Monstrous (Blood of Cain Book 1)

by J. L. Murray

  “Let go of me!” The pain was ripping through my nerves, sending waves of agony up my arms.

  “It was her eyes,” she said, her voice suddenly still, soft. Her face relaxed from the manic fury of before and she met my eyes, letting go of my arms. I fell back with a cry, breathing hard.

  “Jesus Christ, what the hell was that?” I said.

  “Does it hurt, little Frankie?” she said.

  The heat in her voice startled me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I burned you. But you said it wasn’t you.”

  “My body, body. All my body. Black. Crackling. I woke up to die. I thought I escaped. Escaped the mirrors. Escaped the place made of memories. There was so little color there, did you know?” She blinked innocently at me. I couldn’t tell if she was angry or truly telling me. “That’s what I missed most all those years. The colors in the world. And when I woke up, when I was finally out of that place, I saw the colors. More than I ever wanted. Red, orange, white, black. The sky was clear that night, wasn’t it, Frankie?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I remember.”

  “And the one who looks like our mother. She was screaming. Trying to get to me, trying to save me. Too late. You, though. You didn’t try to save me.”

  “No.”

  “I saw you walking away. Your hair was shorter then and black. I remember because that’s all I saw, saw, saw. Just your back, walking away. Not even running. You killed me and then walked away like it was nothing.”

  “It wasn’t nothing,” I said, gritting my teeth, spitting every word. “It was torture and abuse. It was watching Daddy live in fear, afraid to be seen. It was running away over and over, only to be thrown back into that house. It was revenge for everything they did, for everyone they hurt,” I narrowed my eyes, “for everyone they killed. What I did, I am so sorry you got hurt, Becky.” She was watching me, her scarred face showing no emotion. “But it wasn’t nothing, not to me. I died that day as far as I’m concerned. And to tell you the truth, if I had it to do over again, I’d do the same goddamn thing.”

  “Still blaspheming,” she hissed.

  “You’re goddamn fucking right I am. Look at yourself. You think God’s going to save you? You think God’s going to come down and make everything okay?”

  “It wasn’t Jesus who did this to me,” she said, her voice dangerously low. “It was the devil.”

  “The devil in the lake,” I said.

  “No, not that,” she said. “The other.”

  “The other what?”

  “The man pulling all of our strings. We’re puppets, little sister. His puppets.”

  “Who?” I said. “Who is this mysterious man calling the shots? Who the wraiths won’t even talk about. Who makes you fucking terrified.”

  “If I speak his name, he’ll come.” She looked around the room as if he could be there at any given moment. “He is so very fond of you, though, Frankie. So fond, fond, fond. He watches you sometimes. He told me. He stitched your guts back up, put you back together.”

  She moved her tongue around in her mouth as though she were about to spit. “I was ascending. I could feel it. I was leaving my body and I knew I was going to Heaven. I knew, knew, knew. And then he grasped me with his clawed hands. He laughed. And then he asked me about you.”

  “Wait, what?” I said. “Some creepy guy grabs you by the soul and asks about me? Are you messing with me?”

  “Shut up and listen, Frankie!” Her voice boomed in my head so loudly that I fell, hitting my head on the door of the cabin. She was on me, gripping my neck with her frozen-slimy hand. “He wants you, and that’s why you’re here. You’re going to help him win and no one will be safe. Do you know what you are? I’ve been trying to understand. All these years, trying to figure out what you are.”

  “So what am I?” I said, the hand squeezing my throat, my voice coming out in a gasp. “Tell me what I am, then.”

  She released my neck with a sound like the cooing of a dove. She looked at her hand as though it didn’t belong to her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I forget sometimes. Forget who I am, am, am. I forget.”

  “What am I?” I said, sitting up, my back to the door, rubbing my throat. “Tell me what I am, Becky. Please. I need to know.”

  “You’re not normal,” she said softly. “You never have been.”

  “Kind of the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” she said, turning away. “Yes, yes, yes. That place, it did things to me. And then this.” She looked down at her body. “I’ll never go to Heaven.”

  “I never believed in that stuff,” I said.

