by Skye, Mav
“You!” Mrs. Chow screamed at Sir Sun, it sounded like an accusation. And this was exactly what Caesar took it as.
He lifted a bloody fist and pointed at the gut soup on Mrs. Chow’s lap. “What the fuck did you do to her!”
Sir Sun said, “I didn’t do any—” Before Sir Sun could finish, Caesar popped Sir Sun in the chin. Sir Sun fell backward with the force, a metallic taste in his mouth. His hip bumped into the elevator buttons, and the lights went out inside.
Mrs. Chow screamed again, although it was weaker, fainter than before.
The elevator made a pleasant Ding! And the doors closed, encasing the three of them in darkness.
27
Elevator Music
It was silent for a beat before Caesar’s sarcasm ripped it apart. “Nice going, asshole.”
Sir Sun stood to the left of the elevator, and he heard the box shift as Caesar moved from the right in front of Mrs. Chow.
Pressing himself against the walls, Sir Sun inched around to the back of Mrs. Chow, trying to keep a distance from Caesar. He again began to scissor the thick rope with his shears, but it was like using kiddy scissors on ten pieces of construction paper—slow going. Eventually, he felt the rope give.
The elevator creaked where he had previously been standing. Caesar smacked the wall. “What is this—musical chairs? Where the fuck are you, Sun Dick?” He punched the wall again.
And then several things happened at once.
Sir Sun leaped from behind, to the right (where Caesar had previously been standing) and then to the front of Mrs. Chow, almost completing a circle around her. Caesar smacked at the walls behind Mrs. Chow. “Where the hell are you?”
There was the pleasant ding! And a loud thump. Caesar had leaped to the right, trying to catch Sir Sun.
Hearing the ding, Sir Sun picked up the chair with Mrs. Chow in it, ready to carry her out of harm’s way. When the elevator dinged the second time, the doors opened. Before Sir Sun could step out with the chair, he felt something hit his head. He jolted forward just enough so that Mrs. Chow was heaved out of the chair.
Light flooded the dark enclosure.
Both men stood quietly, helplessly, watching as the gruesome scene unfolded in slow motion. Free from her bonds, Mrs. Chow’s arms and legs spread open wide. She screamed her last pitiful cry as she flew through the air and slapped the hall floor with a hard thunk. She turned to her side with a grieved grunt. Guts and blood pooled from her open wound. When she sighed, they knew it was her last breath.
Sir Sun, still holding the wooden chair, was speechless, and for once, Caesar was too. And then he smelled it—burning rubber, wood. A smoky haze filled the air.
Sir Sun said, “Do you smell…”
“Fire,” finished Caesar, in shock. On queue, the elevator dinged and dinged again as the doors closed them into darkness once more. Caesar let out an angry yowl that previous Caesars would have envied and applauded. Sir Sun felt the chair snatched from his hands. There was no longer a disemboweled elderly woman to play hide and seek around.
Sir Sun jumped back, but it was a second too late.
The back of the chair met his ribs with a healthy smack. He heard a crunch, felt pain, and then he was trying to breathe. He grabbed his chest and leaped to the back of the elevator as Caesar roared another guttural cry and smashed the chair where Sir Sun had been standing. “I knew you were up to something. I knew it! I just didn’t know what. I didn’t realize how crazy you are. You sick fuck!” Pain was in his voice. The loss of a friend. Duck was dead, and intuitively Caesar knew it.
Sir Sun said, “It was an honest mist—”
Caesar roared and swung, smacking the leg of the chair against Sir Sun’s shoulder.
Pain seared him, igniting his own inner fire. He clenched his shears, shivering. He didn’t shiver with pain nor fear, he shivered because he felt alive. Alive. The beast broke free once more from the bonds of its cage— this was survival.
He could hear Velva whispering, urging him. Game on, Darling.
Caesar was mumbling something. “You leave us alone. You leave my fucking sister alone!”
Sir Sun perceived where Caesar stood, then hurdled to the front of the elevator, smacked the door, and tiptoed to the back. He felt Caesar’s presence in front of him, back turned, smacking the chair into the door like a crazed animal. “You leave my sister alone!”
