A Melancholic Black Series (Book 1): The Red Door

by Scriber, R. J.

  She nods.

  “Bullshit,” he laughs. “Why? Because you look like her?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Then why?”

  She shakes her head, again.

  “Because you are her?”

  Amberly nods.

  “What do you know?” he asks.

  “I-I-I… know!” Amberly yells back, her voice stuttering, low. She stands up and drops the bare bone. She walks up to Rodney and sits down on her knees with her feet tucked. She doesn’t say or do anything, she just stares at him as he swallows heavily. He was scared before when she was more than a foot away, but now, face to face, he’s petrified. In his mind, he hadn’t cared anymore if he lived or died. But now, he knows of the pain he surely would go through. Being eaten alive.

  He wondered what it would feel like. Sure it would hurt. Would he go in shock? Would he feel everything?

  Yes, he would.

  He’s positive that Sion had. Too bad there wasn’t a little left of Sion so he could ask. Perhaps it’d be easier to deal with it if he knew what was coming. Would it be easier? Absolutely not. If anything, it’s even scarier knowing there’s nothing he could do to stop it. Even if he wasn’t chained up.

  “What do you know?” he asks.

  “Wh-wh-why… I… a-am… dddead.” She reveals.

  Rodney’s eyes open wide. “Dane…”

  “No,” Amberly responds. “You.”

  “Me? There’s no… you don’t know anything.”

  Amberly doesn’t move or say a word.

  Rodney thinks for a moment. Fretful of asking the next question. A question he feels he needs answered. “Do… you, uh, want to… kill me?”

  She shudders from excitement, smiling as she nods. Yes, she does. More than anything.

  “Are you?”

  Amberly shrugs. She’s really enjoying messing around with Rodney. Even if she is telling the truth. He has no clue.

  “Why?” he asks.

  This time, Amberly replies with a truthful response. “Hurting… m-mommy.”

  X

  November 12th.

  2:00PM.

  The car stops as Nell and Sean jump out. The homeless man smiles and breathes in deeply before stretching his back. “How much have you guys packed?”

  “Huh?” Nell asks, not remembering the lie she had told.

  “The move.”

  “Oh, right. Um, not much. Just started a day ago. We have some boxes ready to go,” she says. “That’s all you’ll need to carry.”

  “Sounds like tit work,” Sean comments. Older generation he was raised with. Never afraid of good, old-fashioned manual labor. It gives him a sense of worth and pride. Work hard for what you get. “Well, we’re losing daylight. Is Rodney inside?”

  “Yes. Just give me a second. You can go inside, door’s unlocked.” Sean smiles at Nell and makes his trek to the front door as she walks around her car, opening the trunk. Laid out in all its glory is a four-way lug nut wrench.

  Sean opens the front door as the smell of iron and death swooshes past him. The smell is so strong it catches him off guard as his knees buckle. He coughs from the deathly ammonia.

  “Mrs. Gray… what’s wrong?” he asks, but he doesn’t hear anything but the sound of running footsteps.

  He turns around just in time to see Nell sprinting as fast as she can before clobbering him in the jaw with the wrench, shattering the bone. He grunts in an enormous amount of pain as he falls to his hands, as blood and broken teeth pour from his mouth

  “Please!… Help!” he wants to scream, but there’s no way that he physically can. All he can do is look up at Nell who lifts the wrench above her head and ask, “Why?” He puts all his strength into crawling away, he’s too disoriented. The only direction that he can go is in the house.

  His chest rubs against Sion’s dried, repugnant blood that still stains the floor, along with his own. He cries out in fear.

  As politely and sincerely as she can, “I am so sorry for this, Sean. I am. I want you to know that. Before I do this, I need you to know I’m not a monster and it’s not personal. I’m, just a loving mother. Do you think I have a choice? I don’t!” Nell swings the the wrench down and violently cracks his cheek. She was aiming for his frontal lobe.

