A/N: Please refer to Ginger Snaps when I say about this chapter, no comment.


Chapter 9:

DISTORTIONS IN MEMORY

Breathing stopped; the feeble heartbeat ceased. The beast, Ginger, died in Brigitte's arms. Silver moonlight shined like icicle spikes through the tattered curtains of their basement bedroom.

Fifteen-year-old Brigitte wept, head resting on its ribs where a knife handle protruded. She must have gouged its heart. A lucky stab, she thought. Lucky . . .

It no longer mattered who broke faith first. Brigitte knew she had failed her sister, who was not responsible for her actions; and failed Sam, who lay dead down the hallway.

For minutes, Brigitte's hopes swam, dying, in a fishbowl of murky denial. She raised her head and sat, waiting for the body to change back and then resurrect. She hoped maybe the knife hadn't killed but cured, like serendipitous surgery. So many other people had died. It made Brigitte consider killing herself, but she already fought hard for her life, so it was settled. Suicide was Ginger's solution, not hers.

Nothing changed as she watched except the blood went from bright red to maroon, and the smell turned from warm and sweet to dead-bitter.

She reached into her coat pocket for Ginger's skull necklace; Brigitte had taken it when her sister was unconscious. She put it down over the heart of the dead creature, intending to leave it, but this felt inadequate. Taking two candles off the nightstand, she positioned them by the body, and lit them, knowing this would probably be the only funeral Ginger would get. She tried to forget the ugliness of this dead thing and the growing stench fora moment. This gruesome carcass was still Ginger's remains, defiled as they were. She needed to think of something, a prayer, a eulogy, an epitaph, anything.

"Prayer is bullshit," Ginger had said. "If there's a god, she would already know what you want. You don't have to pray for it."

But Brigitte felt more humbled now than her sister ever did. She straightened her shoulders and laid a hand on Ginger's skull necklace while grasping the other one that hung from her own. She started with a reaffirmation of their oath: "Together forever . . ."

Then a rapid, bullet-force succession of mental images hit her: the swearing of their original oath; their blood dripping on the skulls; a flying raven; her reaching into a cold stream to grab sister; Brigitte being lost in the dark woods, and last, Ginger eating her alive, with a fork.

There were many visions she couldn't remember, interrupted when the skulls went hot. Brigitte opened her eyes, broke contact and cried out, shaking her hands. The smell in the room changed from bitter-dead, to sweet, to something burning. Nevertheless, her hands were unmarred, though her left one wasn't numb anymore. Then the odor changed back, and she noticed the candles had gone out.

Bewildered, Brigitte touched, drew back, then picked up Ginger's necklace. Both it and Brigitte's own were cool again, and looked like plain bird-skulls. Nothing on them had changed. Ginger's with red and white beads, hers with black and white. She decided to keep Ginger's too. Brigitte put it on. The twin necklaces would be mementos of her dead sister and their bond.

What now? Brigitte would have to run. She couldn't face her parents. She was infected. The changes her sister suffered would soon start in her. Brigitte picked up the syringe, which she and Sam prepared for Ginger, and held it to her own arm, but stopped, looked at the dead creature and trembled.

What if I go unconscious?

The very thought of being found here and having to explain panicked her. The shot would have to wait until she was far away. She went around the room, opened drawers and grab things: her knapsack, clothes, blanket, towel. She stepped back over the body and yanked photos off the walls.

Then, she heard moaning, jumped, and gaped at the carcass. The blood had gone black. She stared at it, but the voice was male, human, and came from outside the door.

"Brigitte," it gasped.

"SAM?" Leaping over the carcass, she pushed the dresser aside, unlocked and opened the door. Gazing into the shadows, she saw a large figure leaning in the hall.

"Sam?" She turned on the light. He was covered in his own blood.

"Brigitte?" he said. He was unsteady, squinting, but alive. An awful scar expanded across his throat, with an even bigger, uglier scar visible on his belly through his torn shirt, and another showing on his thigh through torn denim.

"How . . . ? I saw her kill you!" said Brigitte.

"Seems not," he rasped. "I must have healed fast enough."

Something nagged her that this was wrong, but she was overwhelmed with the miracle and desperate to have a different future. She staggered up to him.

"I'm so happy you made it," he said. "Ginger?"