  “Maybe that’s why the birds followed you,” she said. “Maybe the devil sent them.”

  “So you don’t know.”

  “You need to get away from him, Frankie. He’s going to hurt you. Maybe he’s going to kill you.”

  “That’d be a bit of deja vu,” I said.

  “It’s not a joke, joke, joke.”

  “How am I supposed to get away from him if I don’t know who he is?”

  “Not him. The man. Dekker. Dekker, Dekker, Dekker.”

  “Dekker? I told you, I can handle him.”

  She shook her head. “He’s one of them.”

  “One of who? Christ, stop talking in riddles and just get on with it.”

  “Those eyes,” she said.

  “Becky, who’s doing this? Why am I here? This isn’t just one killer. It’s been going on here for years and years. Those little girls, they killed their mother. You killed Daddy. Everyone’s getting killed by their loved ones? Who am I supposed to kill? There’s no one to punish here, everyone’s innocent.”

  “It’s not going to be easy, Frankie, Frankie, Frankie. You’re not here because you’re good at killing. You’re here because of who you are.”

  “But you don’t know what I am,” I said. “Great.”

  “Those eyes,” she said.“They looked just like mirrors. And when I looked into them, I saw my own face looking out.” She pulled the hood back over her head and it spread like liquid to wrap around her face, until she was a darkened hood again.

  “So you saw your reflection,” I said, glancing toward the bathroom. The sheet Dekker had put over the mirror was still up.

  “No,” she said, echoing in my head. “It was my face. But it wasn’t me.”

  Then the shadows seemed to swirl, her robe reaching back, melting into the shadows. She was gone.

  Then the screams began.

  chapter ten

  I

  ran out the door, weak and spent from my encounter with Rebecca. The moon was bright in the sky and my breath came like a frozen fog from my mouth. Goosebumps rose up on my arms and I shivered without my jacket. The screams were coming from a man, I was sure of that. Someone nearby. I walked between the cabins and came out on the main gravel drive. One long, plaintive scream rent the air, cut jarringly short as I stood listening. And then there was a heavy silence. Not even the crickets made a sound.

  I turned, the scene bright with moonlight, and walked toward the main house. Glancing toward the place where I had first met Lucy, I saw several large mounds in the horse pasture. In darkness they may have looked like piles of earth. But the moon shone a spotlight on them and I could see what they were. Horses, wet blood at their throats.

  I felt for my knife and just the holding of it seemed to give me strength. I stopped at the bottom of the front steps, my pulse slow and steady, the fillet knife gripped tight. The smell of blood wafted out through the screen door, and I could see a light on from deep within the house. The sound of someone clumsily moving around, the distant sound of glass breaking.

  I carefully made my way up the three rickety porch steps, aware of each loud creak. The porch was weathered but clean, swept and taken care of. Two lawn chairs stood empty, an old patio table between them, two cups of coffee sitting on top of the peeling wood. I opened the screen door slowly and stepped into the house. />
  The smell of hamburger grease hung thick in the air, mixing unsettlingly well with the scent of hot blood. I walked through the living room, and I realized my feet were still bare as I stepped onto the threadbare green carpet, my toes touching something wet and sticky. I crouched down to look at the blood, a dark trail of it leading toward the back of the house, a light shining at the end of the hall.

  There was a shadow now, someone moving back and forth in front of a light. I could hear movement and I stopped, frozen, as someone stood just beyond the doorway of what I assumed was a bedroom, the light directly behind, silhouetting her. Long hair and lean, I could practically see her Wranglers. Lucy. She didn’t look at me as she moved away, out of my view, into the room. She was talking to herself, but I couldn’t make out the words.

  I stepped up to the doorway. A tall lamp had been knocked onto its side and lay on the floor, the bulb shining toward the hall. The voice was louder now, and I could hear my prim and proper landlady cursing. There was glass on the floor inside the room, and I could see a frame hanging empty, ringed by shards of mirror. My eyes slid around the room, my back against the hallway wall.

  There was a man on the bed, completely still, his skin the color of bread dough. His bare abdomen had been destroyed, a mass of gore where his belly used to be. Blood was still trickling down his sides and into the once-white bedspread, which was soaked with a vivid red.

