Vengeance Bound

by Justina Ireland

  The hungrier They are, the more They crave justice, the more visible They are within the irises of my eyes. Too much movement in the blue depths and I could lose my hold on Them. If I don’t give the Furies what They want, I risk Them trying to possess me completely.

  Too little motion from Them? Well, that’s never been a problem.

  I stare into my eyes, searching the blue irises. My eyes twitch left and right. Seconds pass and nothing happens. Part of me hopes nothing will.

  What would I do if I were free of the Furies? Maybe I could go live with relatives. Someone would want me. Not my aunt and uncle. They never really forgave me for the part I played in their daughter’s death, an incident I was too young to remember. If they’d wanted me, I never would’ve ended up a ward of the state of Georgia.

  Maybe I could travel the world. I visualize myself lying on a beach, the sand warm under my feet and the sun bright overhead. These mini daydreams make me hopeful.

  But hope is deadly, because just as I’m about to turn away, I see it. A shadow flits across my left eye. It’s gone before I can track its progress. I wait, and a similar darkness appears in the blue of my right. I hold my breath, and just as I feared, They come swimming back, sharks in the blue pools of my irises, whispers of madness in my mind. The movement could be a trick of the light, but it isn’t. The shadows are Tisiphone and Megaera, waiting to be fed.

  In that instant I hate Them.

  There is too much movement. They are entirely too active. Alders wasn’t enough; the entire event was over too quickly to appease Them. I have to go hunting tonight. I can’t risk someone at West County High seeing the phantoms that live inside, not if I want a semblance of a normal life. I once trusted Dr. Goodhart to see my shadows. I thought he could help. Turns out, trusting him was a mistake. Not the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, but a mistake all the same.

  I turn away from the mirror with a sigh. If I could cry, I would.

  My bedroom is little more than a closet, the space barely big enough to fit a double bed and a beat-up dresser. Despite the small space, I have a closet that is almost as big as the room. That’s where I head now. It’s my secret sanctuary, that small square space. It’s big enough to accommodate my wall trunk, a special antique my grandmother bought me. It was once a magician’s trunk, the kind that opens to reveal not only a trunk portion but drawers as well, two small and one large. Stickers from the late nineteenth century decorate the outside, detailing its long history. We saw it in an antiques store a few weeks before my birthday, and I fell in love with it. It was the last thing she ever bought me.

  The lid opens to reveal the wooden drawers inside. Nestled in those drawers are a dozen slinky tops and short skirts, outfits that would make a stripper blush. In the little drawer near the top are my fake IDs, more than a dozen different aliases, cousins to the driver’s license in my wallet. The other small drawer holds my newspaper articles, clippings of my prey since I left Saint Dymphna’s. I place the newest article on top of the stack. There are a couple hundred clippings, and I remember every single one of them. Every bit of justice I’ve ever handed down stains my soul.

  I do an Internet search on Hank Meacham, and within minutes I find everything I need to know about the man. I close the laptop and stretch. There’s quite a bit of time before I can do any real work, so I might as well run a little.

  I slither out of my school clothes and slip into tight running gear. In the bathroom I see that the bruises on my neck have already faded to a mustard yellow, and I’m glad that I probably won’t be stuck with turtlenecks all week. Speedy healing is a side effect of Their possession, and it has come in handy more than once.

  I run down the stairs and out the main door, my shoes pounding rhythmically as I find my pace. A pair of boys wearing puffy jackets mark my progress with dark eyes. They don’t move, frozen to their spot like leery wild dogs. I grin and round the corner.

  Let them try to start some trouble. We would welcome the entertainment.

  ABSOLUTION

  The world is a pit of blackness when I walk out of my house. There are few streetlights where I live, another plus. The local thugs have knocked them out, and the town is too poor to keep up with their replacement. The closest working light is halfway down the block, just far enough away that I can skulk out of my building unnoticed.

  I don’t need the lights in order to see. My vision is just fine with very little illumination. It’s another one of the few benefits of letting Them in. They keep me healthy, and enhance my natural abilities enough so that I’m better than average. It’s not much, but it’s something.

