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When the girls came back, Spencer at once managed to harness the giddiness and bloodlust that was electrifying his innards and bottle it before it caused an unexpected, unwanted expression across his face, blowing everything to hell. He displayed a pleasant, courteous smile for his date as she walked to him. She returned the gesture, but hers had exhibited coyness, or so he had thought.

  Kirsten leaped right on Willy, who caught her and was embraced by the locking of her arms, legs and a hungrily-tongued French kiss. To avoid further embarrassment, Spencer spoke right up.

  “So do we get a tour upstairs or what?”

  Willy broke from the kiss and turned his head to Spencer.

  “Yeah, that’s something I gotta tell ya's,” he said, and let Kirsten down. “There’s a master bedroom up on the second floor and for some reason there’s a bed in the attic. Guest bedroom, maybe? I don’t know. Anyway, since I went through all the hard work finding this place, I only think it fair that my lovely and I retire to the more elegant second-floor suite while you two douches can take the web-infested attic.”

  Kirsten guffawed almost uncontrollably as if she’d been intoxicated. Willy joined her in her amusement.

  Spencer shot a frown at them both, and then turned to look at Holly. Again she gave the shrug of her shoulders and rolled her eyes. Whatever.

  “Nah, I'm kidding, I'm kidding,” Willy said. “It’s not really webby at all. Plus, the floors are double-insulated, so neither of us can hear one another.”

  “How the fuck do you know they’re double-insulated?” Kirsten said.

  Willy spread his arms out in a defensive What gives? gesture.

  “I stamped my feet up there and I could just tell they’re reinforced with extra fiberglass shit. I’ve seen those construction shows, okay? I know my shit.” He neared Kirsten’s face with his and said in good-nature, “Now, may I please tap that now?”

  Kirsten playfully struck him on the shoulder as they both once again broke out in laughter just before locking lips to tongue-blast in a desperate and unmannerly fashion.

  Spencer stole another glance at Holly, whom he found already staring at him. He could see the affection swirling her those sparkling amber jewels, but there was something else in them that looked more overpowering. She held a gaze on him that suggested something he ought to be concerned about. Although it was slight, it looked like there was aggressiveness in those beady little Bambi pupils.

  Then she beamed another sweet innocent smile across her lovely face.

  “Shall we?” she said, extending a hand outwards for him to take.

  “Yes, we shall.” he replied, taking it; and off they all went for the staircase.

  They followed Willy and Kirsten up to the second floor. The set of stairs proceeded up to the attic while the two higher-levels trailed off down towards the end of the hallway where the master bedroom was. They turned around to face their green counterparts.

  “Well, kids, this is where we part,” Willy said. “Make all the noise you want, because like I said…”—with all the strength he could muster, he gave the floorboards three vicious pounds with the heel of his foot—“…we won’t be able to hear shit. You guys good?”

  Spencer and Holly both nodded.

  “Alright, and I know I needn’t remind you guys about the little ‘protection protocol,’” Willy said. “Go ape-shit, tear the place apart, let those raging hormones of yours take control! But be safe, right?”

  Willy gave Spencer a thumbs-up and a wink, Spencer acknowledged with a nod; Kirsten said something with her face to Holly without speaking any actual word, Holly, too, received the message and nodded in affirmation.

  “Peace out then!” Willy said, and he guided the laughing Kirsten into the master bedroom with an arm around her shoulder, shutting the door behind them.

  This was it. The point of no return.

  Well, this was it. At this point, from here to the next time they saw him—or in technical terms, when he saw him and her bloody lump of a mutilated corpse—the moment, everything to make this occasion worthy to mark, was all in his hands. No more guiding. No more holding hands. He was the maestro, the director, the ringleader. Everything depended on him. He turned to look at Holly, who simply stood there, hands together in front of her stomach, looking innocently at him. He smiled, and she smiled back.

  “He better be right about those floors,” he said. “I wouldn't wanna hear him galloping and hollering all night—he's probably gonna cry right afterwards.”

  Whoa. He couldn't believe he just said that about “Playboy” Willy Critchfield, the one and only, the “ultimate mack daddy”, not to mention his friend and mentor; he still couldn't fathom how lucky he was to have someone of his level befriend him and respect him as an equal. He couldn't even try to picture it hypothetically in his head if he were to just blurt that out with him in the same room.

  Holly laughed and responded, “Guys who use that macho facade like him usually do it to hide their sensitivity, so you could be right.”

  Spencer scoffed at himself and grinned.

  “C’mon,” he said, stretching a smile that just glowed with self-assurance.

  He took her hand and led her up two sets of steep stairs that stopped at a door. Spencer grabbed the old dirtied brass doorknob and turned, pushing it open. The room wasn’t as unkempt as Willy described it to be, but it clearly wasn’t a match for what they had downstairs. The floorboards were warped and naily, it was slightly drafty from the chill of the night air seeping through the cracks in the ceiling above and the air felt a little polluted. But it was better than nothing.

  The king-size bed, perfectly made, lay against the center of the northern wall, with a nightstand on either side. A couple of dressers—one with a mirror—were placed against the wall, and there was even an old inexpensive 90’s-manufactured television sitting on one of them.

  Spencer walked to the bed to inspect it; dust had coated the entire surface of the blanket. He pulled it off and took it to the west window and opened it to pound the dust off the cover.

  “Guess they either forgot what was up here or just didn't wanna bother with the extra weight or what,” he said.