  “Fuck you,” the manic voice within murmured. “I’ll fucking cut you next, you’re mine now. You’ll never get out, whore.” I heard glass breaking further in the room, the tinkling as it hit the floor. I chanced a peek around the corner to see there was a door leading to a bathroom. Lucy stood within, breathing heavily, her back to me. The glass in the medicine cabinet was broken, a fist-sized hole in the middle, the remaining glass shattered.

  Flattening myself against the wall again, I closed my eyes. This wasn’t Lucy, I was sure of it. There would be no respite for me tonight. I couldn’t kill her if she wasn’t guilty. But was there any other way? Was she already gone, this woman? Could she be saved?

  I stepped into the room.

  “You’re having a rough night, Lucy.”

  The woman spun around, grasping either side of the bathroom doorjamb for support as she nearly teetered over. Her face was slick with blood, as though she’d deliberately rubbed it on her skin. She grinned at me, her eyes wild.

  “There was an accident,” she said.

  “I can see that.” I watched her panting, looking back at me, more predator than even I was. She was still smiling. “Didn’t waste much time, did you? Or have you been around this entire time?”

  “It’s you.” She took a step out of the bathroom. “Little Frankie Mourning.”

  I frowned. I hadn’t told Lucy my real name.

  “How do you know me?” I kept my voice light and easy, as though it didn’t matter to me how she knew. Just a passing curiosity. Lucy suddenly crouched, the smile turning into an expression of pain. She covered her eyes with a bloody hand.

  “He didn’t say it would hurt.” Her breath was ragged as she continued to pant. “I didn’t want to come. I didn’t come over right. My head...it’s all jumbled.”

  I remembered what Roo said about Lucy having brain cancer. It seemed to be hurting whatever had taken over her body.

  “Why did you kill the horses?”

  “Because she loved them. She threatened me from the other side of the mirror. So I slit their throats. It was tricky. The husband was so much easier.”

  “Did you kill him because Lucy threatened you?”

  “No,” she said. “He was just for fun.”

  “Who told you to come?” I moved cautiously toward her. “Why are you here?”

  “We’ve all got to come, Frankie Mourning.” She turned her face upward to look up at me. “You’re here and now we have to come.”

  “Why?” I said. “Where did you come from?” I looked around. “What’s on the other side of the mirrors?” I thought about Rebecca’s mad talk about being inside a monster’s eye, the lack of color.

  She blinked up at me and after a moment, her mouth spread in a smile.

  “Moledet.”

  Then she sprung up from the floor, her bloody hands ripping at my shirt, her fingernails clawing the flesh of my arm, my stomach, my throat. She was strong, but I caught myself from crashing to the floor by grasping the foot board of the bed. I caught one of her hands in my knifeless one and twisted her wrist hard, holding it as she shrieked, falling to her knees in pain.

  “Settle down.” I was holding her wrist, twisted behind her as she mewled. I put just enough pressure on it.

  “Please,” she said, her voice a high whine.

  “Why are you here?” This wasn’t Lucy, I had to remind myself. She wasn’t even human. Lucy was somewhere else, waiting. What had Rebecca called it? The place made of memories? Whatever that meant. I grabbed a scarf that had fallen to the floor and bound her wrists tightly.

  “Don’t you know?” she said, suddenly still, the whine evaporating into something more sinister. “Frankie Mourning, could it be that you don’t know?”

  “Don’t know what?” I said, brutally twisting Lucy’s wrist and making her scream. “Who sent you here?”

  “Let me go.”

  “The thing in the lake? Is that who sent you? Why is this happening now? Answer me!”

  “Let me go or kill me. Those are your choices.”

  “Not my only choices,” I said, resting the blade of the knife against her cheek. She stopped struggling, stopped panting. I felt her breathing slow and an odd laugh gurgle in her throat.

  “Why is this happening?” she said, her voice singsong and mocking. I pressed the blade harder until a fine line of blood stood out on the skin of her cheek. “It never stopped happening. Ever since that day, we’ve come. We were slow before, taking our time, having our fun.”