  I climb into my car and put an address into the GPS. It’s the location of a bar in the nearby town of Flintlock. Flintlock is a magnet for losers. It’s the closest town to the Pequea Valley Correctional Facility, a federal prison. The Pequea Valley Correctional Facility didn’t exist ten years ago. With populations on the rise at the other penitentiaries in the state, the government hired a private firm to build a brand-new prison. It’s too bad the corporate suits didn’t consult with their potential neighbors first, who were less than thrilled about the addition. As awful as West County is, Flintlock is actually worse, a veritable ghost town.

  It takes me forty-five minutes to get to the bar, a classy place called Loose Lucy’s. A mud-flap-girl cutout outlined in pink neon sits on the roof, the name of the bar scrawled next to her in illuminated purple letters. The place looks like it was once a strip club, but even the dancers have left for greener pastures. Now it’s just a bar that advertises cheap beer and a wing special on Thursday nights. The cars in the parking lot are a mixture of rusted pickup trucks and beat-up four-door American family cars, working-class all the way. I park at the edge of the gravel road under a leafless oak. It’s darker in this corner of the lot, and I don’t want to draw any attention if I can help it.

  I get out of the car and strut toward the bar. I’m dressed in all black, a shadow moving across the white snow. The air is frigid, and a stiff breeze cuts through the thin turtleneck sweater and tight jeans I wear. I’m not dressed for the weather, but I can tell from the way They rustle in the back of my mind, I’ll be warm shortly.

  My plan is simple: Walk in, find Hank Meacham, get him alone, and hand down justice. I’m hoping Hank is a man of habit. Loose Lucy’s is where he was picked up on a parole violation a few weeks ago, according to a public records search. Like my grandma used to say, a leopard doesn’t change its spots.

  I saunter into the bar, which is pretty dead. It’s after midnight on a Monday, and I’m the only female in the room. The Furies relay the thoughts of some of the patrons in rapid-fire snippets as I walk past, the descriptions ranging from foul to vomit-worthy. I ignore the play-by-play. The man I’m looking for is here, sitting at the end of the bar. Bald with a week’s worth of stubble on his face, Meacham only vaguely resembles the newspaper photo I found. But there’s something unmistakable about his eyes, which hold a glint of the malice I’ve come to recognize in killers. There is something about those who deal in human misery that leaves an indelible mark on them. I wonder if my own tendencies can be so easily seen.

  I don’t think I really want to know the answer.

  Meacham looks in my direction, tracking my progress as I stride to the bar. My heart flutters a little in my chest, and something writhes in my belly. Excitement or guilt, it makes no difference. This is exactly where I need to be. A monster hunting monsters.

  I ignore Meacham and perch on a bar stool a couple of feet away. “Excuse me?” I call.

  The bartender, a man who has eaten entirely too many buckets of fried chicken, waddles over. The tucked-in flannel shirt he wears takes some of the strain of his large belly, and the spaces between the buttons of his flannel gape to reveal his stained undershirt. His thinning hair is too long and greasy, and he pushes it out of his face with sausage fingers as he walks over. He looks me up and down, leering at me as he licks his lips. “Hey there, sugar. What can I get you
?”

  The look on his face is enough to send Them into overdrive. My leash on Them is loose, and They eagerly relate his thoughts.

  Sweet little thing . . .

  . . . such a tight sweater . . .

  . . . just a few minutes in the back . . .

  It’s so disgusting that my smile slips a little. I try to ignore the Furies’ howls for blood, hating how They have to relate the foul thoughts of the men we meet. Not every guy we meet is bad, but there’s nothing They like more than relating the innermost thoughts of those who are. It’s very tiring.

  The man watches me with his beady eyes, and I force a wide smile. “My car broke down up the road a bit, and my cell phone’s dead. I was wondering if maybe you could call me a tow truck?” I blink and tilt my head at the end, just in case the rest of the act isn’t convincing enough. I have to look nonthreatening, even though all I want to do is punch him.