Brigitte embraced him, breaking down, her anguish a wound bleeding in screams. "Oh, Sam! She's dead. Dead! I killed her! I murdered my sister!" His embrace was warm, and pressing her face into the sticky blood on his chest somehow did not repulse her. In fact, the feel and smell was calming and sweet.

"You didn't murder her," he said.

Brigitte sobbed. "She tried to kill me. I had no choice. What are we going to do?"

"I'm in this with you. Are you sure she's dead?"

The question stopped Brigitte for a second. "Yes, I'm sure. She hasn't breathed in at least fifteen minutes."

"Okay," he said, swaying."We're going to get those monkshood stalks, and blow out of here, and when we're far enough away, we make and take the shots."

"But, we can't go with you looking like that."

He grinned."Yes we can. It's Halloween. Just get me an ax from the garage, and I'll fit right in."

It was so simple. He could think on his feet, and Brigitte admired it.

"And you just need a hatchet, and you'll be Lizzy Borden," he added.

He looked and sounded dead serious. She smirked. "Wick-ed," she murmured.

He chuckled, but then grasped his throat and belly in pain."Ow! Okay now, you grab whatever you need and let's fly out in five minutes. Help me sit first."

After she did, he said, "At this rate, I think I'll be perfect in just a few minutes."

"I think you're perfect now," she gushed. Her hand on his chest.

"Yeah, fucking scarred up, in shredded clothes, soaked in my own fucking blood."

"Perfect," she murmured, her eyes unmoving.

"What?"

She startled."Nothing. I'll get my things."

She rushed back to the room. She shut her eyes and licked his blood off her hand. She sighed once, twice. Arousal went through her, deepened, and she realized she, not Sam, was what was wrong here. She grasped her mouth with both hands to stifle her screams as her first orgasm, ever, went through her, buckling her knees, and jolting her with a revelation.

Chains broke within her.

When she opened her teared eyes, Sam was saying something outside, but she didn't listen.

"Just a second!" she panted.

Seventeen-year-old Brigitte noticed room was not the same one she recalled two years before. What was different? The dead beast had begun to both shrivel at the limbs and bloat around the middle. The smell was heavier. The blood was now black and turning powdery. All of that was right.

The light shined in the windows, too bright for mere moonlight.

That's wrong, she thought. And like dimmer switch, it faded back to dark. Oh, is that the way it works?

"Are you strong enough now to come in and help me?" she called.

"Yeah,"she heard him get to his feet, "but you should travel light."

"It's not what you think."

"What is it?" said Sam, arriving in the room.

Standing behind him, Brigitte closed the door and gazed at him. "Perfect," she whispered.

. . .Must move . . . !

Brigitte shouted, "No!"

Sam looked bewildered. "Who are you yelling to?"

"Oh, nobody here."

"Brigitte, what the fuck is going on? We need to get ready."

"No, we don't," she answered and took off her overcoat, dropping it.

"Brigitte, what . . .?"

He stopped as she took off her sweater, and then ripped off her blouse. The buttons went flying.

He said, "What are you– Oh, no! After what just happened? Have you snapped?" he gestured to the dead creature. "With that in here? And the smell?"

She giggled.

"What's so funny about this?"

"You seem so real, and beautiful! I'm glad you just showed up. " She removed her bra like stripper and threw it at him. He knocked it away, and stood aghast. She untied and threw off her shoes, making sure he got a good look at her tits and ass.

He came up and grabbed her, looked her in the eye. "Brigitte, come out of it!"

Within his grasp, she wiggled out of her skirt. "Let's do it now. This isn't gonna last forever."

"Not on your fucking life!

"What? Doesn't this turn you on?

"NO! We've got to . . ."

She grabbed his crotch. He screamed in shock and recoiled.

"Wow!" she said, shaking her head. "You lie, Sam, but your hard on doesn't. Or were you still thinking of my sister?"

He gaped at her.

She said, "Oh, you thought I didn't notice when I barged in on you? You looked so innocent, so I guess upright isn't the word so virtuous, but you can't hide the thing you have for freaky girls."

Sam had turned bright red and looked outraged. "Oh, I hope you two don't have another sister!" He rushed by her to the door, but it wouldn't open. As he turned and yanked at the doorknob, Brigitte finished undressing.

He turned. She put her arms around his neck, kissed him fiercely and licked his chest, rubbed against him, smearing her naked body with his blood.

