Beautiful Abomination

by Frances Duncan

  “The new guy’s a bit of dish, isn’t he?” Mary, office manager, office gossip and social club committee president sidled up next to Josie. She smiled conspiratorially.

  Josie shifted, she knew! “I hadn’t noticed.” She tried to sound casual.

  “I have. I wouldn’t mind finding him under my tree come Christmas morning. I’m sure I could find some use for Christmas stockings too!” Mary cackled.

  Josie shifted her weight and smiled, unsure what to say.

  “I’m just doing the rounds, welcoming everyone. You know.... So!” Mary continued brightly, making Josie blink. She surveyed Josie head to toe. “Don’t you look elegant?”

  Josie had misinterpreted the dress code. Her princess gown, tiara and mask were out of place.

  Mary was some sort of feline in heat if the ears, tail and tight clothing were anything to go by. The rest of the females in the office had gone for a similarly skimpy look.

  It was nothing like the masquerades Josie read about; elegant, mysterious, hidden identities till masks were removed at midnight. Here, too much was on show.

  “Um, thank you?” Josie smoothed her skirt. “You look very, ah, cat-like.”

  “Reow!” Mary giggled and made claws with her hands. “That’s exactly what I was going for.” Mary grinned and started playing with her tail, brushing it against her cheek. “I’m super glad you came. It’s all about getting to know your colleagues. You haven’t come to our social events before.”

  Josie murmured something non-committal. She’d purposely avoided them but Mary didn’t need to know that. At her old work she’d attended one event, just the one. How different her life would have been if she hadn’t, not that she’d give up Patricia for the world.

  Mary was chattering about the organising details, how so-and-so had let her down but everyone had pitched in at the last minute.

  What am I doing here?

  Josie’s fingers found the edge of her mask and tugged it off. “Getting a bit warm behind there,” she explained. How long till I can leave? She could be helping Patricia with her assignment right now.

  “Oooh I’m warm too,” Mary agreed, “must be the drinks.”

  Josie agreed, pulling a tight smile, though she hadn’t drunk a thing.

  After some back and forthing about whether Josie would come for a dance, Mary departed for the dance floor tapping David with the end of her tail as she passed him. David grinned, his eyes flitting back till they met Josie’s.

  She tried to keep her breathing even as David approached.

  “My Lady,” he greeted her as he swept into a bow. “Please excuse my lack of appropriate garb.”

  Josie laughed. “How much have you had to drink?”

  “Not enough. Did you see Mary flirting with me? I swear she tried to pull me into an empty office earlier.” He shuddered. “Care to join me for a drink?”

  David offered his arm and Josie took it.

  19

  Something about the man itched at her as she saw him across the crowded club. It wasn’t just that he was out of place. He was too old and making no attempt to blend in. She dismissed him as a possible meal as he was less likely to succumb to her charms, but couldn’t dismiss him from her mind. He rooted in her brain like an itch she couldn’t reach. A thought, a memory, trying to claw its way into her consciousness. She’d had a similar feeling once before and it hadn’t ended well but, like a scab, she picked at it.

  A part of her was screaming at her to stay away, he meant danger and loss of control. She didn’t know why but she hated this man.

  She abandoned her hunt to follow him when he left the bar. She stalked him till she was certain they couldn’t be seen or heard; they were in an abandoned part of the city. Then she let the rage inside her well up as she slammed him against a wall. The move stunned him. He grunted when she shoved him into the empty shop alcove. There was nothing sexual about this time. She meant to find out, finally, who she was, what she was. He knew, he could tell her. Even if there was a part of her that didn't want to know.

  But she also wanted to hurt this man. With difficulty, she throttled her anger.

  “What the -?” He turned and she grabbed his throat, lifting him till her arm was stretched its length and the toes of his shoes scraped the pavement. He didn’t need to be pressed to the wall, her grip was enough to hold him mid-air.

  Her short, powerful fingers dug into warm flesh. His pulse beat against her fingers. The battle waged between his increased heart rate and the constricted blood flow. Like the battle waged within her to hurt or interrogate him.

  Eat-me, eat-me.

  But she couldn’t. She searched his face, trying to find a spark of recognition.

  “Do you know me? Do you know me?” she demanded. His face showed only fear.

  He should know her. Something told her this. It enraged her more, she squeezed his neck and he gasped, his face flushed.

  He expelled a gasp that sounded like, “No.”

  If she didn’t let him go, he would pass out. Probably not die though. Probably.

  She needed to eat but the thought of consuming him turned her stomach. She didn’t like wasting food but she’d rather kill him.

  With a sigh she loosened her grip and watched him crumple to the ground. She formed a fist imagining his neck inside it.

  “Please,” the man at her feet begged. “I have a wife. A child.”

  She cursed her stupidity. It was pointless. He didn’t know her.

  He produced his phone and showed her the screen. She snatched it and kicked him in the ribs. He groaned and curled into a ball. The idiot should have called for help while he had the chance.

  She glanced at the phone as she was about to smash it then laughed, causing her captive to jump and cower back against the wall. He had given her another option. A better, more satisfying way to hurt him.

