naked, Daddy’s thing deep inside her.
Yet, he couldn’t turn away.
“Fuck you till you bleed.” Who was that? Daddy? Mercy? “Then fuck you some more.”
Mommy and Daddy vanished in another explosion of light and there was Mercy’s bone-white arm pumping at his guts--
The world faded at the edges and tilted as if about to fall off into nowhere. Mercy’s face tunneled toward him. Blood poured from her mouth. The beast was eating him.
“I hope that was good for you,” the beast said.
The world fell into the Dark Time.
The jaws came free and a moment later something hot and wet splashed against his face. The beast sauntered away but the pool did not return. He was alone in this barren world. Eventually, death would come for him. But not soon enough.
Not soon enough at all.
SEVENTY
Mercy pulled her arm free from the gaping hole in his midsection and tossed a handful of red guts on his face. She had no idea what it was she had pulled out of him. She had been trying for his heart.
She walked up the steps leading into the kitchen. Her arm was sopping blood all the way to her elbow. Blood dribbled over the concrete.
She stopped at the kitchen entrance, her back to Victor. There would be time, too much time, for her to reflect on everything that happened. She couldn’t go back down the steps and ask him why he had attacked her, why he had devised a scheme to rape and kill her. He was almost dead and out of his mind in agony. That was good. She didn’t really want answers. She also didn’t want to go back in time and undo everything. That was the pathetic wish of cowards. No, Mercy wanted only to rescue her father and then sleep for several weeks.
Behind her, crows cawed, wings flapped, and the feast began.
She didn’t watch them swarm over Victor Dolor and ravage his flesh but she smiled when he managed a scream.
He said people would die. Billions of people. Systematic murder. A necessary cleansing of the world to prepare it for the Great Change. Caleb had been in on it. And the goddamn cook. Could she trust anyone? Maybe the universe was conspiring to show her something. Maybe the Great Change was approaching and the coming days would be dark.
She walked through the kitchen and into the open diner. A waitress stood at the far end of the counter, phone in hand as if she might use it as a bludgeon. A man was seated at the counter, head on his arms. He could have been dead and it wouldn’t have surprised Mercy.
She continued toward the front of the diner. Her bare feet made wet slapping noises on the floor. She tracked blood footprints next to Victor’s boot marks.
“The police are coming,” the waitress said.
Mercy turned to her. The waitress pressed the phone to her breast.
“You think there’s a purpose to anything that happens?” Mercy asked. “Some grand plan for each of us?”
“I don’t know,” the woman said as if Mercy might kill her for the wrong answer.
“I just killed a man with my bare hands. You think the universe wanted me to do that?”
“I’m sorry?” the waitress said as a question.
“I’m not,” Mercy said. “He deserved it.”
The man at the counter had raised his head. Creases from his sleeve imprinted his forehead. “Jesus,” the man said. “You’re one tough bitch.”
The waitress stepped back until she was against the wall.
Mercy smiled real large. “Toughest bitch I can be.”
She turned back to the door and walked out. When she made it onto the outside walkway, the flashing blue and red lights of emergency vehicles broke the dark horizon.
The Dark Days weren’t coming; they were here--they were now. It didn’t matter if the universe wanted Victor to attack her. It didn’t matter if she was destined to kill him from the beginning. He was psychotic and she had survived. He was cancer and she was life. Sometimes, even in the darkness, there’s hope.
Mercy Higgins grabbed the cold railing and refused to let herself fall down. Blood Mountain hulked over her as a giant, black beast. The tears began to fall and soon the emotion was so great that she couldn’t see or hear anything but her own grief, yet she remained standing. Nothing was going to knock her down.
Not ever again.
THE END
J.T. Warren was born on Halloween, a few months after his mother saw
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J.T. Warren is the author of
J.T. Warren is the pseudonym for an even creepier guy.
As a thank you for reading, here is a bonus short story, “Flies.” It’s a tale Victor would have loved.
Enjoy.
J.T. Warren
FLIES
I didn’t hate my wife. No matter what they say, my feelings toward Clara had nothing to do with what happened. It was the flies, of course. That may sound crazy; maybe it is, but that doesn’t make it any less true. It was the flies and it started with just one.
An ordinary house fly, not especially large, like the ones that came later, but not small enough to be confused for a gnat, was on the granite countertop, nearly blending into the swirling patterns of grey and black. It stood two or three inches from my wife’s hand. Her ring finger was bare.
Her rings were not there because Clara had removed them, as was her wont whenever she needed to have a serious discussion with me and had to make it perfectly clear that she wouldn’t hesitate to leave me. Removing her rings was her way of showing how serious she was, how very serious. She loved that word,
And what did she want to discuss that was so very important while I was staring at a stupid house fly?
“You just don’t seem to care,” Clara said. Her voice had adopted that higher-pitched
I nodded. There was no point engaging in conversation with her. If I started to defend myself or explain my behavior, I would only be giving her more fodder for her diatribe, a speech she had, no doubt, been stewing over all day at work and finalizing during her hour-long commute home.
“Tyler,” she said, sounding like the crack of a whip.
But even that