"Stop!" he cried. He pushed her away, just as he had Ginger, but Brigitte only fell back a few steps. His voice turned threatening. "Brigitte, I want the key. Now!"

She laughed. "Did you see me lock the door? It locks from the inside. There's no key."

She went by him, opened the door effortlessly and shut it. He tried it, and again it wouldn't open. When he turned toward her, he had a cute, terrified look that matched the scent of fear she inhaled now.

He trembled. "How did you do that?"

Her smile had predator's fangs, and she circled him. "I'm God. And this is my heaven and your hell."

He jumped on the bed and grabbed the window, but it wouldn't open, he beat on it, but it wouldn't break. He yelled, but nobody heard. When all else failed, he tried to lift her out of the way, but her body wouldn't come off the floor.

"You've already tried the door, anyway," she said.

Finally, in panic he started hitting her. She moved her head with the punches and slaps, but otherwise, they didn't affect her.

Brigitte grinned, "Finally fighting! I knew you had it in you!"

With a touch of her forefinger, he flew back hit the wall and landed on the bed.

Her claws and fangs grew, and her spine crackled. With his sudden combativeness, and his blood-slathered scent, she could no longer resist him. Brigitte lunged and landed on him. Sam had no time to respond as she growled and grabbed him, digging her claws in. She tore his clothes as he cried out. Then, she let him get on top and start to choke her, so he would think he could win.

Brigitte stopped the fake coughing, open her eyes, which now had orange canine irises and said, "Don't worry. I don't want sex. I want your heart." With one paw she snapped his arm. The crack made her passion roar from deep in her belly, as did his screams and smell of his pain. She got back on top, straddled him. Brigitte clawed his chest and took the first fresh taste of his blood, which heightened her arousal and enticed her; she felt herself flushing and ached deeply. She held her paw on his throat.

Her hips and spine snapped and shifted, and every pop of bone, every shift in her flesh was not painful as she feared, but a sweet, euphoric release. Her hide tingled as fur sprouted. The changes spread to her shoulders, neck, legs and everywhere else. Her face reshaped until she could see her snout. He was reduced to total panic now. His screams heightened her to a new orgasm. She she bit deeply into his neck, tasted hot blood spurting through her mouth, down her throat. It was full of life and energy, and it fueled her climax into overdrive, while her changes accelerated.

Brigitte released his throat and sat up. Blood splattered and sprayed explosively all over her, the furniture, the walls and even the windows. She roared, hit her final orgasm while she grabbed his rib cage and crushed it. In the aftermath, she picked up, sliced and battered his limp body.

He died as she descended from her long series of climaxes, and now she desired his heart. She slammed her claw into his chest and began tearing, with sloshing, cracking sounds. With her other claw, Brigitte cracked the ribs, tore his sternum out, throwing it aside. The werewolf found his heart and clawed through the arteries attached and bit into it, the way she used to enjoy a caramel apple.

Then, an excruciating stab hit her from behind and impaled Brigitte's heart. She froze paralyzed as her unseen attacker pulled her up by her ears, twisting the knife. Brigitte could not breathe. Then her head was forced around to see her foe, and Ginger's half-lupine face leered at her. How? She herself was the goddess here! Ginger pulled the knife out and put it to Brigitte's throat. With no strength now, she felt her life ebbing away.

"Bee . . . Bee . . . !"

"Well, you always wanted to be me!" said Ginger. The knife sliced deep across Brigitte's throat.

Ginger cut her throat . . .

"BRIGITTE . . !"

She woke up choking and crying. Through tears she saw Ginger right above her, but she was not the person Brigitte could look at immediately.

"Bee, it's over. It was just a nightmare."

"No . . . it wasn't just a nightmare," she cried out, anguished. "It's what I'm . . . becoming!"

Brigitte sobbed, feeling shattered and corrupted. She snapped her shoulders, spine and hips back into joint and sat up, wiped the tears out of her eyes as they kept flowing.

In actuality, Brigitte had struggled to wake herself as soon as she realized it was a dream, but she had failed, leaving"God" in control of it. Now she found her genitals soaked, confirming the odious pleasure it had given her. It did not matter to her that it was "just" a dream. It was also a dream of the most spirit-wrenching moment of her life, and her freakish actions were still her choice, her pleasures. She hated what she did, and the way she first used and then murdered Sam. She felt diabolical and foul at the core.