  “This is your daughter?” It was more a statement than a question. Her voice sounded unfamiliar, distant. He might not recognise her but she recognised someone.

  He tried to answer but cringed away when she crouched next to him. Her words came more rapidly now, falling out before she’d had a chance to think them.

  “You really are a stupid son of a bitch, you know that?” He had given her exactly what she needed. To hell with answers. Now she just wanted to hurt him.

  “I...ah,” he attempted to talk. She grabbed a fist of his shirt and brought him toward her. She really hoped she smelt like her last meal.

  “Do you know where your daughter is right now?” She did. She’d glimpsed the girl earlier that evening.

  “Wha-wh..” he stuttered.

  She released her hold and he fell back. She stood, letting his phone clatter to the ground. This was better, killing him was too fast; he should suffer.

  “I think I might pay her a visit. Then I’ll find your wife.” She stomped on his phone enjoying the sound of it cracking. “You should really take better care of your things.”

  For good measure she kicked him again then, ignoring his cries of pain, she walked away without looking back.

  20

  20 February 2011

  What the hell?

  Breathing hurt. Gary wondered if his ribs were bruised or broken...surely he wouldn’t be able to breathe if they were broken. He tried to struggle up but it took too much effort.

  He’d recognised her as soon as he saw her, Jo. What the hell had happened to her? She had strength like he couldn’t believe and she hadn’t aged a day in almost forty years.

  Would she really hurt Patsy like she’d threatened?

  His phone was smashed. He couldn’t call the police or an ambulance. But what would he say if he could? Some.... woman.... attacked him and threatened his daughter? And he wasn’t altogether sure that...she...was a woman. No woman was that strong.

  “Help,” he called feebly. It started a coughing fit that burned. The shops around here were abandoned, damaged in the earthquakes; there was no one to hear him.
/>   “I’m late,” Jo said.

  “You just got here.”

  “No, Gary. You’re not listening. I’m late.”

  He just looked at her.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  This could ruin his whole life, all he’d wanted was sex, not this.

  “Take care of it,” he said and walked away.

  “Gary? Gary!”

  He’d never spoken to her again. He’d never checked that she...got rid of the baby. What if she hadn’t? What if she...

  “Have we met before?” Gary asked.

  “Maybe I just have one of those faces.” Josie shrugged.

  They had exactly the same lips; lips that had begged him to kiss them. Patsy looked like Jo too, in a different way from Josie. She hadn’t inherited her mother’s lips but she looked like Jo around the eyes.

  “Have you thought about what we should call her?” Gary asked as he held his baby daughter.

  Josie shook her head.

  “You’re not going to name her after you?”

  “No.”

  “I thought that was something you did in your family.”

  What if... He almost couldn’t bear to think it but the thought came anyway.

  It should have clicked years ago but he’d never known her full name. Just some girl he knew. Jo...short for Josephine. A name she gave to her daughter. It all made sense, the similarities in their names, their faces.

  Jo must have had a daughter. His daughter. Oh God, Josie. Hadn’t he suppressed the thought when he met her that she was almost young enough to be his daughter?

  The certainty sickened him. His past was coming back to haunt him. How could Jo still look so young? Like she hadn’t aged a day since he last saw her.

  Of everything he had done this was the worst. To think, he’d been trying to save Patsy from the big bad world, from men like him, to bring her home where it was safe. But it wasn’t. The worst predator of them all lurked there. He couldn’t save her from what he’d done, from what she was. His child, that beautiful abomination.

  His stomach gave a violent spasm, vomit burned his throat and suddenly coated his hands. Oh God! The things these hands had done. He had reaped where he had sown and now the child would pay for the sins of the father.

  With herculean effort he struggled up. He had to get to her. His vision blurred with pain. He tried to breathe shallowly but it was too much, there was a gurgling in his chest. Bracing one hand on the wall he attempted to rise then blackness descended and he slumped back.

  21

  20 February 2011

  “Do you think he’ll come back again?” Josie asked as she stood from the couch to walk Kate to the door.

  “Given the chance, he probably would, but I didn’t give him the option. I blocked him on my phone, email and Facebook. I don’t think they’ll last. If they do neither of them will be happy. The worst thing is the person I thought I knew would never have done this to me. Hell, to his wife. I wouldn’t want to be with someone like that. He needs to grow the fuck up and even then I still don’t think I’d believe him.”

  Josie opened the door and Kate stepped outside.

  “Thanks for tonight Kate.” She wanted to thank her for her honesty too.

  “Thanks for the wine. I wish we’d made more progress. We’ll go into the newspaper one lunchtime this week, OK? I think you’re right about the letter, I think it is about your Dad.”

  “Right. Hey, I’m-I’m sorry about...the guy.”

  “I know. I just, I need to get over this. I can’t think it’s him every time my phone makes a noise, it was driving me crazy. I told him not to come around. At least now I can stop thinking every car that pulls up is him.”

  The taxi beeped.

  “I’ve got to go.” Kate kissed her cheek and left.

