by Power, P. S.
Her entire body was shaved, from the neck down. It had taken time, and care, but nothing had been left. Then her whole form had been covered in coconut oil. It gave her a distinctive odor, but not one strong enough for most people to notice. That was to moisturize, and worked well for it. She didn't have any cracked skin, or chapped lips, so it seemed to be working. It kept her from leaving bits and pieces of her flesh behind too easily. A protective layer that was all part of her clever plan to keep not being caught for as long as possible.
If anyone ever saw her nude, she could just claim it was all part of her beauty regime. Which it sort of was. No one had complained about her soft hands yet, at any rate.
Once dressed, she collected everything, dumped an ample amount of lighter fluid over it, and used several strike anywhere matches to set the whole thing on fire. It was at the bottom of the tiny valley, which had mud in it, but no real water, so she pulled back, and listened to the world around her, while the thing burned, and the scent of the plastic bag hit her nose. It took about fifteen minutes for everything to be destroyed, at which point she walked along the large ditch for a while.
It wouldn't even remotely take her in the direction of home, and she had to be careful to stumble along the side of the thing, since mud made shoe prints about as well as snow did. The major thing here was that no one would think much of the burned clothing that she'd produced. There wouldn't be much of anything left, even if it was found the next morning. If it was, well, a pile of clothing, stuff that was clearly trash, wouldn't raise any eyebrows.
It was part of why she always left her knife behind. Not always in the body, but nearby. Those varied in type, however. Some had been large hunting blades, and others had been fairly delicate looking things that spoke to a lot of money being spent on them. All had been stolen, at various times in her life, so again, would be hard to trace back to her directly. In her back yard she had a plastic case with nine more of the things, buried safely.
Near her flower bed, which she made a point of working with all year long, so there was always an excuse for her to be out there, weeding and playing with dirt. Even if anyone ever found them, they weren't illegal to have or own. If things were too bad, she could just claim that they belonged to someone else. A previous tenant or something like that.
The route she took to get back home was the long way, so she didn't get in until nearly two a.m. The clock on the wall, a cheap one that had been purchased from Wal-Mart, told her that she had about six hours of rest coming, if she hurried.
That required a shower, and then her scrubbing her teeth really well, since going to bed without taking care of that kind of thing would have been far too nasty for her. There could be bits of recently produced corpse on her, and that wasn't what anyone sane wanted in bed with them. Not that she counted herself that way, but it was close enough for her at the moment.
Then, climbing into her nice bed, under the attractive bedspread that she'd picked out for herself, Cindy slept. Peacefully. It was always easiest for her right after someone had died. Even if she had nothing to do with it. There was just something restful about death. Calm and certain. Everyone did it, in the end which gave life a bit of certainty. True, she could have felt the same way about sneezing, but that just wasn't enough for her, for some strange reason.
Probably because there was less blood involved.
She didn't dream, not that she knew of. That was her life, day to day. She went dark for several hours, and then got up. When her alarm went off, a nice, and very old fashion thing with a little hammer that struck two bells. It was loud, obnoxious and horrible. She jolted up to stop it, having to take several steps to get to it. That was on purpose, so that she wouldn't be as tempted to just roll back over and snooze for a while.
She was due in to work at ten, and made herself get up at nine, so that she could do her makeup and hair before work. Not that it wasn't simple enough, but she'd built in extra time, just because she knew that she might have to try and hide a black eye. Again.
After the first event, where Wally had followed her around for a month, she'd started taking martial arts lessons. It was a mixed martial art, one that combined Brazilian jujitsu, boxing and sports applications. She was too small to become a real fighter, but it allowed her to show up at work, and shrug when people acted concerned.
No husband. No boyfriend, or even girlfriend to be beating her. So they bought it when she told them about her new fighting classes. That had been going on for a few years, and while she was getting decent at it, her lack of size made it pretty impractical in real life, other than as a cover.
Still, she wasn't going around claiming that she could outfight men. If it came to it, she was going to freaking stab someone anyway. This gave her a cover for a lot of wounds and bruises that might happen however, and was good exercise. She could even diet without anyone thinking much of it. Eating healthy and all that, because she was kind of an athlete now.
On top of that she ran regularly. Not too far, but enough so that her feet didn't hurt from all of her walking the day before. Really, she felt good. Chipper, even.
Sexy.
To that end she moved through her normal daily paces, getting herself ready with a bit of extra effort. There was no real reason for it, but she added some foundation, blush, and lipstick. Nothing too bold, since working at the library wasn't exactly a nightclub gig. That thought got her to smile. Hardly anyone even came in anymore.
It was like with newspapers. They still existed, as ghosts of what they used to be, but around. Slowly turning to dust. People still read. That wasn't the problem. In fact, they'd added some digital media that was fairly popular in the last years. Downloaded books, and some movies.