  Holly wandered around, browsing the vicinity as she waited patiently for him to tend to that and then discuss what the next step would be. She looked at the wall behind them where they had first entered and noticed a framed painting on the wall. She approached it to get a closer look; it was an old oil painting, the nature and style of it suggested something biblical. There was a woman in a red dress and a green cloak sitting down on a stone or rock looking up to a larger, darker figure standing over her; a man dressed in a dark brown robe and attached to his back were a pair large dark-brown feathered wings and in his hand a sickle. Holly noticed a tiny bronze plaque centered at the bottom of the frame, it read “EROS / THANATOS”

  Once Spencer had thrown the oversized blanket enough to his satisfaction, he tossed it back on the bed, clapped his hands and rubbed them together as he approached Holly, who turned around to acknowledge him.

  They stood there, looking at each other and looking away for about ten seconds until their eyes met again. They laughed.

  “So…” Spencer said.

  “Ssso…” Holly replied.

  “Um, do you…should we…I don’t know…kiss first?”

  She chuckled. “Sure, why not?”

  Spencer answered with a chuckle of his own and with slight hesitance he managed to lean forward, lagging as he did so, to make his way to her lips.

  “No, wait…” Holly suddenly said at the last second, making Spencer throw his head back immediately and looking at her with great concern. He tried to speak, but his eyes did the job for him.

  “Let’s wait until…” she said, hoping he was getting the rest. “…You know, until we…get in—“

  Spencer immediately complied with no objections, almost gladly.

  “Oh, yeah, sure!” he said. “Yeah, no problem, yeah. Um….yeah, okay.”
/>   Then he scoffed and shook his head.

  “Here I am talking like we should go by the unwritten book—as if there's rules and regulations for this sort of thing.”

  Holly nodded, veering her gaze casually off to the side. And again another curse of awkward silence befell them.

  “So, how should we start this then?” Spencer asked. “Do you maybe want to go somewhere and…then I can stay here and….or we could do it the other way around…I could go somewhere and you could stay here…or whatever, I guess we could both do it in here if you’re cool with that, or…maybe we—“

  “There’s a bathroom…” Holly interrupted as she pointed off to the side. “…right over there. I’ll go and use it while you can…stay here?”

  Spencer nodded long and wide, protruding his lower lip.

  “Sounds good,” he said. “Sounds good to me. I’ll be right here waiting.”

  “Well, all-righty.” Holly said.

  As she closed the bathroom door behind her, Spencer began to undress. He peeled off his polo, then his jeans, shoes, socks…should he leave his briefs on to hide the blade in them, or keep it somewhere in the bed? Like say, under the pillow? Nah, he would leave it tucked in the back of his tighty-whiteys where it would be secure and wouldn’t be able to roll off or get away on its own and not have it be there when he needed it.

  He picked up his clothes and tossed them in a darkened corner so that they wouldn’t be seen strewn across the floor, keeping this beautiful scene neat and sophisticated as it could possibly get given the circumstances; he lifted the covers and slid into the bed, cautiously as not to slice his own buttcheeks with the knife. Then he had to think about positioning. He first tried lying back with his hands locked behind his head, casually, cool…then realized it was macho and ignorant. Besides, he could feel the knife pinching him. He then switched into a different stance: laid across the bed, resting his head on his left palm and having the other one rub a finger sensually across the blanket. Seducing, humorous…this would do.

  Then he felt the knife fall into his shorts. He should have known it was too heavy for the elastic waistband to hold. Stupid idea.

  “Fuck,” Spencer shouted through a whisper.

  He carefully picked himself up and tried getting up in a crabwalk position to reach into his briefs to retrieve the knife which he could feel the handle pressing against his buttock. He took a hand back there and tried to pull it out when as he stood higher, the knife slipped and fell lower, now dangling underneath his scrotum.

  “Son of a motherfucking bitch!” Spencer whisper-shouted again through gritted teeth.

  Then he heard the bathroom door knock.

  “Are you ready?” Holly said through the other end.

  Are you fucking KIDDING me?! Spencer hollered in his head, agitation boiling.

  Then Spencer stopped himself dead in his tracks, stopped the panicking, stopped the frustration, he put it all to a halt. Inhaled, exhaled.

  “One more second!” Spencer said back.

  “’Kay…”

  Roll with the punches...if a problem presents itself, just deal with it...

  The stress nearly took him over, but he remained still as it cooled and evaporated within two seconds. This was his first time. This was his only first time; he would enjoy the many many more future “cherry-killings” ahead of him, but there was only going to be one first time. This was not something that was to be done and put behind him…this was going to be the most important…most vital part of his youth. It was what defined him. It was what was going to make him feel alive; like a king; like a god, erasing him of any self-conflicts or doubts as the average common Joe had used illegal contraband for. It was going to be his milestone. Not a milestone; the milestone; his milestone.

  Spencer calmly got on both of his knees, fished the knife out of his underwear and placed it underneath his pillow. Then he laid back and locked his hands behind his head. He was about to call out to Holly when he forgot he didn’t want that position. So he instead laid his hands across his chest, locking his fingers together like a small, cherubic young boy awaiting his mother to tuck him in.

  “I’m ready now.” Spencer called.

  The bathroom door slowly creaked open, and out came Holly, wearing a large towel or blanket wrapped around her from the top of her breasts all the way down dragging across the floor. She held the top of the cloth up with both hands as to be certain it wouldn’t fall on her before she could get underneath the covers with him. Cute. There was a wan smile drawn across her lips. The thing that stood out more than her pleasant, innocent, friendly expression were those beautiful, shining ambers that had locked onto Spencer’s as she was slowly approaching. He could feel something fierce in them, some kind of hunger that said that it was going to get what it wanted no matter what the cost was. She might have been the sweet, coy, friendly, obedient type, but this bitch was going to play rough.

  She came to the side of the bed, lifted the covers and slid in next to him, unraveling the towel while underneath the blanket. She kept about a foot’s distance from Spencer as she laced her fingers and rested them on her chest, mimicking him.

