CRIMMY THOUGHTS: Has anyone else heard of Amy Winehouse's 2011 song, 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?' It so beautiful...
I just want to say how much I appreciate the reviews and love for my fanfiction. I'm thrilled to see that you all love my story so much! When I first started, I had thought that I started off horribly with the couple in my first chapter. But I continued, because I wanted so much to fulfill the shipping legacy. Then, all your reviews flourished and gave me the utmost confidence I needed to go forth! Even if it's just been only five chapters, and even if I'm not the most perfect author I wish to be, your feedback and darling loves means the world to me. You're ALL my darlings now~.
I forgot to mention: everyone's "favorite" man is on this chapter. Siren, you doofus! Would forget my own head if it wasn't screwed on.
My mind is riddled right now with joy, haha. I'd best get on with my tale.
I must of had my eyes closed for just an hour, maybe, before I woke up to the strange sounds of gnawing...
When I opened my eyes, I found that I was still laying on my back, still on that collapsed bed that was now sitting leaning back like a futon. I was still naked, but a thin blanket sheet was thrown over my body to cover up. My mind was groggy and my hips were stinging like Hell. God, what did I just get myself into? Even if I had fallen asleep, I could remember as light as day what just happened that hour ago. I laid my head back with an exaggerated sigh, rubbing my frustrated hand over my forehead - before flinching. Forgot I had a bruise on my brow.
Never, in a million-plus years, had I ever thought I would have sex with a man. Especially a psychopathic one, like Eddie Gluskin. I didn't know where that guy was, but, at least I could express my irritation personally without him questioning me.
Yeah, I knew exactly why I did it - all because I wanted his full attention - in the most brutal way. In the back of my mind, I wished to kill myself, but I would never muster up the courage to do so.
When I looked back down to my bloodstained-bandaged hands, I began to question my sanity, when I saw that my ring-fingers were gone, leaving nothing but stumps. I wouldn't be able to wear my wedding band for eons now. Lisa would probably hate me now and forever... I closed my eyes and silently apologized to an imaginary Wife in my mind.
Crunch, crunch.
My ears perked to the abnormal sounds of chewing in the second room. My eyes reopened, eyeing the doorway with confusion. Was that the sound of chewing? Or was I just fooling myself? I blinked when I heard a belch. Gross. Who was in the other room? Was it Eddie? ... No... there was nothing to eat in this place. But what was that gnawing sound from earlier...?
My question was answered when I heard the scruff of dragging-feet shuffle closer to the doorway I was staring at. When he appeared, eyes flashing first in the light, my eyes grew wide, and my mouth dropped open in horror.
"Dinner bells!" Frank Manera hollered through his bloodied lips, before switching on the buzzsaw in his hand. The circular saw roared as loudly as I could remember it on our last spat, when I had luckily got away from the fucking cannibal. And in his other hand, I saw that the man was chewing on one of my severed ring-fingers. That motherfucking monster...! "Feed me! Feed me! Feed me!" The thin man chanted madly, before thundering into the plastic room with the buzzsaw out first to ram it into me.
I held out my arms, blocking my face as I felt my heart burst in quaking fear. I let out a wail, thinking this was going to hurt.
But before Frank got to me, I was rescued by - no, not that unknown variant - but by the Groom.
Eddie had appeared out of a different door, out of a separate room, and saw Frank before he attacked. Eddie bolted at the cannibal and tackled him to the plastic floor with a roar, plunging him down, with the buzzsaw still in Frank's hand as the men struggled and fought. I threw myself upright to stand, with the blanket in my hands to cover my bare skin, feeling helpless on aiding Eddie.
What a ironic thought. A madman saves me from another madman. The logic was far beyond comprehension.
"The meat is mine! The meat is MINE!" Frank continued to chant out in screams, buzzsaw gripped in his fist, but his extended arm was quickly pinned down to the floor by Eddie's hand.
