Later: Funny story. This afternoon I wandered off into town for some supplies (shampoo is not optional damnit. He never washes it hair so by the end of the week it looks good, as if he greased it down stylishly) and who do I see walking along miserably on the street in a black dress and the most gothy black coffin backpack? Johnny's ole' flame Devi herself. She was walking along swiftly as though the world was against her and all was lost. She so goth!
I followed her for a little while as she wandered through the bookstore and sulked in the horror section, then watched her through the glass as she drank a bitter espresso and stared gloomily.
I am NOT bitter.
Monday (3:19pm ) - Did not see Devi today. Which may be good news. Or bad news cuz now I wonder where she is and what she's doing. Its driving me crazy.
Painted my nails red.
Painted my toenails purple.
Realized I had been home alone for 5 hours already and Johnny is no where in sight unless he wandered downstairs where he's been sulking all this time.
I have no idea what to do with myself.
Wednesday (6:20 pm) - Johnny lit a newspaper on fire today in the middle of the living room floor. I don't know why the house didn't catch, but he just watched it burn, stamped it out eventually, and walked back downstairs. I was watching this from my couch by the way. Maybe I should go see what he's up to.
Saturday (9:51 pm) - I followed Johnny downstairs and for once, walked with through the tunnels willingly. I did not barf. I did not scream. I didn't even look, though I heard people call me when I walked by them.
Johnny must not have known I was behind him for those few minutes because when he suddenly whirled on me, he screamed (boys don't scream...they yell, don't they? He made a loud noise of surprise) and pinned me to the wall.
"YOU!" he said. I noticed that when he gets angry, his pupils contract. A lot. They looked like tiny little pinpricks in the gray of his irises. Maybe his eyes are even blue, but the bloodshot sclera around them made them look all grey and drained.
"Its me!" I said in a somewhat panic.
"I know who you are, Hailey," he said deliberately using my name just to prove he was acting violently with a clear head for once, "I have never seen you follow me down here before."
He backed off and I was surprised to see that I actually slid down the wall...he had been pinning me to the wall with my feet a good three inches or so off the ground.
"I...I..." shit! I wanted to give him a legitimate reason.
"How old are you?" he asked me suddenly.
"Uh...18 and a half-ish?"
"How long have you been here?"
"I...have no idea. A few months?"
He made the "come hither" motion with one finger and started backing up. Assuming that he wanted me to follow him, I did.
"I want to show you something," he said distantly as I followed him through some tunnels, "something that I wanted to show you a while ago but never got the chance."
Eventually, we came to a room, one of the smallest I've seen in his house so far. It was roughly the side of the bathroom, and a machine or something was right in the middle of it, and halfway in the wall.
There was a mass of yellow hair and two hands in the stockade-like restrain at the front.
"This is Alex," Johnny said in a dangerously soft voice as he, with one hand, wrapped his fingers around the hair and pulled up roughly. I covered my mouth when I saw the state of her face, bruised and encrusted with dried blood. Half her head was shaved, and violently too, with lacerations dotting the fuzz. I felt a wave of nausea hit my stomach.
"Alex deserve this, doesn't she?" he crooned softly, now caressing the longer hair on the girl's head gently. She looked at me with her one good eye, which may have used to be brown or perhaps the capillaries burst and it looked brown now, but she looked at me mournfully. She didn't even talk. She parted her dry lips and opened and closed her mouth once. Then her head was down at the floor again as Johnny let go of her face.
Her fingernails were painted I could see, a candy red. They were broken and ragged. Her fingers tips were blue form cold or lack of blood I didn't know. I didn't want to see what kind of...machine...she was trapped in. I had no choice but to look as Johnny called me over. I stepped around her, her hair gently skimming the cement. I thought I heard her moan. I felt so sick.
He had one gloved hand on a lever sticking out of the wall almost comically. He pulled it down with a sick smile and a panel on the wall behind the girl swung down, followed by a metal sheet with a circular blade attached to it. It was a giant buzz saw.
"Everyday," Johnny said softly, as the blade screamed to life, "everyday I feel the...sickness...from these people...I...stop it..." he looked down at the girl. She was lying on what looked like a vaulting horse, the back of her pink tank top slit open neatly, "I stop it all."
He pulled the level slowly. The blade was lowering until it was just a foot from her spine. Now she was shaking violently and I could hear her screamed over the blade. I heard the double breathed sound that came out of the lungs of someone who had asthma. It was me, and I couldn't breath. I was clutching my chest and I could not catch any breath in my lungs. The girl was screaming, the blade was screaming, Johnny was calm and quiet and still.
The blade did not connect with her skin.
"Sometimes," he said as I tried to force air into my lungs, "I see just how low I can go before it hits them. I lower it ever so lightly," he emphasized by lowering the lever slowly, and the blade followed suit, "and I get it real close."
I covered my eyes. I was crying too, only I don't remember doing that until I realized later my face was wet and my eyes swollen. I didn't want to see it hit her. I heard the blade whirling and Johnny talking softly.
Asthma is a scary thing to have, and an attack was even worse. I was trying my hardest to breath deeply, but the tubes in my chest or throat or whatever, were all closed up. I didn't have my inhaler with me either, so if I didn't get some air soon, I would pass out.
I looked up and Johnny was unmoving. The blade was stationed over the girls back and spun uselessly. Johnny didn't move, but his hand was on the lever. He was looking down.
"Johnny?" I called panicked and disgusted. He looked at me for 2 seconds, then pulled the lever down roughly.
My god, I saw it all. I saw the blade rip into her back, I saw the blood spray vertically as it slide off. I saw a line hit Johnny and stain his shirt and face. I felt the hot blood hit me too. I heard the squeal of the blade as it tore through her spinal cord. She screamed for a very short time.
Then it was quiet. I heard muffled static as my ears got used to the silence. I was on the floor, on my back, staring up at the ceiling at the single yellow bulb. I couldn't breath.
Then I heard my name over and over. I saw Johnny's face, red and shiny, over mine. His pupils were back and he, for once, looked concerned. I felt him lift me up under my arms. I didn't even bother to stand, I just let him pull me up. The girl was still there, but her head was down. The blade was gone. So was most of her back. I swallowed the soar taste of vomit and bile I felt rising to my throat. I was being carried out of the room.
Upstairs, Johnny pushed cup after cup of coffee under my nose as I sat and tried to relax. I had used my inhaler when Johnny threw it towards me after dumping me on my bed, but I was still breathing funny. I drank one sip and threw up. Then I slept. I didn't cry or move or sleep for two days.
All I thought about what how...how did he sneak those people in? how did I never notice? How?
Sunday (2:55 am) - Johnny was especially nice to me today. He sat with me on the mattress and had one arm around my shoulders. I didn't want him to touch me, but I also didn't want to move to remove his arm. I let him talk his bullshit, though I didn't listen anymore. I didn't eat the soup he gave me. He got angry eventually and left me alone.
I have a constant headache now. Eh. I dreamt I was living in a castle with a giant labyrinth around it. It opened into the old courtyard where there were nuns or other such holy people, walking around. I wasn't supposed to be there, and as I realized this, I flew up into the air and watched them all from above. I landed on a parapet and realized that I was turning into stone. I turned into a gargoyle and sat there until I woke up.