Sir Sun felt the elevator slowing and knew it was time to make his move. He stepped up behind Caesar, wielding his shears. As the doors dinged open, Sir Sun threw his weight into his weapon, aiming up and slicing deep, Sir Sun sank his shears between the ribs of the mighty Caesar. Caesar’s body weakened. He dropped the chair and fell against the doors wheezing a phlegmy cough.
The door dinged open.
Sir Sun let go of his shears, and Caesar fell forward out the door, slamming into the carpet face first. His ivy crown rolled across the hallway, dropping its last grapes along the way. His sandaled feet landed just outside of the elevator’s doors.
From within the elevator, Sir Sun took a step toward Caesar’s unmoving body. Blood poured from his mouth. A black feather floated from nowhere and settled on his chiseled jaw.
Sir Sun glanced in the direction the feather had come. Smoking hot legs brought his eyes up her mini skirt, torn corset and host of shimmery black feathers, and finally, he met Velva’s eyes.
Her lips turned up into a deep, gorgeous smile as she looked down at Caesar, then back at Sir Sun. “Et Tu Brute?” Hazy smoke surrounded Velva giving her a Goddess-In-the-Mist look. The strong smell of burning drywall stung his eyes.
Sir Sun said, “That’s not even funny.”
The elevator dinged once. Velva bent, whipped the shears from Caesar’s thick back and tossed them through the elevator’s closing doors with a wink. “See you soon, cowboy.”
He pounded his fists on the doors. “Velva, what have you done! Damn it!” When the elevator didn’t move, he pressed the dim pushbutton marked one. To his relief, the elevator descended. Grasping his ribs, he ducked to the bloody floor and snatched up his shears.
28
Carnal Rampage
When the elevator doors opened, Sir Sun stumbled into chaos. Costumed college students were running amok like ants from a burning nest. Sir Sun searched the walls by the elevator, looking for a fire extinguisher. None. He ran towards the apartment entrance hoping to find one there.
He bumped into a handful of kids dashing for the staircase. Sir Sun said, “There’s fire up there, too. Go out the door—” He pointed toward the entry way.
A crying kitty cat replied, “All the doors and windows are locked! There’s no way outta here.”
He ran to the entrance where he found a crowd of drunken kids; he recognized nurse and gorilla from earlier. They banged on the doors. “Let us out!” Sir Sun scanned the foyer for a chair to throw at the door, for anything, but there was nothing but crying, frantic college students. He glanced up at the sprinklers. They remained dry. And, Sir Sun suspected, rigged.
A fresh round of high-pitched screams came from Sid’s apartment.
Sir Sun dashed down the hall, passing Mr. Fiddler’s door, which he checked—locked, by the elevators where he heard bellowing voices trapped inside. He rushed past Daisy’s door—full of death. He scooped up a scarf and held it over his nose as he rounded the sharp corner of the hallway, then turned toward Sid’s apartment, dodging the pole. He burst into party central.
What he saw took his breath away. The fire blazed from one of the bedrooms. Mother Mother’s Let’s Fall in Love still blasted from the stereo. Clowns tripped over each other and onto others who shrieked as if the clowns were cannibals. (And who knows, maybe they were?) Most congregated at the balcony door, throwing lamps and plastic chairs to break it. The objects ricocheted off the thick glass knocking kids upside the head, three lay silent on the floor.
Then he saw her.
Velva.
Velva with her raven mask on, the feath
ered shoulders spread into black angel wings. She swung her axe over and over, hacking at a body dressed in sparkly black—Ms. Twilight.
“Stop her!” yelled Strawberry Shortcake to the vampiress clan. They merely held each other crying, praying to pagan gods that hadn’t bothered to save them.
Velva turned toward Strawberry Shortcake, axe raised high.
Strawberry Shortcake screamed, turned, and tripped over a clown laying motionless on the floor. Velva brought down the axe, hacking—just once, into her ribs.
Strawberry Shortcake stopped struggling. Velva then started swinging over and over, at the flailing crowd, chopping at arms and legs and shoulders. When she spotted the vampiress clan again, she jumped at them, spreading them apart.
A nightmare. This was a nightmare.