  The bartender laughs and leans toward me. Lucky for me there are beer coolers on the other side of the counter. Otherwise he’d be in my personal space. My skin crawls, and I lean back slightly. He doesn’t seem to notice. “Honey, I don’t have to call you a tow truck. The only driver in town is right there.” He gestures toward the man at the end of the bar. “Hank. Hank! You got your truck? This sweet thing right here needs a tow.” His words are so close to what They related that I have to take a steadying breath.

  Hank blinks at the question. When he realizes the bartender is talking about me, he tosses back his beer and stands. He watches me, and I sense a split second of hesitation. It’s the opportunity he’s been waiting for, but some part of him, buried deep under the tainted part of his soul, rejects the lust for violence. That part is too small to make any difference, though, and he gives me a grin that sends chills of warning down my spine.

  It’s disappointing how easy this is.

  Hank stretches like an old hound. “I left my truck at the yard. But we can ride there and then go pick up your car. It’s sixty-five dollars for the tow. Cash only.”

  I nod slowly, like I’m mulling it over. In the back of my mind, They gnash Their teeth in excitement. “Okay. Sounds good.”

  Hank nods, and slaps a ten down on the bar. He slides into a dirty, dark blue mechanic’s jacket, his name on a patch on the front. He belches loudly, wipes his nose with the back of his hand, and shoots me a gap-toothed smile. “You comin’ or not?”

  I follow Hank out to his truck. Excitement makes Them flutter in the back of my mind, and for once I don’t try to silence Them. By the time I climb into the passenger side of Hank’s truck, I shake, as much from the cold as from anticipation.

  This is the part where once upon a time I would have tried to talk myself out of it, to fight the inevitable. Until the last, final, unavoidable act I would try to reason with Them, try to spare the life of the guilty man about to receive his sentence. For a while it worked. I thought I could regain control, return to a normal life without giving in to Their bloody demands.

  That was before Dr. Goodhart’s betrayal at Brighter Day and the long waking sleep of Saint Dymphna’s. I trusted him. I worked hard to follow his suggestions when my parents sent me to him at Brighter Day. And he turned me into a lab rat the first chance he had.

  Sometimes when I think back on everything that’s happened, I imagine that Dr. Goodhart actually helped or that my parents didn’t die in a car accident, that it was them who saved me from Brighter Day and not my grandmother.

  But it didn’t happen that way. My parents died, I went to live with my grandmother, and I betrayed her by giving in to Their cries for justice. If there hadn’t been an eyewitness to a judgment, if I hadn’t been covered in the same sooty residue as the dead guy, I never would’ve been arrested.

  But I was. And it broke my poor grandmother’s heart.

  After I made my escape from Saint Dymphna’s, after I listened to Their advice, after They taught me how to survive, I knew They were right. One must be ruthless and unforgiving. That is the way of justice.

  And justice is the only thing that matters.

  There will be no amnesty for Hank Meacham.

  Hank starts up the truck, and classic rock fills the interior. He drives through the parking lot, and before we’ve gone far, I can tell he is entirely too drunk to be driving. He swerves over the center line several times, and I hope he doesn’t drive us off the road into a ditch. That would be inconvenient.

  I clear my throat. “So, Hank, are you a religious man?”

  Hank gives me a sidelong glance, and chuckles. “I s’pose so. Why? You about to give me a religious experience?” His hand snakes across the distance of the bench seat, and he grabs for my thigh. I scoot as far away as I can, just out of his reach.

  This irritates him, and he suddenly turns wide down a narrow side road. Gravel pings the underside of the vehicle as he guides the truck back from the shoulder onto the paved road. The back end fishtails, the remnants of last night’s snowstorm an added challenge for drunken Hank. “You know, if you don’t have the money, we could negotiate something else.”

  I shake my head. “No, I can pay. I just want to get my car and go home.” There’s a quaver to my voice, a little bit of acting so Hank doesn’t get suspicious. The Furies push at the front of my brain, anxious for release. I shush Them. Soon.

  Hank chuckles. The sound would make any sane person nervous. “Maybe I don’t want your money.” He pulls into the parking lot of an ATV repair shop, the truck’s headlights reflecting off the airbrushed plywood sign. The only light in the lot comes from a sickly overhead lamp that turns the snow the color of piss. Snow-covered fields surround the lone garage, and beyond there is darkness.

