by L. A. Banks
Still, she was nobody’s fool. Celeste reached down behind the radiator and checked a flat of bills that were duct-taped to the tile wall. Only her hand was small enough to reach the thin fold of five $20 bills. Since Brandon never cleaned, the likelihood of his spotting it way back there was slim to none.
Satisfied that her stash was still intact, she sat back and took another long drag off the Newport, allowing the smoke to slowly filter out of her nose. Vodka chased the angry smoke, cooling her throat and burning her stomach when it hit bottom. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. After he left tonight maybe she’d go out and get something quick and would be sure to hide all evidence that she’d had any money available to feed herself. Celeste took another slow sip and closed her eyes. This was no way to live.
If she killed the bastard in his sleep, she’d do life in a lockup for the criminally insane. Her mental-health record already damned her. If she claimed self-defense, who would believe her? If she said she’d snapped because he’d stolen her meds and sold them, the DA would probably get one of her doctors to pull out one of Brandon’s old lies he’d told her family therapist at a goal-setting meeting about how she was selling her own meds, turning tricks, and stealing from him to get crack. For someone like her, she doubted patient-client confidentiality would hold up in a court of law.
Nobody except Aunt Niecey seemed to believe that crack was Brandon’s drug of choice, not hers. Alcohol soothed Celeste’s savage beast. Crack and meth had somehow passed her by, despite that prescription meds hadn’t. Crazy what the system deemed acceptable or not.
Celeste opened her eyes and inhaled again deeply, then blew the smoke out in a huff against the full moon. “A full fucking moon,” she murmured, staring up at the blue-white orb, mesmerized.
But Aunt Niecey had told her they had to be practical, that they could deal with ousting a demon behind closed doors their way. The wise older woman, the eldest sister of Celeste’s dead mama, had counseled her to just agree with whatever the doctors said in the goal-setting meetings.
Aunt Niecey hadn’t gotten to be her age with her own property without knowing something.
All the rehab-clinic docs and therapists said it was simple. Celeste shook her head again as she polished off her drink, mentally recounting the goals they’d set forth: Celeste will identify triggers that lead her to run away and to act with violence. Celeste will become more comfortable seeking support from family or other trusted, responsible adults when she feels like fleeing. Celeste will decrease impulsive reactions to conflict-based situations. Celeste will verbalize the need for nurturing and support in her close relationships. Celeste will set reasonable boundaries. Celeste will identify a path forward as well as identify strategies and lifestyle changes necessary to avoid substance abuse. The case psychologist will work with the hospital psychiatrist before the next session to identify additional strategies for Celeste’s success.
“Meanwhile,” she murmured in a sullen tone between drags, “Celeste will figure out how to kill a demon if it jumps on her again in her house.”
If Brandon and Aunt Niecey ever got into a real confrontation, she knew her aunt had no problem telling him where to get off. The problem was, he seemed smart enough to avoid that and to always make her word questionable in front of a third party.
Why did they all think they knew what was best for her, anyway? Her shrink from the hospital provided the meds, while the substance-abuse counselor did the monitoring, and half the time the left hand didn’t seem to know what the right hand was recommending or doing. It was all a sham, as far as she was concerned. But her monthly checks hinged on her playing by their rules, and on her elderly aunt’s word that bills were getting paid and toxic behaviors were decreasing. Even Brandon was smart enough to play the game. Maybe the demon inside him was, too. Everything needed somewhere to live, as a practical matter.
Damn . . . she wished this had been the first of the month. Things were always so much more chill, then. As soon as the check came and the bills were paid, and after her aunt took her “monthly management fee” off the top, Aunt Niecey would then give her the rest of what was left to manage. From there, she and Brandon could scrap over the measly couple hundred dollars that remained after rent had been paid.
Celeste narrowed her gaze at the moon. How in the hell was he claiming to take care of her so-called skinny ass? She paid all the bills from her SSI check via her aunt. She once had a decent receptionist’s job at the university before things got all messed up in her life. She had waited on and qualified for Section 8 housing. She bought any groceries, such as they were. What was she doing with this man? And, it was her pack of cigarettes.
