Jane watched Trent's door swing slowly shut, face blank but long artist's hands clenched into trembling fists. Just before the latch clicked, Monique stuck her head out and tipped Jane a catty wink. Then they were shut into the cluttered dark of the narcoleptic musician's chambers, and Jane was left alone.
For several minutes, Jane stood in the dark hall with her balled fists thumping gently against her legs. When the blood started trickling through her clenched fingers, she jerked, as if waking from a disturbing dream. Frowning, she spared the door one last glance and disappeared down the stairs.
***
Trent stumbled down into the kitchen, clad only in jeans, bite marks and lipstick stains. His bare feet made little sound on the faded linoleum, but Jane was expecting him and registered no surprise. She merely tracked her older brother as he shuffled around in a vain attempt at making coffee; she had hidden it hours ago in anticipation of this late afternoon rendevous.
After perhaps eleven minutes, Trent turned and jumped slightly at the still form sitting at the table, Ultra Cola in hand. Jane's deep blue eyes seemed to shimmer in the burnt orange light filtering in through the dingy kitchen windows, skin an ashy grey and lips the purple of dead flesh. Then she raised the can to her painted lips and the illusion broke, a small gift for which Trent was grateful. With a deep, steadying breath he half turned back to the fridge.
"Hey, Janey."
"Hey, Trent." A pause while she took another drink from the can. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
Trent frowned reflectively.
"Maybe we should spell Mystik with two y's."
Jane rolled her eyes and set the can down on the stained Formica table top. The light was failing quickly now and her expression was hard to make out.
"No, Trent. Band practice. You were supposed to meet at Jesse's house an hour ago, remember?" She seemed to take in his half clothed form for the first time and heaved a put-upon sigh. "And maybe finished getting dressed before you go this time."
"Oh. Yeah, cool. Later."
In no hurry, Trent sauntered back toward the stairs and Jane moved around to the utility drawer. She sifted through it for a short while, but not until she heard Trent's old junker pull out of the driveway did she seem to find what she was looking for. The dusky light caught in her cobalt eyes as she grinned like a jack-o-lantern at midnight.
***
Monique stirred with a small frown when she registered the empty mattress beside her. A small, calloused hand stole out to pull the remembered form closer, but closed on empty air and thumped down on cool, if slightly grimy, sheets. Her dark eyes opened a crack to confirm her sometimes-boyfriend's absence, but a small smile curled her lips at the footfall that creaked just behind her.
She rolled like a contented cat, completely unabashed that her nude form was uncovered from the waist up. Contrasted against the fall of her sooty hair, Monique's pale skin seemed to glow in the semi-darkness. She knew this, in fact took great pains to avoid tanning during the warmer months, because she knew Trent preferred her this way. So she was more than a little shocked to find his kid sister standing beside the bed, dressed only in one of the knee length man's shirts she used as a paint smock.
"Uh, hey, Jane." Suddenly very self-conscious, Monique pulled the sheet up over her chest and sat up. Vague concern creased her high brow when she took in the lost look in the youngest Lane's eyes and a nervous smile twitched her mouth as a crazy thought flashed through her mind.
She looks like a little girl who just had a bad dream, the thought ran. If she asks to climb in bed with me, should I take that as a come on?
"What's up?" It was a lame question, but this wasn't a situation she had anticipated upon waking.
Jane still stood in the same position, arms at her sides and her hands hidden within the shirt's long sleeves. She did not blink and for the first time, fear prickled the back of the naked musician's neck.
"They all left." Monique jumped at the sudden speech; in the falling dark, she had not seen Jane's lips move. "All of them, every one. Poof! Gone. Sayonara bye-bye, adios amigos." She gestured with one hand, made as though a plane were taking off then the arm fell back to her side. She still did not blink. "All of them, but Trent. Trent stayed. Trent took care of me. Trent loved me when no one else did." Her blank, lost expression finally changed. Her dark brows, deep slashes in the lack of light, drew down into an angry V over bottomless eyes and her full mouth pulled into a snarl.
"Then you came along, and Trent wasn't there anymore. You took him away from me." The emotion dropped away, gone as suddenly as it had come and Monique's blood turned to lead in her veins. "But I'll fix that, and then everything will be okay again. Trent will be mine again. Only mine."
Monique was frozen in place by the scant light glinting off the blade of the fourteen inch butcher knife Jane held in her right hand. Her shocked mind tried to convince her that it was just a joke, ha-ha and hee-hee and then the blade fell, cleaving a oozing red valley in her abdomen through the flimsy armor of Trent's bed sheet. Monique opened her mouth to scream, but the blade fell again and as the blood flooded down her body in a hot waterfall, all that left her open throat was a whistling sigh.
Again and again the blade fell, lopping off fingers and cleaving flesh from bone, but never once did Jane's expression change. She seemed almost to be unaware of her actions, a lost little girl alone in a very large, empty world.
***
A jaw-cracking yawn watered Trent's weary obsidian eyes as he pushed open Casa Lane's front door. It was only half past seven on a Sunday, so he was surprised to find Jane sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, wearing only one of her old smocks and spattered with maroon paint from head to toe.
She wore a beatific smile and Trent's heart seized painfully in his chest at the sight; sitting there, it was almost as though she was five years old again, greeting him after a long school day.
"Trent!" Jane cried joyously, and hopped to her bare, smeared feet. "Come upstairs, I have a surprise for you!" And she seized his free hand and tugged, just as she always had when she was a child. Sudden vertigo gripped the taller Lane sibling, and for a moment he had trouble separating past from present. But in the end, he allowed Jane to lead him up the stairs, only slightly distracted by the strange smell drifting from down the hall.
"What is it, Janey?" Curious but tired, Trent rubbed at his eyes and so missed the wide, bloody track that led from his room to Jane's at the other end of the hall. "Is Monique here? I kinda left her hanging yesterday."
Jane's blue eyes sparkled like sapphires in sunlight, and an edged grin split her mouth, which was painted a very different red than usual.
Jane's grin widened in response and she tugged harder. Trent would be so surprised when she showed him what she had done, and maybe he would be sad for a little while. But then he would see, he would understand what she had done. He would even be happy! After all, he himself had said that he and Monique weren't right for each other. Not like them.
Jane's door stood open just a few inches and swung inward at the slightest touch of her fingers. Everything was right again, Jane assured herself and turned proudly to watch her big brother's reaction.
The doorknob hit the wall and bloody light flooded the stained, foot printed carpet as the rising sun peeked through Jane's curtained windows, and Monique greeted Trent's return. The strength ran out of his form and Jane wrapped herself around one limp, hanging arm.
"Surprise."
PPMB "Evil Jane" Iron chef
6/14/08