Pandora 15 Chapter 1
The darkness was like a thousand fingers pulling him into a nightmare. If he didn't get control of himself, his breathing, panic would consume him and he would lose his mind. The darkness would win. He was sure. He took a few deep, shaky breaths, the earthen smell of the walls filling his nostrils.
The scent of the suffocating crawl space always reminded him of the smell of the world after it rained, when all of the earthworms came out of the ground and slithered around in puddles of water too big for them to escape from. It seemed to him like all of the worms of the world perished with every storm. How were there more of them when they all seemed to drown or get stranded on the hot concrete when the sun suddenly came back out? They looked to him like tiny pieces of bacon frying on the pavement-just languishing away into little crispy things.
If that wasn't enough to completely wipe them out there were worms that got ran over by cars; by people backing out of their driveways-unknowingly smashing countless numbers in the path of the wheels. Then there were the worms that you accidentally stepped on when you rushed outside after the rain finally stopped. You took a few sporadic, excited steps before you realized you were taking lives in the process. You looked at the remnants of the helpless squirming things partially attached to your shoe and partially pancaked onto the ground.
You felt bad, in a distant kind of way. They were too small to really matter to you but you knew that they were no more. No matter what, that was sad. Everything wanted to live and these tiny, helpless creatures were at the mercy of the big, cruel world all around them. They were utterly defenseless, surrounded by a million ways to die.
That's how he felt every day: alone, unprotected, insignificant, invisible.
In the nearly complete darkness he was in, every sound felt like impending pain or death. Unknown things with hideous mouths and giant claws could be imagined scratching themselves out of the dirt floor to come and take him back to hell with them.
Breath, breath....he told himself. Deep breaths. It's ok...it's ok. There is nothing here. You've been here before.
A screech caught in his throat as a stair creaked in the absolute blackness above his head. "God please". He whispered. "I promise to be a good boy. Please don't let anything get me".
He wanted to bang on the door and scream until his throat was raw with every ounce of his being. He didn't. It took everything in him not to but he knew she would probably beat him to death if he did. She had threatened as much before. She had beaten him enough for him to know she had it in her. He had seen it in her eyes more than once-a shiny craziness that alluded to a kind of emptiness inside. The kind of emptiness some people have where you know accidentally stepping on worms doesn't bother them in the least. The kind of emptiness where they might actually enjoy it in fact. He screamed in his mind instead. He took deep breaths, closed his eyes, slowly unclenched his fists, clenched them again involuntarily and focused his mind on relaxing them again.
He was sitting in front of the door. The only light at all coming from the miniscule crack between the door and the ground. There was a little light...there was always a little, just enough to remind him that there was a world full of light outside. This wasn't the universe. He wouldn't be in this crushing darkness forever.
Deep breath. Calm. Calm. It was working, he was calming down. The sense of overwhelming dread was receding back into the blackness from where it came- like so many childhood monsters retreating back into the closet with the breaking dawn.
Like countless other times he willed his mind away from his make-shift prison. Ever so slowly he felt his body becoming distant and small..his breathing becoming shallow.
The blades of greenest grass caressed his bare legs and feet as he ran through them, tickling him. The field was immense- a sea of grass and vibrant, beautiful wildflowers. There were giant, billowing trees encircling the field, protecting it in a hug. Big fluffy clouds drifted through the sky and the air smelled fragrant with lilacs. The birds were singing and chirping-everything was so alive. He was alone in the field and there was just enough of a breeze.
He held the string in his hand as he ran and felt the kite buck up and down before finally catching a current and gracefully taking it's place in the sky. He didn't have to run now. He stood letting out more string so that it could fly even higher. It was a brilliant swirl of color almost as high as the clouds. He could hear the wind tugging at the fabric-the sound of a giant bird flapping it's wings.
When the kite was high enough, he climbed up the string and onto the kite. He flew first around the field and then further away. The ground looked so distant. Everything looked so peaceful and serene. He loved the way the wind felt pushing against him, resisting his presence in the sky.
In the hidden space the little boy, alone in the darkness, sat on the dirt floor, eyes closed, smiling. A single tear slipping slowly down his cheek.
It felt like lightning flashing through his brain when the door suddenly opened and the daylight flooded in. He couldn't keep his eyes open for a few moments-it hurt too badly. He blinked repeatedly and held his hand up to shield himself from it's intrusiveness.
"Come on" She said kindly. "You can come out now." She grabbed his small hand and helped him to stand. He was disoriented. He lost all track of time and his sense of reality when he was in there.
Stepping over her high heels and pushing aside hanging clothes he made his way out of the hidden compartment in the back of her closet and out into her bedroom. She held his hand the whole time-his eyes finally becoming adjusted to the light.
