Brutally Beautiful(8)

I didn’t cry from fear, or hurt, or pain.

I cried for Samantha Matthews, the woman that they forced me not to be.

For everything I lost.

There are only a few words I have left in my mind for them:

You never should have underestimated me.





Chapter 2





The puddle of blood that lies beneath the limp bodies of my friends is quickly spreading thickly across the floor. There’s a heavy pool of blood in my mouth that spills out over the corner of my lips to mix with the seeping blood bath along the cold slabs of tile. My breaths are noisy, raspy and there’s no oxygen in the room. Did someone turn the oxygen off? Why can’t I breathe? Why can’t I get enough air? I want my mum.

My math notebook is lying near my head and pages of my algebra equations are scattered around the room. All at once, they absorb a swell of thick red blotches that cause the ink to blur and disappear. The pungent smell of some sort of acrid odor lingers thickly in the air, weighing heavily on my stomach.

Haunting, mumbled singsong crooning, whispers through the room. “Did you ever think, when a hearse drove by…that you might be the next to die…they’ll cover you with a big white sheet…after I splash through the puddles of life beneath my feet…”

I can hear the clip clop of footsteps. The squish-squash of two boots squeaking and sliding over the bloodied tiles. “Pl…ple…ease. Please, don’t.” I hear a shaky voice whimper. I can’t tell if it’s a female or a male’s voice, but I know it’s an older voice, so it can’t be one of my classmates. I know it’s not Mrs. Turner’s voice, because Mrs. Turner is lying in front of me with her dead glazed eyes staring at me. She tried to shield me from what was happening, but I don’t think it made a difference, something still got through. My body trembles with the coldness that is drifting up through the tiles. “Please! NONONO!” The voice begs as a loud click echoes across the room. Then POP! POP! POP! POP! Click! Click! Click! Click!

Click!

Click!

Click!

Click!

CLICK! I jerked against the steering wheel, my pulse pounding against my temple as I pulled up to the parking lot of the bar with heavy anxiety. Yanking the gearshift into park, I ran my hands over my face to focus back on reality, trying to bury the flashback in my head. My mind was heavy with thick red images as I tried to rub the blur of them from my eyes.

Focus.

I told my brother I would stop at the bar.

I have to go in.

I hated going there. I hated the long day I’d been through already and I just wanted to be alone, but I promised my brother. So I stepped out, still dressed in my tuxedo, the one my agent said I had to wear to the prior day’s festivities, and I dragged myself into my brother’s den of hell.

I knew I was being irrational about everything, especially about the awards dinner the night before. Any normal man would have been rattled with pride receiving the highly coveted Bram Stoker Award, but I was far from normal. I was barely able to sit next to Gary, my editor, and his wife Mable with her glazed over eyes that reminded me of a corpse staring vacantly into the nothingness. Every time she spoke to me, her whiny voice clawed at my self-control, which I had very little of to begin with. It took just about all my energy not to shove my napkin down her throat, and watch her gasp and flail about for breath.

When I was finally introduced, I tried to shake off my fury, but the twisted tension that followed me everywhere gripped deep in my muscles and seeped into my bones. My speech consisted of a wave and a whispered thank you. I wanted to flip my audience the finger, but I held myself back. I always held myself back, but I was always one bullet shy of self-destruction. The prize was thrown in the bottom of my suitcase awaiting its poor fate of being shoved in the back of the extra closet in my guest bedroom, never to see the light of day again. I hadn’t even stayed the night in the hotel my assistant booked. I just jumped right back on the next available flight and headed home. Now I have to pretend to be sane and normal and visit my brother.