  Josie watched the red lights disappear down the road.

  Something itched at the back of her mind, something she’d read in university. A man was contemplating a woman he’d just broken up with and realised he’d never really known her. Who he’d known was a “creature” of his imagination. But he would rather have all the pain of the break up than the pain of losing her, losing his belief in her. He couldn’t bear to realise the person he loved didn’t exist and wasn’t someone he could think well of.

  Maybe Kate had done the same thing, seen what she’d wanted to see rather than what was in front of her.

  Maybe I’m doing the same thing with David.

  Josie stepped back into the house and shut the door.

  There had been a whole tutorial on misconceptions, characters misleading each other and themselves, how the author tried to mislead the reader. She didn’t know if Kate’s ex had been purposely misleading her, or whether she’d misled herself, but she saw how much it hurt Kate to think badly of him.

  IN THE DREAM SHE WAS in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. A part of her knew she couldn’t be as it’d been closed since the first big quake.

  Her mother was there. But Josie knew that was wrong too. She wasn’t her mother. Whoever she was, she was dead. She died in this church then her body had returned for her funeral.

  Her mother stood at Mary’s altar in front of the votive candles.

  Josie didn’t speak but she felt herself asking, “Mum, why do you always light two candles?”

  The woman she thought of as her mother turned, the candle light flickered across her face, a spent match in her hand. “A candle is like a prayer. I light one for my daughter and one for her father.”

  The answer seemed familiar, like they’d had this conversation before. Josie frowned. The wording was odd. What did it mean? Was it prayers for the living or prayers for the dead?

  There was something else she should be asking but she couldn’t remember what it was. She opened her mouth but her mother had turned her back.

  It was dark when Josie woke. She lay in bed, senses on alert, but the house was still. No quake had woken her, no noise from Gary arriving or moving around the house. The quiet pressed in on her.

  When she was reading, when her mind was occupied she didn’t have to think about life—about her marriage, her daughter, David—but now he was invading her books. Maybe she needed to cut David out of her life. He would never leave his pregnant girlfriend, nor did she want him to. She didn’t want to lose her good opinion of him especially after seeing the pain it caused Kate.

  Romance novels told her the one that got away would come back and apologise for everything. There’d be misunderstandings and disagreements but they’d end up together, blissfully happy. He’d also be fabulously rich and devastatingly handsome no matter how much time had passed.

  They were all lies. The promised happy endings didn’t exist. Life wasn’t like that. You didn’t meet a dramatically handsome man, fight your way to the bedroom and end up at the altar before the final page. Life was being married to the wrong man, a stranger who you barely saw, a dead end job and a childish, hopeless crush.

  There was no man on a horse waiting to rescue her from her life. Whatever she felt for David was complicated but she wasn’t sure it was real. He’d been a place to escape to, just like her books. She wouldn’t allow herself the luxury anymore. Now she recognised the feeling. It felt wrong to stay with Gary. It felt dishonest to be with someone and not love them.

  It was Sunday. When it was light and properly morning, she’d attend mass. She’d ask the priest——it hadn’t been a church wedding, perhaps she wasn’t married in the eyes of the church.

  Then she’d go to the library. Josie wasn’t a fan of contemporary romance but needs must. She had to read something and Regency brought David too clearly to mind. Maybe she could find something to replace the romance altogether.

  After that she would think about finding somewhere new to live. Maybe she and Patsy could find a place together. There was limited housing but they wouldn’t need much.

  Squinting in the light from her cellphone, she texted Kate:

  I’m thinking of m
oving out

  There. She was committed. Kate would probably offer her space then they and Patsy could go out to lunch. Maybe, just maybe, they’d discuss leaving Christchurch, she couldn’t go without them.

  Her mind wandered back to her thoughts from the previous night and that long ago lecture. The character referred to his ex as a “creature”. She didn’t remember the book but she remembered that description. It made her think of a changeling as though the man could no longer see her as human.

  Josie dropped her phone on the bedside table and rolled over. She pulled Gary’s pillow towards herself and wrapped her arms around it.

  Josie missed the feel of arms around her, so brief in her life—her mother's arms every day, before her mother was taken from her. Pat’s arms for the too short time of high school when she wondered if it was OK to feel that way being held by another girl. Kate had never been affectionate but Josie remembered crying on the floor of their flat bathroom in Kate’s arms. She never held Patricia for extended periods, too scared to harm her, to lose her. A part of her had been worried if she climbed into bed with Patricia then thoughts of her namesake, the original Patricia, would appear.

  She fell back to sleep holding the pillow.

  At 12:51 p.m. on 22 February 2011 a magnitude 6.3 earthquake hit 10 kilometres south-east of Christchurch. Technically an aftershock of the September 2010 earthquake, this one killed 185 people and caused severe damage.

  22

  The guts of the city were on display. Even the dirt seeped its way up like excrement through what had been solid ground. People fled, abandoning their homes. She loved it all. She revelled in the quiet chaos.

  She’d taken some risks—killed—and not been discovered. The disaster had worked well for her. She had liked it.