The Truthful Lie Chapter 11: Mack the Knife, a jeepers creepers fanfic

The Truthful Lie
By: Mistress of Baneful Terminus

If anyone has ideas or suggestions for things you'd like to see in the story, feel free to email me! I don't bite...

Chapter 10 — Mack the Knife

SHE STANDS ON the sloped, grassy knoll outside a ravaged city that burns angrily to the ground. Ash already litters most of the ground, but terrified peasants and their children run about screaming for help amidst the chaos. Nobody hears them. Nobody responds. Long, billowing towers of smoke rise up from the remains of broken and hallowed out buildings. She can smell the fear of the people that intertwines with the odour of charred wood.

"It's a pity, isn't it?" a voice asks from her side. She turns to see a creature like herself standing there, a near mirror image of her wearing the thick, purple robes that would only be reserved for figures of royalty. She stares at the carnage with tears in her eyes, but her face tries to remain strong. "My city, my life, my family...All gone. They've taken it all from me."

"Who is doing this?" Jarzi demands.

"The Skeleton People, as we've come to call them," the woman replies. She turns to face Jarzi and blinks away clingy tears. Her amber eyes glaze with fresh tears waiting to fall. "They come from the Underworld. My people don't stand a chance. They're all being killed."

"Go help them!"

"I've tried! I sent out the military. I tried to fight their leader myself. He defeated me, even after I regenerated time and time again. I can no longer go on. I am a weak leader; it was not my destiny to save my people."

Jarzi sighs and looks back toward the city. She sees the 'skeleton people'—thin demonic figures on horseback with animal skulls fitting over their heads; they decapitate the fleeing citizens with swift swipes of their swords and mount their heads on stakes. Two in particular capture her attention—a pair of winged, black-eyed creatures ordering the rest around in a language she doesn't understand.

"They'll continue to raid cities like this. I can only hope someone will come along who can stop them, someday..." the woman trails off as more tears escape her eyes. Jarzi stares sadly at the woman—so powerful and pathetic all at once.

The leader of the Skeleton People then spots them and rides his horse up the green hillside, travelling so quickly that his motion melts into the wind and becomes one with it. His figure shifts into an opaque black shadow that glares at them with fiery red eyes. He targets the orange-eyed creature and leaps from the horse, his sword aflame and raised to attack her. The faceless demon then strikes her through the heart, leaving the sword embedded in her chest and evaporates into the air.

"Help him, Jarzi," she whispers, holding the hilt of the burning sword.

"Who? Don't die! You can't give up now!"

"You will know, Jarzi. You will know." The sword begins to glow with a screaming white light, becoming brighter and brighter until...

The blinding light that approached pulled Jarzi out of her exhausted state of slumber. Startled, she jumped and realised it had all been a dream. It was simply a game played by her imagination, and any significance it may have held was quickly evaporated and was replaced with fresh, nauseating fear. Her eyes tried to focus; headlights were glaring at her like ancient judgmental eyes from an old, rusted vehicle. They continued to bear down on her, staring angrily from the ticking, yet calm and waiting engine that held them. She clenched her eyelids shut, but the light was relentless. The huge vehicle was only a few feet from her broken body and at any moment it could come by and crack it some more.

Again, Jarzi flinched. Something had touched her shoulder as a swift, light jab. Too tired to move to any significant degree, she blinked and tried to peer over her shoulder. She was lying on her side with her right arm pinned and numb under her ribs. Her destroyed wing hung as dead weight from her scapula, splayed out and sticking to the wet pavement. The jab came again, harder this time and more demanding of her attention. With what little energy she had, she strained her neck further to look, falling over onto her back in the process. The broken wing crunched, pushing an angry growl from her throat. She squinted and saw the Creeper standing before her, his features perfectly accentuated in the ice cream truck's screaming headlights.

With rain sprinkling calmly around her, Jarzi blinked and stared at him, wondering if it was at all possible that he could be standing there. Too tired to speak, her mouth moved stupidly to make a noise, imitating a sick chewing motion as if some poisonous insect had exploded in her mouth. She couldn't believe what she was looking at—a practical epitome of herself in male form. She tried to inch away; he reeked of blood and hate, as if the piercing look in his icy blue eyes couldn't emphasise it enough. Her torn wing caught under her body, hindering her movement. The man knelt before her and grinned sadistically...or so it seemed. Suddenly remembering the knife in her hand, she instinctively brought it over her shoulder and tried to plunge it weakly into his flesh. He grabbed her armed hand as if it were a flimsy noodle and twisted it just enough for it to lose control of the knife. The blade fell harmlessly to the ground and began to bead up with raindrops, skewing the reflections it created into blobbed, alien forms.