She knelt down in front of him and looked him over. She wiped a smudge of dirt off of his cheek with her thumb. She looked him the the eyes-she had the most beautiful sea-foam green eyes. She hugged him-his whole body stiffened at this unexpected show of affection. Everything about her hugging him and being kind to him felt wrong. It felt like a trap. She was the big bad wolf dressed up like the warm and caring grandma-imitating someone you trusted just so she could devour you.
"Plan 15" She said handing him a piece of caramel.
It was his cue. "Plan 15" he said back. Forcing a smile. She seemed satisfied with his response and walked out of the room.
Plan 15 had been drilled into him his entire life. It was the reason for everything...the reason for the trips to the closet. How long had he been in there this time? Hours? Days? He had no idea.
What did she always say? It would all be worth it. Plan 15 would change their lives... and something about it being the greatest plan that the world would never know. He didn't give a shit about plan 15-hated it in fact. She was crazy. All he wanted right now was to take a super long, boiling hot shower, play x box,
and to not see her ever again.
Super Jolly Holliday
childhood passes intermittently through grey clouds into sunlight. In spite of the bleakness magic erupts in every skip and twirl. Happiness overflows like chalk colored lava in a swirl of taffeta and wool. Clean and darn, pinch a penny, sing and dance. My friend Bert grabbed us by our hands one day and we fell into a world more forgiving and bright. Nothing but warmth caressed our skin-a nice change from the dreary cold London nights that tried to pass as days. Our days were effervescent. Our nights didn't exist. Worries were left behind like the countless layers of soot that filled our chimneys after numerous harsh winters. Chim chim cher-ee. Every moment is a lyric to a beautiful song that belongs only to our ears. We forget what is real and what isn't and we idle our days away somewhere that time can't remember and where grey clouds can't take up permanent residence. I whisper..remain like this forever and pray for time to hold itself back like a spoon full of sugar that you never spill a grain of.
someone breaks my reverie. I don't recognize them even though they are looking at me with wide expectant eyes. Part of my mind suddenly raises its hand and then the storm clouds drift quickly in. There is nothing. One of them gently lifts me from my chair by the window and says "Mary we are taking you to your room now." I follow blindly not really knowing where we are headed. As they close the door they pause outside and one of them quietly says to the other "Mary lost her children sixty years ago." What do they mean I think..Jane and Michael are right here. And who is Mary?
I have a long legacy of causing untold pain.
I am a legend. I am known by many names...Lucifer, succubus, she devil, bitch, whore etc.
I may smell sweetly of lilacs and sunshine but if you could smell the real me...well..it's fire and brimstone #5. Only demons find it appealing I'm told.
I can appear to be every man's fantasy. Marilyn Monroe to Bob the accountant at turbo tax. All curves and platinum blonde and baby powder skin. Willing to laugh at every joke no matter how dull and be your ultimate slightly dripping arm candy.
Kate Beckinsale to Neil the nerdy MIT grad. Mysterious, alluring and distant dark soulful eye's.He makes enough money to afford you but doesn't know it. Another chink in the armour. The list is infinite. I am every beauty in the history of woman kind. I am the peach that's exquisitely ripe, the forbidden fruits from all of the lore.
Beauty is the ultimate power. Every lethal goal of every man, every triumph in business, every war in which his adversaries were crushed by his will, have all been done so in my name.
Nothing in history has caused more hate or evil or violence other than religion. That could be attributed to me also if I wanted to take credit. The Salem witch trials etc. I am hated.
No man is immune to my girlish charms. You may not be able to see my pointed yellow horns, or my daggerish vampire like insisors, or my vicious eagle like talons but they are there.
One day when you least expect it I will capture your soul. You will feel high as a cloud. You will believe the world is fair and just and smells like lemongrass and lilacs. Then blam! You will get whiplash and . smash your head into the dashboard all because you didn't wear your seatbelt. You will barely hear the tires screeching. I will serve you your heart, still warm and beating on a silver platter with a side of Fava beans and a nice Chianti. Everyone knows that reference.
This is what I do. I suck souls. Just so you know guys...it's not personal. If you believe you are immune you are the best taste on the tongue. Nothing is more delicious than a reluctant soul.
Strangers
Fuck it. I'm going to talk to everyone I meet. I'm going to talk to everyone in line with me at the supper market check out. I don't just want to meet one percent of the world before I die. I want to meet ten percent. Why not? everyone has a story and everyone's story is fascinating. You never know who you will meet or who will change your life in just a moment. I am opening myself up to the universe because we are really all we have and you never know what could happen in just one tiny conversation with a stranger.I will be the crazy woman that says hi to you on the street. If you don't respond I don't care. I just want the love I have for life and for people to flow out of me into the world. Maybe it will make a difference. If it doesn't I can say I tried at the end of the day.
Vendicatore
When she was alive her name was Lauren Taylor.