"Did you eat at my darling's fingers, you sewer rat?" Eddie asked none-too-discreetly, a sadistic smile twisted over his skin. "Filthy," hissed Edde, emphasizing the "f" sound through the grit of his teeth, "and so fucking distasteful of you to think you may have him!"
Frank, delusional himself to be inaudible, decided to speak with his circular-saw. He manged to retch his arm out of Eddie's vice, and plunged the roaring blade into his thigh. Eddie screamed out, as the buzzsaw's teeth ripped through his pant-leg and skin and flesh and muscle. Blood spurted and splattered. Immediately, Eddie slammed his hand down at Frank's arm, pulling out the saw, and delivered a hard punch into the cannibal's face to jump back.
"Hahahaha!" Frank barked out laughing instead. "Fresh, lone meat!" He stood up fast and darted at Eddie with the roaring saw.
And what did I do to finally help out? With the long blanket in my hands, I threw it out in front of Frank, and it grabbed at his face, blinding him to run into a wall instead. Eddie barked out a short laugh at my improvisation, whilst slamming Frank back into the plastic wall before the man could retaliate, locking him in a chokehold now. The buzzsaw ripped and pulled at the the sheet, able to tug it off his face after moments of struggling.
Frank cussed and threw out slurs of aggression, trying to fight back with all his strength, but the 155 pound lightweight couldn't fight against Eddie's 6-foot stature. I've already seen Eddie's body for myself - for an asylum patient, Eddie's body is extremely taut and built. Definitely a losing battle.
"No! No! You were MINE!" Frank yelled against the wall, with his head turned to face me. He frothed and snarled like a wild dog with rabies, making me back away as far as I could. "Feed me! You're mine!" He cried out hoarsely, unable to speak up due to the chokehold he was in. A tight pull at his head, and Frank dropped the buzzsaw, unable to hold it up any longer. The machine landed with a thud, wheels whining for the last time.
"He's MINE!" Eddie declared loudly, constricting his arm around Frank's neck more and more. "Bleed here, and die." Eddie lastly bidded to the thin man, before he gave one more powerful pull, and a quick twist at Frank's neck.
Snap.
Eddie dropped Frank's limp body onto the floor with a thud. I could see Frank's scrawny neck was bent at an odd angle, skin red ad irritated from the fractured bone underneath clawing at the inner-flesh, and Frank's eyes were just barely able to blink, his gurgles sounding like the infamous death rattle.
"Oh? A fighter, aren't you?" Eddie mused, eyebrows raised and impressed. "Well, you won't be moving anywhere anytime soon. Darling, look!" Eddie suddenly called my nickname with a cheery shout. I flinched, startled, but responded anyhow. "I've found you clothes to wear."
"My jumpsuit?" I guessed.
"No, not that hideous jumpsuit again!" Eddie made a disgusted sneer on his face, imagining the jumpsuit I had worn the entire journey throughout this asylum. "Truth be told, I hacked up the jumpsuit and threw them straight out the window earlier on, just because I hated them so much... No, instead, I found these for you." Eddie went into the third-room fast to grab the clothes. And it was surprisingly not the bridal gown. Instead, it was a dirtied white button-up shirt and black slacks with blood stains coating the bottom hems. I immediately figured that Eddie robbed a Doctor's corpse for its clothes. Of course, I wasn't arguing.
I slipped on the clothes fast, adjusting the long sleeves of the shirt around my forearms and wrists. The pants fitted well, and the shirt also.
"Thanks." I smiled at the Groom. And he smiled back at me with those big teeth flashing.
And it clicked in my head. Wait - men's clothes? Eddie handed me men's clothes? It would have been a harmless coincidence of him to hand over those types of wear, but, it started to make the wheels in my head spin. Was Eddie beginning to accept the fact that I was a man now? Was he no longer picturing me as the made-up Bride he had imagined for God-knows-how-long? I mean, when we were, uh... getting freaky, I should say... Eddie said that I was his "fella," his "guy." He was doing me anally, for fuck's sake! He must have accepted it now.