  Holly looked at him with those wild, animalistic eyes; Spencer looked back with his own, couldn’t tell what his face was saying; what he felt was that right now it looked like she was wanting to go hardcore; she would probably end up scratching him, biting him, and Lord knows what else. The thought shot through his head for a millisecond that he thought maybe he could give this chick a quick test drive before her disposal—he was suddenly getting so goddamn hungry for it that he couldn’t wait. She looked even hungrier for it. Too bad she wasn’t getting it. Ha, she wished!

  She stared at him, and he stared back…with their eyes, their lips, their emotions. Neither made the first move for a while as to where this would go next; he waited patiently for her to say or do something, but until then he swam and basked in those radiant, engulfing, chocolate-sweet amber pupils.

  Then in a flash, she grabbed the cover, lifted it up and climbed right on top of him. Spencer gasped so fast and hard that the cold, murky air scratched inside his throat; his heart nearly shooting out of his chest…and then it all quickly settled once the warm, strong, heavy feeling of Holly straddling over his pelvis cooled his nerves tenfold. On instinct he ran his hands up and down her thighs. God, they felt so warm, so soft, so strong; the slightest squeeze could probably blow every ounce of air right out of his lungs, he couldn’t control the erection that fired right up underneath her.

  Holly slapped his hands away.

  “Heel, doggy,” she said, a new tone of confidence in her voice. “I’m gonna take the first shot at the wheel.”

  Whoa, holy shit, thought Spencer. Who the fuck is this and where did she come from?

  Spencer’s heart pounded like it never had before; his breaths dug deep and cold as he inhaled like when dipping himself in a pool of ice water. She was so entranced, so presumptuous into what she believed they were about to engage in. This was going beautifully as planned. She was never going to see it coming!

  He saw something hung around her shoulder; the same on her other one. Of course; brastraps. She was still wearing her bra, so translucent that the color matched the warm paleness of her skin. He could also feel that she still had her underwear on as well. Talk about a match made in Heaven. He thought about questioning her, but the urge died almost as quickly as it had aroused.

  The look in her sparkling brown eyes held him locked tight again. Right now they were so oblivious, so free, so determined and fully locked and loaded for total annihilation.

  Like feedback transmitting noisily and with raging hostility from a microphone in the face of a loud speaker, the trance was awakening the bloodlust in him; simmering, sizzling, boiling, rising…hotter, faster…

  Spencer saw white as he swung his right arm for underneath his pillow to grab his blade—

  Then the sight of something mind-bending and explosive and terrifying
and so many other things gargantuan to him had punched through the field of blindness and caught his attention in full force.

  Holly had something in her hand raised over her head; the illumination of the moonlight from the window over the bed revealed her little secret by gleaming the light over the shiny material.

  A fucking knife!

  On quick reaction—instinctive reaction—Spencer twisted his whole torso off to the side and Holly hammered the object so swiftly and so vengefully down onto the bed sheet and through into the mattress. Spencer’s heart skipped a beat, maybe several, at the uncanny sight of how fast and how furious she slammed that fucker down, tempted to drive it down into his own heart! He felt his own face narrow vertically, his mouth in the form of an O and his eyes popping out of their sockets.

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” Spencer screamed, voice cracking, his heart traveling up his throat, followed by the coursing of his ice-cold blood, his breath decreasing ever more so. “What are you doing, bitch?!”

  Spencer was still dangling off the edge of the bed, but still straddled underneath the transformed maniac. Quickly he managed to take both hands—one still clutching his own knife—and shove her with great force backwards off the other side of the bed. He got off, the knife still clenched in his hand, but his mind was still warped in confusion, dismay, fear, anger, he didn’t know what he was feeling or what was going on. The whole world had suddenly blown into total and utter chaos.

  Holly rose up from behind the other side of the bed, like a horror movie where she was putting on a juicy look for the camera; except this was not for show. Hazardous, dangerous, actual life-threatening situations presented themselves a few feet away from him.

  Holy fuck, this was not Holly anymore.

  In a second, she was already scrambling across the bed like a fierce predator, grunting and growling like a wild animal, her eyes locked onto his the whole way. Without a moment’s thought or hesitation, Spencer backpedaled as his instincts begin to panic, screaming at him to find something he could use to defend himself.

  A shield! A shield! Get a fucking shield!

  She was already on the other side of the bed, poised in a half-crouching position, knife gripped in her white knuckles and ready to drive it through him.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Spencer shouted, voice cracking.

  Holly replied with another raising of the knife and a war cry that would have awoken the slumbering residents of China as she charged right after him.

  Spencer tried to dodge the attack, and was halfway successful; Holly swung the knife down again in that same breathtaking and dreadful fashion but as he parried to his right, the blade had come down carving a nice long slit down his right bicep. Spencer shrieked to the top of his lungs in absolute pain, using his left hand to clutch the wound.

  Then Spencer conjured something in his head. Something had clicked and whirred and was revving the engines with both the gas and the oil burning at full capacity. That pain that he was feeling, the blood that he could see seeping from the wound in his right arm, and how there was lots of it now…this was supposed to be her pain, her blood; the knife he was still holding in his hand. This was supposed to be his night! His kill! There was to be blood tonight...but not his own! So what the fuck!

  Now his war mask was bulging into position behind the flesh of his face, displaying it for her to see, morphing so translucently and solidifying that his mask of sanity was cracking and crumbling to pieces.

  “You fucking cunt!” he screamed. “You’re fucking DEAD!!!”

  He squeezed the handle of his blade with vengeful wrath and determination, and raised it high in the air as he set his blazing red eyes onto hers and unleashed a fierce, bloodcurdling howl of his own…and charged for his target. This was it. Only a second away and all that separated him from finally reaching his destination; his legacy; his goal in life was only a few feet’s worth of space.