Lauren had been a single mother to a beautiful sixteen-year-old girl named Rowan. Rowan was the love of her life and the single most extraordinary soul she had ever known. She volunteered at the local homeless shelter, got straight As, and was an accomplished gymnast who wanted to try out for the Olympics next year. Rowan was also driven, tenacious, witty, sarcastic, and incredibly funny. She had the most amazing laugh and a smile that could light up a room. Lauren didn't know how she had gotten so lucky. Her child had just come into the world, a swirl of color and energy and had blown her away. She liked to take all of the credit for Rowan being so wonderful, it made her look like such a great mom. The truth was, however, that Rowan didn't need Lauren really. She was just like that from the very beginning, unstoppable and full of life. Lauren had been in awe of her daughter and had always needed her more than she had needed her mom. Mom had just always wanted to bask in the warmth of her light.
When she was alive, Lauren had also been a surgeon specializing in organ transplants. She was incredibly successful and made great money but she also traveled the world performing life saving operations for free on people who couldn't afford medical care and who would have died otherwise.
Besides her daughter, her work had been the most important thing to her. She gave people a second chance a life, providing they received the organs they so desperately needed. Organs were always in short supply. Even though millions of people died every day most of their organs died with them. Either they had been dead too long for them to be harvested, or they weren't organ donors so their precious potential contributions in their death went to waste. It was heartbreaking to watch people die because they didn't get whatever it was they needed in time to save their lives. It was also the most exhilarating feeling in the world to save someone who was on the brink of death.
Those two most important parts of her life were over now. She wasn't anyone anymore, she didn't contribute anything to the world. In her death she only had a single purpose and tonight she would hopefully accomplish her goal and maybe give her own soul the tiniest amount of peace. Maybe.
She was sitting outside of his house for about the tenth time. Tonight was the night. She had to make sure everything went perfectly. By now she knew all of his habits. She knew when he came home from work. She knew he ate like shit-usually artery clogging crap like hot dogs and ribs. She knew he didn't really have any friends or anyone who visited. Lauren also knew that he had no clue that someone had been stalking him for the last three weeks or that his life was about to change forever. Most important of all she knew that he went to bed around eleven every night, right after watching the Jimmy Fallon show. Given that he was a psychopath, she thought Jimmy was an odd choice for his night time television viewing but who knew anything about anyone, really?
It was 10:50 pm. Lauren could see him through his living room window sitting in his ratty armchair and laughing. He was laughing. She was pretty sure that she would never laugh again. She also knew Rowan wouldn't for a fact. Her stomach churned at the thought of never hearing Roe's laugh again. She pushed the horrendous thought away, like always, and brought her focus back to the reason why she was sitting outside this mans house at night and spying on him through his window.
Lauren checked her bag for the fifth time that night. Ridiculously bad OCD, she thought. Yes she had everything she needed. Now she just needed him to fall asleep. Then the fun would begin. Finally. The piece of shit had no idea what was coming-that was the icing on the cake.
Jimmy got over at 11. Lauren watched as he got up, turned off the television and got a drink of water from the kitchen. Then he walked down the hallway to his bedroom. When the light went out she checked her watch and waited another twenty minutes to make sure he was asleep.
Of all of her observations of Dennis McConnell, the most important of them all had been the fact that Dennis, being overweight and broke, slept with his bedroom window open most nights. It was cool outside since it was October so she figured tonight would be no exception. She took a deep breath, grabbed her bag off of the passenger seat, got out of the car and quietly closed the door. Lauren crept to the side of Dennis's house where his bedroom was located. The window to his room was at eye level and she looked in at the heavily snoring disgusting mass that was Dennis. This was going to be a piece of cake, she thought as she cut out the screen with her xacto knife and climbed inside.
Once inside she set down her bag on the night table next to his bed. She opened it up and pulled out a syringe. Quick as a cat she injected the contents of the syringe into his arm. He didn't so much as twitch. She checked the time and waited five minutes for the drugs to completely take effect. When the timer went off she was ready to begin. He was out completely and would be out for quite some time. She was going to take her time and savor the experience. Lauren used a surgical knife that could cut through bone to remove his fingers at the second knuckle one at a time. She left the finger tips where they fell. Then off came his nose. It was really easy to cut a nose off but she made multiple cuts and slices to make sure what was left on his face looked as ragged as possible. She put the pieces of flesh that were once Dennis's nose on the night table by her bag. That would be the first things he saw when he woke up in agonizing pain. Ha! Finally she made a small incision in Dennis's abdomen. He was going to do something good with his waste of a life whether he wanted to or not.
Once her masterpiece was completed and she had finished sewing things up that were supposed to be closed, she climbed back out of the window and drove away. Lauren was trembling with adrenaline and joy. She basically drove home on auto-pilot reliving the night in her mind. She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost forgot to make a detour to the hospital. She also made a short anonymous phone call to the same hospital on one of her disposable phones.