But, I wasn't willing to ask him any time soon. I needed to let the question linger, as I marinated the small evidence mentally in my mind.
"Daylight's starting to look closer now."
It was true - the window in the plastic room was showing a foggy view of the courtyard outside. Beyond the horizon of the mountains and top of the tree-line, I could see daylight burning up high. Something in the pit of my stomach told me that we needed to get out of the asylum fast. Something didn't sit right, and I didn't want to wait and find out what the problem was.
Smash!
Eddie drilled the bottom of his boot straight into the crooked neck of Frank's, with a burst of blood ejecting out of the compound-fracture. I was more glad than scared, being introduced to too much of the gruesomeness whilst Eddie jovially smashed the neck and brains out of the man that tried to steal me. Of course Eddie was a fucking envious Husband. It was so blatantly sweet of him to do the job for me - how much I despised that fucking cannibal earlier on in my horror-ride through his territory. Thank God he was dead.
"Your leg," I finally realized. "Eddie."
"No need to fret." Eddie assured me with as dismissive wave of his hand. "It's just a flesh wound."
Of course I didn't believe the Groom, but I knew Eddie would likely get annoyed if I kept on insisting. So I left Eddie to flinch and wince as he struggled to walk correctly or fast. Heh. Bastard would finally know what I went through with that limp. Good.
Both of us left the plastic room fast, to find our way out of the vocational block. Luckily, we weren't too far from where the wired door to the Male Ward was, and Eddie was all the more the merrier to follow me into my ending. I was honestly surprised as to how cooperative Eddie was now, flipping like a coin from different personas. He wasn't lying to me, was he? To be this workable to tag along my trek on escaping the Mount Massive Asylum? I wondered - if he was - if he would try to stop me from leaving the giant building... Because I was ready to get the fuck out.
As we walked through the wired fence into the Ward, I could overhear Eddie humming a song to himself. His hand hung onto the tails of my new shirt as he followed behind. When I listened closely, I could tell that it wasn't that song he sung religiously back in his workshop and block. Thank God it wasn't - that classical song would forever be my haunting lullaby whenever I finish watching a horror movie on a late Saturday night.
"What's that song?" I decided to ask.
"I'm making one up." Eddie answered in a sing-along voice.
God, I prayed it wouldn't be another horrific song that would haunt my dreams for the next five years.
The two of us made our way through the narrow, clamored hallways of the Male Ward, while I tried to find a way that looked like daylight and an exit. I need out, fast. But, wait... Eddie was following me...? He likely hasn't been outside of Mount Massive Asylum in fucking years. I began to pounder whether I should bring the man with me. How would he react, if I had taken him out of this hellish nightmare? Would he even want to go? The Groom continued to hang onto my shirt-tail as we made our way through the halls, reaching for a closed wooden door.
When we walked through, it was a darkened room, with the interesting sight of orange light flickering from the outside of two window panes. I curiously decided to check out the strange lights that casted shadows in the dark room, and what I saw was a terrifying sight. Beyond the windows, a block from where I was, there stood a church, burning straight down to the ground. My jaw dropped to the ongoing fires that swallowed up the roof of the holy building, eating away at a massive wooden cross staked to the skies. It was now being devoured by Hell's fire.
"Whoa..." I could only manage out, seeing how this burning almost signified something important... Did those variants do this? A way to sign a new beginning to their lives? Or, the ending...?
Eddie paid no mind to the magnificent sight beyond the windows, still humming and minding his own business, completely unfiltered. He acted as if it were normal, not once making a double-take or halt to his song. I was slightly disturbed to even think Eddie was an avid church-demolisher. Made me almost picture Varg Vikernes in the court room smiling.
After a while of sightseeing, Eddie journeyed his hand up my back, to squeeze his hand around the back of my neck. Not in a threatening way - just as a casual touch. He then leaned in closer and planted a kiss at the side of my face, right at the corner of my eye.
