PRINCESS OF DARKNESS
PART VI
Jenna's a real sick puppy, isn't she? By the way, this is an omage to the short story entitled 'The Vendetta' by Guy de Maupassant. Once again, I don't own 7th Heaven. I don't even watch the WB. Anymore, at least.
Time passed.
Jenna got a dog.
Ruthie started wearing her hair in a ponytail.
All of this was very, very important.
Jenna's dog was bought for very interesting reasons. Ruthie's new hairstyle just helped the Livingston Lass along.
The dog was a vicious looking thing. Yellowed eyes, constantly frothing- mouth... it didn't have rabies, but it didn't have any discernable gender either. Jenna didn't care, however. Jenna was going to have fun. Lots and lots of fun.
Jenna named the dog Semillante. When she got it, she decided to keep it inside an overturned clothes hamper in the garage. She fixed the hamper to the ground with stakes and stones and, satisfied with her doggie's prison, went into her house.
The dog began to howl in the night. This was fixed with a muzzle. People wondered what was going on, but after a time, nobody brought it up.
Jenna didn't feed the dog. Strategy, of course.
Days went by. The dog was not fed. It spent most if its time asleep from exhaustion, slowly dying away.
After a week of this, Jenna began to put her plan into action.
It was a Saturday. Jenna searched the garage for one of her oldest toys. It was a 'life-size' Barbie doll. Roughly four feet. Jenna dyed the doll's hair black and slicked it into a ponytail.
Jenna put the doll directly outside the dog's prison.
Her parents didn't take notice. One was in jail (after being formerly charged with child molestation and being unable to post bail), and the other was distraught (after seeing her husband's face after a horrific encounter with his cellmate, Bubba).
It was easy for Jenna.
After putting the doll outside of the doggie cage, Jenna began to cook. There were still several smoked sausages left in the freezer from a bygone barbeque. Not to mention an abundance of leftover mutton from a long-gone dinner.
Jenna went about cooking these things, spreading the aroma of delicious meat right into the adjacent garage. Of course, the dog smelled these aromas and began to lose sanity. It jumped around, not making a sound because of the muzzle, desperate to eat whatever it was that made that smell.
After cooking the meat, Jenna took the frying pan into the garage and set it down directly in front of the clothes hamper-prison. The dog nearly died from the sensation of starving with food right in front of him.
Jenna covered the doll in the meat. Mutton in the hair, sausage in the hands—there wouldn't be a Barbie left after the dog was done with it.
Carefully, Jenna undid the dog's prison. Semillante didn't even bother trying to bite Jenna. It leapt, with reckless abandon, onto the doll, ripping it apart, scarfing down every single morsel of meat it possibly could.
Jenna watched, motionless and silent, a gleam in her eyes. Then, she trapped the dog again, starved it for a couple more days, and made a repeat performance.
This went on for another fortnight.
At the end of the two weeks, Jenna didn't even have to trap the dog anymore. She even taught Semillante how to devour little Barbie without having to hide food all over the plastic doll.
Not only that, but the dog had a cue now. Whenever Jenna wanted Semillante to attack, she would just say 'Go'.
This was good. This was all good.
During school, one day, Jenna accidentally came across one of Ruthie Camden's scrunchies. It all began when a certain unnamed boy with white-blond hair was found with headlice.
Panic swept through Glenoak. The family of the boy was shunned, and the entire school had to be checked for the dreaded lice. Due to some very strange mix-up of the alphabetical order system, Jenna was checked directly after Ruthie.
As she was being checked, Jenna spotted a green scrunchie, not unlike the ones used by Ruthie Camden. Jenna asked the nurse whose scrunchie it was and was very satisfied by the answer.
"Oh. That must be Ruthie's. Can you give it back to her, please?"
Jenna didn't give it back.
Jenna brought it home with her. She made the dog smell it. At first, she made it smell the scrunchie with some mutton. Then, over the course of a day, she slowly made the dog become accustomed to the smell by removing the mutton over time.
By the end, the dog knew the smell. It knew the smell of Ruthie Camden.
Jenna was very happy about this development.
Ruthie was under the impression that Jenna had given up. The Livingston Lass had been virtually silent the last two weeks. It was bittersweet for Ruthie, however. She enjoyed battling with Jenna.
Jenna, of course, had not given up.
Not at all.
For two days, Jenna starved her dog and forced it to despise the smell of Ruthie. She made the dog associate being starved with the smell of the scrunchie. This was a new thing for Jenna. She had never manipulated the feelings of a dog up to this point.
It was a Wednesday. Jenna stayed home from school that day. The time was right.
Jenna took the dog for a walk. The dog's mouth foamed. It was biting on Ruthie's scrunchie. Semillante was hungry. Very hungry.
Ruthie was walking home from school with Peter Petrowski. Her parents didn't like the idea of Ruthie walking home by herself. For the first several days after Ruthie was 'touched', they had the police officer, Kevin, walking her home.
After five days of this, Ruthie became tired of it. She asked her parents for another solution. So they made her carry an extra can of Kevin's pepper spray with her. Ruthie liked this. Pepper spray had very fun potential. One day, she very discreetly sprayed it on the bus during a field trip. Even though she ended up coughing and tearing up, it was worth it to have the trip to the sewage treatment plant cancelled.
Nobody found out what she did. That was the most satisfying part of her little plan. Getting away with it.
Ruthie and Peter walked down the street together.
Jenna watched.
She was across the road, hidden in some bushes. She watched intently. The dog could smell Ruthie. It recognized the smell.
Jenna knew this, and she unleashed her little friend.
"Go!" She said, a dangerous gleam in her eyes.