Off The Grid - 5

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saying good-bye

            The funeral is huge.  It’s also in a church, which I’ve never set foot in before.  Before the service I walk to the front of the building with its high arches and colorful paintings and stare.  I stare at the angels there.  Their white wings and their perfect faces, their half lidded eyes stare back at me with impassive eyes.  I don’t see myself reflected in them; I did see myself reflected in MJ when she’d been alive.  Human.  Special, because face it, Mary Jane Lazar had been special.  A nurse, a caretaker and the mother to someone who hadn’t even been her child, so I stare upward, hands deep in the pair of tailored black pants, my chestnut hair braided the way that MJ had always liked it, trying to figure out why, and if, I came from those beings painted in the church.

            One of Fritz’s brothers, Frank, comes over and leads me back to where Fritz is standing, talking to the priest.  He’s talking about how he’d known MJ from childhood.  Someone else comes along and Fritz swings an arm around me, and we walk down the empty aisle that is lined with family, friends, co-workers, and other assorted loved ones. 

            I listen intently to the service, never having been to one before.  Had my mother, my birth mother’s funeral been this way?  No, she’d died alone with a child whom she had never known.  We then go across the street to the old elementary school, where a feast has been prepared by women of the church.  I think of the enormous amount of food that is already at our house and envision myself eating and eating for days, with no end in sight.  I can handle that. 

            Once there, people who knew MJ well talk to me, and talk to me, and I smile and nod.  Saying nothing. 

            Hell, everyone knew MJ.  Everyone asks if Fritz will stay now that she’s gone, he’s not from around here they say when no one thinks I’m listening.  I’m not either, I think – I’m not from here, why should I stay?

            My otherness, my oneness tugs at me, sets me aside and apart.  I walk around the space of the funeral home detached and watchful.  Fritz navigates with ease, nodding, hugging, crying but I sense that he’s worried.  More than likely about what people will think.  We are alive.  Not a scratch on us.  The blood on our clothes easily explained away that we had tried to save MJ.  A miracle, a few of them say as I ease by.  

            Sure.  I guess so.  If I’d had to choose between Fritz and MJ, who would I have chosen? 

Fritz? 

MJ? 

The question rapes me, plunging me into a darkness that I can’t seem to pull from.  Sitting at the table with Fritz as we eat the food that feels like every woman over 40 in the community made.  I pick at my food.  Tossing it around the plate, smiling when I should, I don’t want to eat here.

            “You okay?” asks Fritz.  He reaches over and tucks a strand of wayward hair behind my ear, the back of his fingers brush my cheek.  I look over at him, fake streaks of grey in his hair. 

            I shake my head.

            I’ve stopped talking again.  I can’t form the words, the pain in my chest and soul have swallowed my ability to speak.  I struggle to say something and Fritz jus says, “Shhhh.”

            I wonder, silently, how long it will take for me to find my voice again.

            Fritz tells me I don’t have to go back to school until I’m ready.  I spend my days working on the car.  The car is a 1968 Ford Mustang.  It had been Fritz’s when he’d been in high school, and he’d blown the engine, so it had sat in a storage garage until now.  Now, it’s mine.  The engine is now fully rebuilt and purrs the way an engine should.  The rebuilt transmission and new clutch have also been installed. I am now working on the body.  It wasn’t in bad shape and Fritz had sprung for back panels that were in better shape.  I’m diligently finishing putting on the back bumper when I hear something, no, someone coming down the driveway.   

            I know it’s not Fritz; he’s back at work and is gone over night to Bangor for a big meeting on some drug smuggling across the Canadian and Maine border.  I leap up from my spot; my hand digs into my front pocket and I pull out the knife that I always carry with me.  Springing over a set of benches that hold my front hood, I sweep a hand over the light switches, throwing the room into darkness.  My violet eyes adjust to the darkness instantly.

            The tires crunch the snow and bite into the gravel underneath.  It eases up next to the garage and stops, engine idling.  The door opens, no creaking, and closes lightly – newer car, I decide.  My hearing, now so much better than three months ago, picks up the faint stutter in the alternator belt.  It’s a Saturn by the way it idles. 