"Darling, do you know what this sight makes me think back to?" He asked me in a calm tone, still smiling.
"Um... what?" I took my eyes off the burning church long enough to look back to Eddie.
"My vow to you."
What? I had thought for sure he would keep that at the back of his mind.
"I thought, when we had wedded, to tell you that, uh..." He drifted from his sentence, most likely forget just exactly what he vowed. "I forgotten the most important part to this puzzle! Ha!" He chuckled at himself. "Eddie, you doofus!" He rubbed the side of his head with another snort. "Would forget my own head if it wasn't screwed on! Hmm."
Well, at least he kept on flying.
Having enough of the sacrificial building burning to a literal chrisp, both the Groom and I moved forward, to find a way out of the Ward. It wouldn't take long until we could find the main entrance of the said location, but we would have to either walk or hitch a long ride home. This place was located in an isolated mountain region, so there would be no possible way for help to come and check out the premise. If they did get here, though... would they try to hurt us? I could recall the argument both a scientist and security guard had with each other long ago, when they mentioned a shortwave radio and close connections to help with the alarms automatically alerting any officials to come to the asylum.
Shit, would they have got the message earlier on? How long has it been since the alarm went off? Almost an entire day? Eighteen hours? For a professional militia, those guys would have taken way too much time to arrive. Too many people were dead by now.
"I recall this Ward." Eddie suddenly stopped at his tracks, wanting to look around the darkened hallway we stood in together. "I always had to come down this way to speak to many therapists. Oh, look! This room!" Eddie gripped my hand with his and pulled me into an opened room we were standing right next to. I didn't want to go in, but I decided to humor the guy. "Yes, I remember now... This room."
The room was surprisingly untouched, despite the massive collection of crazed variants infiltrating the place. It was a psychotherapy room, I could tell, from the way it looked clean and OCD infested. The furniture looked comfy - one lounging couch for a patient to lay back on and talk, and a tall armchair for the therapist. It looked way too comfortable and spotless. If I were a patient, I would have lost my mind to the sight of alphabetically organized novels on psychology and to the unreal cleanliness.
"I really hated this room." Eddie admitted with a scoff. "I wanted to obliterate those bookshelves and desk. The Doctors kept talking and talking, but of course, it was just no use," he nonchalantly shrugged.
"Heh," I eyed the tall armchair. "Looks like I'm playing Doctor."
"Oh! I'd love to play, darling." Eddie purred at me with a saucy smirk.
"No, not that!" I retorted, blushing hard. "I'm not going to do anything like that in your therapy room."
"Aw, but it would be so deliciously kinky of you."
I just ignored that last part, and plopped down in the easy chair, exhaling when I felt my body become abnormally lax. Eddie obliged, sitting down at the lounging chair to lay back and fold one leg over the other, staring up at an aging ceiling. Meh, it wasn't too bad to sit in the chair. It didn't feel rough, like most comfy-looking easy chairs come out to be. It was sat on enough to become cushy and comfortable. I also folded one leg over the other, pretending to act professional like a therapist would. Eddie looked at me and chuckled, eyebrows rose in amusement.
Then he exhaled loudly. "... I always had to come to this room, to speak to many therapists about my condition." He moved his hoisted foot thoughtfully. "They mostly asked me about the Walrider. The Morphogenic Engine's effects on me. I lied a hundred times over, though." He admitted to me, and honestly, I wasn't phased by the fact that he lied about the Morphogenic effects. If he told the Doctor's the truth, they would have tested on him more thoroughly, and well, from what I could remember... painfully. "My mind's so foggy, though. It's like the flowers are wilting now..."
And just out of my own thoughts speaking aloud, I decided to ask. "Eddie, why're you here?"
"Huh?" He didn't understand.
"Why're you here, in Mount Massive Asylum?"