Still, most readers got that kind of thing on-line now, which was faster and easier than actually going someplace, so the numbers of individuals in the physical building were small, most days. That was a shame, since she could be working two or three times harder without having any problem with it. Cindy had to spend nearly half her time just straightening books on the shelves, competing with the others for the privilege of having something to do. For years. Eventually that meant her job was going the way of the dinosaurs.
The day was cool, and it looked a lot like rain when she went out to the car. For her that meant a walk between the tiny house she rented and the one car garage. Both were gray, and kind of normal looking. Both things she enjoyed. The clouds were foreboding, nearly black in places. A bit of a cold wind had come in, making it cooler now than it had been the night before. That probably didn't mean snow, but the conditions felt right for it. It was Vancouver though, so cold and rainy was normal for November. Snow wasn't.
The drive wasn't that long, since her house was just off of down town, and so was the new library building. She even had an honest to goodness garage, and it was nearly as large as the house she lived in. That was pretty rare for the part of the city she lived in. There was no automatic opener, so she had to do it all by hand, using the rope attached to the bottom after pulling the vehicle out, in order to get it closed again. That meant jumping for it, since tall wasn't a thing that she did well, on most days.
The drive was peaceful enough. The wind was really picking up, and a bit of rain started to fall. It was driven pretty hard, but wasn't so powerful that seeing was impossible. Still, the four lane road through town had very narrow lanes, making paying attention important. Her car was a tiny thing, and it was hard to keep it in the lane. Several times she had to veer a bit, in order to keep trucks and large vehicles from ripping the side off of her Camry. It was a sunny yellow color, thankfully. That meant people could see it.
She smiled, her face a bit strained, as she had to dodge yet another truck. It wasn't a large one or anything, the streets through this area had just originally been one way, and meant for wagons and horses. Over time they'd needed more, but it had been too expensive to pay for all the property needed, so the city council had simply painted more lines on the street.
Not that it really worked, but it had saved on cash at the time.
Which, apparently, they'd full out spent on the library.
The one building contained more books than the New York public library system even owned. That was what she'd heard, at any rate. Most of their stock was in the warehouse too, and counted in millions of titles. Physical ones that had to be moved around by hand when wanted.
That wasn't her job. No, she just went in, and sat there all day, hoping that someone would need to have help with a project. There was a high school nearby, and a community college, so they did get some play that way. Not that anyone would be coming in that day for school things.
It was just far too close to Thanksgiving for that. Two meager days away.
Cindy Mableton sighed at the idea. After all, she didn't have anyone to celebrate with. Not in the whole world. That wasn't totally due to her choice however. For instance, while she'd be a horrible mother, in the long run, the idea of having a man in her life wasn't a terrible one. Other things got in the way however.
Her hobbies were important to her, but a regular guy could possibly be turned off by some of them. Especially if she ever got the chance to break out into some kind of torture. The idea really seemed fun to her, but she'd been resisting it, since it would make it a lot easier for people to find her. The odds of making a mistake and leaving something behind, well, that became greater the longer she spent with each victim.
So, having a boyfriend was probably out. Not that she was really capable of love or anything. Most people didn't really love anyone else anyway. They even knew it, which showed up above their heads to her power. The younger people thought they did, and that could be intense for them, but adults just kind of enjoyed being with others, and pretended it was the same thing. Feeling inadequate about it the whole time for most of them. So while it probably wasn't happening for her, she knew better than that.
As she moved into the large place, she sighed and shook her head.
"After all, who wants a girlfriend that can kick their ass?" That part was true enough too. On the good side, most men wouldn't really think she could, being in denial of things like that as a rule. They had to be, in order to protect their sense of self.
The building was warm, like always. The rest of the women complained about being too cold, all the time, but it was always just about right as far as Cin could tell. Probably because of how the Infection had taken her. That kind of made sense, given what she'd read about it. People with active powers, which meant things that worked constantly, tended to have faster metabolic rates than regular people. Hers might not be able to move tanks out of her way, or let her fly, but it certainly did work a lot. She didn't always feel hungry, but when she ate it was a lot. Way more than she'd need just to keep herself trim while running and practicing fighting like she did.
There were people in the place, if not very many, she could see, already. Most of them were older men and women at this time of day. People that needed to hang out someplace other than in their own home, just to preserve what sanity they had left.
The colors above people's heads, which were all words that described them, what they were thinking, or what they were like, were normally in all red. Not always, but it was what Cin most regularly noticed from them. That could come in different ways, she knew. There were fifteen or twenty shades of red for instance, that all held a different feeling. She kind of got the basic idea, but a person with greater range that way would have been able to pick up a lot more, she bet. Bright red was angry, and soft pink was a bit romantic.
She'd seen things as far ranging as green and even blue however. What those were about, Cindy had no idea. The most likely thing there was that those had to do with nuanced emotions, which she didn't really care about, or have, in particular. It was useful to see if a person was pissed at you, but she couldn't make herself care if their feelings were being hurt. Not unless they were a threat to her in potential. In general she avoided that, but only because it made things smoother for her. A lot of her time was spent that way, tricking other people into thinking she was a nice person, even if she kind of wanted to strip their skin off into bloody lines, and then force them to eat it.
