Blood In Electric Blue

by Greg F. Gifune

  Barry’s bruised and bloody face appears in his mind then vanishes in a blink.

  “Can I take your coat?” Bree points at it like he’s forgotten he still has it on.

  “No, that’s OK.”

  “But wouldn’t you rather—”

  “I’m still a little cold, it’s freezing out there.” His mind races for an explanation she might accept. “Besides, I can’t stay long. I just wanted to check on you.”

  “You’re such a sweetheart.” Bree sits next to him, curling one leg beneath her and leaving the other on the floor while words fall from her mouth, escaping in a single rush and tumbling free in a frantic stream as if she’s only been allocated a certain amount of time to get them all out. “I can’t believe he did it. I never dreamed in a million years Kyle would do something like this. He had quite a temper, as you well know, but suicide? I just—I still can’t believe it in any real sense. And to do it right here on this street, I mean—my God—why would he do that other than to hurt me? I know that sounds horribly self-centered considering what’s happened but he was obviously making a statement by doing it here and I—we dated for a while it—we were never even that serious, at least I didn’t think we were, I didn’t—I had no idea things would ever come to this. Kyle obviously had serious issues so I know I shouldn’t feel guilty but I do. Maybe if I’d talked to him again I could’ve prevented this but I was so angry with him, I…” She finally takes a breath, tosses the hideous tissue onto the coffee table and plucks a fresh one from the box. “It’s so awful. I just cannot believe it.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if we’re in control of any of it,” Dignon says, “or if we’re just kids strapped into an amusement park ride with no idea where it leads next. All I know is that life doesn’t make much sense. And death makes even less.”

  Bree seems surprised by his comment, like she’d expected a response more simplistic or accommodating. “It certainly seems that way much of the time, doesn’t it? Life is often unnecessarily cruel.”

  “Maybe cruelty is a necessary evil.”

  “Do you really think there is such a thing?”

  Dignon shrugs.

  When he offers nothing more she smiles and says, “I’m glad you came, Dignon. To tell you the truth I was going to call you anyway. I didn’t…I don’t…want to be alone today.”

  The book is on the table nearby. He glances at it.

  “We’re the same in some ways,” Dignon tells her. “We’re both alone a lot.”

  Bree nods sadly, stares down at the cushions beneath her.

  “For me it’s no wonder. But you…”

  “Why is it so hard to imagine I could be lonely too?”

  “What happened to Kyle?” he asks abruptly, his tone shifting. “Something must’ve happened to leave him no choice but to throw himself off a roof.”

  She delicately scratches the side of her nose with the tip of a fingernail. Despite her magnetism, she is clearly weakened. But is it genuine sorrow and shock, or something else? He can only wonder if doing what she does—luring men to their death through whatever ancient and deadly means her kind harbor—takes something out of her prior to making her more powerful and deadly. “I had no idea he was so desperate,” she says. “If I thought for a moment he was capable of taking his own life I would’ve done something, or at least tried. He never gave any indication he was contemplating such a thing.”

  “At least it’s over now…for him.”

  Bree raises her head, an earnest look on her face. “I feel so close to you, but I’m not exactly sure why. I’m drawn to you for some reason. I feel this comfort with you it usually takes me months to feel with someone—if ever—and yet I feel it with you more strongly than I ever have with anyone else. And we’ve only known each other a few days.”

  “Fate, like you said.”

  “Must be.”

  Dignon closes his eyes and gently shifts his position. The bloody hammer in his coat pocket shifts as well, the weight again reminding him of its presence and lethal purpose. The throbbing in his fingertip suddenly becomes worse, sending shooting pains up through his knuckles and into his hand. He rubs it with his other hand until the pain returns to his fingertip, pulsing there like a ticking clock counting the seconds to an imminent event of great significance.

  She says nothing, moving instead with such stealth and grace that he doesn’t realize Bree has come for him until her palm is pressed delicately against his cheek. Her other arm slides across the back of his shoulders, pulling him closer until their faces touch, and he can feel her breath against his face, mingling with his own as her hair brushes against him.

  Dignon wants to fight this—her—but is powerless to do so.

  Somewhere very far away, he hears screams.

  As her lips touch his chin then cheek and she leans into him, her breasts crush against the side of his arm. He trembles, feels his hands rise from the couch to hold her, as if controlled by someone else. Inhaling traces of her cologne, he lets her lips smother his. Her tongue slides into his mouth, gliding slowly and seductively, warm and moist against his own.

  He cannot open his eyes, and yet he sees.

  He sees it all.

  The road is bumpy and uneven. The car jerks about, rattles as it makes its way along the lonely country road to the cemetery. The old wrought iron gates read: evergreen. But on this day the grass is dead and brown, the earth cold and frozen, the normally beautiful trees along the edge of the property bare and menacing, reminding him of a cartoon he’d seen where frightening black trees came to life and chased a young boy through a field. As Dignon watches the seemingly endless rows of headstones pass by the window, his breath forming small patches of fog along the glass, he wonders if these trees come to life as well. Perhaps after dark, he thinks.

