"Marriages are a joke," Michael said flatly.
Paige smiled. "Finally, the truth. I knew it was hidden down under the lies somewhere."
"I never enjoyed being married to you. I thought it would be amazing. I was obviously wrong."
"That doesn’t warrant you screwing other women behind my back."
Michael exhaled loudly. Paige frowned, wondering if he did it for dramatic effect. "So what do you want to know? It's clear we have nothing now, this is over."
"You got that right, Michael. This is over, how that happens is down to you."
Michael snorted. "How do you mean?"
Paige drummed her fingers on the hood of the car. "Well, the women, it was bound to happen. Men are weak, fragile. Their egos can’t stand lack of attention so it was only hereditary that you would cheat on me…eventually. And the drug problem could only exacerbate things. What I don’t get is why you did it with her."
Michael swallowed. "Her? Who do you mean?"
Paige felt a smile creep over her lips. "Maybe this will jog your memory." She leaned into her car and flicked the headlights on.
The beams stunned Michael, blinding him for a moment. He spun away and moved out of their path. He tripped over and landed roughly on the chalk cobbles. Lights bounced on his vision, distorting the view. At the peak of the headlights beams, a shape came into focus.
A rusted lamppost, long since abandoned and neglected, stood crooked at the edge of Lake Whisper. Grass had swallowed its base, the faded grey metal etched with dots of red rust now an eyesore on the bleak landscape.
Michael's vision cleared and he felt his soul freezing. His skin broke out in goose flesh and he jumped to his feet. He placed his hands to his mouth.
Tied to the lamppost was a woman. Coarse, blood-soaked ropes bound her lithe midriff and slim arms and shapely legs. Her head was down, positioned on her crimson chest. Her skin, tanned and well maintained, was drenched in blood. Browns, reds, and blacks mixed like some sort of macabre collage. Her legs splayed in front of her, spread-eagled, her modesty no longer private; one shoe remained on the left foot, the other pushed off with the loose ropes by her ankles. The woman had obviously tried to shove the ropes off and succeeded, evident by the small cuts on her calves. Her arms sat bunched in front of her, tied tightly, not going anywhere. Her messy, grime coated hair hid her abused face.
Despite this, Michael recognized the woman instantly. 'Jasmine. What the fuck…"
Michael howled in agony, the scream echoed off the silence in Lake Whisper. He stumbled towards the corpse and dropped to his knees beside her. He cradled her head in his hands, whimpering as he did so. Shocked at the sight, he flinched and backed off. Paige stepped forward and stood beside the beams of the headlights. "I assume you remember now?"
Michael looked up, fear and pain forged on his face. "What have you done?"
Paige smirked. "I think that’s pretty obvious." She tossed the Tiffany necklace to the ground beside the woman and her unfaithful husband. It clinked on the chalk.
Michael gazed at the necklace, the evidence that betrayed him, and thought how stupid he'd been. He had to go all out and impress Jasmine, especially since she liked him. Michael wasn’t a looker and he had to take anything he could get.
You should put that on your tombstone, he thought.
"You…you killed her. Jasmine…oh my GOD!"
"You can blame yourself for this, Michael. She's only here because of you."
"But…she's your sister!"
"Wrong…she was my sister. Before she fucked my husband and betrayed me. You betrayed me and so did she. You both need to pay the price."
Michael's eyes widened. "You're a monster. You killed your own sister!"
Paige stepped forward. "I didn’t kill her, she's alive. I wanted to keep her alive to see this. She isn’t going to be the one who dies. You are."
Michael backed away. "But…she's dead. There's no pulse. And how could anyone survive…that." He lifted a trembling arm to point at the head.
Paige stepped forward. "I told you…she's not dead." Paige frowned, stepping towards the body. She lifted Jasmine's chin.
And screamed.
Two raw, slimy, visceral tunnels were gouged into her head, the eyes completely obliterated. Her hair was stiff with blood; it crunched against Paige's hand as she brushed it away. The mouth was open in terror, her tongue lolled idly from between her lips. Dry, flaky blood coated her face.
Embedded in the center of the face was a rusty rotor blade, between the mutilated tunnels of the eye sockets. The head dropped with the weight of it, the hair was stiffened into the shape of the blade itself.