            “Hello?” calls out a voice. 

            My eyes dart to the door and I move, crouching next to it. 

            “Hello, Remy?”

            I squint, able to see perfectly in the dimness of the room. 

            “Remy?  Are you here?  It’s Father Edward.”

            Holy shit, I think.  The local priest is at my house, what the hell is going on?  Did something happen to Fritz and they sent him to tell me?

            I reach up and stand, easing the door open.  I step out into the shine of the headlights, the dull orbs of light blind me for just an instant, then it’s gone, I can see perfectly again.  I wave.

            “I heard that Fritz was gone for the night, I thought I might check in on you, mind if I come in?” he asks, hitching a thumb towards the house. 

            I slip the knife into my back pocket and shrug.  I flex my hand as I bring it out from behind me, why do I feel like I am on high alert, like the time that the coyotes had tried to track me on a night of exploring the woods?

            “Shouldn’t you be wearing a coat?” he asks.

            I look down and smile faintly.  I’m wearing a sleeveless shirt that clings to my breasts and shows off my curves along with my worn out jeans, the first pair of jeans that I’d ever owned that I’d acquired at the group home.  I shrug again, incline my head to the house and start to walk to the house. 

            He takes that as an invitation, reaching into his car, turning the ignition off and jogs up behind me, snow crunching under his boots.  Father Edward is in his mid-thirties I would guess, and he’s heavier set with a beard that shows signs of grey.  I can tell he might like the donuts or the wine a bit more than some.  My nose twitches as an odd scent of death comes from Father Edward.

            I push into the house, stomping my sneakers free of snow.  I toe them off and gesture for Father Edward to come into the house.  He closes the door against the swirling snowflakes that glint like diamonds in the porch light.  He brushes the shoulders of his coat off before taking the jacket off, folding it neatly and draping it over his arm.  I reach out, taking the coat, opening the closet to his right and hanging it.  I gesture with my head for him to follow.  He does, following me silently. 

            I lead him to the kitchen, hold up the tea kettle, and he nods.  “Yes, tea would be fine.”  He sits at the island, where we usually ate before MJ died.  Now Fritz and I hardly eat together.  I hide in my room and he works until all hours of the night.  Setting the kettle back on the stove, I turn the heat up.  I take the basket of teas that sits by the coffee maker and place it in front of him, as I do; he reaches out and touches my hand.  “Remy, Fritz is worried about you.”

            I pull my hand away, feeling a slick wetness there.  Assuming his hands are wet from the snow, I simply wipe the back of my hand on my jeans.  I spin away from him and fish a coffee mug from the glass-faced cabinets.  Turning back to him, I set the cup in front of him.    

            He watches me intently, as if studying my every move. 

            “If you need to talk to someone, Remy, anyone other than Fritz, I am here.  I know you don’t come to church, but for a time, Fritz and MJ came to services weekly.”

            I wince as he says MJ’s name.  The barbaric ache in my heart thuds through my veins. 

            He places his meaty hands on the recycled-glass countertop, his finger splayed; the green and blue slivers of glass glinting between his fingers.  I focus on his fingernails, oddly translucent; I can see the heated pulse of his heart beating under their almost clear sheen.  I blink hard.  I’m seeing something that I’ve never seen before, as if an inner eye is awakening, the world around me changing as I look at him.  His skin is leathery, weathered and it shouldn’t be, not for a priest that does no hard labor.

            “I know some of what you dealt with before Remy, and this back sliding into silence could be a way of coping with trauma.”

            I snort.  Oh, he’s at least got that one right.  I killed my birth mother and failed to save the second one.  How many more people will I fail?  Why couldn’t I save them both?  If I had these talents, why limit me to saving one person at a time, with such long recovery times? 

            My eyes rove up from his fingers to his eyes and for just an instant, just a fraction of an instant, I’m sure that the pupils of his eyes are slitted and oblong like a cat’s.  I blink rapidly and I see him smile.  His teeth a jumble of shards in his mouth and I flinch, the image gone the moment I blink.

            Before I can move, his grabs the coffee cup, reaches over the short expanse of the counter and slams the cup against my temple.  I stumble backwards; my flailing hand knocks over the kettle, which had just begun its low whistle of completion.  I reach up and feel slivers of porcelain imbedded in my cheek. 