Eddie paused, foot stopped moving, and eyes still fixed to the ceiling. Perhaps I may have struck a nerve to the pondering question, but it was something I wanted to know, personally. Sure, I read Eddie's report, but I wanted him to tell me the truth, all on his own. I wondered if he even would, though, as I had just sat there to listen to his breaths and stilled silence. Maybe even when therapists weren't around, he would never tell a soul about his real charge to this asylum?
"... Well, it began when I had kidnapped a woman. My seventh one." Eddie sighed, his fingers tapping over his belly in a thoughtful manner. "I kidnapped her from a music club, after I heard her small performance on stage. She had a sweet voice... Jazzy, like the female musician that had recently passed away... What's her name again?"
"Amy Winehouse?" I answered.
"Oh, yes! That's the one! Bless her soul." Eddie smiled widely for a second, before dropping back to his serious one. "I can't remember the girl's name, though... It feels like a far cry now, as I think hard on it. But, her voice was beautiful, as she was. Her beauty was just too perfect, though... as if she hadn't been hurt before. Her smile always made me cringe, out of spite and romance. I wanted to know her more.
"But, she wouldn't listen to me. I wanted her to come with me to the sights and joints, but she said no. So, I took her into my car by force. I remember that I had a spare bat in my car, in case any of my ladies dared to run." I saw Eddie shift uncomfortably on the lounging chair. "When I took her back home with me, I hid her in the basement. Her screams wouldn't be heard there. As much as I tried to be... ever-so gentle to the angel, she continued to cry and call me a monster. If she had wings on her back, I would of ripped them right off with a bone-saw... but I tried my hardest not to do so. But the days dragged on, and her face became my worst enemy. She... looked nothing like Mother's, but, for some reason, I pictured it every time I looked at... at Carol! Yes, that was the girl's name, I now remember! Carol!
"Oh, Carol... She was a fragile form, full of too much pride. I promised her numerous times, on many different occasions, that I... would NEVER rape her. But, I settled to abuse her, and torture her, and force her to say she acknowledged me. Of course, she did, but... I knew deep down she wanted to ignore me. To take herself away from her prison and... leave me alone...
"The more the thought became real, the more those days became worse. I began to torment Carol the... exact way I tormented you, darling." Eddie stopped for a moment to looked over at me and stare into my eyes. Then, he looked away. "I broke her fingers, and had strangled her on different occasions to make her too weak to fight back. Yes, I smacked her numerous times, and yes, I made her watch as I mutilated men and women alike. Carol wanted to go home. To leave me...
"Her day came, when I asked of her to sing me a song. Carol sung a song she said she had been thinking of telling me lately. It was called 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?' She sung it so beautifully, like a personal lullaby made to soothe me out of my stress. It sounds rather silly, but... her voice cradled me to sleep... I could remember nodding off at the chair I sat at, right next to the iron cage I kept her in...
"She got the keys off of my belt, and unlocked herself out of the cage. And I sat there, sleeping like a doofus, while Carol ran away to find police..."
And that must have been when police obtained Eddie. Evidence of the police's search in his old home exposed various, gruesome photographs and incriminating proof of Eddie's crime. Perhaps Eddie had pled insanity during a speedy trial? Mount Massive Asylum found extreme interest in bringing Eddie to the prison, but not to treat him with the right sort of therapy... Poor bastard was being held captive in his own insanity, with those scientists supporting his declining condition with those tests and engines...
"I'm sorry, Eddie." I found myself saying.
Eddie shook his head, eyes glued to the ceiling still. "Oh, don't apologize, my sweet... My Uncle and Father should be doing just that..."
Oh, right. I had nearly forgotten about Eddie's true trauma in his life. His blood betrayed him, making a constant victim of physical and sexual abuse in the broken childhood home. Any boy being touched by his own Father - the role model in their lives - in such a horrendous way. Eddie must have been completely vulnerable to the ways his blood degraded him.