  His left eye lodges loose, as Nell gasps. Her gag reflex is working overtime. She stops for a moment to watch Sean, still alive, fighting for his life. Not knowing what happened. For a moment she considers letting Sean go, but the more time she debates with herself internally, the more time she has to dwell on Amberly. After all, this poor man is in more pain than he needs to be. It’d be the humane thing now to just kill him.

  “Please, forgive me!” she cries, tears falling from her eyes as she throws all her weight down, slamming the wrench over Sean’s skull. He goes limp as his right eye rolls into the back of his head, yet the left eye stares down.

  He’s beautifully and morbidly displayed on the front porch.

  Tears continue to run down Nell’s cheeks. She knows, finally, that she has committed the most vile act a human-being can: murder. She falls to her knees, sobbing. This had better be worth it. Everything for Amberly. Everything for her little girl.

  Sean and Sion are both dead to keep Amberly alive. It has to be worth it. It has to somehow rewrite the wrongs of her murder, to sacrifice these men for a little soul. Better be.

  What parent wouldn’t sacrifice everything for their children? Even if it meant sacrificing their own ethics and freedom for a lifetime in prison or death.

  She drags Sean’s body into the kitchen and to the basement door and opens it slowly. Amberly’s deathly white hand creeps out and grabs Sean’s body by his waist and rips him inside, breaking his spine as she bends him in half. Nell slams the door.

  “Nell!” Rodney screams from down stairs. “Nell! Nell! NELL! Plea-e-ease!”

  She doesn’t answer. She just crawls up and cries in anguish. Something she brought on herself. Rodney warned her. She didn’t stop and most likely, won’t. What’s the point? She already murdered an innocent man. Doesn’t matter if that turns into two, three, or even twenty.

  For now she just listens to Amberly tearing old Sean apart and the gasps of Rodney, who is not only hearing it, but watching it with his own eyes.

  XI

  November 21st.

  2:00PM.

  Dehydration has set in. Rodney looks as deathly as Amberly. This torture is going to kill him. Though, Nell isn’t torturing him, she’s offered him water and food, he just can’t take it. He’s too sick in the stomach to keep anything down. Solid or liquid. It’s been ten days trapped to that damn beam. His clothes are dirty, his skin smells of dead bodies—considering there’s now ten corpses resting in the corner; all bones and torn clothes by now—and his mind is spiraling into madness and resentment.

  Eating a person a day is part of a healthy diet.

  Exactly the opposite of what Nell originally wanted. Sure that knock upside the head with the spade didn’t help.

  Instead of learning to love Amberly, Rodney just rests in clothes covered in his own piss and feces. Becoming more resentful that his cup is pouring over with hatred. A miserable existence. Nell has no clue how badly she’s treating him as she’s been a bit busy as of late.

  On top of the nine men she has murdered, there are also a couple dogs. Amberly’s “midnight snacks.”

  The door opens as Nell descends down the stairs. She bends over at Rodney’s feet and slides him another bowl of salad before turning around to leave.

  “Wa—wait… please,” Rodney is barely able to get the words out of his dry, cracked, and parched lips. Nell stops in her tracks, as if she’s annoyed, that pesky and selfish Rodney is keeping her when she has shit to do.

  “Yes, Rodney,” she says. “What is it?”

  “I need water.”

  “You have water,” she points next to him at a dozen glasses of water. All filthy. She’s stopped picking them up. Stopped picking
up anything. When your basement is turned into a makeshift cemetery, you stop caring. Or, it could be the fact that Rodney is not the only resentful one. She’s bleached the upstairs, but as the saying goes “heat always rises,” so does the odor of decaying bodies.

  “Fresh,” Rodney requests.

  She sighs before running up the stairs. Rodney can hear her slam the cupboard shut and turning the faucet on, fetching him the water. She runs back down the stairs and places the water in front of him. She turns to leave again, and again, “Wait,” Rodney calls out, pleading, “free me.” What does he have to lose?

  Nell turns around agitated. “Are you going to accept Amberly as she is?”

  Rodney cannot say yes. A part of his being wants to, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s wrong on many levels and is simply immoral.