She got up, went to the bathroom and vomited up yellow liquid, though not blood, and she was thankful for that. She washed her face, dried herself, took out her pad, which, to her puzzlement, was clean. The bleeding had stopped. She knew that was wrong, but everything was wrong now. Replacing it just in case, she made a cursory check of her face in the mirror, but was too listless to make any close check. She blew her nose, which was completely stuffed up.

The medications had, as promised, taken away her aggression like magic, but they also left her feeling depressed. Quickly after first taking them, she became very drowsy, much more than with the tranquilizer. The staff had excused her from therapy and activity sessions for the day. She had meals with June but was hardly awake enough to converse. Laura got her up in the evening to shower, where she was so listless, it took her almost two hours. Now it was early the next morning, the next day? Must be. She hoped the drugs would take away the nightmares, too, but that hope was unfulfilled, at least the first night. Brigitte wandered to the window and looked out.

Ginger sitting on the bed behind her said, "I had nightmares in the last week, too, you remember? I don't know what you did in the dream, but it wasn't really you, Bee."

It's what I'm becoming!

Brigitte continued to cry. She ignored Ginger for a moment and gazed at the fields and hills covered with snow in the dim light before dawn. Further away, an evergreen forest was visible. She yearned for a vast expanse to dissolve herself in, and mainly feared now that if she did not get out soon, people would find out what she was and would kill her. To Brigitte, somehow the idea was not just frightening but insulting. Here she also realized that she no longer thought of it as her curse, or her disease, but as what she was.

"Did you ever dream about committing a murder-rape?" asked Brigitte, turning back to Ginger, who sat leaning back on the bed.

"Dream about it?" Ginger laughed, bitterly. "I did it."

"What?"

Ginger looked away, "Well, not both at once, but I would have done that. I just didn't have the time."

Brigitte guessed that Ginger perhaps had concealed something about her date with Jason, but Brigitte had something else on her mind now.

"Why did you try to fuck Sam?" asked Brigitte.

There was accusation in her tone that shocked Ginger. You made me like this, you bitch. Forcing me to drink Sam's blood!

Ginger stood up, surprised. "Bee, I was crazy."

"I know you were, Ginge, and I forgive you because of that. But I need to know what you thought you were doing."

Ginger looked down and thought before finally saying, "I did it because I didn't kill you."

It was not the answer Brigitte anticipated, nor was it one she could believe immediately.

"What do you mean?" asked Brigitte.

"When you said . . . you'd rather die than be what I was . . . I felt so crushed! Especially right then, Bee. Yeah, forgive me, but I wanted to kill you right there. I thought of forcing the curse on you, too. But no. As my sister, you told me your wish, and my last act as your sister was to respect it."

Brigitte was surprised at the level of pain in Ginger's voice. Even if Ginger knew she had been insane, Ginger's feelings over it were still strong.

She continued, her voice getting louder with tension, "But I just couldn't let it go, and I knew I had only a short time left. You abandoned me knowing what I was facing . . . and told me I was repulsive! I had to hurt you for that!"

"Ginge, that's not exactly what happened," said Brigitte. "You told me you were looking forward to it, that it was wonderful, and that it had made you a 'fucking force of nature,' and that you didn't want to be human like I was any more."

Ginger stopped stunned, examining Brigitte closely. "I did?"

"You don't remember it like that?" asked Brigitte. "You really don't?"

"No," said Ginger. "I don't. But I do remember that I told you that you wouldn't be safe with me anymore unless you were infected, too."

Now it was Brigitte's turn to be stunned. "No. That was not the way you put it. You said I would love it, we should swap blood, and I should come along with you. We would have our own pack."

"I did?" said Ginger, she shook her head. "No, I don't remember saying any of that. Well, I guess I was insane." Ginger smiled pleadingly. "June told me yesterday that being crazy is having your mind lie to you. Guess she's right."

This was so unlike the headstrong and sometimes bossy Ginger that Brigitte remembered. She had expected to fight Ginger over their different versions of events, but to Ginger's credit, she seemed to accept easily that she had not remembered things as they happened.

"It's all right, Ginge, I understand now. But I was hurting, too, from what you said."

"I understand now, too," said Ginger.

Brigitte continued, "With Sam, were you like trying to make him your mate, then?"