Sir Sun stood in the doorway, people pushing through on both sides, and somehow—somehow the music kept playing. At the end of the world, music always played on like a bad movie. Blue Oyster Cult sang Don’t Fear the Reaper. They la-la-la-ed their hearts out.
Something crashed in the apartment—a beam in the kitchen.
“I’m burning! I’m burning!” wailed a clown, rushing by Sir Sun with his red wig on fire. He tripped over Sir Sun’s foot and landed flat on the floor, while the remaining vampiresses, bloody from Velva’s axe, came squealing, flooding out the door around Sir Sun.
But Sir Sun didn’t move. He just watched. He watched the carnage unfold. And in a way, a very special way, it was a work of art. A beautiful work of art. It was violent. It was Splatterpunk.
It was Velva.
And he needed to put a stop to it.
As he pulled the shears from his pocket, not unlike a gunslinger, he felt the beast rattle inside him once more. And he suddenly knew this truth, once unleashed, this beast was never going back in its cage. And Sir Sun, for the first time, was at peace with this knowledge, in fact, he embraced it.
The shears in hand, he moved betwixt the fire and screams and chaos toward Velva. Velva, who was laughing and screaming and crying and hacking like a mad woman. Blood splattered everything, everyone. Smoke kissed the air, suffocating it with its essence, stealing breath out of lungs, and suffocating life.
“I’ve won!” screamed Velva. “I’ve fucking won!” She swung, again and again.
She didn’t see Sir Sun walk up behind her. He snatched her free arm. Surprised, she swirled around. Seeing who he was, Velva threw her arms around his neck and kissed him long and hard.
“I’ve won,” she said, tears running down her face. Sir Sun nodded and swung her up into his arms, wincing at the pain in his ribs. Velva clung to the axe while he marched her across the living room like a new bride to a broken window. She struggled, “What are you doing? I’m not going through there!”
Sir Sun glanced out the window, holding onto Velva.
A girl lay on the ground, a sharp piece of glass jarring up from her throat.
Sir Sun dropped Velva’s legs.
“I’m not going out there! I’m having too much fun!” She swung at a fox running by. The blade stuck in the woman’s shoulder.
Sir Sun took the moment to rip off his shirt— Girls Just Wanna Have Funyuns!—and, grabbing Velva by her raven wings, he flipped her around, wrapped the shirt around her neck and shoulders like a protective blanket. She swung at him, but he grabbed her arm and forced it down to her side. Tears streamed down her beautiful face. “Let me stay, Timothy! I want to get them all.”
He swept a finger down the tear trail on her face. “Not this time, Honey.” With her neck and chest protected, Sir Sun heaved her small frame and threw her out the window.
Velva shrieked like a hellhound when she hit the ground. She drew herself up to her knees, crawling over the dead girl, looking for her weapon, and when she found it, she stood, drawing the axe up like a batter ready to swing. Her eyes reflected the fire from the apartment, anger wracking her frame.
Sir Sun kicked out the broken glass. And when Velva gave him a come-hither gesture, he jumped. Anticipating her swing, he dodged the axe, ducking as he hit the ground. She roared and swung again, this time catching his arm.
She laughed manically and drew the axe up again.
It hurt like hell. But not as much as it would hurt later—he was running on pure adrenaline and survival. The beast no longer raged inside. He was the beast now. He was indestructible.
Another loud Crackle, Snap, and Pop! And the windows blew out of the apartments. Blazes licked up and over the side of the building. And the music played on and on.
Velva swung at Sir Sun.
Sir Sun dodged to the left and whipped out his shears once more.
She cried, “Come with me, Timothy. Let’s finish them off together!”
Sir Sun shook his head. “No more, Velva!” From the ground, he held his hand out to her, and she hacked at it. He moved to grab the handle, but quick as the vixen she was, she swayed it away.
A pirate woman jumped out the window screaming, her clothes fully aflame. She landed on a surprised Velva, who fell forward swinging her axe.
The axe hit the dirt, but Velva crashed into Sir Sun full force. And he was waiting for her—anticipating even. Her body quivered as she received her second big surprise.
Sir Sun still held his shears. With the force, they had plunged through the corset’s lace close to her heart.