  Spencer ran for the Olympic gold medal, aiming for Holly, who transported from one spot to the next with the blessed quick reflexes the female race were known for. With all that pent-up frustration bunched in the muscles of his arms and his shoulders, he threw the knife down hard and was unfortunately was too late to catch the swift psychotic bitch; leaving him swinging at nothing but air and throwing himself almost stabbing the floorboards.

  He caught himself as he pedaled a few steps forward before he stopped and looked back at Holly. Her eyes had still blazed with fury and madness but this time they were laced with a tinge of shock and disbelief. In a second’s time that brief moment of abashment had evaporated and the animalistic hunger for carnage had spread back across her face, just like Spencer’s was.

  She kept her stance, and he kept his; two menacing, growling, psychotic, half-naked college students wielding hunter’s knives and dead-set on slaughtering the other, facing each other with a yard in between them, staring each other down gravely with only the moonlight to depend on, awaiting their opponent to employ the next move.

  It was Holly who broke the trance first, this time running after him and bringing her right arm across her chest readying to launch it sideways, either to penetrate him in his arm or his ribs or was probably aiming to give him a good slice across his throat.

  He bent down, almost hugging his knees to his chest, ducking the knife that pierced the cold drafty air with a loud, blood-chilling whish!

  Holy shit! Spencer heard his head say. Whatever this psychopath's issue was, there was no mistake about it that she was not bullshitting. Jesus, just hearing that sound made his bowels unclench.

  Spencer ran straight across the attic, running past an open window—through the beam of moonlight provided by the last quarter kindling through the frame—and retreated back into the darkness to look for something to serve as a guard. He had a weapon, he just needed a shield. He was a Spartan warrior now—time to take this diseased wench's head off and stick it on a pig pole.

  Impatiently and violently, he yanked the top drawer out from the big wooden shelf that rested in the corner, pulled it out, splaying the contents out every which way. It was a last-minute scenario and there was no time to get anything sturdier or fancier and its only real purpose was to help create distance between him and her, plus it also had the power to knock her out if he was lucky with the throw.

  Spencer held the drawer horizontally outward towards her with both hands to keep her back, while also holding his knife the best he could; and in perfect timing, too, because she was just stopping herself practically at arm’s length right when he had turned wielding his new cover of defense. His heart skipped at beat at the sight.

  There was not even a second’s thought on her side, however, as she kept scrambling forward, wildly and savagely as she swung and stabbed the knife at the drawer, chipping and denting the wood, bad enough to where it was becoming demolished.

  Spencer’s heart was pulsing, throbbing so uncontrollably that part of him was bracing for a death by heart attack before being snuffed by this demented bitch. She was so fast and so desirous to kill him with her own hands, and there were no second-thoughts involved in this whatsoever. It was either going to be him or her. A lousy wooden object wasn’t going to buy him much time. He took what was left of it and with all of his might rammed it into her face. The sound he heard made Spencer feel giddy and merry inside; a nice, juicy punk! And along with it a crack! She screamed.

  It was the piece of plywood that connected with her face that caved in and made the cracking sound, not her nose. He was too panicky to remember this type of wood was not cut and welded for self-defense.

  Apparently it still did the job just fine. Holly had been knocked backwards, falling on her ass, hands covering her nose. The sight of it filled amusement in Spencer, and had nearly let loose a long, hardy laugh until he heard a noise in the dark, he felt the thump of it through the floorboards and then the clinging sound of a metallic object as it came to impact with the ground. She had dropped her knife. This was his
chance.

  The sound emerged somewhere from the right near the bed, so without a second or even a first thought he immediately scrambled towards the bottom end of the mattress, patting the floor in the dark hollows of the shadows in search for the carving instrument. There was no time to consider that his move was a foolish one, because the hazard that was involved had already took place before he could turn around.

  Holly slammed herself so hard against his back that he almost fell face forward on the rusty, splintery surface of the ground. Those claws of hers went straight to work; one had clutched a fistful of his hair, the roots being plucked out from his scalp while the other dug ruthlessly into his chest, nails going in deep enough to her satisfaction until she could take those punctured wounds and pull diagonally, creating four extremely-grotesque-looking streaks across his flesh.

  Spencer screamed and screamed and screamed so badly that the same blindness came back again and this time had almost consumed him whole.

  Holly wrapped her legs tightly around him (and he was right about them before, they worked like a vise) securing her spot to avoid being knocked off, and continuously howled and then bit a mouthful of flesh from his neck, feeling unfathomable fury and electrifying pain clenched in between those jaws, causing Spencer's screams to escalate several octaves. She felt her saliva run everywhere, getting into his wounds.

  Oh Jesus now I'm gonna get an infection from this menstrual-cycled piece-of-shit, rabies, AIDS, God knows what...

  Amidst the thickening, building and almost-unbearable agony, Spencer remembered the knife in his hand; somehow it ended up being in his left. Holly’s thigh—what was once beautiful and lovely and so much wanted to caress and kiss and hump was now just an ugly, pale, bloody, veiny useless limb attached to a mind-fucked psycho bitch—was right there practically on a silver platter. The foreleg wouldn’t be as painful; he wanted the top part, which was pressed hard against his waste. Straining his left arm, and ignoring the unthinkable pain inflicting and firing everywhere through his body, he ripped a nice, swift, deep-enough line right through the skin of her thigh. He could have plunged that motherfucker all the way to the bone had he wanted to, but to skim a nice, clean opening like that would have set her nerves ablaze faster and efficiently enough to let go of him. Plus the fact that he didn’t want to do any serious damage to her just yet; he was saving that special energy for when she’d been restrained.

