CHAPTER 3
Brutality entered his dreams with spindly fingers, probing the darkest parts of his mind for what would disturb him most in his sleep. Crunching; sickening, monstrous and grotesque, echoed within his thoughts. His eyelids twitched, his entire body convulsing as if to escape the confusion in his mind. In his dream he could finally determine the noise's source. Looking down at his hand, he held a strong cleaver, bloodied and disgusting with the ruins of whatever it was that he'd been hacking up. His once white sleeve cuffs peeked out from his coat, now a brilliant red that mimicked the color of wine. He could see lying about the counter, fingers, hands, bits of severed arms and legs. The horrific smell of internal organs radiated from the disheveled remains of a woman's torso, which lie ripped open at the stomach on the counter top before him. Turning his head to the side, he vomited on the floor then stood cringing at the red puddle, wanting anything but to return his eyes to the lurid scene. It was such a mess, unusually chaotic for his normal work, and he knew in a moment that this was not disposal, it was destruction as if whoever he was dismembering in such a horrible fashion was not a common enemy but something more, something he wanted to erase, torture even, something that disgusted him.
Turning back to his project, he found this theory to be impossible, having recognized her face and not without fond thoughts. The body was whole again, lying on the counter still ripped open at the gut, cheeks slashed, arms cut in crisscrosses over the burn of a rope, bruised and bloody, dead and desecrated. This sudden reassemble seemed normal in his dream, as if he would be pleased to have the privilege of dismembering the body once more. But it was all so impossible. He touched the slashed cheeks of the woman, then stroked her bloody matted hair, struggling all the while to relieve his lips of her name but they would not take any sensible form. He felt as if he were sputtering indecipherable nonsense each time he tried. Becoming increasingly frustrated with his inability to speak, he raised his cleaver and let it fall with an obscene crunch onto her ribs. A scream sounded from her gaping, disfigured mouth and he countered it with a noise equally bloodcurdling, raising his cleaver once more to silence her. Blood and flesh splattered his face as his cleaver fell again and again.
"Tell me your name," he screamed in an unearthly voice. "I want to know it!" Fingers exploded onto the kitchen floor like bloody fireworks. "I've never known it!" His hands waited for no reply but continued hacking away evermore violently. Her broken voice filled his head but no movement came from her gaping mouth.
"You're the devil, you're the devil, you're the devil." A light then opened up beyond the kitchen, across the living room, white and brilliant, and a cold wash of air swept into the room then was shut out along with the light. It was then he noticed that he was not in his own apartment, but the apartment of his neighbor, his neighbor who lay in a bloody soup on the counter top. However there she was before him, brushing off the morning snow from her coat, fiddling with the heat setting on the wall thermostat. She removed her coat, flashing him a radiant smile, then tossed it onto a chair and hurried into the kitchen as if she were excited to see him. She hugged his arm, studying his work on the counter with no sign of surprise or disgust. The cleaver fell from his hand and somewhere glass shattered.
"Careful," she said moving across the kitchen. "Let me clean it, I wouldn't want you to cut yourself." He looked at her dumbly, holding his gory hands in front of him like a freshly sterilized surgeon. She moved past him as if he were a ghost, setting a damp cloth over the pool of spilled wine and glass shards.
"What are you talking about? Move away from there!" he said urgently, grabbing her clean white wrist with his blood covered hand. But looking at the counter now, it was not possible for her to see what he had done to her just moments before she'd arrived. He released her. Every bit of gore had been wiped away leaving the tile counter shining like black onyx. He looked suddenly at his hands expecting them to be clean as well but they were filthy with drying blood that cracked and split when he moved his fingers. His eyes shot back and forth between the woman cleaning glass shards and spilt wine to his hands then all round the kitchen searching for any sign of abnormality. He caught his reflection in the gleaming case of some shiny appliance just as she spoke, distracting him none from his curious discomfort.
"I'm almost proud of myself, look," she said, taking out a box of matches and setting it on the counter. "I didn't use a single one all day, not a single one."
He picked the box up absently as his lips formed the words "That's wonderful," all the while, never taking his eyes from the bloody handprint on her wrist which she had yet to notice. He returned the box to the counter then took both of her hands carefully in his, turning them over and over, inspecting them, prodding them. Real. She was suspiciously real.
