by Steve Vernon
The picture in her mind refocused.
She saw Manuel.
The envelope dropped in the kitchen sink.
He was busy in the closet, finding a mop and bucket.
The pool of blood had grown. It lapped at his bare feet, reddening their soles. It felt sticky and hot and cold at the same time. She felt what he felt. That was good.
She wanted to feel it all.
His jaw sagged in comical horror as the blood rolled like lava from the overflowing sink.
He threw the mop at the sink.
He restubbed his toe upon the useless bucket.
The envelope washed to the floor, spouting blood like a broken water main.
Surprisingly, the envelope remained pristine white. It sank calmly beneath the blood on the floor. Gay red tongues lapped at Manuel’s ankles. He pounded on the door, seeking escape, but the door would not budge.
Now he was standing knee deep in blood.
He swung a kitchen chair against the window glass, screaming hoarsely. The ensorcelled glass refused to yield. He hit it again. The metal chair folded against the window, jamming his fingers painfully.
His neighbors pounded on the other side of the door.
They could not help him.
He was chest deep now. He plunged into the rising tide. When he emerged the blood was up to his neck. He found the envelope and waved it over his head like a flag of surrender. The blood sprayed about him in an endless flow. It is not all her own. She had reached out and tapped the veins of a thousand ancestors.
It will flow until he is finished.
He screamed once as the incarnadine flood engulfs him.
The blood stopped rising.
All seemed calm and still.
The neighbors beat in vain at the warded door. Some of them were fearful that the red they glimpsed through his tiny window was a flame that would engulf the neighborhood, as though adobe could burn.
Manuel’s face broke the surface, a panicked Jonah pushing from the gut of the whale. He grinned and spat and coughed and croaked a bizarre mockery of laughter. He found the kitchen table, and now astride it cleared the high level of the blood. The ceiling was close, so close that he smelled the dust ridden adobe.
It stank of blood and vengeance.
Conchita seethed in bottled frustration as the pressure built within the conduit that her soul had become.
The old god laughed wetly, smacking his lips in anticipation.
Manuel raised his right hand from beneath the simmering pool. His fist was clenched tightly about the doubled over mouth of the envelope, blocking it off like a twisted garden hose. Through the thick red muck slithering off his fingers, she saw the whiteness of his knuckles, the strain painted across his features.
His grip slipped, but so did hers. The pressure was killing them both. She felt her dead body swell and threaten to burst, like black pudding left too long upon the stove.
Manuel felt this pressure as well. She felt his erection raise amazingly through his agony, pumping gouts of blood and semen.
The pressure continued to build. It became a question of will. Who could hold out the longest?
Death whispered as teasingly as a jilted lover in her ear.
The old god waited patiently.
Manuel played his final card.
In his left hand he held the stolen butane lighter. Water proof, blood proof, he prayed it work. He waved it above his head like a sword as he prepared to sever his final bloody bond with her.
“Now bitch, now you witch,” he shouted. “Now you shall burn in hell.”
He ignited the envelope, howling as it flared pyred skyward.
Conchita’s screams echoed a final time.
She was gone.
He had killed her.
Yet Manny screamed as Conchita died. Tiny red bubbles, roused into furious life, rise and burst about his ears.
The two of them died screaming as hot Spanish blood began to boil.
The candle in her room tipped and the adobe impossibly burned.
The flames spread.
The hot blood burst like a spring flood through Manuel’s suddenly opened door. The old god, having tasted blood after so long a time, would not be satiated easily. Both were not enough.
There were doors, once opened, that could never be closed.
The old god danced a hot sorrow jig as Mexico City began to burn and bleed.
The End
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Steve Vernon is a storyteller. The man was born with a campfire burning at his feet. The word “boring” does not exist in this man’s vocabulary - unless he’s maybe talking about termites or ice augers. And that is all that Steve Vernon will say about himself – on account of Steve Vernon abso-freaking HATES talking about himself in the third person.
But I’ll tell you what - if you LIKED the book that you just read drop me a Tweet on Twitter – @StephenVernon - and yes, old farts like me ACTUALLY do know how to twitter – and let me know how you liked the book – and I’d be truly grateful.
If you feel strongly enough to write a review, that’s fine too. Reviews are ALWAYS appreciated – but I know that not all of you folks are into writing big long funky old reviews – so just shout the book out just any way that you can – because I can use ALL the help I can get.
I’ve got about forty e-books out there – check them out over at Amazon.com!
DEDICATION
To My Wife Belinda
The guiding star this tale-telling gypsy steers his heart by.
Steve Vernon