Paige backed away and looked around, icy fingers slid up and down her back. "Shit."
Michael looked at his estranged wife. "What is it?"
Paige ushered to Michael. "Stand up, get up, now."
On the last word, Michael stood up. "What's going on?"
Paige didn’t look at her husband. She was too busy surveying the trees. "Nothing, let's move. The car –"
"–I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on. Did you do this?"
Paige, her eyes darting from tree to tree, worried Michael. "No, I didn’t."
"So what happened to Jasmine…?"
"Penny got her."
"Who's Penny?" Michael said, confused.
"We're in Lake Whisper, Michael."
The words bolted Michael upright. He felt his skin grow cold, sweat formed on his forehead and he started to shake. "You've got to be shitting me!"
"Nope. Surprise." Paige didn’t try hiding her contempt.
The estranged couple stood still. Paige was still looking at the trees. Michael laughed and turned to Paige. "So you think the ghost of a five year old girl did this…to Jasmine?"
"I don’t think, I know. I certainly didn’t kill my own sister."
"Yeah, because kidnapping her and tying her up out here is perfectly good sister bonding."
"Shut up and keep an eye out," Paige hissed.
"Seriously, you realize ghosts don’t exist, right?"
"Care to explain what's happening here, then?"
"You lost control and killed your sister, it's pretty clear, you psychotic bitch."
Paige finally turned to Michael. "Fine. You can stay then. I'm getting out of here."
Michael balked and turned, pointing at the corpse behind him. "What about your sister?"
"She had it coming," Paige said, flatly. "You can blame yourself for that, you cheating piece of shit. This all happened because of you."
Michael was about to say something and stopped. He grabbed Paige's arm. Paige turned and shrugged him off. "What?"
"I thought I saw something."
"Saw something? What are you talking about?"
"Over there." He pointed to the darkness behind the BMW. "In the trees."
Paige glanced towards the darkness and gasped. In the trees stood a small girl. Her eyes were black swirling pools of evil. Her mouth sat in a straight line. She held a headless doll under her arm, a broken rotor blade embedded in her cracked forehead.
Paige blinked and she was gone.
Nothing was there.
She looked at Michael, who was still roaming the darkness with his eyes. "I'm sure I saw something out there. My minds messing with me."
Paige walked away, heading for the BMW. Michael started after her and paused. "Where are you going?" Cold shivers radiated through his blood.
Paige stopped at the car. "Home. We shouldn’t be here."
Michael snorted. "Bit late coming from sister killer over there. What do you mean you're going home?"
Paige walked back towards him, flustered. "Did you not hear me? Penny Graves died in Lake Whisper. We shouldn’t be here; this is her resting place. Let her rest in peace. I made a mistake coming here, a big mistake." Michael stood dumbfounded. Paige turned and Michael reached for her again. "You’re insane. There's no girl, no ghosts. You're crazy."
&nb
sp; Paige stopped. In the corner of her eye, Penny waved to her, black drool spilling down her flaking, dead chin. A chill shot up Paige's spine.
She backed up to Michael. He gave her some space. Paige was sweating, her eyes wide, and her skin as pale as the full moon overhead. Michael took her arm. "Are you okay?"
Paige shook her head. Her eyes were frantic, darting rapidly from side to side. She clasped her hands to her head and shook it violently. "This…this...can't be…"
Michael turned Paige to face him and shook her. "CALM DOWN! There's nothing there. LOOK!"
"It doesn’t matter. I feel something, it's…I shouldn’t have brought you here."
Paige shot a glance at the surroundings and saw nothing. She stepped away from her husband and breathed out, shaking a little. She checked again.
Nothing.
Her eyes shrunk a little, panic subsiding from her veins. Michael spat on the ground. A puzzled look crossed his face. "Paige…why did you bring me here?"
Paige leaned on her knees and sighed. "To teach you a lesson…look at this place, it's wonderful. Eerie, creepy and it reeks of death. You shit yourself, admit it." Her voice was calm, measured.
Michael nodded, confused. "Of course I'm fucking scared, your sister is dead. Look, she's tied to a fucking post and mutilated. You don’t seem to have much to say about it?"
