by
Aethyl
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters, and I'm not making any money by "borrowing" them.
Author's note: This story falls after "Into the Woods," but before "Crush."
"It's all cockleshells and prickleburrs tonight, Miss Edith," the young woman was heard to say as she passed the sleeping figures in an alley. She was carefully stepping over broken bottles, and holding up her skirt in an attempt to navigate the piles of filth without getting the hem dirty. "Misery and despair, misery and despair, misery and despair--the clown doesn't want to dance with the girl."
The "clown" was an old man wearing a torn yellow shirt and ratty red corduroy pants; he was holding a bottle of St. Pauly Girl to his lips, but was not drinking from it. His rheumy eyes were stuck to bleeding figure of another bum whose lifeless, bloody body hung over old packing cartons at an odd angle. Moments before, Charley and Bill had been talking about the good weather, keeping their voices low so as not to disturb their sleeping companions, and then a shadow had ripped Bill out of his comfortable perch on a relatively clean pile of trash bags, and flung him across the alley. The shadow turned into a woman with long dark hair in a long darkly colored dress with long sharp teeth which she sunk into Bill's neck. She hummed as she slurped noisily at the wound. Charley couldn't move.
"Don't worry Mr. Clown," the young woman called over her shoulder, "Miss Edith isn't hungry tonight." She reached the end of the alley, turned the corner, and was gone.
Charley was too frightened to notice that one of the other men skulked off after the strange, homicidal girl.
***
Drusilla knew that she was being followed. She had a vision in her head of a hulking shadow, but she couldn't hear it, and when she turned her head, neither she or her precious Edith could see the source of it. "Shadowy mans don't make noises," she said. "Shadowy mans like to play."
"We'll play with you, baby," a youngish looking street kid said, pushing himself off the stoop of an abandoned building. He had friends; four of them.
Drusilla laughed. "Oh, we like games, don't we, Miss Edith?"
The five boys surrounded Drusilla. The boy who had spoken first stepped up to her. "You wanna play?" he asked, a drunken leer on his face.
"What sort of game?" she asked.
Before he could answer, another boy, one behind her, rushed her and grabbed her around the waist. He had intended to topple her, but she stood firmly. "Impatient, bad, rude!" Drusilla said, swiveling and grabbing the boy by the hair. She threw him away from herself, clutching his hair so hard that chunks of it pulled out of his head even as he flew into the wall of the warehouse across the street. There was a loud snapping sound as his neck broke from the impact.
"Jesus!" cried one of the other boys, as he started to run.
Drusilla was faster. "I don't like this game," she said, as she caught the fleeing boy and ripped his neck from his body. "Ah, lovely," she said, as she looked at her bloody hands. She drew her fingers across her mouth and turned, just in time to see the three remaining boys turn the corner onto another street. "Should we give chase, my love?" Drusilla asked her doll, who was stuck in the pocket of her dress.
"No," a gravely voice echoed around her.
"It's you, my shadowy man," Drusilla said, as she licked the remaining blood from her fingers.
"It is," the voice said.
"Why can't I see you?" asked Drusilla, glancing about herself.
"Because I do not wish it," said the voice.
"You're all stones and gravel and pebbles," Drusilla laughed.
"My voice?" asked the entity. "Ah, yes, I would sound that way to you. It is of no importance. I need something from you, addled one."
"Can't have her!" yelled Drusilla, clutching Miss Edith tightly to her chest.
"No, I do not wish your doll, addled one. I require your madness."
Drusilla felt a sense of warmth envelope her, and realized that she couldn't see. A dark fog had wrapped itself around her, and it was pressing against her. She couldn't move. She realized with a start that she was afraid.
"Stay away, shadowy man. Stay away!"
"Do not fear, addled one," the voice soothed. "This will not hurt for long."
The fog pressed soft clouds against her, through her clothing, and touched her skin. Everywhere, all at once, it felt to Drusilla as if thousands of pins were pricking her, that blood was gushing from every pore. And then she screamed.
***