"You wont find anything," she said disappointedly. "Not a single one, I told you, not a single one." She took her hands back and set them to work at pouring another glass of wine to replace the one that had been broken. "Here, take it." Her smile was weighing on him and he wondered if his blank, bewildered stare had stricken her curiosity yet. It didn't seem that it had. She continued to smile, glowing with triumph over her odd success of the day that made little sense, but in his mind he understood it completely. He washed his hands and sleeve cuffs before accepting the glass. The blood dissolved away, swirling into the clean, silver sink, but his skin and cuffs were stained permanently, he knew. Strangely at peace now, he took the glass from her outstretched hand and drank himself into a grave, sleepy stupor while she sat on the edge of the counter, eyes shining, smiling brilliantly between small sips. Heavy with the desire to sleep, he forgot her and plodded with unsure steps down the hall to her room. He sat down on her bed and imagined her suddenly, legs crossed, still seated on the counter, swinging her foot and smiling joyously at some far away thought that shone in her distant, sparkling eyes. "You're the devil, you're the devil, you're the devil," she whispered in the same broken voice from before, the picture of her in his mind facing him with eyes now blazing and bloodied, her joyous smile replaced by one twice the size that revealed all the teeth she possessed. His lips parted but he couldn't speak and the image faded leaving him horrified and nervous of the dark room. But his weariness prevailed and he fell onto the bed with shallowing breath, failing vision, and a hollow, accusing voice urging him gently to acknowledge what he was.
His eyes opened. Billowing gold patterned sails fluttered above his head. Something crinkled and crunched near him. He sat up and found a piece of paper folded in half and quite wrinkled from his restless sleep. Opening it hear read. "My work hours are six to five today. I am still unsure of your offer, I am sorry. Let's not speak of it again." He closed the letter. Why she wanted to ignore the change was obvious. She was not used to accepting charity. That is why se was struggling. He sat for a moment then exhaled deeply. It was 8:03 a.m.
She forgot about him as soon as he stepped into work but her walk had given her time to ponder this new world she was entering. This new friend was quite a curiosity. If hollowness were water he was drowning in it. His core was everything but dense and repressed. He was a magician of sorts, a master of masks, or perhaps a coward whose only control was that of emptiness. She imagined his face. Placid; unchanging like her monotonous job. She opened the door and stepped into the world that smelled of the home she was leaving.
Work was a fast paced dance and it only quickened in pace until it lulled finally to an end allowing her to return to her thoughts as soon as the door was closed behind her. It had been a late closing night, making the note she had left him inaccurate. The dark cobblestone streets wavered and rippled before her and she began the walk across town to her apartment. Dark alleys and side streets grimaced at her, their openings warped and widened. Windows lit up like eyes casting their glow into the damp streets, illuminating their emptiness and instilling uneasiness in her. Her pace quickened then slowed suddenly to a near halt. There were voices. A young boy scrambled out of an alley holding his cap to his head and looking back a s if he had been cast out into the open unwillingly. "Hey you!" he called waving to her. His accent of a lower breed was think and sounded distressed. "Hey you miss! Can you help me? Someone's hurt my father! They beat him and robbed him!"
Her heart felt weak as the boy took hold of her wrist and began pulling her into the alley. He was lying; she could feel it. Street ruffians were always lying. They did anything to get your money, your jewelry, and anything else of value, profitable or not. "No, no. Release me this instant. Now!" Her voice was becoming shrill. She resisted and her arm felt as if it might be wrenched off.
"Hold her son." The voice came in a sharp whisper and the scene receded into the alley. With her free arm the reached for the opening to the street which was now a dim figure on her canvas of vision. "You're a fine looking one, aren't you?" the voice was thick and heavier with t the low accent. Her back hit the brick wall. She couldn't move. A dirty hand on her mouth robbed her of her right to scream for help. Small hands patted her down in search for anything valuable but she was smarter than to carry money on her.
"She hasn't got much, sir." The smaller fiend handed the older man the small purse she kept tied to her belt and tucked it into his shirt.
"That's just fine, son. She's got more than money." His sneer was a bleeding gash. "Wait on the street. I'll be out in a bit." The boy skipped away as if playing a game of hopscotch and whistling as if nothing foul were happening. "Now don't you go and scream." His dirty knife glinted in the faint reflecting streetlight.
"Obey him!" her mind screamed. "I'm going to die! Why obey him!" At that she bit him. Screamed and flailed until the knife cut her throat, failing to do any damage. Curses streamed from her lips but she could not get away. He held her arm with one hand, the other bracing him against the wall. She screamed once again toward the dim silhouette of the innocent looking boy. Her efforts were thrown toward him, her reward. "You dreadful wretch…" Her thoughts were composed. "When I reach you I'll slit your throat and leave your body to the rats!" her thoughts left her throat in a bloody scream her shoulder popped and her arm went limp. She ran.