  “So what’s changed?” I said. “Why are there so many murders lately?”

  “Because of you.”

  “Because of me, what?”

  “Because you’re here now, Frankie. All because of you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “He wants you, Frankie Mourning. He’s always wanted you. And he’ll do anything to get you. Even send Harishona after you.”

  “Harishona? What is that? Who is this guy you’re talking about?”

  She gurgled laughter again and I shoved her down to the floor, letting go of her wrist and putting a bare foot against her thin chest, her arms bound underneath her. Her eyes laughed up at me and I could feel a cold hollow in my guts. My hand tightened on the knife.

  “Does your hand even shake any more when you kill?”

  “Why don’t you find out?” I said.

  “He wants you, Frankie Mourning. They all want you. The lady of the lake, my mother, she wants you, too. None of this will stop until she has you. Until they all have you. My mother, Harishona, and him. Maybe they’ll kill each other to get you. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I said, dropping my knee onto her chest and holding the knife against her throat. “Who sent you?”

  I pressed down with the knife as she laughed and her eyes widened, her smile turning into a grimace.

  “Do you want to cut me, Frankie Mourning? Do it. Kill me. Then I can go home. Back to Moledet.”

  “I wouldn’t be killing you,” I said. “I’d be killing her.”

  “One, two, mother’s coming for you. Have you missed her, your mother?”

  I stared at her face, once again full of spite, eyes still narrowed.

  “Three, four, you’re a fucking whore.”

  “Why are you here?” I said. “Why are you really here?”

  She smiled again. “What did she smell like when you burned her alive? Did the sizzling meat make your mouth water?”

  I didn’t consciously cut her, my hand seemed to move on its own, and when I blinked,
there was a deep gash in Lucy’s cheek, blood running into her ear and hair and down her chin. It was deep, and I wondered if the knife had gone clear to her teeth.

  “Do you think I’m afraid to die, you fucking bitch? Just do it.”

  “Why are you talking about my mother?” I said, shaken. “Why is this happening?”

  “Stupid girl.” The wound on her cheek was gaping and running with blood. “It was supposed to be you. That day, it should have been you. She’s not going to stop until she has you.”

  “Who, my mother?”

  “Not yours. Mine.”

  “Your mother. The thing in the lake?”

  “You know what she wants.”

  “I don’t! Tell me what the fuck is going on!”

  “You shouldn’t have come back, Frankie Mourning. I’m to give you a message. He told me, but I...my head’s not right. I can’t think. This body is wrong.” She squeezed her eyes shut, furrowing her brow, then opened her eyes wide. “I remember.” She focused her eyes on mine. “It’s about to begin, and it’s going to be beautiful.”

  “Begin?” I said. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “I think it means,” Lucy said, her eyes shining, “that everyone you know is about to die.” She wrenched her hand out of her bonds, an awful crack coming from underneath her, her thumb hanging at an angle when she reached for the knife, still at her throat.

  Bracing myself for the fight, I leaned in. She put her hand over mine on the handle of the knife and, eyes burning with hate, pulled. It was as if it happened in slow motion, I was powerless to stop it. The knife slid through the weathered skin at Lucy’s throat, going in easily, like cold butter. She smiled with bloody teeth, letting her hand fall away, hot blood pouring over my own hand, still on the handle of the knife.

  The knife shoved straight through Lucy’s throat.

  “What the fuck?” I screamed, pulling the knife out reflexively. Thick red liquid sprayed the ceiling, the walls, soaking me and getting in my eyes. She choked on the blood, still smiling, still watching me, until she couldn’t anymore. Her eyes went dull and her body slumped, blood no longer gushing. I fell back, crab-walking away from the body, tripping on my own limbs and falling again onto the threadbare carpet. I looked at Lucy, now just another corpse. But not an accident. She hadn’t even had time to disguise the husband’s murder wound. I looked down at my hand, holding the bloody knife, then around the room. I was covered in blood at a murder scene, the weapon in hand, the only drifter the town had probably seen in a long time. If ever the cops here were going to rule a homicide, I was the slam dunk.