Jarzi collapsed again, her blood sugar so low she was beginning to tremble. The look she gave the Creeper was one so pathetic he almost pitied her, but the sentiment was foreign enough to be just out of reach. He stared at her for a long moment, even after she had lowered her head to stare at the road out of shame. He pondered what to do with her as Jarzi was busy wondering where he had come from, who he was, and if he knew anything about the fanged man who had been chasing her earlier that night. For all she knew, it could have been the same person. How long had she been lying out in the middle of the road, anyways? She was sickened at the thought that cars could have been driving by, mistaking her for a wasted drunk that had been dumped on the side of the road. Or, they had caught a glimpse of her wings and drove away with the pedal to the metal.

Then, as if she weighed nothing, the Creeper picked her up and carried her to his truck. He dumped her roughly into the passenger seat, and instantly the fear inside her boiled up again. It was the same gnawing terror centred in the pit of her stomach that rose without substance to her dry throat. The smell of rotting death lingered eerily in the cab, and it was so thick that if it had a colour it would have been even darker than the blackest black.

Jarzi watched him climb easily into his driver's seat and start the engine. The key was missing; instead he used what resembled a cast of it made of ivory or bone, fashioned at one end to look like the stub of a very large dog biscuit. The fact that it was actually some unfortunate victim's metatarsal remained as oblivious to her as the pile of freshly killed bodies in the back that were waiting to be stitched back together. As he drove away, she closed her eyes and wished that one of her abilities was to magically absorb energy from the air like a living solar powered lamp. Life would never be that easy, however. She sighed heavily and stared at the window to watch the world fly past her.

The Creeper watched his daughter carefully, knowing the road so well that he didn't even have to look where he was going. He drove slower than usual, wishing she would look at him. She didn't; she remained transfixed on the passing fields and trees. She leaned her head against the window and stared with a look just as dead as the bodies he propped on his walls. They gaped, blank and desperate. It was all he could see—pain. With her broken body and terrifying appearance, she could have easily been classified as a sentient zombie.

After a while he started to whistle Jeepers Creepers, as he often did while he was driving aimlessly looking for vulnerable prey. It was his favourite tune, the one from where the humans had come up with his name. That is, the humans that actually lived to tell of their encounters with him. Jarzi looked at him and her green eyes lit up a bit; it seemed genuine against her rough exterior, but it was a spark of joy nonetheless. Eventually sleep claimed her again in a fraught attempt to conserve energy. Her body was weak without nutrients; he'd have to find her some food to heal before he went home for the night.

Jarzi found herself in unfamiliar surroundings when she woke up. She felt no radiating pain as she sat up to evaporate the situation. The room she was in was dim and quiet, lit only with the shards of light that slithered through broken blinds in the windows. She was lying in someone's bed, which happened to be far more comfortable than the broken futon she was used to from her house. A heavy, black comforter kept her warm with her feet exposed. Seeing both of her feet intact startled her; how had she managed to eat anything and re-grow her foot while she had been unconscious? Curious, she flexed her wing against the pillow and found that it had also been repaired. Had she not remembered the attack, there would have been no scars to indicate what had gone down last night. Looking over her shoulder, Jarzi found the formerly damaged joint to be swollen unnaturally; perhaps whatever she had eaten hadn't been all that healthy after all. It ached slightly and she decided to just relax it for a while.

She ignored the odd swelling as the questions regarding the last night's events burned like a wildfire in her mind's eye. She absentmindedly turned to see the creature from the rusty van next to her, sleeping so soundly that she could barely hear him breathe. She inched away as far as she could without falling off the bed, scared that he might come after her. He slept in a sitting position, a pile of pillows behind his back to support his mammoth wings. Jarzi found herself staring at him, unsure of how she really felt under the layers of mixed fear and amazement. Finally, after so many years, she'd actually found someone like her, and it was scaring her to death. The memory of Trish telling her that there were no others like her and Xavier then surfaced through the fog of emotions, and she realised with a pang of anger that she had been lied to.

Her father snarled as he exhaled, revealing the bloodstained daggers in his mouth. She briefly recalled the man from the forest; his teeth were also pointed and thin as needles, but there was something different about his from the person sitting next to her. She couldn't quite pinpoint it, and decided to leave the topic alone until later. Jarzi was partially tempted to wake him, but her fear paralysed her. Staring, she admired him for a long time in his torn blue jeans and tattered cowboy hat. She wished she could see his face better; he had pulled the rim of the hat over his eyes to shield any light from disturbing them. All she could see of his face were his teeth and ears. She sighed loudly, more questions irritating her like fleas on a dog.

Then it clicked, it hadn't been the similarities in teeth that separated her attacker from the being sleeping next to her; this shady person was far more built than the one from the forest. The tracker was muscular, no doubt, but he was more lengthy and slender, especially his arms. Other than that, the darkness had given her little to go on. Still, there was something familiar about this one. There was no questioning on that one; she and this alien figure had met before.