  His plan had worked; she let go, shrieking to high heavens as she planted both those bony, disgusting claws atop of her wound, blood beginning to run down her leg. Spencer sucked a wallop of air straight down his lungs. Now defenseless, he abandoned the plan of retrieving her weapon, which was now clear on the other side of the room, and in order to get it back she would have to fight past him, who was now armed with his own bigger, meaner, uglier hunter's knife.

  This was it. It was over. He had her now. The time had finally come! THIS WAS IT!!!!

  Spencer started for Holly, his left hand extended out, ready to reach behind her head to clutch a fistful of that curly brown hair back to get a perfect look right into those eyes—those barbarian woman’s eyes would suddenly switch back to those frigid, Bambi, vulnerable eyes and they were going to shine plea, desperation, sadness, shock, awe, betrayal, denial...while his right was ready to—

  Before he could even touch her, he felt a mysterious blow pummel him out of nowhere right in his stomach, shooting all the air—every ounce—out of his lungs. He doubled over on instinct, he tried fighting not to drop on his knees, but he did anyway. He crossed his forearms across his abs to prevent further attacks to the mid-section, gasping for air. At least he had kept the notion strong enough to make sure the knife wouldn't drop out of his hand. Man, the girl was like a ninja; uncanny reflexes, strikes so fast they were barely visible.

  His instinct was horn-strobing the rotating red signal in his gray matter: PANIC! PANIC! Oxygen tank zeroed out! Chamber decompressing! Immediate evac! Immediate evac! Spencer fought through that and looked straight dead ahead at the picture; the current situation. It helped him retrieve air more efficiently and put all the shattered pieces in his mind right back in place.

  He turned to find Holly on all fours crawling on the floor, searching for her knife that she had lost. His quickly took action before any thoughts had processed in his temple; he lunged forward, grabbed the back of her neck with one hand, squeezing it with writhing fury, and placed the other against the small of her back, using every burning, flaming, malevolent strength that were now empowering his muscle mass to sweep her underneath her feet with the hand on her back, lifting her face-up like Hulk Hogan or Macho Randy Savage in the WWF, and heaved her the best he could. She landed against the dresser, her hip colliding against the edge of the old piece of furniture and her head puncturing the mirror, creating a web of cracks, quadrupling the reflection.

  Yeah, bitch! Hulk-smash!!!

  Holly didn’t move, she stood there, leaning over the top of the dresser, one hand on her forehead where she collided against the glass, the other covering the hip bone where it came to crash against the solid wood surface.

  What began as a high-pitched squeal quickly evolved into the painful sobbing of a poor, innocent young girl.

  It didn’t bust through the red mist that was now encompassing Spencer’s world right away, but after about ten seconds of hearing it, it suddenly began to. He felt all the fire and brimstone and anarchy that was frothing and raging inside him begin to flush coldly down the drain; he felt his face unclench from the scowling and the tightening. What the hell was he doing? This was a girl!

  His inner voice beckoned to him.

  Whoa, there, cowboy! Really? Honestly? Seriously?! She was actually intent and fighting to get that knife of hers stuck into you! The stupid cunt-vampire bit you and literally ripped the flesh off your fucking chest! And here you are getting a sudden change of heart now?! Yeah, I know she's just a girl and can't defend herself as well, but if you're so concerned then take it slowly and casually. Keep your guard up. Don't try anything but don't fall for any bullshit. Remember the golden MMA rule while standing up: hands up, chin down.

  Wait a minute. Spencer was a little amazed with himself that he had been struck with this. Wasn't this what he wanted? The vulnerability, the trust, the hurt, the pain…this was what he was working to achieve tonight. And now he was backpedalling. So why was he feeling this way right now?

  Holly continued to cry, hanging her head down until her face was nearly touching the top of the dresser, hands still placed on both points of impact. Boy, this cry was real, too. Everyone knew the difference between an imitated cry and one of genuine pain. Hearing her cry, it was like the pain she’d been physically and mentally suffering was being absorbed into him, through the tone of that sobbing.

  Spencer began to approach her, but very slowly. He held out his hands, one still brandishing his CRTK Ultima, one hand to hold out, open-palm, indicating a sign of halfhearted solace.

  Holly remained bent over the set of drawers, sobbing horribly in agony, her face buried and blubbering, the multi-reflected Hollies mimicking her in each broken fragment.

  Spencer could barely hear himself speak let alone get the words out, and could barely do that as his heart was beating so bad it broke his speech with short gasps of air.

  “I…” he said, or had tried to. “I…I…I’m…I’m…s—so—sor—“

  Like a wild, crazed piranha shooting itself out from underwater to retrieve fresh live meat, the right hand she’d been holding to comfort her hurt hip suddenly clenched into a white-knuckled fist, rose high and mightily and fired straight for the shattered mirror, so unbelievably fast and even more so unbelievably hard that the quicksilver had detonated into several pieces of shards, scattering everywhere in the room.

  Spencer jumped back two or three steps in total shock, holding his knife out in front of him, his heart skipped a series of beats and he felt it go cold and hollow as it once again felt it shoot up throu
gh his throat and could practically feel it thump against his voice box; his jaw dropped to the floor, the veins that coursed his blood froze into ice; he felt his own face pull back as the cold air curled around the sides of his eyes.

  He watched as Holly picked up one of the shards of shattered mirror, and slowly turned to face him.

  It was as if Pazuzu found itself a new home in her. Her face was wrinkled and haggard and being pulled and stretched here and there; her upper lip curled up high to bare the gritting, even white teeth that used to look so beautiful before now looked dangerous and ready to chomp through a valuable artery of his. But once again and as always, more than that, more than anything, were the fucking eyes…the browns of hers burned to a red hue, not to mention the fact that they had scowled so intensely and so loudly that if it were true looks could kill, she would have easily been the victor here.