"What's to tell? You're a pair of cheating cunts, both of you. Why should I feel any remorse?"
"She's family. Family needs one another. She needed you."
Paige stood up. She turned to Michael and suddenly, she phased out. Her mind whirred behind her eyes, giving her a headache. She closed them.
Twenty-four hours earlier, Paige had driven Jasmine to Lake Whisper. Paige had requested company for the trip on a whim and Jasmine, being the doting, lying sister she was, agreed. As they drove, they were listening to the radio and Paige was singing. Out of nowhere, Jasmine asked the question: "Why do you want to go back there? There are no good memories that can come of it. She's gone and she's never coming back."
Paige uttered the words as she remembered, vividly, clearly. Her mind unlocked and let the memory float into the consciousness. She remembered smashing her sister in the head with a hammer to shut her up. The remainder of the journey took place in silence. Silence apart from her sister's incessant babbling as her body fought the pain. The response came to Paige as her body tensed and her eyes flicked opened.
"She's my daughter and she needs me."
Michael frowned. "What?"
Paige smiled, tears flowing freely. "She needs me. She always did. She needed me on that day, the one fucking time her father took charge, the cunt!"
"What are you talking about?"
Paige said nothing. She looked into the trees. Penny was still waving. Paige pointed. "Do you see anything, in those trees, those beautiful, blood-soaked trees?"
Michael glanced at the trees, puzzled. He saw nothing. "I don't see shit for leaves and darkness."
"Oh good, it's just me then."
Paige head-butted Michael. His nose snapped, bone crunched back into his muscle and blinded him with pain. Michael moaned, blood trickled down his face, and he staggered back. Paige stepped to the side. Michael noticed and put an arm out. "What…what…are…"
"She needs me."
Paige kicked the side of Michael's knee. The knee snapped; a sickening crack filled the air around Lake Whisper, followed by a howl from Michael as he toppled to the chalky cobbles. His leg was bent at a twisted angle. Paige ambled around him and grabbed the foot, wrenching it the other way, snapping the limb in two. Bone tore through his trouser leg and blood spurted into the night sky. A geyser hit Paige in the face, drenching her. She licked the blood from her lips and smiled.
"You taste good. Doesn't he, Penny?"
The little girl standing beside Paige nodded; her dead neck cracking as she did so. Michael hunched over, holding his bloody, useless leg. He screamed in agony. He looked up at his wife and held out a bloody hand. "Help me…please, fucking help me…"
"There's no help for you."
Paige stamped on the broken leg and walked back to the BMW. Michael's howls filled the night sky. Before she opened the passenger door, Paige looked at Lake Whisper and smiled. Michael's pain perfectly fitted the location. You shouldn’t waste such moments of beauty, she thought.
"Oh, I don’t intend to," Paige answered her own question.
She opened the passenger door, pulled out a heavy duffel bag, and closed it. She took her time walking back to her injured husband.
Penny was standing over Michael. She smiled, black drool oozing from between her shattered teeth. Paige smiled at her dead daughter's visage and dropped the bag on the ground. Paige unzipped it and kneeled down. Michael was crying, his face a mess of blood, tears and saliva. A string of pink snot hung from his nostrils as he wheezed, pain paralyzing his body. His eyes darted to Paige. "I need a fucking doctor."
"I'm sorry, Lake Whisper shut down some time ago. They don’t have an onsite physician anymore. I can think of several people to blame for that. Isn't that right, Penny?"
The dead girl nodded. She was standing behind Michael now. The blade in her forehead bobbled with the movement.
Paige removed some items from the bag. She held up some coarse rope. She looked at her husband. "Look familiar?"
Michael's glance from his wife to his dead mistress, and her binds, answered the question for her. Paige smiled. "Good, you're keeping up." She placed the rope on the chalk cobbles. She pulled out a hammer and some barbed wire. Michael, pain making him shiver, laughed. "You…you, you're joking, right? Is this supposed to scare me? You already said you didn’t kill your sister."
"Did I now?" Paige smiled and took a kitchen knife from the bag.
