Her clothes were dripping, torn, skin full of abrasions as she staggered from the river, into the afternoon, but into a twilit forest, trying to gain distance from her pursuer, whom she thought, was sure death if he caught with her. Kaycee knew without a doubt it was the escaped max-pri psycho convict Eleazar. In her horror he grabbed her from Middle Pryce School parking lot, shoved her into the backseat of the truck, and kept telling her, “Everything will be alright.” This tattooed, multi-pierced psycho calmly assured, as they traversed the highway and in her fright, she laid across the backseat, hoping the pealing brown leathers would engulf her, fearing his shockingly loving eyes.
She had reason to. For the past few days, coinciding with his escape and the subsequent state warning of a killer on the loose, a string of grisly killings have shocked Pryce and the county. First, her classmate Gayle, erstwhile prom queen, was found stuffed in a locker, in pieces. Next was the county fair pageant winner, Daisy, who went missing and in horrid angles, fit into a dumpster. The man, gristled, unkempt, mumbled these murders as he drove, enumerating, grating that he dreamt them, all too vividly. Kaycee could barely scream, crying as she crumpled herself more, and was beyond screaming, throat sore, voice hoarse. He confided he saw her crush Rex slashed and eviscerated, in front of his girlfriend and campus slut Melrose was dispatched similarly. Psychopaths were megalomaniacal, and his intimations were a prelude to glorying in gore, Kaycee numbly recalled.
He intoned, “You are the last. You are the last of the sacrifices.” He brandished an ornately carved knife, whispering, “This will end it all and bring you peace.”
“No!” Kaycee cried, and then suddenly, she remembered how Mona would be the next victim of the fiendish murders, sporting a pentagram tattoo on her wrist. When she’s this strawberry blond, the next looker in the list.
He stopped the truck over a bridge spanning a gurgling river, going over the smoking hood, from an overheating radiator. Gritting her teeth, she kicked open the door, bounded over the pylon, and fell headlong into the chill water. Instantly, she was swept away, going under and then above to gulp air, brushing debris and trash hitting her as the river churned toward a brooding forest closing in on opposite banks.
It was afternoon but she felt triply freezing, despite being a bit dried up, as she rested her hand on a fallen trunk of birch. Hearing a sloshing sound, her eyes darted to the bank, barely able to stay in their sockets. It was the convict, the knife in hand. He hasn’t seen her, and biting her lip, she kicked sod to try to disappear into wooden darkness.
She made good strides, and soon, the pale trunks of birches and darks of oaks had obliterated any sight of him. Mind bent on hanging on to her young dear life, she went on and on, not anymore having a sense of direction. Finally, fatigue wore her down. Slowing her. She whimpered that such weakness could now seal her fate.
Then her spine tingled, and her thought flashed to her, that she was going to die and her soul consumed.
From behind her, she saw a red thing zigging and zagging among the trees, gliding, blond hair billowing in the dead icy wind, and as it came closer, its hands extended forward, grasping, fingers and nails hooked and blood red, and the pentagram spewing black flames, it was Mona.
“Now to consummate the sacrifice!” she shrieked.
Kaycee stood immobile, and not knowing whether it came from Mona or her own surrender to the inevitable, saw herself rent to pieces just as she saw in a frozen second how Mona had brought death to her victims, engorging herself on their hearts, the price of her beauty, youth, and eternal pleasure, stipulated in a blood signed pact long ago in a grove in Salem.
A stinging blow in the ribs sent Kaycee flying, her body hitting the sod and dried crackling leaves. Before her sight faded she glimpsed the man, the psycho, in a flying tackle, two hands on the archaic knife, and stabbed gape-mouthed, fanged Mona dead center in her bosom. The knife blazed in blue light while Mona burst into flames, and white tongues with faces flew out of her, going heavenward. Eleazar fell, having received the brunt of Mona’s dark energies, rending his internal organs irreparably damaged. He gave Kaycee one last longful look, and a visible calm changed his sleeping visage.
For like an eternity, Kaycee awoke.
Lying on the ground was an extremely wrinkled and emaciated white woman, knife sticking out of her chest. A few feet away, was Eleazar, arms swollen and blue. Curious of him, she approached, and noticed an edge of a photograph sticking from his plaid shirt pocket. She took it and almost cried out.
It was her, as a little girl, cradled by this man, clean shaven, smiling and with hazelwood locks wavy and shiny. Kaycee’s mother stood behind them, beaming. She looked behind the picture and saw words written, or rather, etched on it, “Take the knife, and finish what we have started.”
Later she discovered that her father was convicted for the deaths of three women in two States, which she knew were just like Mona. Her mother’s death was brought about by one of them. Now, with more finesse than her father, she travels the country looking for fiends feeding off innocent people. Apparently, the knife also functions as an ATM card.
…) on whom I recently got my laughs because he’d always projected himself as a ladies’ man but is, you got it, busted by also a friend of mine, and actually, I knew that she knew, how notorious this guy is and she simply acted on that valuable intelligence, from another friend of hers, no less.