  Goblin Holly, that’s what the fuck she was. She was no longer the girl next door. That chick was long gone; what he had seen before him was an anomaly of an alter ego; so frightening; so blood-chilling; so unfathomable, like a troll. Her spine curved like a demon from a fairy tale, she strained every muscle from top to bottom to form the fingers of her hands into ravenous claws; her body, darkened and tainted from dark of the blood and the ugliness just revealed. And that face was more hideous than it was the first time. Long, frothing like a rabies-diseased creature, the tip of her nose somehow had lifted on its own, enhancing the appearance more into that of an aggressive, carnivorous and extremely hostile animal, baring those teeth like a dog out to defend territory, or just in the mood to mangle something unrecognizable with those lethal choppers…and of course there were those fucking eyes…

  This was not the shy girl next door anymore. It was an actual genuine cold-blooded troll straight out from under the bridge in a fairy tale world and into the confines of reality standing just a few feet away in the flesh.

  Holly tilted her head back, eyes still locked stiff right into her enemy’s, raising a hand over her head that had equipped a large tall triangular-shaped glass shard in her hand, and released another banshee scream that sent shivers wavering everywhere up, down his flesh, and charged straight for him.

  Spencer—despite the overwhelming shock that had still been coursing through him, as well as the physical injuries that were beginning to spread throughout his body as well—went into a defensive position that he’d learned from someone he knew who used to play high school football. Shoulder out, arm tucked in, bend the knees, and then charge and ram straight into the motherfucker, splaying him down.

  Spencer repeated the steps in his mind and engaged them on the bitch.

  She was practically weightless. Before he even knew it, she’d been swept off her feet and she was right on top of him, although he was still in control. He also knew how to avoid tipping over forward after the clash; after he came to collide with Holly, he quickly straightened his back and brought out his right foot as a brake to prevent diving face-first into the ground, and his left foot spread out behind him as to make sure the weight of his opponent didn’t topple backwards, which would make him fall on his back and giving her the advantage.

  In this case, though, it didn’t last long. Spencer held her over his head for not even a second as she wildly flailed her legs up and down as far as they could; she used her nails once again to inflict more brutal carnage by delivering more grisly pain to his forearm. She had literally dug her nails down as deep as she could into his tissue, and then—using the fingers she’d been penetrating him with—grabbing his flesh and then began pulling at it with the most extreme of brute force; literally attempting to skin him alive.

  Spencer’s world became a fiery Armageddon of blinding, outrageous pain and agony, enough to charge him up with enough grit and devastating forcefulness to take this demon that he’d been holding above his head and for the second time heave this schizo bitch as hard as he could at something. This time it was to be the wall.

  He mentally tried to absorb every stinging jolt of pain that was now electrifying several different points of his body straight into the muscles of his chest and biceps as he gathered the courage and the strength to do it. Somewhere in his mind, a small distant region played the theme from Popeye whenever the sailor downed a whole can of spinach to help back him out of whatever corner he was in.

  Ignoring the agonizing pain in his body, he held her up underneath his palms, feeling like a professional wrestler, and chucked her straight across the room like trying to throw a bail of hay in the back of a pickup truck. She hit the wall with a loud blam! falling to the floorboards, and rolling a foot or two away from the impact.

  To both his blood-chilling surprise and his chagrin, she didn't even make a sound. In fact, she was on her feet in a second. Spencer moved without even thinking.

  Spencer ran straight for her, but again—and to his shock and awe—she used her preternatural reflexes to strafe off to the right; it almost looked like a teleport. The bitch had just been thrown against a wall and she got up like it was nothing, beaming from here to there like fucking Scotty. Part of him really had to give it to her—what a fuckin' warrior. Too bad she was a dead one.

  Spencer failed to remember to use the braking procedure after this particular charge, as he found out he had missed his intended target, he tried desperately to bring his feet forward to slow himself down, but the weight of his body which he had used to try to knock her down like a battering ram had sent him staggering and then stumbling down on the floor, falling and crashing down hard like a driver under the influence. There was pain—new pain—but he ignored it and quickly swung his head over his shoulder to see what the she-devil was up to.

  She was hunched on the floor on the other side of the room near the bed; she was still looking for her knife.

  Get up! Get the fuck up! Now!!!

  Spencer got up.

  He grasped the knife in his hand; the solidness of the black rubber clenching against the muscle and bone of his hand—it had been scarred, but these were scars to be proud of. They were war scars. Scars that represented more courage, determination, pride and dignity than any form of steel or metal wielded together. He would have them embedded in his person for life and although the pain was beyond anything bearable, he was proud as shit that he had them. This stupid bitch—whatever her dilemma was—he had to tip his hat to her. She was a warrior and a half. He saluted the fuck out of her...but he was on a mission to retrieve his very first trophy, and as much as he respected her persistence, her indomitability…he couldn’t let that stop him from getting it. And he had been honored to have this one as his first.

  He looked over at Holly, her back turned to him as she was on her hands and knees still rummaging through the shadows sprawled over the floor in search of her weapon. Spencer—the knife being held tightly in his hand, blade positioned downward bracing for a beautifully-orchestrated stabbing melody—marched toward her.

  The paleness of her back and the rigid lines of her spinal cord that arched up like a cat illuminated brightly in the dark of the room, giving away her position.

  As he made it about three feet to where Holly had been, he struck his knife high to the ceiling; he wanted to slam it high and deep enough to where he wanted to stick his whole goddamn arm through her back and out the fucking fat of her breast! The current manic mental state he was in held no objections or second thoughts of any kind. Hell, he was gonna grab the fat of her titty and dangle it in front of her! Shove it up her vagina!!!

