I only look at M for a second or two but that’s all it takes to break whatever is left of my sanity. That’s okay. I’m not really all that sad to see it go.
I never was all that sane to begin with.
I kneel before him and cast my eyes to the dirt. My eyes belong on the dirt. No one can gaze too long into the eternal. No eyes are meant for that icy endlessness lest they ooze and drip right out of the sockets.
I fall to my hands and my knees and I kiss the dirt. I let the dust coat my lips. I give all of myself to M. I give him my mind, my body, my soul. A little piece of Filth’s shredded face falls down before me and I kiss that too, enjoying the taste of crimson.
A very large hand with very long fingers pats my head. It pats my head like someone would pat the head of a doggie. That’s a good girl. That’s a very good girl. The fingers stink of death and disease and they make me think of doorways to dark places.
M’s touch is revolting and erotic all at the same time.
I like it.
Chapter 43
Thorny Rose
I guess I lost track of time after that. Evening turned to night and all the slivers of light that came through the walls faded into black. M had returned to his pit but still he lingered close, his telekinetic touch occasionally reaching up to brush sweaty hair away from my forehead.
There was an old rusty toolbox down here and I found a claw hammer and some bent nails within it. The claw hammer had a dried maroon stain on the head of it. I wondered about that. I used the hammer to nail the remnants of my mother’s face to a support beam near one corner of the root cellar. It was a loose, fleshy mask with torn craters where eyes had once been. It was all that was left of Rebecca Crimshire. The last little piece of Filth remaining in the world.
I wanted it there as a memento.
After it was done I sat cross-legged at the edge of the pit. I twirled my hair in my fingers and rocked back and forth, enjoying the gentle sway of my body so close to the abyss. I listened to the whispers from the deep. Nothing like the whisper in my head. M’s voice never wanted me to hurt myself, it only asked me to hurt others. Just hurt the lost ones. The forgotten ones. Those broken, faceless people that move through the world unnoticed. Their lives would be a sacrifice to the appetite of something that has been buried unjustly for far too long. That sacrifice would make M much stronger. It would help him to free himself from his prison in the dirt.
They must die so that M may rise.
He needed blood and flesh and the spirits of the fallen to do that. It was all just fuel for the machine. I’d help him. I’d be his proxy. I’d lure the vagrants here and M would take them. He would feed on them and suck them dry. And then I’d be famous and everyone would love me. I’d finally live up to my true potential.
And most importantly, when my prince Roman wakes from his deep, dark sleep…he will love me most of all. He’ll see me as his soul mate. I will be his bright, flickering flame in a world blotted out by M’s great shadow.
M showed me so many wonderful visions while I sat with him. He whispered so many lovely promises into my ears. He tickled me beneath my chin and made me giggle and blush.
We made our pact while the torn body of my mother digested in the juices of M’s stomachs somewhere far below.
I’ve got lots of work to do now. Very important work.
Busy little bees are meant to buzz.
That’s me.
Just a busy little bee.
Chapter 44
Thorny Rose
I got two of them in that first week. One was so thickly bearded and grimy that I could barely make out the features of his face. He reminded me of a rodent. He stank of cheap booze and unwashed skin. I found him lingering in the food court at Orchard Hill Mall. He had all of his belongings crowded around the table that he sat at in big black trash bags. I knew immediately that he was one of the lost ones. One of the forgotten ones. He would not be missed. His destiny waited behind M’s teeth.
I offered him a hot meal and a clean bed. I put just the right inflection of kindness in my voice. He agreed immediately. I was no threat to him, just a cute little goth girl with a generous heart. I never asked his name. The names don’t matter to me. His name might as well be dinner.
I drove him back to the root cellar under the cover of a cold, starlit sky. We talked about cats during the drive. He was a big cat person. I’m a pretty big cat person too.
He didn’t understand what was happening when I got him close to the hole. It was dark and he was confused. I told him I stored the food down in the hole. The idiot actually leaned down to look. I pulled my straight razor out and in one quick motion I sliced cleanly through his Achilles tendon. That hobbled him immediately. I planted my combat boot on the dusty seat of his jeans and kicked him down into the abyss. He fell for a long time…and then I can only assume he landed in M’s mouth. I associated that wet splash with the derelict falling onto one of M’s tongues and then strangling in a pool of salty saliva.
Some of that saliva flew up from the pit as M dined on his supper. It was like a very fine rain spraying up from the earth. I stuck out my own tongue and caught a few droplets of it. It tasted a bit like black licorice.
It was all over very quickly.
M always eats them quickly.
The next one was a vulgar little junkie I found shooting up in an alley behind the adult bookstore downtown. He had a lazy eye and he kept calling me “baby.” He was very thin, almost emaciated. He’d probably be crunchy…but I didn’t think M would mind. I promised him the best heroin of his life with a complimentary blowjob for the grand finale. He followed me back to my car after that like a panting puppy.