Celeste tossed the spent butt out the window and stood. Being afraid to live alone or to be by herself had brought her to this place, and she knew it. For the first six months of being with Brandon, she felt something close to hope. Brandon’s presence chased away the shadows and made her feel almost normal again. She was able to go out in public without seeing insane images in people’s faces. She could get away from Aunt Niecey’s strict rules . . . could even have sex again. Then something began to wither in her spirit.
New tears formed in her eyes. She allowed the fat droplets to rise to the edge of her thin lashes and spill down her cheeks. Maybe it wasn’t Brandon’s demon, maybe it was hers? Maybe the doctors were right. Confusion once again made her unsure. Constant emotional battering left her with no self-esteem as an anchor. Maybe she was everything Brandon said she was—a skinny, know-nothing bag of bones, crazy and made that way from depression and not eating and drinking way too much. Maybe it wasn’t demons that she was afraid of seeing in the mirror; maybe she was afraid of seeing what she’d become. That was her therapist’s take on it—that she didn’t like what she saw so she’d created mirror monsters.
It was true, in a way. She did hate what she saw when she was brave enough to look into the mirror. Her skin was acne-scarred and her complexion off. Even Aunt Niecey said she looked gray. What was there to look at in the mirror, really? A bag of bones in old jeans and a raggedy orange tank top, with jacked-up skin, no makeup, and hair breaking off so badly that the only style she could keep was a ponytail brushed back into a scrunchie. Pathetic. She didn’t even want him touching her, hadn’t submitted to that in almost a year. Didn’t understand why he’d want to, if she was all the horrible things he’d regularly called her.
Maybe that’s why Brandon had come to hate her, because she was that crazy bitch he’d claimed she was. Celeste picked up her glass, about to go for a refill, then remembered that he’d also claimed her bottle. Now the question became, was another drink worth getting her ass kicked over? No. At least not at the moment. He’d go out soon, she hoped.
Everything would have been fine...if only it had been the first of the month. But the check wasn’t due until then, and nobody in Section 8 housing ever heard anything. Definitely not a woman getting her ass kicked down in Mantua. That was just a run-of-the-mill occurrence, part of the environment that one took for granted. To survive, everybody had to be smart and stay one step ahead of what could happen next—men, women, and children, young and old. The bottom was no respecter of age or gender. Escaping from a beating was better than enduring one or even winning—because if she won, she’d go to jail for either battery or murder.
A loud bang made her jump back into the corner by the toilet and the window, accidentally dropping the glass. Splinters from the door flew at the same time shards of glass exploded on the floor as the door slammed against the tub, hinges hanging. Brandon stood in the doorway, his full six feet two inches of dark rage contorting his face, his fists balled at his sides. Celeste’s heart beat erratically like a trapped bird’s.
“You stealing my cigarettes down to the last one in the pack now?”
He leveled the charge at her almost snorting like a mad bull. For a moment, fear sent new tears to her eyes as she shook her head and wrapped her arms around her body.
&nb
sp; “Don’t lie, bitch!” he shouted, now pointing at her. “You know I can smell you’ve been smoking in here! You think I’m some kinda fool? You think I’m just gonna allow you to steal from me and that won’t cost you?”
A prayer flitted through her mind. This time he was going to kill her; she could feel it in her bones. God in heaven make it quick. Save me from this demon.
But as soon as she’d said the prayer, an eerie calm overtook her. She slowly unwrapped her arms from her body. There had been enough heartbreak, enough pain, enough tragedy. She no longer cared. There was no escaping the beast or the hell her life had become. They didn’t have a drug or a new therapy that could fix this. Surrender . . . and let it all end here, she thought, then swallowed hard. Tonight was as good a night as any to die.
“I didn’t steal your cigarettes. They’re mine,” she said, baiting him, wanting death to take her.
“What did you say?” His voice was a lethal rumble.
