Thanks 2 SisiDraig 4 my wonderful but loney (hint, hint) review…nah I'm only joking not so fussed if u review or not as long as u enjoy reading it it's all a bonus: D
Whoop, whoop happy Hanukkah 4 Monday, which I'm well excited about fingers crossed 4 Russell Brand tickets: D
And 4 all those non Jews lol…: D Happy Xmas which I'm also dead excited about woooo
Enjoy: D
Anthrax's ears were ringing, there was darkness and light and pain. The pain flooded her it was a familiar pain, she remembered all the times she'd been hit and smashed about before it still hurt through.
She remembered how she had first seen her, how it had all begun. The floor was hard and her ears were ringing she felt movement; it was a kick or a shove. She'd been an angel and then there had been skates and skating Anthrax had never been on the ice before she'd seen people doing it but she had never done it, it had been slippery but she hadn't been afraid not with her hand in her own she could never feel afraid when she was there.
'Mary!' Anthrax heard her voice she was screaming her name, that horrible terrible name she had always hated. It was strange not to have a name a real name she wasn't really Mary McKinley or Delia Plume she wasn't really anything noone had ever given her a name, she was nothing.
'No, no leave her alone, please!' Anthrax was dragged back into reality with the painful tearing at her scalp, her eyes fluttered open struggling to focus his angular green parlour hovered over her his breath hot on her face stinking of rotten teeth and fish, he made her wretch.
'Dear, oh Dear McKinley,' He mused harshly under his breath, her gaze was still hazy.
'…you've been a bad girl.' More and more of her surrounding began to sink in, the haze lifting she could see the edge of the girl's dress from the corner of her eye, she could see feet heavy black boots.
'Please, please!'
'Shut that bitch up!' The Hitcher bellowed his grip tightening on her hair making her wince in pain. She watched as his head suddenly shot up.
'Don't.' He warned with something suddenly approaching softness in his voice.
'Just take 'er outside, get the bitch out of my sight!' There was rustling and the muffled sound of the girl's screams, Anthrax knew she was struggling.
'Don't lay a hand on her head, not one strand of hair, or I'll cut ya.' His warning suddenly sounded hollow as if he only half heartedly meant anything.
And then he suddenly let Anthrax go with a shove, getting back up onto his feet he dragged out the chair she'd last been sitting on pulling it out so he was once again in front of her.
'Me old Cockney pins.' The Hitcher breathed with a sigh as he stretched himself out in the hair resting his hands behind his head.
'You know McKinley, if you was any kind of woman I'd be raping you right now.'
'Lucky for me then.' Anthrax grimaced back, tucking her knees up under her chin as she stared at him.
The Hitcher ignored her pulling an apple from the pocket of his jacket, she jumped back suddenly when she saw the flick knife he chuckled in response enjoying the sight of her fear.
'What's all this been about McKinley?' He questioned smiling at her as he dug the knife deep into the apple letting the fruit hang on the edge of the blade for a few moments the clear juice coating the blade, before he started to slice away the thick red skin.
'I treated you good didn't I? You 'ad everything you wanted, didn't 'cha? I couldn't 'ave done more for ya. It's not the stealing I mind so much as, what you stole.' He continued to slice away at the apple the skin coming away in one complete tight coil. Anthrax suddenly jumped to her feet finding the necklace on the dressing table mirror she held it out for him waving it under his nose. The Hitcher looked at the necklace and then glanced up at her, soaking up the sight of the pair together.
'You trying to buy your life, McKinley?'
'Never!' She spat proudly, defiantly.
The Hitcher studied her face silently for a few moments, before chuckling to himself as he watched her shoulders twitch with fear.
'You stand firm, girl.' He sniggered.
'Don't…don't laugh at me!' Anthrax warned, choking done the tears that threatened to spill from her watery gaze and roll down her cheeks.
'I always liked you McKinley, you could sing for horse shit but I always liked you girl.' He informed dragging the moment out for as long as possible. She'd seen him do this, she'd seen him torture people with his words playing on their fears, she wouldn't let him torture her.
'Just do it! You've come 'ere to kill me so just kill me, I ain't afraid of you and I ain't gonna play no games!' In response to her words he tossed the apple away whipping the blade of his flick knife clean on his jacket pocket.
'Do you know what I'm gonna do to you McKinley?' He ignored her snatching the locket out of her palm with a quick twist of his wrist. She swallowed hard.
'I'm gonna skin ya alive, pop your eyes out like grapes and then stamp on em. Well, that was what I was gonna do.' He let the sentence hang between them.
'That was what I was gonna do, but then I though well I done that so many times before, I've got something much better planned for you.'