It was almost too easy.
I told him I wanted to suck him off in a dark, lonely place. I said I wanted to get kinky. I told him all about the mattress I kept in a shallow hole in my root cellar. I kissed him deeply as I edged him closer to the pit. He tasted like cigarettes and failure. I waited until we were inches from the chasm before I buried my knee into his genitals and pressed my index finger against his forehead.
He was already doubled over and it only took a little tap to send him flying downward to his doom. I leaned over and watched. A big chunk of his headless torso flew halfway up the pit before gravity took hold and brought it crashing back down into the blackness. I applauded M for that one.
What a wonderful show!
M kept getting stronger. He kept getting hungrier too. Some nights he wanted me to dig around the hole. He told me the hole has to be much, much bigger. It was hard work for a little thing like me but I swung that pick with lots of gusto and even whistled while I worked.
The hole kept getting bigger. It was the size of almost three big graves all connected together now. The ragged, rotting face of Filth watched me from the support beam as I worked.
I’d have to keep hunting. I’d have to keep digging too.
I guess this kind of work isn’t really for everyone. I’m good at it, though. I don’t have any empathy for the lost and forgotten ones. They’re homeless and stinky and I like the sounds their bodies make when they’re being shredded into tiny pieces.
Gotta keep digging and hunting until M is able to crawl up out of his hole.
I’m gonna hug him so tight when he finally does!
Chapter 45
Thorny Rose
I’ve stopped going to my job at the library. They called and left voicemails but I just ignored them. Life had given me a big promotion and I just didn’t have the time to work two jobs right now. Sometimes you reach a fork in the road and have to decide where you want the future to take you. This was my crossroads.
I chose M. I chose digging and hunting. I had responsibilities. It was my job to make sure the meat was tenderized before it went down into the hole. This girl is all about chasing her dreams. I started singing in the shower. My voice has always been scratchy and off-key, pretty much incapable of putting together any sound that resembles a pleasant melod
y. Not anymore. I have the voice of a rock goddess now. I can belt out haunting ballads and make the shower curtain tremble with the ululations that fall from my lips. I sound like one of the Greek sirens capable of luring sailors to a watery doom.
M kept giving me these little gifts along the way. I was being groomed for the world stage. I was evolving, becoming something so much greater than the weak, frail little creature that I used to be. One morning I woke up in bed and looked at myself in the mirror, already reaching for my glasses. It took me a moment to realize that my vision was crystal clear now and I didn’t even need them anymore. My gray eyes were like chips of stone staring back at me and they showed me everything in high definition. M later told me that he needed my eyes to be keen so that it would be easier for me to track down the lost ones.
I threw my glasses into the garbage disposal and never looked back.
After hunting I’d come home to my quiet, empty house and I’d enjoy the peaceful confines of the hoard maze. It wasn’t so bad anymore now that Filth had been dethroned, the rat queen dead and digested. I’d inherited her kingdom.
M gave me bright, shiny stones from the earth and I’d pawn them for money. Diamonds and sapphires and jewels pulled from the layers of soil below my feet. I bought and ate whatever food I wanted. I brought home whole sacks filled with books. I added entirely new serial killer posters to my collection.
This huge glossy poster of Richard Ramirez now graces the ceiling just above my bed. I get to fall asleep each night with the Night Stalker looking down at me.
Talk about hot. Those cheekbones…
I even bought a book about this local Rust Valley legend from way back in the 1960s. Nothing was ever confirmed because no bodies were ever found, but James Silver was rumored to have killed numerous prostitutes around town back in those old days. He was a carpenter and the newspapers labeled him Gentleman James because he used to wear these really sharp suede suits. One night he parked his truck on Flaggwood Bridge and blew his own head off with a sawed-off shotgun. The police found little fragments of his skull washed up on the banks of the Potomac River.
After his suicide they searched his cabin in the woods outside of Rust Valley. They found burnt bundles of women’s clothing in the wood stove. The articles of clothing belonged to the prostitutes that turned up missing during that scorching hot summer in the swinging sixties. One of the hottest summers in Rust Valley’s recorded history.
Gentleman James left a suicide note but the book doesn’t have many details about what he wrote. That sucks. The whole story is really interesting.
I feel like I’m transforming just like the serial killers I idolize transformed before me. I’m becoming a member of a very exclusive club. Each time I hunt down a lost one and take them to the pit, I’m crossing further and further into the land of taboo. Their ends make M stronger, and in turn, M makes me stronger.
I love my own reflection now. I’ve tossed away all my bulky old sweaters. I wear tight black tank tops now and have taken to tying my hair up into bouncy pigtails. My body is changing too. My breasts are fuller, my hips rounder, my waist smaller. I’m attaining a perfect hourglass shape. My new favorite checkered skirt barely comes halfway up my thighs and does a great job of showing off the new curves. I decorate my legs in black fishnets and holy fuck, my legs are killer.
