, makes disapproving noises as her sneakers squick in the muddy mess. She peers into the darkness, shining her flashlight in the corner where the bodies had lain, finds it empty with disbelief. Her flashlight quickly passes over what remains of Alice's head, and suddenly the child's whole body is stiff with fright as she swings the beam of light back to the head. Alice stares back with dim, dead eyes, her mouth gaping. The head totters, falls, rolls towards the stairs, and Ghost emits a low scream as she drops the flashlight.
In an instant, Brigitte launches through the air, knocking down the fragile child easily. She is sharp, all angles—teeth, claws, jutting backbone—underneath fur the color of wet ink, and she straddles the hyperventilating bitch-girl with strong limbs, a thunderous growl escaping her throat as she hovers, stinking, inches above her tormentor.
There are no words for Brigitte as she opens wide her jaws, the wolf wanting more than the world to test the pinpricks of her razor teeth on Ghost's thin flesh. Her voice eludes her—this garbled throat cannot produce human speech, only the simplest forms of harsh emotions—anger, fear, sorrow. She snarls again. Her forepaws, with the too-long digits to which she had grown accustomed, pin the bitch-girl in the filth and her tail cracks through the explosive air.
"Its eyes," says the child, "Its eyes are like molten amber, and the woman sits trapped within the orbs, powerless to fight the beast." She's groping for the shock collar as she speaks, but Brigitte snatches it up in her jaws and, in one fluid motion, sends it flying to the other side of the cellar. Ghost has begun to cry now, the tears cascading from the corners of those slate eyes and down her sallow skin. Her hair drips dirt, her useless hands pool in the muck. Brigitte tries again, but she cannot convey her hurt, her loathing, to the bitch-girl. There are so many things she would say, but she will have to settle for another deep growl. She knows the time has come to flee, but the sweet temptation to end the child's life, or to create a new one for her with one tender nip, makes Brigitte hesitate.
But Ginger is there, as she has always been when Brigitte's needs are the greatest. Her sister watches expectantly, a curious blend of disappointment and encouragement dancing across her pretty face. To see her sister alive again, to be a person again with her awkward body and silly emotions—Brigitte wants these things more than anything. But Brigitte cannot return to the past, cannot dwell on what might have been. She and she alone, will decide what path to venture down.
She's not right, you know. You held on, when the hunger—the quick, delicious swell of want—swallowed me. Even when killing me was your only option, you never backed down. I was foolish and you, you are the strong one. You always were.
Brigitte relishes the return of her Ginger's voice, even if she is the only soul who can hear.
You are not just a shadow beneath the surface. You—sweet, loyal, beautiful you—are still there, Brigitte. Somewhere.
Ghost shivers as Brigitte lifts her head to sniff the air spilling from the upstairs—stale still, but with a hint of earth commingling amongst the chlorid cleaning smells. She looks back down at the bitch-girl, lying prone and at her mercy. Ghost pleads without speaking a word, and Brigitte cannot help but lick the child's cheek quickly before bolting up the stairs and out through the open front door.
She runs. Her limbs stretching to full stride, the electric night dances around her as she moves more fleetly than ever before. She dodges between trees, leaps across brooks, distances herself from the bitch-girl, the gun, and the ghost of what she once was, of what she can never be again.
Ginger runs with her, dancing and weaving through the awakening wood in her silvery pelt. As she cavorts with her sister's shade, the wolf quietly removes its deadly presence to the recesses of her mind, and she feels something bubbling from within her gut, blooming like new foliage for the first time in months.
It might be happiness. Brigitte cannot be sure, but releases a wild howl into the crisp spring air nonetheless. It echoes through the landscape, a cry of independence—Ginger's shadowy form disappears as Brigitte leaps over a fallen tree, her jet form arcing gracefully over the obstacle, and she hardly notices that her sister has once again retreated.
The moon hangs motionless in the midnight sky, and her blood sings, melodious in the waxing light. She'll run until dawn and, then, she'll decide her direction. The wolf stirs, the musky smell of deer fills her nostrils, and she doesn't fight the urge to veer her course, to pursue the animal and satisfy her hunger for carnage. She and the wolf, they are the same now, Brigitte realizes. She remains her strong self, and yet she has metamorphosed into something stronger.
Maybe something better.
She runs, dreaming of the kill, the taste of blood upon her rough tongue, the feel of warm flesh between her teeth, and Brigitte is no longer ashamed.
She is free.
A/N: I recently watched Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed, and like many fellow fans out there I loved the movie, but was shocked and saddened by the ending. I love Brigitte too much to let her die in that basement.
Please review...constructive criticism is much appreciated...justifiable flames will be tolerated.