Jarzi then realised that she wasn't wearing the clothes she had been in last night. Instead, she was dressed in someone's blue cotton nightgown. She could smell whoever had worn it last, even under the strong odour of overdone perfume. Wanting to get out of it, she looked for her clothes. They were in no obvious location in this room, nor were her boots. The most disturbing and disgusting part of it all was that this complete stranger had stripped her while she had been unconscious, seen everything, and they knew absolutely nothing about one another. She hadn't even talked to him, or heard his voice. He was still a nameless entity, and she didn't even want to consider what else he may have done while she had been out.

The shiny kitchen knife that she had stolen from the old man's house was lying on the nightstand beside her. She grabbed it and held it as tightly as she had before; it was her only means of protection at this point, and she hoped to whatever high power there may be out there that she wouldn't have to use it. Fear was beginning to build up again, right in the pit of her stomach, and it would soon get the best of her if she couldn't get it under control. It crept over her skin, giving her chills that made her pull the blanket over her again and hug her knees like a little child wanting to disappear.

Fear was the last thing Jarzi needed right now, just as it was for anyone else who met the Creeper quickly discovered. He inhaled deeply and opened his eyes after catching its scent, startling her so that she flinched even further beneath the blanket than she already was. The knife was being clenched with such force that it would have broken had it been made of plastic or other flimsy material. The sturdy metal burned in her hand, eager to stab and cut.

The Creeper righted his cowboy hat and looked at her with sleepy eyes. It was the first decent look she'd gotten at him since last night, and at the moment he didn't seem too sinister. He rubbed at his eyes and groaned miserably, then shifted so to tell her she had his full attention. He sat cross-legged and stared at her inquisitively, expressionless besides the obvious curiosity. Jarzi found herself admiring his muscles again.

"What do you want?" she asked shyly with a voice so soft and timid that it took the Creeper by surprise. He had never heard her speak, and this certainly wasn't what he was expecting.

He didn't answer for a long minute. Averting his eyes, he tried to think of how to reply. There wasn't anything in particular that he wanted from her, but he wasn't about to let her go back out onto the street by saying the wrong thing.

"Hello?" she pressed, her voice building a bit of boldness. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"I wasn't going to leave you in the middle of the road," he said flatly. His voice caught her off-guard as well. Expecting a gruff, deep voice, he surprised her by being relatively soft spoken. Under that calmness, though, she heard and felt that chilling rage that accompanied his everyday personality.

Clearly, verbal communication wasn't his strong point. He frowned at the look he received at his statement.

"Umm, thanks, I guess." Jarzi started biting her nails out of nervousness, a bad habit she had carried on since teething. "Who are you? ...What are you?"

"I...I am what I am, I am what people call me, and I'm hungry." She laughed at his response, and for the first time ever, he saw her smile. Every other encounter he had had with her had produced every opposite expression imaginable. Even when he spied on her from his other house, he never saw her smile.

"I'm hungry, too."

"Then I will bring you something. What do you eat?" He hoped she wouldn't press the questions about him anymore. He hated being interrogated.

"Umm...Anything, I guess. I'm not picky." He then stood up and went for the door, picking up his old black trench coat from the floor on his way out.

"Wait!" she said suddenly; he turned back to her as he put the frayed jacket on. "How did you fix my ankle and my wing last night?"

"Shoved meat down your throat...Quite easily."

Jarzi cringed, and then her demeanour changed to one of anger. Her white eyebrows tensed and her nostrils flared. She seemed a bit more realistic to him then, but it was only a slight potential buried beneath a scared, defensive child. "What did you do with my clothes?!" she demanded angrily.

"They're in my truck, soiled with your blood." He walked out before she could protest further.

Jarzi waited for him to leave. When she was sure he wasn't coming back in anytime soon, she stood and walked into the hall to explore the house, knife still in hand. It was an old Victorian, collecting cobwebs and dust in areas she was sure the creature had no use for. The kitchen was just outside the bedroom, where she found an elaborate collection of daggers mounted on the wall. Looking closely at them, she found disturbing images of murder and pain carved into their hilts. The knives weren't just in the kitchen; they were all over the house—hanging on walls, propped on tables, or encased in glass cabinets.

After the kitchen and some kind of dust-coated office, Jarzi found the bathroom. The reflection that stared back at her from the mirror disgusted her; she wanted to punch it and make it go away for good. She looked down at her arms and saw the healing scars—constant reminders of the times she had felt so depressed that she had slashed her wrists. Even emptying her entire circulatory system wouldn't kill her; her body would force itself to survive no matter what. Jarzi hated what she was and all the mysteries that came with it. Frustrated, she took the meat knife and reopened one of the scars and let it drain into the sink.