When she got home she poured herself a glass of wine and sat down in an almost scalding bath. After the alcohol began to set in, the memories started picking away at her brain and she stopped fighting them for once. Maybe now it wouldn't hurt quite so much to remember she told herself. She was wrong of course.
The day that Lauren had died had felt like any other day. She did all of her normal things like laundry and cooking and watching t.v. When six o'clock rolled around she had walked to Rowans room, knocked on her door and told her it was time to go. Rowan had been lying on her bed texting and listening to music. They got in the car and headed to gymnastics. They talked about Lauren maybe getting her hair cut short and highlighted. Rowen told her stories about her friends from the week. They were having fun and laughing. Lauren remembered the way the light caught in Rowan's beautiful green eyes when she laughed. It would now and forever be her most vivid memory of her wonderful daughter.
They took the route they always took and had been stopped at the intersection of Franklin and Pierce when a man came out of nowhere with a gun and forced Lauren into the backseat and drove away with Lauren and Rowan still in the car. She could remember his face in great detail-the memory was so sharp. He had been a fat, ugly man with greasy hair a big red veiny nose and a scar on his left cheek. He drove around for a while like he didn't know where he was going. Rowan was crying and Lauren just kept begging him to let them go. He could take the car, her could take her money, she would even withdraw money from her account-all of it if he would just let them go. He either ignored her pleas or yelled at her to shut up. He seemed extremely agitated and nervous and kept the gun on his lap. If only she could get the gun she thought, Rowan was next to him in the passenger seat, a hysterical mess, she wasn't going to be able to do it. Lauren couldn't reach from behind and into his lap fast enough to grab it. She scanned the backseat for anything she could use for a weapon but there was nothing. For once she kicked herself for being such a clean freak. She had to do something! She waited until he seemed distracted and then she threw herself against the back of the drivers seat wrapped her hands around his neck and squeezed as hard as she could. He flailed at her with
one arm while using the other to try to keep the car on the road. Lauren yelled at Rowan to grab the gun but it was too late. He had stopped trying to get her off of him and had grabbed it. He turned into an alley and slammed on the breaks. Lauren flew forward between the front seats. She felt blinding pain in her head as he slammed the gun into the back of her skull. Everything went black.
She didn't remember anything after that until she woke up with some kind of fabric wrapped around her neck. She was lying on her back in a sunny, quiet field. It was really bright and her head was pounding. It hurt to open her eyes so she shielded her eyes with her hand and rolled onto her side. Laurens next memory was so intense that she felt pain in her chest and thought she would pass out in her bathtub. Just this once she let herself see her baby lying on the ground next to her, her brilliant green eyes staring into nothingness, the light in them extinguished.
Lauren had stumbled away in pain and dead inside. She didn't know where she was going, she just started walking. She didn't notice anyone or anything or have any thoughts, just a feeling of emptiness that ate at her insides like a flesh eating virus eats at your skin. Eventually she stumbled into a motel parking lot. She still had her wallet and money and everything. The psychotic stranger hadn't taken anything from them but their lives. Lauren checked herself in ignoring the strange looks of the people behind the counter. She went to her room and slept for three days straight.
The police never found her body but knew she had been there and had assumed her dead. Lauren had learned as much from watching the news at random diners she ate at when she finally came out of her coma. Over the next two weeks she changed her appearance and her name. She became a ghost. She formulated a plan. The murder of her daughter had happened almost two months ago on August 18th. Since then she had lived for nothing but to find this man and to make sure he would never hurt anyone again. She had found him easily enough and she had patiently waited for the perfect time to avenge Rowan.
She wasn't worried about getting caught. Everyone thought she was dead. Dennis had even believed she was dead because he had meant for her to die. She knew that from the ligature marks on her neck that took two weeks to heal. Her plan had gone flawlessly perfect and no one would ever know who had done it. Dennis would never be able to get close enough to anyone to hurt anyone again. The fact that he didn't really have any fingers anymore assured it.
Over the next few days Lauren watched the news reports about a man who was mutilated in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. The man had no idea who could have done it nor could he think of any motive. Lauren knew that wasn't true. She savored the thought of him knowing that somehow, someway, one of his victims or someone who loved them had gotten revenge. She also saw a related news story a few days later about the same man's kidney being dropped off at a local hospital the same night the man was mutilated. The cooler full of ice and a kidney had also contained the following note: from a generous donor who would like to remain anonymous. The kidney was used before anyone knew who's it was. Whoops. Organs didn't go to waste.
Lauren thought she would be done, that this would fill the abyss inside of her but it didn't. Not even close. There were lots of monsters out there, living invisibly, preying on innocent people. She was going to make sure that everyone could see on the outside what they truly were on the inside. The only people they would ever hurt again were the ones who had to look upon them. She would make sure of that. What else was she going to do? She was dead after all, she had nothing but time.