I don’t cover my scars anymore. I keep my arms bare, the scars like beautiful discolored snakes traveling all the way up the length of my arms. I’m tired of hiding.
I have only one tattoo. I got it when I turned eighteen as my first act of rebellion and kept it a secret from Filth ever since. It’s a skull right in the middle of my chest between my breasts, the outline etched into my skin with stark black ink.
I’ve made a new addition to my tattoo.
I carved the letter M directly into the center of the skull with my straight razor. The wound bled and then dried up, becoming the perfect dark scab to match the tattoo ink surrounding it. I’m looking at my new artwork in my room’s shattered mirror.
I feel incredibly attractive.
I need to look my best for Ro when he finally wakes up.
My Ro.
Chapter 46
Thorny Rose
I curled up like a kitten that night, my fluffy comforter pulled close and my feet hanging off the edge of the bed. I’d just painted my toenails and I was admiring the glossy black of the polish as I started to doze off into sleepytown. My newly purchased stereo system plays in the background, Motionless In White serenading me with beautifully dark melodies as I drift slowly away.
I was very tired and I’d hoped for dreamless sleep. That didn’t happen. I felt the real world fade away and immediately another world replaced it. I rarely ever dream so I was a bit surprised when I opened my eyes to a surreal environment that stood out in incredibly vivid detail. I knew instantly that I was dreaming. Everything about my surroundings was just slightly off. The moon was enormous in the sky and I could count every crater on the surface. The stars were brighter than ever, like giant headlamps set into a circular sky. I hated the shine of them.
I didn’t like it here at all.
I was standing on a vast tundra, a desert of ice stretching around me on every visible horizon. The wind cut through me like a refrigerated blade and threatened to pick me up and take me away. Heavy snowfall fell from above, covering everything. The mountains in the distance were snowcapped and icy. The strange thing about them was that they looked almost slightly familiar, like the same range of mountains that cuts around Rust Valley. This couldn’t be the town I grew up in though. This was a frozen world decorated in ice crystals and every breath I took into my lungs seemed to burn.
I knew if this wasn’t just a dream I’d probably be dead of frostbite within minutes. I was wearing nothing but my tank top and Batman undies. Not really the best choice for arctic weather. My bare feet were lost in the snow, covered up to the knees. Big and furry animals lumbered across the snow near the edge of the mountain range. They looked like woolly mammoths.
I spun around and stumbled, trying to shield my eyes against the glare of the whiteout. Someone was walking towards me through the snowfall. One second he was very far away, a pinprick in the distance…and the next he was standing barely a few feet in front of me.
It wasn’t a man. It was a revenant who used to be a man. It stood there before me, staring with a jaw barely hanging together by a few stringy pieces of muscle and sinew. The tattered corpse wore a dirty brown suit that was defiled by grave soil. Something about his eyes unsettled me. As the snowfall calmed down a bit I noticed that he didn’t have eyes at all, just balls of wriggling tubifex worms in the empty sockets where his eyes used to be.
I didn’t know what he wanted. It seemed suddenly like the corpse and I were in some kind of force field, the blizzard blazing outside of it but everything calm and quiet within. He turned to point one desiccated finger towards the surface of an iceberg chunk jutting up out of the snow. I had time to notice an old gaping wound on the back of his head, all cratered meat and mummified blood. It looked like the result of shrapnel from a very powerful firearm passing through his skull.
I heard a wretched screeching sound as he pointed towards the iceberg and it took me a moment to realize that a message was being scraped into the ice while I watched. It happened extremely fast, the words forming within seconds.
“Do not be his puppet.”
“Do not let him use you and throw you away.”
“Do not lose yourself to his will and his wants.”
“He corrupts and he deceives and he will kill everything that you are, everything you used to be.”
I stared at the message. My eyes glimmered beneath the bright stars and the gargantuan moon. Everything I used to be? I used to be weak. I used to be pathetic. I used to be shunned. The dead man is twirling his finger again, the ice chips flying as new words carve through the surface.
“This is Rust Valley.”
“Another t
ime, another era. Long ago.”
“He wants to devour the world.”
“He must remain below.”
The corpse in the dirty brown suit gestures downward in a sweeping motion and all the snow gets literally pushed away on all sides of us, mountainous amounts of snow moving away from us and uncovering the surface that we’re standing on.
It’s vast and milky. You can just see through it. It’s the icy surface of a huge frozen lake. There is something beneath the ice that is equally huge. Almost as big as the lake itself. It is perfectly still and unmoving down there, trapped within the ice. It’s extremely hard to see details through the ice but I can tell that it’s some sort of body down in the lake. Some thing with thousands of limbs and the kind of incomprehensible anatomy that makes my mind feel like it’s twisting in on itself.
Dirt Lullabies Page 12