From across the room she saw Wally, who was in a black button up that seemed new. It looked halfway sharp really. Like he was making an effort to look good in order to impress the ladies. He was at the front processing desk, since that was his job there. Her desk was at the back, hidden nearly. By the resource materials.
"Wally!" There was a big wave, and she got one back, but he didn't smile. That was odd. He wasn't great looking, and charm had mainly missed him, being replaced with awkwardness, but he always managed a smile for her.
For a second she nearly took it personally, but then noticed what was going on. The words over his head were tiny from thirty feet away, but she saw the word anyway. It was only one thing, and got a bit bigger as she stared at him, working the whole things out.
Impulse.
The word was in bright yellow, which she realized probably meant fear. For a moment she felt pleased to have gotten that part. It was odd, since most of the time the library branch was a calm and safe place. The worst thing they had to worry about were men coming in and looking at adult materials on the computers where kids might see it. So there was, or nearly had to be, something going on. For a moment she wondered if the fighting had started again, and if the girl was off in some other place, killing with wonton abandon. That didn't make sense however, given that Wally wasn't watching things unfold on television. He was sitting there, looking at several people.
Which meant that his reason to fear was probably more personal at the moment.
Sure enough, right there in front of him was a tiny girl with red hair. Next to her was a man, one who seemed pretty familiar as well. It was hard to see his face, so she moved over toward the couple, in case Wally needed her help. Finding books, or possibly running away. She couldn't take the government's death squad, but there might be other things she could do.
Before she got there the small girl spun in place, sniffed once and nodded at her. It was a knowing thing, and her eyes lit up, a bit happily for the killer that has slaughtered so many people already.
"You're Infected? Are you a threat?" The words were over her head, in a soft red color, but she also said them out loud, getting the man next to her to wince and turn as well, looking more than halfway freaked out. Embarrassed, and worried that they'd accidently make problems for these people that seemed nice so far.
Wally, who might have been a geek, was also smart. He took a sharp breath and glared at their backs. Then, even though it had never come up before she noticed something. Above his head in fine print, was an announcement that he, too, was afflicted. Which the other man suspected. After all, his dead brother had been, too. Powerfully so, and that kind of thing ran in families.
It was written right above his head, along with a rather polite apology to her, about being given away so publically. The thing there was that Wally thought they'd meant him, and with only a glance around she understood that no one else had heard anything. It was a library, so everyone whispered, most of the time. That meant that no one strained to hear what everyone else was going on about most days. They didn't even realize that Impulse had come to their door yet.
Also, looking at the Chinese man, she understood something else. This was Proxy. Cindy researched things for a living, and frankly, while she was a bit worried, on an abstract and unrealistic level, about Impulse being sent after her, that really wasn't happening. Not even at that moment.
It would be like sending nukes in to take out a single cockroach or possibly an annoying mouse.
Proxy however, could very well show up any time she was about to have some fun. He took the place of people about to die, hence the silly name, and more often than not killed whoever was trying to murder them. Only, at that moment she was totally innocent. If it had happened the night before, she would have run, or possibl
y tried to fight him, and died. This wasn't then, however.
She shrugged and gave half a smile. Being Infected wasn't illegal, and her power was small enough in raw damage potential that no one would care about it.
"Yep. A class one? I basically see cartoon word bubbles over people's heads that tell me about them. Book pages, computer screens and stuff like that. It's a bit like telepathy, only with reading. I can get deep things too, sometimes. I can't pick what however, not casually, so it doesn't make a big difference most days. Normally just whatever they're thinking about me." Then she waited, her face and body relaxed. Her power was a bit more than that, but downplaying her abilities only made sense at the moment. Just like how if a police officer asked if you had a weapon, you mentioned that you had a tiny pocket knife, rather than proclaiming it a giant medieval backsword, if you could get away with it.
Still, she relaxed, and prepared her mind.
Ready to fight, if she had too, and knowing that she'd just lose if she tried. Probably messing up her library in the process.
Impulse was one of the physically strongest beings on the planet, even if she left Cin feeling huge in comparison. Proxy... Just didn't lose, and would kill without blinking. It was kind of hot to think about, in a terrifying way. It would be better if the threat wasn't about her however. Or Wally.
He gave her a curios nod then.
"Neat. That sounds a lot better than hearing them. You can't see them if you close your eyes?"
That was a leap, but also true, for the most part, so she nodded at the thin, hyper fit, looking man.
He was dressed in civilian clothing, and had a buzz cut. Blue jeans, and a red pullover shirt, with running shoes on his feet. The girl next to him had more fashion sense, but also had sneakers on. Ready to go at a moment's notice. Her slacks were tan, and loose. Her shirt was a brightly colored striped blouse that would have looked about right at a gay pride parade. On the tiny redhead it worked however.