  I realize with amusement that I’ve miscalculated. Again. I thought he would try something once we got to his junkyard, since that was his habit for such a long time. Pick a girl up, do his dark business, stuff the body into the trunk of a car, and crush it. It’s one of the reasons the authorities found only four of his victims. How many other girls got turned into scrap metal?

  Hank has changed his routine since his stint in prison. It intrigues me that I’ve overlooked the possibility, and I wonder where he dumps the bodies now. Cornfield? Junkyard? Maybe it’s still the trunks of the victims’ cars?

  While I’m thinking, he grabs for me. I’m already out of the truck and sliding across the snow slush gravel of the parking lot. During our drive it started snowing again, and flakes fly into my eyes as I jog. My muscles are still loose from my earlier run, and my head pounds as They seek their freedom. The frigid night air burns my lungs, and I breathe deeply, enjoying the pain. Hank’s footsteps sound behind me. Even from a distance I can hear his labored breathing. He’s an old hound, but he’s not about to let his bone get away.

  I haven’t gone far before he catches me. I could have easily outrun him, but that would have defeated my purpose. This show has all been for his benefit. It’s so much better when they don’t see it coming.

  I’m a few steps from the field when he grabs me by my right shoulder and spins me around, holding me upright when I would fall. I swing at him with my left hand, awkward and ineffectual. I could drag this out, savor it and fight him for real, but Hank bores me. With the exception of his choice of location, he’s predictable. Plus, he stinks.

  He laughs at my weak punch and hauls me up against him, pinning my arms at my side. It doesn’t matter. By the time I need my hands, They’ll be free.

  He says something to me, his breath hot and reeking of alcohol. I am beyond hearing him. All I can think about is how much They’re going to enjoy what’s about to happen. His hands are roaming over my body now, and I swallow my revulsion at being pressed up against him. With a giddy laugh I release the hold I have on Them.

  It’s like releasing a long-held breath, the whoosh of air replaced by a rush of wings and the soft sliding of scales. I sigh happily. Hank frowns, confusion overriding his glee. I wonder if he can sense what is happening in his inebriated state. Hank, bu
ddy, you really shouldn’t have had that last drink. You look a little tipsy. His expression goes flat, and I smile.

  “You’ve been a very bad boy, Hank Meacham.” The voice is mine and yet, not. It’s deep, throaty, like a stripper who smokes too much. Tisiphone’s voice given life by my throat.

  Hank releases me and takes a couple stumbling steps back. His eyes are wide with horror. My hair whips around my head, driven by a scalding wind. The night is suddenly hotter than an August day. The snow around me melts and evaporates, and steam shrouds me. My vision splits into three. We see three separate Hanks turn to run. A force blocks him, the serpent reaching out invisible coils to restrain his flight. He shoves at the air, a terrified mime in a box. His stupor is gone, fear wiping away the alcohol-fueled haze. He’s screaming now, shouting unintelligible words. Some of them sound like prayers. He blubbers through his panicked tears, pleading with an absent God for mercy.

  We shuffle forward and point at Hank, now curled up in a ball on the ground. “Judgment must be passed,” Megaera hisses, her voice sibilant and high. It’s pretty much pointless to tell him his crimes. He’s petrified with fear. I stride toward Hank. The chains that link me to Them rattle as I move, silver links dragging over the gravel parking lot. My fingers wrap around his chin, dragging him into a sitting position. The grip causes him to wince. With a little more pressure I could shatter his jaw. I hesitate, and They urge me to break it, Their voices rising and sliding over each other until the sound is deafening. Their cries echo in the still night. I want to resist, but Their lust for pain is stronger than my will. With a grimace I give in.

  The jawbone breaks with an audible crunch, turning my stomach. Hank’s screams shatter the night, like an otherworldly choir. We sigh as we savor the sound. The bone crackles as it heals. They could do this all night, breaking and then fixing him, just to do it again. I remind myself that I’m the only thing keeping Them from indulging in Their fun.