Michael gulped. "You…you said just then…you didn’t…"
Paige ran a finger across Michael's sweaty brow. "I say a lot of things, dear. I do a lot of things too. I didn’t kill Jasmine, Penny did. Say hi to Penny. She's my dead daughter." Paige held a hand out to her left. Michael looked and saw nothing but empty space. His eyes narrowed and he coughed, blood spraying from his lips. He looked at his wife, who was chatting to herself.
Michael panicked. "No way. You acted…you couldn’t pull…there's no way you could have acted that shocked. That…the scream was horrendous."
"I've been told that's the mark of a sociopath. Lying, making shit up and not feeling remorse. It also makes us good actors, or so I was told. But, like I said, I didn’t kill Jasmine, Penny did."
"Penny is dead, you sick fuck."
The smile vanished from Paige's face. She grabbed the kitchen knife and held it out towards her husband. He sneered at her, blood coating his exposed teeth. "Go on then, fucking do it, bitch." He spat at her, the sputum missed her feet by an inch. Paige looked down, hesitant. She looked at Penny. Her daughter nodded. Michael chuckled, "You don’t have the guts."
Paige pinched Michael's bottom lip and sliced into it with the steel blade. The flesh split effortlessly and blood sprayed everywhere. Within seconds, the dead lip slapped the cobbles below. Michael shrieked, his mouth now a pit of gore and shredded sinew. Paige reached into the bag and pulled out a box of salt. She poured some into her palm and threw it in her husband's face. He screamed again, flopping on the ground violently, kicking and thrashing. Paige stood back and left him to his devices.
"YOU BITCH, YOU FUCKING….ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH…BITCH….FUCK ME."
Paige circled her husband. "No one can hear you scream. Howl all you want. This place has been abandoned for years. You see, I don’t like this place; it took my dearest daughter from me. All because of a small fuck up in the maintenance department. Pathetic, isn't it? My daughter dies because some fat, overpaid, lazy cunt decides he can't be bothered. How's that fair?"
Michael didn’t respond. A low, guttural, agonized hum was emanating from his body. He looked at his wife, repulsed and petrified. His bladder released, urine spraying down his leg. I
t stung the broken bone, making him howl a little more. "You're…you're fucking insane."
"No, I'm lucid. Yes, I might not know what I'm doing on occasion – and I definitely remember seeing Jasmine scream in pain as Penny sliced off her labia and her clitoris – but I am lucid. I am in control of my actions. You know 57% of psychopaths aren't. Amazing, isn't it?"
"You're sick."
"Maybe, maybe I am. But society is sick. A man stealing from his wife is sicker. A man fucking his sister in law is even worse. Was she good? Was Jasmine's cunt nice and tight around your average dick? Did she cum and squirt and moan for you? Did you fuck her in the ass? Did she swallow you whole and make me seem irrelevant? I hear she deep throats like a fucking sword swallower. Huh? ANSWER ME!"
Michael laid on his back and sobbed. The look in his wife's eyes was one of vehemence and pure evil. She'd gone off the deep end. Michael crawled towards the BMW. He wasn’t sure why, a last ditch effort to survive putting his body on autopilot. Maybe he could get to it, muster enough strength to climb into the car and drive away, and leave this psychotic lunatic behind.
Maybe.
Paige watched him. She laughed, looking up at the night sky. The laughs reverberated around Lake Whisper as she lowered, picked up the hammer and gripped it. She spun it so the claw end was facing upwards. She started walking towards her unfaithful husband. "Where do you think you're going?"
Michael looked at the car, one last gasp glance, and turned to face Paige.
The claw hammer swung in and smashed him in the face. The claw bore into his eyebrow, just above his right eye. The metal tore flesh and muscle and it embedded deep above his eye. Paige yanked; the flesh stretched and split, spraying blood and viscera all over Michael's face. The skin snapped, muscle shredded and a shard of Michael's face slid off the metal, splattering onto the cobbles.
Paige hit again, this time the hammer obliterated Michael's exposed right eye. The white orb bulged and popped, yellow mucus and viscous fluid pattered Paige's smooth thighs. Michael's body was going into shock, his moans barely palpable now.
Whispers - Volume 1: A Collection Page 8