Anthrax tensed the fear threatening to overwhelm her, she felt sick sicker than she had ever felt in her life.
The Hitcher moved forward and the breath caught her in chest, but before he had the chance to move or to act she was there the girl, running through the tent flap throwing herself between the pair.
'Don't.' He warned the girl, turning his face away unable to look at her.
'Please, please.' She begged, Anthrax blinked watching the pair the girl kneeling down in front of him.
'Stop it.'
'Please don't do this, please don't hurt her I promise…I promise I'll do anything, anything!' The girl sobbed hysterically, it dawned on Anthrax that she should have possibly been more involved in the act of begging for her own life but she couldn't she wouldn't, and she wasn't prepared to watch the girl beg for her.
'You'll do anything I ask, will ya?' The Hitcher questioned, Anthrax knew what was coming and she couldn't let it happen. She dropped to her knees grabbing the girl's face forcing her to look at her through her tears.
'No you ain't gonna do that, not for me.' Anthrax warned, realising that she was crying. The girl sobbed shaking her head in defiance her tears stopping her from speaking.
'Listen to me, listen to me don't look at him.'
'What would you do for me Elise? What would you do to save her life?' Like the mirror before Anthrax couldn't tare the girl's gaze away from the Hitcher's green features.
'Anything.' The girl repeated eagerly.
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'What do you mean she has seen me? When has she seen me, we've never been together since she arrived.' I questioned him, even from far away there had been something about that distant unknown woman which had chilled me.
'No you have never seen me but I, I saw you I watched you and…she watched me.'
'Who is this woman, how comes she to have so much power of you?' His wife I expected him to tell me she was his wife, a wife I knew how to deal with.
'She's a woman, who I met while I was out in India,'
'Is she your wife?' He chuckled and took a long gulp from the bottle in his hands, he was beyond drunk at this point.
'No not my wife. She was just a woman, a woman who was always there she's rich you see she was at every party. And me with my old trouble, she leant me money all she asked in return was that I stayed and talked to her a little whenever I saw her. I took her money and I made the promise, the first promise. But I lost it all I had nothing and she offered me more, she offered me a house in Mumbai if I promised to stay with her at night…only sometimes and I never lay with her I never touched her she wouldn't let me.' I sat in silence listening to him as he rambled on half crying half laughing, losing his mind.
'But it's never enough you know it isn't Amy, it's never enough money…I never seem to win I have the most accursed luck.' He clung to me and in the darkness and the heat I felt as if I was being suffocated.
'…that was the second promise,'
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Everything seemed to be fixed in slow motion.
'Anything.'
'If I ask ya to live with me forever to bind yourself to me, you'll do it.' The girl didn't even look at her she just nodded, Anthrax's hands fell away from her face and she slipped downwards onto the balls of her feet resigned. She'd failed completely.
'Say it then, make it official.' He pressured the girl into it.
'I promise to stay with you forever, if you spare her life.' He smiled lifting off the top hat he wore drumming his fingers against the lid, he spat on his hand and held it out for the girl his eyes shifting between her and Anthrax.
'You got yourself a deal there, Elsie Noir.'
The Hitcher lied of course Anthrax knew he would, he lied and she would die and Elsie was lost the rage burned inside her. Elsie was bungled away sent off with the Piper twins, she knew she would never see her again. She felt strange broken hearted, defeated.
'Why, did you let her do that?' She questioned glancing over at the Hitcher who was busy slipping the necklace down over his neck, back where it belonged.
'Couldn't stop 'ere, you know what a funny girl that Noir is, funny ideas about things and people.' He's in profile but with that last remark he shoots his gaze directly at her, she feels warm.
'You love her don't you?' He tries to hide it but Anthrax knows she's hit upon something secret and sensitive, his narrow shoulders hunch at her words.
'You're right you know, she is a strange girl and she does have funny ideas she trusts you for a start.' His mask is suddenly back, the mask he wears to shield himself and others from the fact that there's something dark and fragile inside of him, he has a soul and a heart.
'Well she ain't wrong there McKinley, I ain't gonna hurt you I can't cus if I do it means that all that what just passed between us meant nothing and I ain't losing Noir again, she belongs to me now.' He grabbed her pulling her body flush against his own squeezing the flesh of the top of her arm painfully making her wince. His long green spindly digits went to the centre of the necklace that hung limply around his throat pressing the centre, with a wicked grin they disappeared.
