2.
Karen squatted down on her haunches rummaging around in an under sink cupboard, pulling out polish, dusters and bleach. She didn't hear the stranger quietly walk up behind her, watching. Satisfied she had what she needed for now Karen stood up and turned around.
She felt her stomach lurch and her breath caught in her throat before she had chance to make any sound at the shock of finding a teenage boy standing in front of her. There was a thud as the bottle of bleach hit the floor, closely followed by the tin of furniture polish which rolled away under the kitchen table.
Karen's knees had turned to rubber. She automatically went to reach behind herself with one hand in order to grasp the edge of the sink and steady herself. It was then that she discovered she couldn't move. She became aware of a thrumming, tingling sensation throughout her body. She had no doubt that the unnatural power coursing through her and keeping her motionless was somehow coming from this boy who stood staring at her.
Karen felt the quickening thud of her own heart pounding in fear. Tears began to form in her eyes. The boy, "no…..creature," curled his lips in a predatory smile.
Karen began to scream. Inside she screamed loud enough to waken the very angels in Heaven, but no sound ever left her lips. The boy's eye's changed from dull grey to black, the only physical sign of the pure evil within him.
The horrifying realisation dawned on Karen that her life, her time with Bobby, everything she treasured, was drawing to an end because of this…."thing." The monster opened it's mouth, spewing out a stream of ink black smoke and Karen was helpless as she waited to die.
Darkness engulfed her and she felt herself begin to shrink and shrivel up inside her own body. Her essence being forced into some internal recess whilst something else moved in and completely took over her physical shell.
XXX
From that dark corner deep within herself, Karen could only watch helplessly as her hands grasped the head of the now unconscious boy laid on the floor. She heard the sharp crack as her own hands ended the boy's life. Some unspeakable entity had guided her hands to the boy's neck and head. Karen felt as if she herself had murdered the boy. The delicate flickering spark that was still Karen sobbed as she thought of Bobby and the danger he was be in from this thing squatting within her.
Karen struggled and protested as best she could, trying to take back some of the control, however small a portion. Her hopeless mental fight to regain dominance over herself became ever more frantic. She tried begging and pleading but to no avail. She desperately wanted to stop Bobby coming back to the house, to warn him, but she had no idea how to. She heard the…."Demon!" chuckle, amused by her terror.
"Don't you worry in there Mrs Singer. Promise I won't kill him straight away. I'll let you sweat it out for a while. You'll be watching when I do it. You'll see the light go out in his eyes and there's nothing you can do to stop me. It's going to be fun. Do you think I should let him fuck me first before I rip his heart out?"
XXX
Later that afternoon Bobby called it a day and went back to the house. It didn't take him long to sense something was wrong with Karen. Her conversation didn't flow as naturally as it normally did. Bobby felt like he was having to work hard just to get one or two word answers. When Karen smiled, it didn't quite reach her eyes and, the constant little loving touches he was so familiar with whenever he was within reach simply didn't happen. Sure, he asked if she was ok, whether anything was wrong, whether she was mad at him for something? Karen just kept saying "No."
Bobby decided not to mention Rufus' warning to Karen, not in the mood she was in. He simply followed Rufus' advice and found a long silver paper knife which he tucked into the back of his pants.
Later when Bobby went upstairs for a shower, he couldn't find a clean towel. Given how stilted things seemed with Karen he decided not to call her, but went to the towel cupboard himself.
His heart skipped a beat when he opened the cupboard door and the stiffening body of a boy no more than 17 toppled out, wide open eyes staring blankly up towards Bobby. Fighting down his instinctive yell of horror, Bobby did the only thing he could think of. He rang the numbers that Rufus had given him.
Rufus drove at breakneck speed back to the salvage yard and stormed into the house, the place was quiet….too quiet. Clutching a silver short sword in one hand and a silver flask of Holy Water in the other Rufus stood, holding his breath and listening for any sounds. He began to search the house, starting at the top.
When he eventually found Bobby, the man was sat on the floor with his back resting against a wall and small silver knife in hand. In front of him stood the blood soaked body of his beloved wife, her hands stretching out toward him. Stunned, Rufus momentarily stared at the scene before him.
Shaking his shocked hesitation away , Rufus dowsed Karen in holy water. Karen immediately threw her head back and screamed. It felt to Bobby like her scream was going to go on and on forever; until Rufus threw the full contents of his bottle of holy water over the thing which had once been Karen.
The Karen monster reacted immediately, shaking it's head, screaming and screeching as it's skin bubbled and burnt, in some places down to the bone. A cloud of black smoke streamed from Karen's body and what was left of Bobby's wife finally fell to the floor.
Bobby's reaction was to freeze where he sat, trying to decide if it was safe to reach out and touch his Karen.
Once Rufus had made certain that Karen was dead, Bobby began to shake,
"There was nothing else I could do…..I didn't know what else to do Rufus. I didn't know…I….oh God! KAAARENNNN!"