  Spencer readied to plunge the knife…

  …and then Holly stood up and nimbly whirled facing his position.

  Yet again, instinct acted first; Spencer backed way the fuck up. The knife was still held over his head readied to massacre the cunt, but now, as he stood ten feet away, bleeding to death, his body on the verge of collapsing from all the anguish, unconsciousness nearly swallowing him; he was uncertain how he was ever going to catch her.

  He stood his ground, watching
her.

  Quickly, he went over to the switch next to the door and flicked it upwards.

  The light blasted into the room, eliminating every stint of dark that had cursed the highest floor of the attic. The blast blinded them both—holding a forearm to their eyes, and then squinting to fight for clearer focus. After a few seconds, the world was now full of color, brightness, white...

  The vicinity looked like a hurricane, a tornado, a tsunami, and a street-riot all bunched into one unfathomable abomination of Mother Nature and had unleashed total fury in the room. Shards of broken mirror splayed everywhere; pieces of furniture all over the place; holes in the walls; blood on the floorboards; there had been pieces of everything that he hadn’t even recalled even coming to contact with.

  And then there was Holly.

  Holly stood her ground, holding something in her hand. The knife. She found her damn knife. And her condition had not looked any healthier than Spencer’s, given the fact she broke his skin severely in numerous places on his body.

  She stood there, in her bra and panties, wobbly-legged, that beautifully-purply-pale flesh splattered with blood; shivering from the pain and the intensity, her right hand squeezing the handle of her blade, which had been held downward bracing for a long-and-highly-anticipated incision…

  …just like he had.

  For the life of him, he could not tell how he knew this, but he did; just from the look of her state.

  It was as if the creature that was Holly less than a minute ago was finally driven away from the light after Spencer had just flipped the switch, suddenly here was Holly again. Like she’d been exposed and she was now shocked and speechless. But she kept her eyes locked onto Spencer’s, and never once did they dart away for anything. What had once been those two gleaming fiery-red pupils of infernal insanity suddenly transformed back to those precious amber doe windows that displayed right through to her soul.

  Quite a soul it was at that. She managed to work with both the sweetest compassion and utmost brutal savagery, and both were so genuinely pure. He thought neither would ever be compatible; you were either one or the other; mixing them together was like water and electricity: neither is compatible with the other.

  He watched as she had been staring back at him, observing the protruding look of absolute awe and bewilderment swipe across her features. A moment of faint, silent, awkward lucidity took over the room.

  Two young people: coy, wayward, naïve, guided hand-in-hand by their higher-level BFF’s, enjoying each other’s company (or had at least pretended to) now found themselves half-dead, adrenaline still burning with bloodlust, trying desperately to tear one another to ribbons. The world, time, everything that had been and was in possession as far as the eye could see had just fast-forwarded all the way to a different realm; he could see that she had felt the same in her perspective.

  All reason was lost; nothing made sense anymore.

  The two of them stood there, panting, aching, sweating, feverish for more battle, and kept staring at each other; watching time, space and all circumstance had slowly begun to dissipate, and in turn were emotions of confusion, abashment, overwhelming them into a paralyzed state. Pieces of the world, that were obliterated and scattered every which way five minutes or so ago were finally being put back in place…but things…time…the air…life…everything had felt differently. The sight of the blood, so much of it splotched on her legs and arms and chest and had even reddened her undergarments had the drool circulating and curling around his tongue, but something about her—his intended victim—had seemed all but untouchable now.

  She had been thinking the same about him, he knew because of what he saw in those captivating browns of hers. It was some esoteric gift his kind was blessed with at birth; his kind had carried a secret flag for their brethren to take notice of, and he had seen it.

  He knew it…because he had been staring directly at himself in those eyes.

  This is too much, he thought. This is just absolutely too fucking much to take in as reality. This is impossible; this is beyond coincidence; this is nuts; it just can’t be. It just can’t be at all.

  But it was. And here it is. She was after the same thing he was after; she intended to do it the exact same time he had planned. Coincidence? Fate? Accident? Whichever multiple choice you had circled, the fact was it was sure proof that the old saying “what can happen will happen” does indeed happen.

  Spencer tried to speak, fought the voice to emerge from his throat and was unsuccessful. He saw as she took in a breath of air, her Adam’s apple slightly rising and then falling, failing to break the awkward silence as well.

  And then out of nowhere, as the two of them kept their profound stupefied stares locked tightly on each other—partially out of instinct, partially out of something he dared not attempt to learn about himself deep in the undiscovered depths of his own humanity in question—Spencer slowly began to curl the corner of his lips into a smirk…transforming slowly afterwards into a carefully-crafted wan smile.

  Holly, momentarily frozen with surprise at first, repeated the facial gesture, and formed a smile of her own.

  And then a chuckle.

  The most extremely softest of chuckles, that is.

  Strangely pleasant as it appeared to be, Spencer could feel his vision of reality begin to bend and twist, stretching and snapping to total destruction again. There was the old Holly again, that smile and that heartwarming laugh—but the laugh that had been warming his heart before was earlier sending pints of ice-cold Kool Aid blood streaming and ventilating through his organs; the pure angel of a woman that was Holly returned in the body of the wretchedly-pale, bruised, bloody body of the troll that he’d been dueling fiercely in hand-to-hand combat only minutes ago. He had heard about unreal phenomenas shared by real people in so-called factual events on TV programs and had understood the term and never denied the truth in the people’s stories…but it was not until now that he’d fully experienced and now fully appreciated the term and having to know what it’s like to have one wrapped around him etching a memory that he would face with for every day of his life.

  Holly’s smile broadened, her soft chuckling evolving into laughter. Spencer felt the gist that happened between them, and joined her.