            “What the fuck are you doing?” I roar.  I crouch low, ready for an attack. 

            He is around the counter in a heartbeat; in his right hand is a black handled knife.  I shake my head, trying to clear it.  He back hands me hard and I land on my back, my skull slapping the ceramic tile.  All right, this priest is getting the better of me, what the hell?

            He is on me, his left hand grasping my hands, wrestling them above my head.  His hands are large and they encompass my small wrists easily.  I kick my legs, but he straddles me.  I buck up.  “What are you going to do, rape me?  Really?  No little boys you can have at?”

            Where the hell had that come from? I think.

            “I have known since the moment that I saw you that you were not human.  Then when you came from that crash unscathed, I knew that you had to be dealt with.  Staring up at the stained glass in wonder, I knew I had to take you out.”  His voice is a rippling growl.  “Before you came after me.”

            “Get off me!  My name is Remy Lazar and I’m Fritz Lazar’s daughter!” I scream.  My voice pitched deep from lack of use.  “I’m not some thing!”

            “You are the child of a bled mother,” he replies.

            “Father Edward I’m not…what are you doing?”

            He uses the knife to slit up the sheer shirt I’m wearing, and he’s chanting in some other language.  Holy fuck, he’s going to gut me.  I buck hard under him, throwing him slightly off.  He’s strong, way too strong for a typical guy his size. 

What is he? 

Is he like me? 

Are there others like me? 

I see flashes from the books that I’ve read that were from the Kindred.  There were hundreds of types of demons and goblins in the world, damn it, and I had one right here, pinning me down, and he’s a priest.  Holy shit!

            The tip of the blade glides over my skin, the razor sharp point cutting it, forming a series of lines and symbols.  “Let me go!” I scream.  “I will rip your god-damned heart out and stuff it down your mother fucking throat!”

            His blade is true and seems to move of its own accord.  I pull hard on my left arm and he readjusts his grip, but it’s too late, my hand is free.  I punch him as hard as I can, my whole body a live wire of fright, wanting to live.  While I know I can’t die, that doesn’t mean I’m going to lay in my own kitchen and let some guy slice and dice me and make a good meal out of me. 

            I shove him off, my fist connecting with his chin.  Scrambling to my knees I pull the knife from my back pocket and pin him to the cabinets, his black handled knife clatters to the wayside as my bare foot connects with his wrist.  I stab him.  First in the belly, my body seems to know what to do without my conscious command, swift hard jabs.  Then in the throat, the gurgling of blood in his throat snaps me back to reality.  His eyes, now a deep green, with cat-like pupils stare at me, still filled with life. 

            “You’re not human,” I say.   

            His eyes are wide and I see the wound at his throat knitting, the same way my wounds heal.  I press the knife to his throat again.  The sharp edge dimples the flesh that is bloody but healed.  “What are you, Father Edward?”

            He swallows and I dig the blade deeper, drawing fresh blood.  The color of any normal human from what I can tell.  I ram a knee into his gut and he groans.  I’m close to him so close that I can smell the coppery taste of his blood and feel his thumping heartbeat against my own flesh.  “You shouldn’t be able to move, the rune—”

            “Rune?”

            “What – what I carved on you,” he croaks. 

            “Damn it, man, make sense!” My overall curiosity gets the better of me and I don’t move to kill him, I’m not sure I know how to kill him.  But he knows what I am, or at least has an idea of what I am.  Shit, what the hell do I do?

            “Ancient, only a few of us know – know what they do – most think they do nothing but with the right blood,” he sputters, “they are powerful.”

            “So my blood would have done something, what was that?”

            “To immobilize you,” he says, voice still a garble. 

            “It didn’t work,” I say.  I slide the blade across Father Edward’s throat, feeling the muscle, cartridge and skin giving resistance but I slash through it.  The blood sprays across my face and I close my eyes to it.  He’s a threat and I can’t afford for him to live.  I spin off him, his body slumping to the left and I move to the right, snatching up his own knife.  I hold it so that the back of the blade presses into my forearm and I draw the blade across in a wide arch, cutting deep, across his stomach. 