XXX
At first the townspeople joined together, horrified, sympathetic and sensitive to Bobby's loss. Many of them attended Karen's cremation. They witnessed first hand the devastating impact her unexpected death was having on Bobby. Those that tried to offer condolences and words of comfort were met with brooding silence. Bobby's empty eyes seemed to stare right through them. He seemed unable to focus at all on the proceedings happening around him. Men held their hand out to him, only to hesitantly take it back again as Bobby stood completely unresponsive. Everyone wondered about the stranger who stood constantly at Bobby's side. Noting how the man supported and guided Bobby, maintaining a firm grip on Bobby's arm. It was the stranger who thanked the people for being there and accepted whispered words of sympathy.
From the day that Karen died anyone who needed a vehicle repair, whether urgent or not, found they had to travel to the next town. Singer Salvage was closed for business and there was no sign of it ever re-opening.
XXX
Two days after Karen's funeral, Bobby began to frequent the bar in town where he and Karen had occasionally met up with friends for a night out. The stranger who had stood by Bobby at the funeral had left the previous day. In the bar Bobby always sat alone, meeting all offers of company with silence and a brief shake of his head.
Over the next few weeks Bobby began to appear at the bar earlier and earlier in the day. Every night he was the last to leave.
Initially Bobby's behaviour was met with some tolerance and understanding. The bar manager would keep an eye on Bobby, on occasions surreptitiously adding water to Bobby's drinks in an attempt to reduce the amount of alcohol Bobby was consuming.
At the end of each night the manager would call a cab and help what was left of Bobby into it. Every night he would try to persuade Bobby to stay away from the bar for a few days, let the alcohol get out of his system, get himself cleaned up, have a proper meal, do anything other than consume alcohol to prove that he was still alive. But Bobby always retuned the next day, never changing his clothes, beard now completely overgrown, unkempt, long and straggly. Dark circles permanently hung around his eyes. It didn't seem to take long for Bobby's cheeks to appear sunken and gaunt. Within three short weeks his clothes began to hang noticeably looser off his frame due the weight loss caused by Bobby's reluctance to eat.
Although he considered himself to be a friend of Bobby's, eventually the bar manager simply had no other choice. He told Bobby he was no longer welcome, that he'd have to find somewhere else to continue to commit slow suicide, that his other customers were complaining about the smell.
All the while he was telling Bobby he was banned, the manager kept apologising. Bobby did feel a small blush of sympathy for the man and the difficult position he was in, but continued to say nothing.
XXX
Once barred from his familiar setting, Bobby soon found the least salubrious bar in the town, the one that "decent people" avoided.
Here the bar staff didn't give a shit how much alcohol the grieving drunk got through, so long as he paid. Neither did they give a shit when Bobby got beaten up in the toilets and was left laying in his own blood, his face a mass of cuts and bruises. Not one of the customers who visited the toilet and stepped over Bobby's prone figure took the time to check on him or to inform the bar staff that he was there.
It was closing time when the staff found him and they simply manhandled him out onto the street. They dumped him and left him collapsed in a heap on the sidewalk. It was three more days before any of the staff took it on themselves to mop Bobby's dried blood off the toilet floor. This wasn't the kind of joint that won any hygiene and cleanliness awards.
Bobby himself didn't seem to care. The day after the attack in the toilets he was back, sitting untidily on the floor by the bar entrance waiting for the door to be unlocked so he could start his day's routine again.
It wasn't the last time some young moron decided to get their kicks by beating on the "stinky guy". This latest version of in house entertainment only stopped when the manager threatened to ban the guilty parties on the grounds that his staff had got sick of having to clean the toilets. Bobby was relieved when his tormenters backed off and left him alone. Damn idjits had been disrupting his drinking time.
XXX
During this, the lowest period of Bobby's life, he and the local Sheriff became very familiar with each other. She repeatedly picked him up off the road, accommodating him in the town jail overnight. Bobby didn't mind so much. It got him a hot drink, a bed for the night and he didn't have too far to stagger back to the bar the next day. Whenever Bobby was the Sheriff's guest, she would try to get through to the booze addled wreck of a man.
She'd try to get him to accept help, to go for counselling, to admit he had an alcohol problem, to do anything other than just sit in isolation in that dump of a bar attracting the stares and whispers of low lives who once claimed to be friends and neighbours of his.
Despite the fact that the lady sheriff took persistence to a whole new level, Bobby soon learned to switch off to the sound of her voice and he continually ignored her pleas.
XXX
There was one occasion when another kind heart, a local doctor, spotted him slumped up against the locked door to the bar waiting for it to open. He knew Bobby and had known Karen. He wasn't too clear on the circumstances of Karen's death, no one was, but he was well aware of the on-going effect it was having on Bobby. Being a medic, he was also fully conversant with the longer term impacts that Bobby's current alcohol intake would have on the man. The doctor also knew that it would've broken Karen's heart to see her Bobby like this.
He took the time to go over to Bobby. He sincerely wanted to help. Bobby simply glanced at him with flat, bleary eyes before turning away again and growling at him to "Fuck off."
Along with everything else he lost, Bobby also lost all pride in himself. He never bothered to change his clothes, now tattered and stained with old blood, grease, grime and sweat. He stopped caring about his personal hygiene or grooming, telling himself that Karen wasn't around any more to make these things matter. He himself had a hand in making certain of that.
The stench of him was overpowering. Eventually the stink of alcohol, muck, sweat, blood, vomit and urine all came together to form the essence of what remained of the man once known as Robert "Bobby" Singer.
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