Ginger laughed derisively. "No! How did you get that idea, Bee? I was going to fucking kill him."

"So, why did you try to fuck him first?"

"Well, there was the very fucking obvious," she said, laughing again. "He was hot, and I was horny enough for a gang-bang. Conveniently, I wanted to prove to you what a sleazebag he really was, that he would cheat on you with your sister. Once I proved that, he was fucking dead."

"Why did you tell me you were going there?" asked Brigitte.

Ginger was getting tears in her eyes, "I have to admit, it was sort of a dare, but really a trap. I warned you to stay out of my way. If you showed up, you would have . . . it would have felt like fair game to kill you, Bee, but I wanted you to see him for the shit he was first. I didn't expect you would show up with a change of heart about our pact."

"It also didn't occur to you he would turn you down, either," said Brigitte, smugly; she had stopped crying. She went over to sit on the bed. Ginger sat next to her.

"Oh, fuck, Bee, that was only because I no longer looked human. He was in his twenties. You were only fifteen. He already fucked Trina and threw her away, and look at how she went crazy . . ."

"He did not fuck Trina!" said Brigitte indignantly.

"Bullshit. But . . . what if he didn't? Then look at how he drove her crazy just by teasing her then. With mean-bitch Trina that was almost justice. But Bee, you were sensitive anyway, and a twenty-something good-looking loser like him could have mentally fucked you up for the rest of your life- just by accident."

"You sound just like Pamela," said Brigitte.

"I do not," said Ginger, annoyed. "Pamela wasn't this smart. Don't you think that if things went better, you would have ended up with a huge crush on Sam? Be honest."

Before Brigitte could answer, Ginger suddenly said, "By the way, what happened to him anyway?"

"You killed him," said Brigitte, through the lump in her throat.

"Oops, didn't see that one coming," Ginger said with dispassionate irony.

"Ginger!"

"I'm sorry, Bee," she said, trying to make it sincere. "I hated anything that could have hurt you. And he was full of hurt for you."

What could Brigitte really say? She had just killed Sam fifteen minutes ago, herself. She realized, though, that this subject could not go anywhere good, so she switched. "Ginge, you know the only reason I mixed blood with you was . . ."

"Yes, I know, get me to cooperate with you. You're so practical, Bee. I guess it must have worked."

"To an extent," said Brigitte, bitterly. "But I was sincere about it. I always believed our bond was eternal, pact or not."

"You know you were lucky when you showed up? I was so close to changing then and was pretty fucking confused, otherwise . . . Bee, right then I was willing to kill you on sight," she said, ashamed.

"Nobody was lucky that night, but it's okay, Ginge."

It was now sinking in with Brigitte that if her sister had succeeded with Sam, their tryst would have looked very similar to Brigitte's nightmare. Maybe having tasted Sam's blood had nothing to do with what a freak she was becoming? Maybe this was all "normal" for a werewolf?

No, blood turns me on now.

"Now, my turn, Bee. How did I die?" asked Ginger.

Brigitte said, "First, Ginge, I can't believe you really don't remember anything that happened after we mixed blood."

"Bee, I promise, that is the very last thing I remember," said Ginger. "You said, 'now I am you.'"

Nevertheless, Brigitte could not believe her. Even after the final transformation, Brigitte knew there was something left of Ginger in that werewolf. Not only did it intimately know their room, but Brigitte distinctly understood it communicating with her, as Ginger, telling her to lap up Sam's blood. Brigitte obeyed, and she had no choice about it for a few minutes. It had been like a command. She wondered if, in its own twisted way, the werewolf was trying to renew the bond? Otherwise, what did sharing Sam's blood mean? Sam had been still alive. The werewolf did not kill him. He had been healing. Did the werewolf mean to form all three of them into a pack? Or was it some kind of sick quasi-ritual that married them both to him? It angered her to realize she would never have the answers from Ginger.

You twisted me the moment you made me taste Sam's blood.

"Now, Bee, please, please, no more delays. Tell me, how did I die?" asked Ginger, waiting.

Brigitte had no inkling of why this question would be so important to the ghost of her sister. And so, at that moment, with an already insane sense of mercy blinding her to her own vindictiveness, Brigitte did the coldest, most calloused thing she had ever done to her sister:

"Sam stabbed you," she answered.