            The liquid that spills out isn’t blood, instead it is yellow and acidic; the smell gags me.  I try and hold down my dinner, feeling the vomit rising.  Not ready for the smell, the stench, the feel of flesh giving way to my vengeance, I bury my mouth into the crook of my arm.  I’m going to have to get rid of him somehow.  And the car.  All these odd things come to me, thinking of what Fritz would investigate. 

            I leap over him, heading to where we keep the garbage bags, thinking I can hack him to pieces then leave him scattered in the woods.  There is a huge sink hole where the loggers are throwing their shit into about three miles from the house; I could dump his car there.  The fresh snow would hide it for a while, until more scrap wood and things are thrown into the holes.   All these things just come to me, as if I’m already some sort of master minded criminal.  Maybe I am. 

            I walk to the closet, rummage for the bags, and as I turn, I see the trail of bloody footprints that I’m leaving on the white and grey tiles.  The stark red against the innocence of the white and grey and a strange feeling overwhelms me and I choke back the tears. 

I just killed someone.

            I am a murderer.

            Again.

            The emotions of that small fact rattle into me, blurring my vision, but also making it clearer in some ways.  I am this person.  I can take life.  I can give life.  It’s time to accept what I am, not just who I am. 

            Then I hear it.  Soft scraping, nails on tile, gurgling and guttural pleas.  He is hidden from my view by the island.  With shaky feet; I make my way around the corner again, holding a black garbage bag in my hand, the crinkling loud in the otherwise silence, and a knife in the other.  I see him crawling, clawing at the floor, coming after me.  Intestines trail behind him, his legs useless, and his eyes now deep yellow, sick and evil.  The yellow ooze is burning into the tile; it sends wisps of yellow putrid smoke where it makes contact. 

            Standing in my kitchen, dazed, unable to move away from the sight that is in front of me, my breathing slows.  What do I do?  Call the police?  And say what, so there is a guy crawling around my kitchen with yellow crap dripping from his stomach, and I gutted him, oh by the way, he’s the local priest!

            I am so fucking screwed.   

            He begins to blather, his lips forming around words that I don’t know, ancient maybe.   Blood, spit and the acidic ooze spew with each ragged breath that he takes.  Droplets of yellow and red spittle spray my bare feet and I look down to see it is burning holes into my skin, and then it hurts.  I slap at it with an open palm, but I heal quickly. 

            He continues to crawl at me, a slow motion attack, his black shirt and pants now soaked in his blood and whatever the yellow stomach acid is. 

            It hasn’t eaten away at the cloth, I realize.  Forcing my feet into motion, I rush into the living room and into the small closet next to the couch; I reach up and find the old blankets that MJ always stored there.  Her ‘just in case’ blankets, that weren’t fit for a bed, but great for cuddling on the couch with a bowl of popcorn.

            At the thought of popcorn I feel the rape of emotions through me again; almost thankful she isn’t here to have seen a priest, okay, fine, a demon priest trying to kill me.  Rushing back into the kitchen, throwing down a blanket to walk over the now molten tiles, I reach for the cleaver in the butcher’s block.  I toss a blanket on him and he shivers visibly.  I don’t know why that yellow crap burns through tile but not cloth.  No time for that, I think.  I’ve got to get this fucker dead.  And I have to do it now. 

            I cover him with several blankets, but he is still trying to attack me, the throat wound is healed but the stomach wound hasn’t healed.  I kneel on his arms, his face pressed into the tile and I plunge the cleaver into his head, splitting the skull.  Time to take a demon apart.

melt down

            Twenty two body parts are wrapped in various pieces of MJ’s old quilts and blankets and I’ve put them out on the porch, oddly shaped bundles of blood, puss and acid.  A few steam, warmer than the others, I figure.  I stand at the sliding glass doors and watch the snow falling on them, none of them move.  The serene scene brings a sense of calm.  Just bundles, just packages of arms, legs, spine, a skull, hands, and feet.  Nothing more than that: a thing not a person, a thing. 

            A thing like me?

            My arms are covered in blood, his still red and sticky; my own is now dried to the white feathery

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