Her reflection was growling back at her from the mirror as she plunged the tip of the dagger back into the wound. She then made a dent in her other arm, tears forming in her eyes as the blood flowed down the sink's drain in streaky, emotional rivers. Eventually the arteries managed to clot themselves; they were used to needing to immediately heal. She had been cutting for years without anyone finding out. The sentiment soon waned to numbness and she washed the blood out of the sink with fresh tap water.

She decided to take a shower before the Creeper returned and noticed that he had already found clothes for her. He had them folded beside the toilet—some dark blue jeans and a plain red tank top. Looking at the sizes, they would be a bit small, but it was better than the skimpy nightgown. Taking the knife, she slashed crude splits in the back of the shirt for her wings and wondered again who they belonged to. The scent was the same. Perhaps this person had lived there, or still was? The thought disturbed her that someone else could possibly be in the house.

Jarzi showered for a while, taking her time to carefully de-mat her black hair that had become an atrocious mess during her ordeal. The lack of conditioner in the shower didn't help, but she made due with what she had available. After the shower, she dressed and decided to try and find the person whose scent was on her clothes. She passed through the more familiar rooms, sniffing the air and objects that would commonly be handled by humans, but there was nothing. Her search brought her to one closed door. She tried the knob, but it was locked by a deadbolt meant for outside doors. More questions, now about what could be behind the door, attacked her mind with screaming curiosity.

Continuing on, she found a room at the far end of the house. In all the other rooms, the blinds or curtains had been wide open to let light in, but this room was blocked off from the world with black velvet curtains. She searched for a light switch, found it, and gasped quietly at what she saw when the ceiling light flickered on. The room was empty except for a painting on the north wall across from the entrance. It was the portrait of the same woman she had met in her dream—the orange-eyed creature of her species whose village had been burned to ashes. Below the huge painting was a small alter holding half-burnt candles of various colours and containers of finely ground herbs.

Jarzi stared at the picture, taking in every fine detail that had been painted into it. The woman's expression seemed more serious and calm in this depiction, whereas in her dream she had been angry, frightened, and upset. Her features gave her a motherly yet protective facade. On her head was some kind of jewelled headdress which incorporated her long hair into it as tightly wound curls and braids. The rest of her thick locks hung loosely behind her head, almost completely hiding the jointed tips of her folded wings. The orange eyes gently stared at her. The eyebrows of the mysterious lady were arched to accentuate the colour and expression of her irises. The blue and purple dress she had on emphasised how vibrant and full of life they were. In the dream, none of that was present.

Who was she? Clearly, she must have held some level of authority with her elaborate clothing. Where was she now and what association was she to the man who owned this house?

The light snapped off from behind her; she turned and saw the creature glaring at her from the doorframe. She approached him cautiously, feeling inferior under his deadly leer of hatred, but as soon as she walked out he shut the door and led her outside.

"Go eat that," he said, pointing to a fresh dog carcass lying in the grass. "There's an apple tree out back as well as all the corn if you eat that stuff."

"Thanks," she said quietly, then dragged the poor animal's body behind the house where he couldn't see her. She ate it quietly without much chewing, watching around her constantly for signs of life.

When she was through, Jarzi walked back around the house and found her father sitting on the rear bumper of his truck etching at something with a knife. The truck was instantly recognisable as the one her and Xavier used to see when they were kids. Had this person really been just across the street the whole time, without her knowing about it? Could any of this possibly get even stranger?

He saw her approaching and threw what was in his hands into the back of the truck. He stood and closed the large doors, then watched her awkwardly.

"What's your name?" she asked. Her voice had gained a bit of confidence since he last heard it about an hour ago.

"Call me what you want," he replied.

"What? Don't you have a name?"

"No."

Jarzi raised an eyebrow at him. "You're lying to me," she snapped.

"Not really," he said. "Most of the things I'm called aren't words I'm too fond of."

"Like what?"

"Don't worry about it. Call me what you want."

"Umm, well, okay." She pondered the offer for a moment. "All those knives you have in the kitchen remind me of the story of Mackie Messer from pre-World War II in Germany. If you've heard or read the story, you'll know about the serial killer in it. So I'll call you Mack the Knife, the English translation."

He grinned. "I've heard the story. It fits me better than you think."

She shrugged. "Though the shark's teeth may be lethal, still you see them white and red. But you won't see Mackie's flick knife, 'cause he's slashed you and you're dead." Her father smiled enthusiastically again and chuckled. For the first time she saw his true evil, though just briefly as he accepted the name from her. He motioned her to go into the house, thinking that maybe now he was ready to talk.