  Once they’ve parked in the appropriate lane their father shuts off the engine and orders his sons from the car. They do as they’re told and follow him to the graveside. His mother’s name—Amelia—is carved into the stone along with her date of birth and date of death. Dignon knows the latter date all too well.

  His birthday. Today. He is seven years old today. She is seven years dead.

  “Say you’re sorry,” his father growls.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The slap to the back of his head is fast and vicious. It sends Dignon stumbling forward and to his knees, just inches from the stone. He steadies himself and blinks rapidly in an attempt to ward off the stinging pain and dizziness spinning across his vision. Six feet below his knees are the remains of his mother, sealed away in a box. His stomach clenches and he pictures the photograph of her in the living room of their home, the only picture of her he has ever seen.

  “Say it like you mean it,” his father orders. “Tell your mama you’re sorry.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dignon says, fighting away the tears that always come when they do this. “I’m sorry, mama.”

  Willie goes to him and helps him back to his feet without uttering a word.

  “Useless bastard,” his father says. “If it wasn’t for your miserable ass she’d still be alive. You killed her. Say it.”

  “I killed her.”

  “She died right about this time.” He considers his watch then glares at Dignon. “We’re gonna have one hell of a birthday party today, boy, just like always. We’ve got to celebrate, right?”

  “Yes sir,” Dignon answers quietly.

  “Get in the car.” He glares at Willie. “You too, you little faggot.”

  His parka is off and in a heap on the couch behind him. Bree climbs atop him now, straddling his lap then sitting back on her heels, still locked in a deep kiss, her hands holding either side of Dignon’s face as they both breathe rapidly, excitedly. His arms move up her back, between her shoulder blades and pull her closer. Her crotch rubs against his and he feels himself harden and strain against his jeans.

  Stop, he thinks. Stop her.

  But he can’t. She has him. Bree has him and he cannot sto
p. He only wants to lose himself in her all the more, to continue to feel and taste and smell her until he can no longer stand it.

  The cellar…it’s all so vivid: the chair, his father’s belt draped across the back of it, the large silver metal buckle dangling there. Beneath it a candle burns, its flame slowly turning the metal red hot while he and Willie sit nude on the cement floor, their backs to the wall, watching their father pace near the cellar door, drinking and mumbling and ranting as he always does before they begin.

  The belt is for Dignon. The chair is for Willie.

  When their father throws the booze aside and takes up the bottle of perfume from the shelf on the far wall, waving it around and explaining as he does every time that it was the same brand their mother wore, Dignon and Willie know the horror is underway. There will be no turning back now. Like always, there will be no way out or even a means by which to forget. It—this—will never go away. He will brand it into their souls, burn it deep like the scar it is.

  He snatches Willie first, grabs him by the wrist and yanks him to his feet. Laughing, he pours the perfume over Willie’s head until the boy is soaked. Reeking, Willie collapses next to the chair, choking and gagging.

  Dignon offers no assistance. He learned long ago that the punishment for such digressions is far worse than what is already planned for them. To question or fight back only makes things worse. Besides, he and Willie both know that one day their father will probably kill them anyway, that one day he will not be able to stop and they will die here in this horrible old cellar.

  Their father puts the empty perfume down and pulls the belt from the back of the chair. The buckle glows orange for a second or two then the metal shifts to an odd darker hue.

  As Willie climbs up onto the chair, kneels forward and hangs his upper body across the back of it in place of the belt, his face just inches from the still-burning candle, Dignon stands and faces the wall. Bracing himself for the pain to come, he knows the only saving grace is he will be unconscious by the time his father finishes with him and returns his attention to his brother.

  He feels his sweater coming off, sliding up over his belly and chest, snagging on his head and then falling free. But still, Dignon does not open his eyes. Not even when the fear of being nude from the waist up occurs to him, the horror of being seen as he sees himself, ugly and bloated and weak. Through a veil of embarrassment he thinks: How hideous I must look, how grotesque. She must be sickened and stunned by this awful blob sitting before her.

  Yet Bree says nothing. Instead her hands are all over him, touching and squeezing and stroking as pleasure gushes through him, momentarily canceling out the self-conscious nervousness. Between kisses, a soft moan escapes his lips.

  “Come with me to the bedroom, Dignon,” she whispers in his ear. Climbing off him, she takes his hand. “Now, come with me now.”

  He turns toward the bedroom, and in doing so, reveals his bare back to her.

  A palpable change in the air stops him where he sits. The excited rhythm of Bree’s breathing ceases with a sharp and sudden intake, an audible gasp.

  “Oh my God,” she says, whispering again.

  Dignon opens his eyes and sits back against the couch. “Sorry, I…” He grabs his sweater and quickly drapes it over his chest. He’s saved. “I know it’s horrible to look at, I’m horrible to look at, I—”

  “No, don’t, I—I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I…” Bree’s trembling hands find either side of her face. “Your back, you…did your father do that to you?”

  He nods. He knows what it looks like, though he hasn’t seen it himself in years. It requires he stand with his back to a mirror then turn and crane his neck behind him, only to gaze upon a network of thick scars slashed and whipped into his flesh, the raised white tissue like swollen veins crisscrossing his torso. Dignon pulls the sweater back on and stares at the floor.