  The pros and cons: Amberly is his daughter. No matter how badly she now looks; no matter what she’s done, she is his daughter. Any parent would stick by their child, especially when everything happening is truthfully out of her control. But she has killed and continues to do so. Not only that, Nell has also slipped down a steep slope that is only going to end when Nell is dead.

  He hesitates before honestly, but foolishly answering, “No.”

  “Well then,” Nell replies. “There’s your answer.”

  “She wants to kill me.”

  “No.”

  “She said it.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “She implied it, honest!”

  “God, Rodney,” she says. “I don’t understand… I just don’t understand why you can’t see her the way I do. You will though, I promise you. If she wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”

  “Nell, babe,” he tries his best at sweet talk; his best attempt at persuasion.

  Nell holds up her hand. “’Babe?’ Just, enough, Rodney. I don’t have time for this. I have a date.” She runs back up the stairs, slamming the door behind her.

  Rodney sits in the dark. “She has a what?!” he asks himself aloud.

  XII

  November 21st.

  9:00PM.

  There really has never been much of a club scene in Olave. In fact, most of Olave’s population consists of older couples and retirees. Being such a picturesque town and all, it’s a great place to either settle down and start a family, or a district to settle down after raising your own. There are worse places to live the rest of your life and die than Olave, but there aren’t many places where the dead come back.

  Auntie Elegant is the only bar that people even frequent. It’s not elegant, either. Owned by the cousin of a local councilman, it’s sole purpose is just… to be. Patrons from all over swing through to drink the cheap beer; very cheap. At the end of the day people would rather pay more for petrol than for beer. Of course there are other, fancier places, but the people who visit those places are too uptight to instantly agree to go home with someone like Nell; beautiful looks or not.

  This is where Nell has her “date.” Rather, where she is going to hunt her prey. She already has it all figured out: she needs him young, tall, burly—preferably fatty—with minor muscle tone. Skin color, creed, hair color, or religion are of no importance. If she can find someone to fill the insatiable Amberly, then she has done her job. Anything more than that is just a bonus. She’s been trying for weeks, she just hasn’t found the right man.

  Imagine sizing up a man—or woman for this matter—just to see if they match up to your expectations of what to feed to your risen child. No commitments and no need to become friends. It’s just about pleasure of the flesh.

  It doesn’t mean she loves anyone other than Rodney, just that she loves Amberly more. Any and everything for her daughter; besides sacrificing herself of course. She’s too selfish for that. After all, she won’t be able to spend time with her daughter if she was dead.

  November 22nd.

  Midnight.

  “Hey, handsome!” Nell calls out to a tall, red-cheeked, mountain of a man. It’s taken three hours, but she has found her prize. None too soon. She almost had given up until a group of rowdy local college guys stepped in. Must be a night of bar-hopping.

  The man smiles back at Nell. The group of buddies he’s surrounding himself with die from laughter. Maybe because she called him “handsome.” Or, that he’s an overweight fella. Could be that she’s an older woman and to the college boys, she’s an easy “lay.” Could be all the above.

  He waves inviting her over and she happily obliges. “Can I buy you a drink?” Mr. College asks.

  “Certainly,” Nell replies. “White sangria.”

  “Sounds girly.”

  “Well… I am a girl.”

  He smiles as he turns towards the bartender. “White sangria for the lady, please.” The bartender nods his head as Mr. College turns back to Nell, “Come here often?”

  “I don’t,” Nell realizes that this is the first time she had been. Hundreds of times driving past the place, but never stopping. “Why, are you a regular?”

  “Oh, yeah!” he shouts, lying. His city accent clearly showing. “Got a tab here. I’m good for it.”

  “I believe you,” Nell playfully laughs. “You’re a college boy.”

  “Yes, ma`am.”

  “’Ma`am?’ Do I look like a ‘ma`am’ to you? I’m hitting on you and you call me ‘ma`am.’”