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'I promised her my life…'
That night was the first time anyone ever struck me, the first and I would like to say last but that wouldn't be true either…
Frank hit me I hit him back, I didn't think about it I just did it the same way I do it whenever Anthrax tries to fight me. Although I have always appeared somewhat physically fragile, I am thin I have always been thin I'm not strong like Anthrax but I will fight back. I fought him scratching his face and pulling his hair until we were both bruised, swollen and panting. Our eyes met and I knew in the blink of his eye that he was thinking about striking me again I had him backed up against the wall he raised his arm but before he had the chance I grabbed my pearl handle letter opener which sat on a nearby table. I dug it into his chest hard enough to draw blood and for him to cry out but not hard enough to harm him. I still loved him then.
'You're not coming.' He warned me, but we both knew that I was.
The blood rolled down from his chest scarlet rivets sliding between our bodies. I realised then that I would die without him and that I would die with him, that my fate would be bound up in his.
Frank kissed me and against my better judgement I lowered the blade, giving into his lips letting our anger and frustration evaporate into hungry passionate kisses.
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There was a clock ticking somewhere in the back of her head, ticking away.
Anthrax opened her eyes the first thing she saw was the Hitcher looming sneering down at her, he'd won and he knew it he should have killed her she wished he'd killed her. It only took her a few moments to adjust to her new surroundings the smell hit her first the stench no words could describe such a fowl smell, it made her want to roll up inside herself. She was outside the dark night sky hovering over her the smog was thick, but she could still make out the blackness. The earth was rough beneath her when she shifted scrambling up into a crouching position she realised she'd been lying on bricks, bottles and piles of rubbish.
'You ever been to a Stew, girl?' Something inside Anthrax suddenly froze, the fear inside her killing her senses dead.
'No doubt you was spawned in such a place, girl.' The Hitcher knelt down in front of her, Anthrax refused to look at him staring down at her bare feet instead. He hooked his long green digit up under her chin raising her head so that their eye line met.
'Do you know what they'll do to you in a place like this, a girl like you what noone knows who has so many fine airs about herself.' He whispered his voice low and harsh.
'They'll pass you around a bit first, till that whole of yours is broken and bleeding and they can't fit nothing else in.' He traced the outline of her could numb lips with his rough green thumb.
'Still that's what you've always needed girl, a bloody good seeing too and you'll get one here.' Anthrax felt small suddenly like she was a child again, small and fragile.
'Then when they've bugged ya three ways from Sunday and they've got no more use for ya, they'll skin ya alive girl cus that's what they do round here lots of tanneries round here…smell it in the air that stink go on smell it.' He pinched her chin hard until she opened her mouth and was force to take a lungful of the noxious gas, she spluttered and coughed her body forcefully rejecting it. The Hitcher chuckled letting her face slip from his hands getting back up onto his feet.
'Leather is expensive but your hide ain't. Well it's been good too see you again McKinley, your looking good girl got a bit of colour in them cheeks of yours.' He mused jabbing in the direction of her bruised cheek.
The Hitcher placed his top hat back on his head twirling his cane as he did so, stopping suddenly pulling something out of his pocket.
'Ere this is yours.' He through her old gun towards her it clattered as it hit the floor dislodging a broken bottle.
'If I was you I'd shoot me self, girl.' He informed her shrugging his shoulders.
'And I suppose if you don't wanna do yourself in, you could always get a few of em to stand in a line or somethin' pick a few of 'em off like that. Bout three maybe.' And then the Hitcher was suddenly gone, Anthrax found herself just sitting down as still as was human possible she wasn't thinking wasn't feeling just staring down at the gun wondering if she could do it, what it would feel like. She picked it up it felt colder and heavier in her hands than it had ever felt before. She thought back to that morning when she'd woken up in the warmth with Elsie Noir in her arms she'd felt so lucky, it was strange to think that it had only been that morning and now she was thinking about killing herself she'd lost Elsie, lost the necklace her life was suddenly over. Anthrax raised it up against the side of her head letting the cold metal rest against her pounding temple, she squeezed her eyes shut but she couldn't do it she went through all the permutations in her mind pulling the trigger, hearing the noise, feeling the bullet tearing into her skull and then being dead but she couldn't bring herself to do it, at the last minute she let her hand fall limply back onto her lap.
The sound of rustling behind her told her she wasn't alone.
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It's a strange feeling when you realise that you've been lied to by the person you love, it's a mixture of heart break, betrayal and uncontrollable rage, I remember a little of how that felt only a little most of it what happened to me is a blur but I remember the feeling of betrayal and the anger when I'd looked down at my glass and realised I'd been drugged, when I watched the look of knowing pleasure cross their features from his to hers and back again.
I don't remember can't remember anything else all I know is the next time I opened my eyes I was dead and Frank was lifting me carefully out of my coffin.