Confusion shone in her dark, dark eyes. “Timothy?”
The burning woman rolled off Velva and ran, leaving Velva’s raven wings burning in wild flames. Sir Sun rolled Velva on the grass, extinguishing the flames.
When the fire was out, he stroked Velva’s lovely blood splattered face, her smooth neck, her pale breasts—his splatterpunk angel. She strained for breath. Her tongue dabbed at the blood pooling in the crook of her mouth.
She whispered.
He couldn’t hear, so he placed his ear next to her crimson lips.
She said, “You’ve changed, Timothy.” Her lips drew into a faint smile, her eyes gleamed, and she patted his face with a dainty, bloody hand. “You won. We won. Together.”
Sir Sun gazed at her thoughtfully, and lightly kissed her lips. She kissed him back.
He drew back, shaking his head at her. “No, Velva. I won.”
And then, placing both hands on the handle of his shears, he plunged their sharp tip all the way into her heart. Surprise and mischief lighted in her eyes and he could hear her words in the back of mind—Be dangerous, darling, for the whole world rises and falls at your feet—and then the light faded. Sir Sun bent down to her, embracing her, taking in her smell—blood and smoke and love—the essence of chaos, and drew it within himself.
The building’s roof exploded into flames. Sir Sun swept Velva’s body up into his arms, pausing to pluck up her beloved axe, and with her half burnt wings trailing the ground, he carried her. He carried her under the ninja skeleton hanging motionless from the maple tree, which by now, had also caught flame. He carried her to the river, where, yes, he knew Velva had arranged for an escape boat to be waiting for her, for them.
Sir Sun maneuvered her body, ever so gently, into the boat, then pushed from shore, sailing into the night. The burning apartment complex, his home, scalded the night sky where the moon and stars shone no more.
29
Eternal Garden of the Soul
He didn’t bury her next to her mother, but he did bury her clothes there—corset and miniskirt, heels and panties. Raven beak and what was left of her wings all six feet below the earth, pretty as a bulb. Despite all the hate between mother and daughter, he knew there was also love. He pat down the dirt and reminded himself to order a headstone.
Velva’s body would not be planted in the dirt, for she was not of the dirt. But her clothes would serve as the essence of Velva, and a piece of her would remain with him and her mother.
He stood and looked around the garden grounds, breathing in the peace. The peace came not only from Velva’s lovely garden of graves but also from within. Once
the beast was out, it was not a roaring monster, but a gentle lamb who had won a simple game.
The garden was his now. He would maintain it for Velva. Perhaps he’d even add a few relics of his own.
Beyond the Tim Burton tree, Tall Man hung from his cross by the pumpkin vines. Sir Sun picked up the axe and went to visit.
He swung the axe at Tall Man’s head. The cloth cracked open pouring sawdust over and into its flannel shirt. The board behind its cloth head splintered. Tall Man was not flesh and blood. He had never been real, but to Velva, he was more real than life. She had fashioned herself after him. He wasn’t of the dirt either but a creature of the night. Sir Sun made a mental note to refill the cloth head with sawdust and to patch his face. He left the bloody axe sitting in Tall Man’s head (Velva would have wanted this)—and put his hands in his pockets, wandering down the path leading to the garden shed.
Inside, Daniel’s duffel bag laid open on the ground. And after snooping around through the weird objects, jars, and utensils, and pushing aside a journal entitled UNDERGROUNDERS in bold letters, he found a clean black t-shirt. It smelled funny, but it was better than nothing.
He stood and slipped it on, grabbing his aching rib as he did so. He glanced around at Velva’s gardening shed. He touched her rubber boots sitting by the open door. Ran his fingers over her gardening tools hanging primly on the wall. Opened drawers and gardening chests—he explored Velva’s world. He pulled his shears out of his pocket and laid them on her potting table. He touched his Felco’s lovingly; Velva’s lifeblood still clung to them.
Across from the table on a shelf, he noticed a small package marked, “Spring—Undergrounders Mix.” He spun to investigate the seedling packets. In doing so, he accidentally knocked a ceramic pot from the table. When he bent to pick up the pieces, he discovered a large iron ring sticking out of the dirt below the table.