“I said,” she repeated, with attitude in her tone, “I brought those cigarettes, just like I paid the fucking rent, the gas bill, the electric bill, and put food in this joint. All you pay is cable. So, if you’re gonna kill me, do it—and stop playing.”
“Bitch . . . I will—”
“Man the fuck up and kill me, then, asshole, and stop telling me what you’re gonna do—or get the fuck out of my house! Get thee behind me, Satan! In the name of the Most High I command you to get out of my house, demon! I’m so sick of your shit; just get it over with already!”
He’d crossed the tiny space in a blur and had her by the throat. She could hear glass crackle and pop under each of his angry footfalls. Her head banged the wall as he shoved her against it, then somehow with her feet off the floor he slung her against the open medicine cabinet. He was so much stronger than she’d remembered. Her eyes bulged and the stinging warmth at the back of her skull told her that her head was cut. But no breath entered her lungs, which burned from air deprivation.
Gagging, she held on to Brandon’s thick biceps as he thrashed her back and forth like a rag doll. Her vision winked with black floating orbs the closer she came to passing out. That was when she saw his irises change to a gleaming red. She began praying in her mind the way her auntie had once taught her. Something shiny glinted in the corner of her tear-filled vision, catching in the blur of it as the medicine-cabinet door fell to the floor and shattered.
The object was short and metallic. Salvation was a pair of Dollar Store tweezers. No, she didn’t want to die like this. She wanted to live! Scrabbling for them as her head and back slammed against the tile, she got the tweezers in her fist. Two seconds later they were lodged in Brandon’s right eye. He fell back, yelling in pain, releasing her. She dropped in a slump against the wall, gasping and heaving as his screams rang out.
“Demon, I command you in the name of God to flee this house,” she croaked, quickly edging her way past Brandon’s body to get to the window.
Then suddenly a second shadow separated from the one Brandon’s crumpled body cast. It was misshapen with horns and stood slowly on two hoofed feet. Long, spidery claws spread across the bathroom tile toward her.
Celeste screamed and pressed herself into the far corner of the bathroom for a second, heart racing. Where Brandon had fallen, he and the foreboding shadow now blocked the door as an exit; the window was the only way out without passing him—it—them.
She stripped the duct tape off the wall, the money instantly in her hand. The ominous shadow immediately synced up with Brandon’s shadow and disappeared. Brandon lifted his head with a snarl; one bloody, dead eye stared at her around the deeply lodged tweezers, the other one red, gleaming, and promising that her death would be pure agony. For a few fragile seconds, neither of them moved. She was paralyzed where she stood by what she thought she saw. Time stopped. Then suddenly Brandon’s mouth became a distorted forest of crooked, razor-sharp teeth.
Instinct propelled her out of the window with a bleating mental prayer. Something she couldn’t explain kept her from breaking her legs from the two-story fall. She hit the ground with a soft thud, sticky money still in her fist, then she got up and ran hard and fast.
Celeste looked back only once to see the window slam shut by itself and then saw the lights go out. Brandon’s loud, panicked voice bit into her ears, tortured her mind, and arrested her conscience. It was a desperate plea, an interrupted wail of her name filled with terror, not anger. That made her hesitate, slowed her escape, and kept her staring over her shoulder at what she should have been flat-out running from. Before she could turn away, Brandon’s bloody face hit the glass. She knew he was dead by the vacant look in his one normal eye.
She ran in earnest as if the very devil were chasing her.
Chapter 2
Out like a shot, Celeste took off running hard and fast again, nearly blinded by tears. Money got shoved into her back jeans pocket, a scream lodged in her throat. Something invisible in that bathroom had slammed shut the window, then smashed a 180-pound man against it as if he were a small child.
The night was too still, as though the darkness itself were a predator. A partially uninhabited block faced Celeste as she fled across the street heading toward Mantua Avenue’s train tracks. Between the abandoned buildings on Aspen Street, the crack house on the corner, and the apathy of the people who were hunkered down in tiny, vermin-infested rental units up the block, there would be no witnesses to declare her innocence. And there were definitely no heroes where she lived.