  The cackling began normally, then ascended louder, and louder…and then the tension that polluted the room slowly began to clear as the two had almost embedded themselves in their peculiar amusement feeling their own cheek muscles ache from boasting too much uncontrolled laughter, losing the feeling in their legs, having to bend their knees, throwing their heads down, laughing like two friends that had pulled off an incredibly-risky, death-defying prank and were now venting in joyous celebration.

  Spencer was the first to speak.

  “You…” he said, shaking his head, grinning.

  Holly knew what the rest of his statement was going to be, and retorted.

  “You!” she said, continuously laughing, triggering more out of Spencer.

  A different sort of vibe took place in the murky attic at the top of this strange house that lay in the middle of nowhere. Just like that, somehow, something came in between them and this woman was no longer his enemy, and also no longer a stranger.

  Spencer tried again.

  “I…” he got out so far, “…I can't fucking believe this...”

  Holly’s smile faltered a little, and she shook her head.

  “I can’t either.”

  A pause came between them, and then she spoke again.

  “I kind of thought at first you were only trying to defend yourself,” she said. “But I could just tell...you were ...you were about to...”

  Spencer nodded slowly, disbelievingly. Holly put both hands over her mouth in absolute shock. The two bruised, bloody and damaged young people could not tear their gazes away from each other even if they desired so.

  “Oh my God...” she said in a tiny voice. “I’m just…never before have I ever been so fucking mindblown
in my life than I am right now.”

  “How…how long…” Spencer knew what he had wanted to ask but failed to approach the question in a correct manner.

  Like twins separated at birth, discovering they shared the same feeling, opinions, emotions, pains at the exact same moment and are able to identify them by a mile away, she knew what he’d been trying to ask.

  “As long as I can remember,” she answered.

  He felt a tremendous and mysterious feeling completely wash over him; the tiny hairs of his flesh prickling upwards so erect that it stung; his heart doubling, tripling in size. Never, since the days of his adolescence to his elementary school days up to the days in high school escalating to his time in the big-shot University…had he met someone like her.

  Spencer kept it secret from everyone; it was a secret that shut him out from the world. It was like a disfigurement that molded his face like a trash compactor designed it; it cast him out from the social public. The kids on the playground at Miriam (his preschool) saw it and vented their aggression for his indifference by throwing sticks and rocks and pushing him into puddles; the kids at elementary school constantly name-called him and did other horrid acts to him in class and out; high school was a little more mature but not any better in the department of terrible malicious pranks; it was awful the entire time. But here…with another human being…there was a mutual bonding. It was the first for him. He found one of his own kind. He found another part of him that grew into a beautiful young woman. Both bruised, both bloodied and both damaged, they both found each other after an act of death, survival and sex. It was as if they had made love like they were supposed to, but hadn’t. Or perhaps they did.

  “I never would have thought…” Spencer said, “…I mean, from the look of you.”

  Holly nodded.

  “Turns out everybody’s full of surprises, aren’t they?” she said.

  Spencer shook his head.

  “Before,” he said. “I couldn’t see it. I mean, I seriously had no clue. You know how to hide it to a T. You’d make a great undercover narc or something.”

  Holly giggled; the same easy-going, fun-loving giggle she had in response with Spencer's funny dialogue while on their blind date.

  “I don’t think they’d want someone like me,” she said. “I considered it at one point, though? You know? I figured I’m a natural at stealth and talking my way in and out and around things, and I’m locking up murderers and rapists anyway. You ever watch Dexter? That kind of inspired me.”

  Then Holly’s smile faded. She looked at him listlessly, changing the topic.

  “You were trying to kill me, though,” she said.

  There had been an obvious and easy counter to that statement, but for a reason he could not figure out, Spencer was speechless. Here was someone throwing stones in a glass house and the golf ball that was lodged in his throat along with his heart (which went from ginormous to small and cold back to ginormous again) both declared him guilty as charged.

  He made an effort to call her out on it anyway, only with words and barely any feeling.

  “And you me.”

  She replied with only silent breathing patterns and a bloody, blank face that kept staring at him, but not as heavily as before. He stared back, unsure of what to say next, unsure of what to do next. All he could do was wait, watch, and think the best he could, making sure he didn’t get lost in thought while she could come out like a bat out of hell making another ninjitsu move out of the blue.

  “I can’t believe I ran into you.” she said after a long pause, and once again with her esoteric body-face language, “I can't...believe we ran into each other.”

  Spencer chuckled. There was no thinking at first, no smile; that soft chuckle was his first kneejerk reaction.

  He was not able to unfold his wings; he was not able to break from his cocoon, and evolve happily into the next life, but for one moment, he felt that he was there. He found a different route, and he felt more refreshed and more alive and more open than he had in his entire life in this one single moment. His bladder relaxed, his heart finally resumed beating at a normal rate. He was no longer concealed and suffocating in his dark, diseased sack of grief and misery. He could feel it—he was at the translucent lair of substance and could see right through. Although he came near, he still felt that trapping feeling of engulfment.

  It was all too big and so much at once that Spencer brought his palms up to his eyes, bent down to his knees, and sobbed. Uncontrollably.

  He could not remember if anything made him break down like this before or if this had actually been his first time shedding tears and crying over something. He was not sad, he was not hurt, but he literally screamed to his lungs as he convulsed, curled in a fetal position on the floorboards. Pushing and fighting this out of his system was more important than anything else; he didn’t care if he had been offered a whole gullible sorority group weak and spaced-out from every drug in the market, blossoming somebody was his last concern. A new thing was happening to him now, and he had to go through with it. The world had always been oblivious to him, and for the first time in his life, he was oblivious to the world.

  Spencer could barely even feel Holly as she placed a hand on his shoulder.