Chapter 3
"Everywhere I go they all stare,
I don't understand why they care,
They stare at me all in black,
And when I turn, they stare at my back."
-Leave Me Alone, by The Crüxshadows
Kelly Aprils got a strange kick out of everyone staring at her bizarre appearance as she strolled down the street. At the same time, however, she hated it. Yeah, I'm a Goth, get over it people, she thought. She really would have liked to scream it out loud, but then they'd stare at her even more.
"What're you starin' at?" she shouted at one man whose eyes had lingered on her for a few seconds too long. As the man began to back away, she bit down on a large air bubble in her gum, creating a cracking sound loud enough to make everyone who heard it jump.
"Yeah, that's right, keep movin'," Kelly snarled. Admittedly, her blood-colored hair and torn black clothing were quite eye-catching, but still, she hated the feeling of people watching her, especially not on days like this, where she hadn't slept well the night before. She'd had the dream again the night before, she wasn't really sure whether or not it was a nightmare, that bit seemed to change every time.
Other than her reaction to it, the dream was the same every time. She always found herself staring up at Jesus while he was being crucified. His blood would drip down onto shoulders, with occasional drops falling into her gaping mouth. Then, she rose up into the air and pried loose the nails that bound Jesus to the cross. Once he was safely on the ground, he would place his crown of thorns on her head.
With the crown digging into her flesh, Kelly would once again ascend into the air, this time she would stop and position herself against the cross, where she would soon feel nails dig into her body as she, too, was nailed to the wooden beams. Then, Jesus would whisper to her, but when she awakened she could never remember what he'd told her. She thought that it must be a slight memory of what he was whispering that made her change her opinion as to whether or not it was a nightmare.
After Jesus whispered to her, Kelly felt a light shine down from above. The light pushed down on her shoulders harder than anything she'd ever felt. Yet, the pressure was somehow relieving. Eventually, the pressure pushed off her skin, and yet, she had more skin beneath it, but this layer was paler. The layers of skin kept falling way until the whiteness of her flesh was enough to blind her. After she'd gone blind, she felt her very soul being unmade, and once that was finished, the little bits of what was left of her ascending to heaven. Then, in some way that she could never explain to anyone else, her consciousness transformed and she became a star. She only had one sense after she became a star, but it wasn't one that she'd ever had before, nor was it the sixth sense that she'd always heard tale of, it was something else entirely.
When she felt something soft and fleshy squish beneath her feet, Kelly was snapped out of her remembrance of the dream. She looked down and was disgusted by what she saw at her feet. No matter how jaded she always pretended to be, the sight of a human corpse whose throat had been torn out being crushed beneath her sneakers still made her stomach churn.
"Oh god..." she muttered as she pulled out her cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.
"And today, the fourteenth victim in the bizarre series of murders was found," the voice on Jennifer's radio said, "the body had no special markings on it, except for the throat being torn out as usual. Forensic investigators found absolutely no incriminating evidence on the body, no fingertips, no hairs, nothing. Police are still at a loss to explain these strange killings."
"You hear that, Patches?" Jennifer asked the dog, "another killing, I don't suppose you'd have any idea what's going on?" Jennifer laughed a little bit, the dog looked into her eyes and barked.
"You know," she commented, "you look an awful lot like a wolf." Patches just kept panting in that strange way that dogs do that makes them almost look like they're smiling.
"And here's your drink Mr. Gardner," Kelly muttered, speaking as much to herself as to anyone in the Gardner family, as she put the beverage in front of the priest. "So how's Ripper doing these days?"
"He's just fine," Rebecca Gardner answered absent-mindedly.
"Okay. Can I take your oder?"
"Cheeseburger," Samuel responded, folding up the menu and handing it to Kelly.
"I'll just have a salad," Mrs. Gardner followed.
"And you?" Kelly asked David, Rebecca and Samuel's son.
"Spaghetti."
"I hate waiting tables," Kelly quietly raged as she walked into the kitchen.
"Everyone does," snorted Michael, her fellow waiter, "but some of us have to do this to pay our way through college. You, on the other hand, just want more money."
"Hey, you try getting through high school on ten bucks a month."
"I already did, thank you very much."
There was, however, one thing that Kelly hated even more than waiting tables, and that was the piano. She'd never even wanted o learn how to play it, but her parents insisted that it would be good for her, they said that it would teach her something, she had never really listened when they were going on about it. It had taught her one thing, though, and that was how to hate an inanimate object.
Kelly couldn't sleep that night. Her thoughts just kept drifting back to the corpse she'd stepped on while walking to the diner where she worked. The man's face had looked almost as though he didn't know that he was having his throat torn out. But that couldn't be. Having parts of your body torn off was one of those things that you just couldn't help but noticing, kind of like if you're eating cold meat, you just notice it. Struck with a sudden desire, Kelly got out of bed, walked downstairs to the piano that she hated so much, and began to play it.