"I wanted Mother to help me. Or, just someone... I did nothing to make them reject me when I knocked on their front door for help. I was constantly turned away, no matter how much I wanted someone to notice me. Acknowledge me, and make me feel... important. Mother constantly left me alone with Father, too oblivious in her alcohol binging to realize the obvious signs of his, his acts upon me... the things they've done to me, when I was small..."
Eddie's own confession made my heart ache. Unlike him, I grew up in a happy home, with parents that loved me dearly. I grew up smiling, despite the mistakes and wrong choices I've made. And there was Eddie, my polar-opposite. He grew up wrecked and damaged straight from his toddler years, already nurturing the hatred for his own family and the world. He grew to a tall man full of pure spite and personal depression, and the paranoia of ending up alone.
Shit. I actually felt sorry for the madman.
"But, that's when you arrived, my dear..." Eddie suddenly rolled off the lounging couch to stand in front of me, his towering height shadowing me. "... I began to find that I didn't need to make a Wife all along! I just needed... needed someone that I could hold onto... to have them realize my issues!" Eddie grinned widely, looking absolutely joyous now. "Now we can be together forever!"
Wait, what?
"I understand now... to protect you from the vile people, like those men, I just need to keep you here! In this asylum! Where it's safe!"
Oh, hell no.
"E-Eddie, listen..." I knew I was in for it now. "The thing about that..."
"What is it, darling?" He asked, eyes glazed in hope.
Dear God, why me?
"... The exit out of this Asylum is just out this Ward, and, honestly... I need to leave." I held my breath for a few seconds, shifting in my chair. "I've been trying to get out of here since those scientists used the Morphogenic Engine on me. I had this camcorder with me to document everything that I've witnessed in this hellhole. There are people waiting out there for me out of this place."
How else could I put it to Eddie? He wasn't the type to be rejected like this. Not by a long-shot.
I sunk into my chair when I saw a change in his features. I was poking the slumbering grizzly bear.
"I don't belong here, Eddie. I was forced into that laboratory to be tested on, just like you were. I need to get out of here, to expose this place's corruption! I need to find help for those still alive! These patients are victims. You're a victim, too."
But that didn't help one fucking bit. Eddie's face was now twisted and wrinkled with pure rage. His eyes were literally glowing bright with fire, fixated right on me like glue, not moving one bit or budging. I could just feel the intensity of his fury literally seething and searing right from his scowl. I felt ready to either crawl into a hole and die, or bolt right out that door to save my own skin.
"... Leave, you say? After all my love I've given you?" If his soul was made of fire, he would be spitting it. "I JUST poured my HEART out to you, darling, and YET, you still find it relevant to just get up and LEAVE?" And as fast as light, Eddie's hands retched out and grabbed at the front of my shirt, prying me out of my chair. He brought his face to mine, snarling madly. "And I ACCEPTED the fact that you were a MAN! I accepted the fact that I wanted to love and DIE for you, after we FUCKED." Oh God, please... Please help me... "I WANT YOU HERE! NOT OUT THERE!"
"I don't WANT to stay here!" I finally screamed. Eddie paused. "I can't stay in this fucking place another second, Eddie! Please, just-" my hands went for his wrists, trying to pry them off of me, "let me go!"
"I'm NOT letting you go! Not another second will I let you go, you fucking ignorant slut!" Eddie could have struck me, but with his fists occupying my shirt, he violently shook me, like a newborn baby. "You won't step one fucking foot out those doors, Waylan!"
He used my first name... God.
Eddie stopped shaking me, abruptly, to look down at my legs. "I should break your legs some more, to not make you mobile..."
That was it. I balled my hand into a fist, and jabbed the Groom straight in his good eye. The attack made him bellow, loosening his hands off if my shirt. I used the effort to shoved him back, and start out the door on hot-feet. I didn't know how I managed, but Eddie was far from over.
"No!" He screamed, bolting after me. "Don't leave me! I CAN'T BE ALONE!"
The pain was back. I didn't even want it back. Fucking Eddie - don't do this.