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- Messages
- 463
The neon scene of a nightclub bustles with warm bodies and flashing light. The bass throbs as curvaceous figures grind. Drinks sloshing. No one cares that the floor is wet. The DJ mixes, lasers strobing and smoke clouds from machines turning every shade of color. Her hair goes from pink, to blue, to green, to orange, to purple, to pink, to blue. She glitters in silver metallic, her mini dress only inches away from being immodest, both in length and neckline.
The music stops only for the countdown:
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Confetti rains down from the ceiling, spraying from guns popped around her in celebration of the new year. It shimmers in the neon lights, and if she reaches out, she swears she can touch magic for the first time. Or maybe it's the molly.
But in the crowd of swaying, kissing bodies, she sees him.
Stilled where others move.
Dead where others live.
His ghost returns to haunt her.
She'd swear he was there, if the glitter didn't fall around him. If the confetti clung to his bloodied hair, his ruined face, his ripped shirt. The New Year is rung in with kisses and laughter, but she stands there, staring at years past.
And they stare back.
He looks as he did six years ago when she left him in the hole she and her brother dug on the back stretch of their family property. He looks like he crawled out of the grave and straight to her. Danny's corpse stares her down, challenging her.
How dare you be happy.
How dare you move on.
How dare you live.
Love blinks, and he's gone, just a flicker, just a moment in time, frozen, etched in her brain. But on the floor where he was is a pair of boot prints.
Muddied.
Bloodied.
And no matter how many times she opens and shuts her eyes, the prints remain.
——
That was five days ago. Or four? Math? Does the night count if you were awake for all of it? If you couldn't sleep and the days bled together?
Before, his specter haunted her once for only a moment every year. Now, she found it followed her.
The reflection of a storefront.
The shadow in a doorway as she turns off the light.
The backseat of her car in the rear view mirror.
Each time she'd look again, he'd be gone. And each time she'd find blood and mud in his wake. His steps on the sidewalk. His fingers on the doorframe. His blood on the backseat. Even now, as she sits on the steps of her apartment, backlit by the warmth within, she watches him across the street. He stands beneath a street lamp, a silhouette, but she knows it's him.
Her breath is almost as opaque as the cancerous smoke furling from the cherry tip of her lit cigarette. She shivers but refuses to move; it's the longest he's lingered in her sight sinceshe murdered him he's been dead. Eyes unbroken, the staring contest begins. If she blinks, he might disappear, leaving his tracks again. She doesn't know what's worse, watching him now or waiting for him to come back.
Blink.
Fuck.
He's gone.
Blink.
In an instant, that mangled, rotted face appears before her, mere inches from her own. She draws in a sharp, icy gasp and falls flat onto her back on the steps. Danny crawls like some wild thing stalking its supper, hovering over her.
"You're not real.." She whispers, blinking again and again. Squeezing her eyes shut, opening them only to find betrayal instead. He doesn't go away.
Then there it is.
That fucking smirk.
The same one he wore when he knew he'd gaslit her well.
The same one he wore when she told a lie about the bruises he left on her.
The same one he wore when he won an argument he started.
The same one he wore when he called her good girl.
More than the mud, more than the blood, more than the fact he stays, that smirk strikes fear in Love.
"Not…"
She blinks again, color draining from her face.
"…yet."
The garbled, gargled words spat from his broken mouth make her blood run cold. His voice ices over her veins and freezes her heart. And his frigid, dead fingers wrap around her throat and squeeze. Love begins to choke, hazel hues widening, staring up at his hideous, destroyed face. His swollen eyes, his busted lip, the tear in his brow and cheekbone. She remembers her belt around his neck, how it felt to choke him to death. Now, it was her turn.
Only when she sees stars in her eyes do his fingers disappear. She jolts, jerking up into a sitting position and gasping for air. The winter chill sears into her lungs and burns her chest, her nostrils, her mouth.
Her eyes search for him in the stars but cannot find him. The ghost had returned to his realm, no longer in her element but once more in his.
And once more, left behind is a muddied, bloodied print. Only this time…
It's his hand on her throat.
The music stops only for the countdown:
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Confetti rains down from the ceiling, spraying from guns popped around her in celebration of the new year. It shimmers in the neon lights, and if she reaches out, she swears she can touch magic for the first time. Or maybe it's the molly.
But in the crowd of swaying, kissing bodies, she sees him.
Stilled where others move.
Dead where others live.
His ghost returns to haunt her.
She'd swear he was there, if the glitter didn't fall around him. If the confetti clung to his bloodied hair, his ruined face, his ripped shirt. The New Year is rung in with kisses and laughter, but she stands there, staring at years past.
And they stare back.
He looks as he did six years ago when she left him in the hole she and her brother dug on the back stretch of their family property. He looks like he crawled out of the grave and straight to her. Danny's corpse stares her down, challenging her.
How dare you be happy.
How dare you move on.
How dare you live.
Love blinks, and he's gone, just a flicker, just a moment in time, frozen, etched in her brain. But on the floor where he was is a pair of boot prints.
Muddied.
Bloodied.
And no matter how many times she opens and shuts her eyes, the prints remain.
——
That was five days ago. Or four? Math? Does the night count if you were awake for all of it? If you couldn't sleep and the days bled together?
Before, his specter haunted her once for only a moment every year. Now, she found it followed her.
The reflection of a storefront.
The shadow in a doorway as she turns off the light.
The backseat of her car in the rear view mirror.
Each time she'd look again, he'd be gone. And each time she'd find blood and mud in his wake. His steps on the sidewalk. His fingers on the doorframe. His blood on the backseat. Even now, as she sits on the steps of her apartment, backlit by the warmth within, she watches him across the street. He stands beneath a street lamp, a silhouette, but she knows it's him.
Her breath is almost as opaque as the cancerous smoke furling from the cherry tip of her lit cigarette. She shivers but refuses to move; it's the longest he's lingered in her sight since
Blink.
Fuck.
He's gone.
Blink.
In an instant, that mangled, rotted face appears before her, mere inches from her own. She draws in a sharp, icy gasp and falls flat onto her back on the steps. Danny crawls like some wild thing stalking its supper, hovering over her.
"You're not real.." She whispers, blinking again and again. Squeezing her eyes shut, opening them only to find betrayal instead. He doesn't go away.
Then there it is.
That fucking smirk.
The same one he wore when he knew he'd gaslit her well.
The same one he wore when she told a lie about the bruises he left on her.
The same one he wore when he won an argument he started.
The same one he wore when he called her good girl.
More than the mud, more than the blood, more than the fact he stays, that smirk strikes fear in Love.
"Not…"
She blinks again, color draining from her face.
"…yet."
The garbled, gargled words spat from his broken mouth make her blood run cold. His voice ices over her veins and freezes her heart. And his frigid, dead fingers wrap around her throat and squeeze. Love begins to choke, hazel hues widening, staring up at his hideous, destroyed face. His swollen eyes, his busted lip, the tear in his brow and cheekbone. She remembers her belt around his neck, how it felt to choke him to death. Now, it was her turn.
Only when she sees stars in her eyes do his fingers disappear. She jolts, jerking up into a sitting position and gasping for air. The winter chill sears into her lungs and burns her chest, her nostrils, her mouth.
Her eyes search for him in the stars but cannot find him. The ghost had returned to his realm, no longer in her element but once more in his.
And once more, left behind is a muddied, bloodied print. Only this time…
It's his hand on her throat.