Something unknowable had killed Brandon. But all evidence pointed to her. The truth, if she told it, would have her committed and imprisoned. Truth was rarely a reliable witness.
Her decision about which way to run had been made in a split second. Dilapidated homes leaned against the darkness like a snaggletoothed grin. Open lots between what should have been an unbroken chain of row houses provided a haven for whatever wanted her dead. Although dirt, and not concrete, had broken her fall, the overgrowth of huge weeds and abandoned tires only added to her terror. A stitch caught in her side as her smoker’s lungs caught fire. But she kept running.
Adrenaline and panic propelled her across one desolate street after the next. Yet, there was no escape from the wasteland of blighted houses and rusted-out cars. A few disinterested, drug-numbed neighbors sat on their porches, oblivious to her peril.
Instinct drove her in the opposite direction of the universities. Penn and Drexel were behind her, an escape into a shield of deeper poverty was before her. She knew she had to stay away from where the police regularly patrolled. Had to stay away from those whose job it was to zealously protect society’s more important citizenry. She had to go deeper into the hood, go underground and get lost in the throng of what the authorities considered throwaway humanity. Maybe there she could blend in.
Train tracks created a natural barrier at Mantua Avenue, forcing her into the open street, the high guard wall and power lines impassable. That sent her eastbound up a slight rise to Thirty-fourth Street Bridge by the zoo, where she could hang a quick left and cross the bridge, a good escape route beneath a canopy of trees once on the other side.
Sweat stung her eyes. Gasping, she pushed on to Girard Avenue, a full three additional blocks, until she had to stop. Celeste clutched the wire fence that was supposed to keep would-be jumpers from hurling their bodies into the river, suddenly bent, and vomited.
She stood slowly, wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist, then stared out at the blue-black water and the odd beauty of the downtown skyline framed by light-pollution haze and dim stars. As much as she’d despised Brandon, in the last few moments of his life she knew that he’d been as frightened as she was. Something had been in him, something evil that had finally taken his life.
Faraway sirens caused her to look over her shoulder and once again contemplate the river, this time for its swiftness in taking a life. Her life. Suicide was a possible answer, she thought. It would end the pain, would end the horror that h
ad followed her all her life. Tonight she was at the breaking point.
Out of shape, beaten, and weary, her legs and body ached so badly they felt numb. Her head throbbed; her chest burned. The stitch in her side felt as if she’d been stabbed with a short, wide blade.
New tears filled Celeste’s eyes as she threaded her fingers through the wire Cyclone fence again and held on tightly. She couldn’t go to her family; that would be the first place the cops looked. Nor could she drag Aunt Niecey into this to be possibly set up as an accessory to a murder somehow.
She’d rather die than be locked up and drugged for the rest of her life, trapped in a living hell. If she was going to go to hell, then it would be one of her own choosing and on her own terms. As tired as she was, she was fairly certain that she could climb high enough to pitch her body over the top of the fence.
But why was this happening to her? Why hadn’t any of her prayers been answered? She didn’t care what Aunt Niecey said, she had been forsaken!
Celeste bit her lip as a sob fractured her. She couldn’t go on, couldn’t take living like this a moment longer. If the river would just be swift . . . if the river would just be merciful. It might hurt briefly on impact; maybe she’d be scared for a few seconds as she fell, but she’d been hurting and terrified for what seemed like her whole life. At least after the few minutes of pain there’d be peace.
However, a low growl in the overgrowth near the corner made her back away from the fence. The instant she saw what it was, she pivoted and began running.
On the border of the park, a feral, stray pit bull and his foraging mate had stopped their snuffling for zoo tourist garbage along the edge of the concrete bridge barrier to contemplate her, a decided interloper in their territory. Abandoned park mansions and overgrowth from the lack of city funds were a haven for the animals tossed out of moving vehicles after pit-bull fights; that made them a city menace that bred almost as quickly as rats.