  Bree touches his hand. “How could he do such a thing?”

  “He did as bad and sometimes worse to Willie.”

  “But why?” She blinks free a tear that rolls slowly along her cheek.

  “Because our mother was the only person he ever really loved. Because he hated me for killing her the day I was born. Because Willie and I were there instead of her, in place of her, and he didn’t want us. We were just all that was left behind.”

  “He was a monster.”

  “Yes,” Dignon says. “He was.”

  So am I. And so are you.

  Her hand still touching his, she rubs her thumb slowly back and forth against his skin. “I’ll never understand this life,” she says quietly. “Even when I get glimpses of understanding, clues as to what life is or what it’s really all about, none of it ever seems to last long enough for me to fully comprehend it.”

  Dignon looks directly into her beautiful eyes, burrows deeper until he reaches a place far from this apartment and the horrible memories nesting in his mind, a profound and cavernous part of Bree Harper’s soul where her own personal piece of eternity resides.

  This time it is Dignon’s gaze that captivates her.

  When he speaks, he does so slowly, thoughtfully. “It’s like at night, when it’s raining and there’s cars and headlights moving through the darkness, through the window. Everything’s shiny and wet and looks so new. Undamaged, you know? Alive. Everything looks alive. And just for a moment, the whole world makes sense, it all fits together. You know it. You see it so clearly. And then it’s gone.”

  Bree sighs, runs her hands seductively up along her sides and onto her breasts, then flops back against the couch cushions as if overcome. “Let’s go to the bedroom, Dignon.”

  “I know what you are,” he says, the tightness in his crotch receding.

  She snaps out of her trance but offers no response.

  “Kyle knew what you are,” Dignon continues. “He knew before he died, before you lured him to his death.”

  “Lured him? What are you saying?”

  “But you can’t have me. You can’t destroy me.”

  Her eyes narrow into a squint. “Why would I want to destroy you?”

  “You can’t trap me because I can resist you.” He smiles as his strength and resolve, his clarity of mind, returns. “My pain makes it possible. The beauty of it gives me the strength to fight you.”

  “There is no beauty in pain, Dignon, only sorrow.”

  He straightens his sweater, smoothes it down over his belly. “You don’t have to lie to me Bree, not to me.”

  “OK look, I don’t know who it is you think I am, but I’m just a simple person with a life and a job, with dreams and disappointments like everyone else.”

  “Kyle looked into you before he died, he—”

  “Kyle was apparently quite ill. He threw himself off a roof.”

  “You didn’t check out, that’s what he said.”

  “Check out? What does that even mean? What are you talking about?”

  Dignon casually slides a hand across the couch toward his parka. “You’re not who you claim to be, who you pretend to be. I know the truth.”

  Bree’s expression changes from confusion to fear. She inches away from him then stands and nervously straightens her hair. “I’ve obviously made a mistake, I—I think I’d like you to leave.”

  “Why would you want me to leave?” he asks, sliding a hand into his coat pocket. “You’ve worked so hard to draw me here.”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” She moves toward the door, manically straightening her hair and clothing as if to obliterate any trace of him.

  Rather than follow her to the door, Dignon remains where he is and waits to see if she will show her true form or continue to retreat and play her mind games.

  “Truly,” she says, hugging her shoulders, “I’d appreciate it if you’d leave, all right? You’re making me extremely uncomfortable.”

  “And why is that?” His fingers find the hammer, close slowly over the handle. It is still sticky with Barry’s blood,
but he now knows if he needs to, he can use it to defend himself with extreme prejudice. “Because I can resist you, and sirens can’t survive resistance, can they Bree?”

  She shakes her head. “What is it with the men in this town? Are you all insane? Sirens? Like in mythology? You can’t be serious.”

  “We don’t have to pretend anymore. I wish you could see the beauty in that like I can. I wish you could feel it too.”

  “All I’ve done is tried to be your friend.”

  The Death Maker carries a curse from its ancestors, usually those of a parent.

  “No. You want to enslave me.”

  They are often sought after, enslaved or destroyed by a myriad of evil beings or practitioners of black magic…

  “You want to destroy me.”

  …who seek to draw power by possessing the darkness engulfing a Death Maker’s soul.

  “What is wrong with you?” Bree asks. “Where did you get these ideas?”

  “Exactly where you wanted me to,” he says, motioning to the coffee table and the copy of Mythical Beings in a Mortal World that resides there.

  She laughs, but it’s nervous laughter, frightened laughter. “For God’s sake, it’s just a book, a—”

  “I know what I am, Bree. And I know what you are.”

  Sirens are immortal…

  “All those cities, all those towns you’ve lived in over the years, the decades, the centuries. How many Kyles have there been? How many bodies and souls are floating in your wake? And a Death Maker like me can only make you stronger and even more powerful, able to cause more pain, death and destruction.”

  …except for those rare occasions when a man fails to fall under their spell.

  Bree’s eyes bounce from one wall to the other as she leans back against the door and reaches blindly for the knob.

  When this happens, a siren will throw herself into the sea as a means of escape…

  “I know you’ll run,” Dignon says, slowly rising to his feet. “And I know where you’ll run to.”