  The man’s friends all laugh as he looks down in embarrassment. She’s purposely coming on strong, which is her plan. If by some chance he is shy, she is going to break the ice fast and let him know what her intentions are. If by some chance he isn’t shy, well it cuts the small talk bullshit.

  “Then what do I call you?” he asks.

  “I’m Wendy.”

  “Nice to meet you, Wendy.”

  “Ditto.”

  “Do you want to know my name?” he asks, completely oblivious that they are past that point. He’s nervous. Intimidated even. He’s never been with a woman who was older than him. “Wendy” has a good decade on him. It’s also exciting, because that’s a decade of sexual experience more than what he’s used to.

  “I don’t need to know your name. Unless you’re ready to confess your love to me after we’re done fucking.”

  This catches the man off guard. Brazen is what “Wendy” is. Typical man: attractive older woman throws herself at him, with no intent on making him work for anything, and he never once thinks that there may be a hidden motive.

  Even his friends have no clue. There’s a piece of ass right there; bait, dangling, and he’s about to chomp down.

  The bartender returns with the white sangria. Mr. College grabs it and hands it to “Wendy.”

  “Your drink.” He smiles.

  Down in the basement, Rodney stares across the room, exposed to Amberly’s glare, who is staring right back. His look is of worry and fret; her look is of hunger and impatience. If Mommy doesn’t come home soon, she may no longer be able to contain herself.

  Luckily for Rodney, he hears Nell’s car tires slowly running over the crackling gravel. Rodney screams, knowing there’s someone with her, “Help me! Fucking—”

  Within a blink of an eye, Amberly rushes to him, and covers his mouth with her cold, dead hands. For a few moments she was nothing but a very hungry blur. She growls in anger. Do NOT fuck with my food, is what she’s thinking, and Rodney knows it. His cries are muffled, but it doesn’t stop him from squirming.

  Amberly squeezes harder, breaking one of his teeth. She wasn’t even trying. Her power, no matter how awesome, seems to be limitless. If she wanted to, it’s plausible that she could’ve popped his head like a puss-filled zit. Not to say that she won’t eventually try.

  Blood squeezes from his cheeks and through the cracks of her fingers. She goes into a trance. Like an addict to freshly cooked meth, or a shark spotting an injured seal; there’s no sweeter sight. She leans in and laps at the blood, accidentally gnawing at her own hand while ripping off small pieces of flesh from Rodney’s cheek. Their fresh, warm blo
od trickles down her jaw. She’s in euphoria as Rodney screams out from pain and fear, but nothing is going to save him until Nell gets her date inside the house.

  For the first time, Rodney wishes it was someone else. He doesn’t want to die like this. If it meant sacrificing an innocent man to save his own ass, he’d take it.

  Hurry up, Nell, he’s thinking to himself. Hurry up!

  The front door opens as Nell and Mr. College step inside.

  “Wow… shit, what is that smell?!” he asks as he takes a pungent whiff like a punch to the nuts.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. Our basement got flooded… it was very moldy. We had to hire someone to dig it all up,” she lies. “Unfortunately, the smell is going to stick around a while.”

  “’We?’”

  “Yeah, my husband and me.”

  “Husband? What the fuck, lady? You’re married?”

  “Well, yeah. He’s not here if you’re scared. He travels. Won’t be back for a couple days. Is this going to be an issue?” she asks.

  Mr. College puts his head down in shame.

  Nell places her hand on his crotch, “Sweetie. This isn’t my first time. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

  He looks at her, honestly unsure. It’s not ethical to cheat on your spouse. But, she clearly doesn’t give a fuck, why should he? “No problem at all,” he replies.

  Nell leans in and kisses him, without hesitation. Gives him less time to think. Less time to focus and realize that the smell isn’t mold, but dead bodies. Death has always given off a very familiar odor. Once you’ve been exposed to it, you’ll never forget it.

  They take turns moaning and panting, barely catching breaths. Though Nell doesn’t want him catching his breath as she guides him into the kitchen, against the island counter. Closer to the basement, but more noticeably, closer to the knives that litter the kitchen.