Epilogue
Bete Noir
Dawn Caldwell couldn't sleep in the darkness of the tomb that was her friend's apartment so finally, after what felt like half the night lying awake on the black couch, she got up. She lit the small candle in the holder on the table beside the couch and, in the sphere of light penetrating the blackness, made her way from the living room to Abby's bedroom.
She felt scandalously naked, even alone in the room, as the brief silken 'babydoll' lingerie fluttered about her body. The breath-thin pink wisp of silk teased and brushed her bare body, and the barely present panties that tied in pink bows at either hip seemed an afterthought, or rather barely a thought. She'd brought them from home in Louisiana in the hope, or at least possibility, that she might get 'lucky' and have a chance to use them while on her own for the summer. She wouldn't have put them on tonight, but when Abby saw them in her luggage she'd insisted, calling it an 'indulgence in femininity'. Right now, as the barely hip length material fluttered about her, she just felt naked.
x
Opening the door, which creaked melodramatically as it slowly swung inward, Dawn saw the large coffin resting on a waist high stand within, just as it was the other night, except closed now. At each end there stood a three tiered candelabra, all three tall white candles on each burning with a tiny light that barely penetrated the blackness.
She hadn't seen the coffin in use the other day, had convinced herself that it was actually a trick bed, or maybe Abby used a futon she hadn't noticed to sleep on and the coffin was just a prop for atmosphere. But if this was atmosphere, it was good, though she thought the six burning candles were a little over the top.
Standing in this room, staring at the coffin, she still couldn't believe that her friend actually slept in there. More so, she'd confided that on at least one occasion she'd had sex in there, with the tall handsome Tim McGee.
Well, she couldn't fault her friend for that choice, even if her choice of bed was totally the weirdest thing on the planet.
x
Overcome by morbid curiosity to see if Abby actually was inside or playing one tremendous practical joke - she opens the lid and Abby jumps out of the closet with a "Gotcha!" - she stepped into the room, feeling the blasted non-material flutter about her, touching her with teasing strokes like butterfly's wings.
Putting down the candle on the stand at the head of the coffin, its light adding to the glow of the other six, she put her hands on the lip of the lid and slowly lifted.
'Thank God it's oiled,' she thought, for had it creaked she might have dropped it. She does not need Hammer Studios special effects, not after this week.
Pushing the lid up and back until it stopped at the length of a velvet band, she looked down into the coffin. Her heart seized up in her chest and her voice dropped to a strangled whisper.
"Oh – Holy – Mother – of – God!" she breathed a word in each frantic pant, felt her gasps coming faster as she clamped her hand over her mouth, trying to muffle her breaths to keep from hyperventilating, her heart pounding in her chest.
It was true.
x
Abby Sciuto lay on her back, clothed in a long white funeral shroud, hands crossed upon her stomach, the picture of repose. She was completely motionless, so deeply asleep that she didn't even seem to be breathing.
"Holy – Mother – of – God!" Dawn panted again, her breath coming fast even through her hand. She'd been sure she'd been teased. Her lively friend Abby was sleeping in a God-forsaken Coffin. "Holy – fucking – mother – loving – shit!"
Suddenly Abby's eyes snapped open, fixed on hers, and Dawn's pounding heart seized up in her chest; for Abby's eyes were not green but were bright red!
She couldn't move even with her heart pounding for escape through her ribs. Abby's hand flashed out and grasped her wrist in a crushing grip, holding her fast as she sat up, and Dawn's heart burst in her chest as Abby's mouth opened, revealing a pair of long sharp fangs!
She shrieked, tried desperately to pull away from that bone-crushing grip as Abby pulled her close, reeling her in hand over hand up her arm until her right hand came up and grasped the filmy material of the negligee, ripped it away as though it were tissue. Dawn kept screaming and struggling, unable to break Abby's grip as the Goth Princess grabbed her other arm high by her shoulder and pulled her close.
Abby looked up at her with an unholy grin, her long sharp fangs gleaming in the candlelight, her glowing red eyes burning with candlelight. She pulled her closer, forced her to bend low, her chest pulled so close and her teeth closed hard into Dawn's left breast.
The agony was far more intense than when Burke had bitten her so many times. Dawn shrieked, felt the fangs stab deep into her breast like twin knives and draw a wash of blood as Abby began to suck.
x
Dawn screamed over and over, flailing her arms wildly, kicked desperately, but still the hands pinned her, clutching her arms tightly. "Dawn! Dawn, honey, wake up! It's okay, you're safe, wake up!"
The urgent words finally broke through and she stopped fighting. "Dawn, its okay, sweetheart - you're dreaming. Wake up!"
She opened her eyes, finding the room brightly lit, finding herself laying down, not bent over the coffin but still on though partially fallen off the black couch.
Abby was bent over her, clutching her arms in an effort to keep her from hurting herself. Her eyes were not red but green, she had no fangs in her mouth and, far from wearing a funeral shroud, she was in a black tee shirt upon which were depicted the ribs and spine of a skeleton, a red heart on the left side of the rib cage, the pelvic bones reproduced on skimpy black panties.
Dawn looked down at herself, unable to stop panting, her heart pounding wildly. She wasn't wearing lingerie, but a tee shirt and terrycloth shorts. Her breast wasn't bleeding. Though both did still hurt; it was the lingering though slowly fading pain from her assault on Monday, three days and a lifetime ago.
She barely heard, from the radio on the standalone bookshelf that split the room, the formerly calming tones of Mozart's 'Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra in C-minor'.
It was no help for her shattered nerves. She was gasping too hard, her heart racing in her chest so fast, pounding so hard it hurt as she shivered in cold sweat that drenched her body.
Abby sat down, drew her close. Dawn hid her face in her neck and shoulder, body thrumming with terror, her heart slamming so hard that Abby could hear it. The woman's shuddering breath was hot on her throat.
"The nightmares keep coming!" she whispered, her voice trembling. She clung hard, unable to hold back bitter tears. "They keep coming. I can't stand it anymore! Why won't they stop? Why won't they stop?"
Abby had no answer.
x
For a long time Dawn was quiet, trying to control her breath. But as the terror too slowly faded, it was replaced by something far worse.
"I – murdered him," Dawn said into Abby's chest. "I murdered him."
"Dawnie –."
"No. I can't stop thinking about it. I took the rifle down because he was going to hurt Catherine; I wanted to stop him. I put the gun on the window to hold it steady, I lined it up – and I murdered him."
"You didn't have any choice," Abby told her firmly. Dawn pulled back, her eyes wet and guilty. "We've talked about this ten times. Ten times."
"I know!" She wanted to scream but emotion tore her voice. "But it doesn't mean anything. Your boss and his report, your friends; they might keep me out of jail and I'm grateful – but I murdered him."
"Did you have a choice?" Abby demanded, unable to endure any longer this recurring torment. "Did you have a second left?" She'd been through this ten times, trying to press reason into the woman. Ten times. And still it always came back to this.
"No," she admitted.
"Did you have a shot that would have stopped him from pulling that trigger? He was going to kill her. He said zero before you pulled the trigger."
"I know." Her voice was buried in inexpressible emotion.
"Did you have a choice?" Every time she'd done this, she'd wrung a series of 'no's' from her friend.
"No."
"Could you have saved her any other way?"
"No. I don't know. No."
"Did you want him dead?"
"YES!" Dawn screamed, surprising her. Every other time, it had been 'no'. She drew back, her wet face a bitter mask of agonizing guilt. "I wanted him dead. He hurt me, ruined my life, made me afraid of everyone and everything and I aimed that rifle at him and I wanted him dead. But I didn't want to kill him! I had to stop him, he'd counted to 'one' and everyone stopped aiming their guns at him except me and he yelled 'zero' and he was going to kill Catherine and I was aiming at his head because I couldn't aim anywhere else the way he was throwing her around and no place else would stop him in time from shooting her so I pulled the trigger and I murdered him! I – murdered him. He hurt me – he didn't have to hurt me – I never did anything to him – and then I had to murder him!"
x
Abby didn't know what to say. She'd used up all her ideas in the ten times they'd been over this, but Dawn could not stop coming back to this same place.
She drew her friend close, held her, not knowing what else she could do, knowing there was nothing she could do.
There was no reason for any of this nightmare – that was Abby's firm belief. No reason at all. Tim, in gaining access to Burke's personal records, would probably be able to answer his own lingering question 'why teachers'. He'd probably discern a motive - somewhere. She knew he would keep at it until he had an answer to the puzzle.
Personally, she didn't give a damn.
x
"She thanked me," Dawn said miserably, painful guilt causing her to admit this for the first time. She'd wanted to forget it, but the memory tore at her soul.
"Who did?"
"Mrs. Middleton. She thanked me for saving Catherine. She thanked me for saving her daughter's life. She thanked me and I just wanted to die. I'd just murdered a man and she thanked me.
"How can I atone for that?" Dawn drew back, looking up at Abby, her soul crushed under the unendurable weight of guilt.
"Tell me. Please tell me! How can I atone for that?" The tears she'd worked so hard to restrain broke through as she begged with shattered breath: "Please, Abby. Please tell me. Please. How can I atone for that?"
Dawn fell upon her, sobbing, clinging desperately to her friend. Abby held her and had no answer. She knew that only those with more skill than she had could find a way to ease this pain, this guilt. She knew that it was only through the aid of professionals of spirit and mind that Dawn had a chance to find healing.
Abby Sciuto held her weeping friend close, Dawn's body racked by violent torrents of grief that ripped her soul, longing to offer comfort she didn't know how to give, that could never be given. Hugging the woman as she cried, she couldn't spare a hand to wipe away the tears that trickled down her own cheeks.
Fin.