Coven

Lots of cutters. He looked fondly at the wrapped bouquet of roses. For you, Sarah. With love, from the Cutter.

He dressed with care—to kill, you might say. He put on the same jeans he’d worn when they first met, the same shoes, the same belt. He plugged his bullet holes with tissue and put on the black shirt she’d given him their first Christmas together. This was symbology. This was the past coming to the future. For such an important event, he had to look just right. He had to look perfect.

The last song on the radio was by Bauhaus: “Exquisite Corpse.” Jervis combed his hair a final time. He slicked it back off his brow, not with Vitalis, but with Wilhelm’s blood.

He lit a Carlton, grabbed the bouquet, and left. He walked cheerily out into the night. Across the quadrangle, Sarah’s window was lit. No doubt she was waiting for Wilhelm, and that thought made Jervis smile. Wilhelm won’t be coming over tonight, Sarah. He’s a little bogged down right now. The bouquet felt heavy, its wrapping moist. When he knocked on room 202, the door opened at once. Sarah squealed, “Willy! You’re so late! I was worried!”

“You better be worried,” Jervis said.

A gasp froze in Sarah’s chest. She stared. She wore canary-yellow pants, canary yellow shoes, and a Ram’s Head Tavern T shirt.

Uninvited, Jervis stepped in. He closed the door.

“Jervis, I…” she started. Then her eyes narrowed. “You look…terrible.”

“But I feel great,” he said. “How are you, Sarah?”

She was shivering already, on the verge of making those canary yellow pants a bit more yellow. After a long, gauging pause, she answered, “I I’m fine.”

“That’s good. Aren’t you going to ask me how I am?”

This query seemed to puzzle her. She did not blink at all. “All right Jervis. How are you?”

“How am I!” he exploded. “I’ll tell you how I am! I’m fuckin’ dead!”

He marched a mad circle about her, while she didn’t move at all. His footfalls made the entire room vibrate, probably the entire building too. Frid, the cat, fled to the top of the refrigerator, while Sarah remained stock still. When Jervis pulled the Webley revolver out of his belt, a wet spot did indeed appear on the front of Sarah’s canary yellow pants. It was a big spot.

“Oh, I’m not going to shoot you,” he apologized. He set the gun down. “I came here…to give you this.”

He gave her the bouquet. She took it, surprisingly, with no reluctance. “They’re lovely, Jervis. Thank you,” she said. She was faking it, of course, because she was scared. She sniffed the roses, paused. She looked into the bouquet.

Then she screamed.

Jervis laughed like a Titan. The bouquet hit the floor and spilled open. Amid the beautiful fresh cut roses, there it lay, once grand, but now shriveled, parodic.

“What did—!” she hitched. “What did—what did—”

“Guess,” Jervis offered, “and I’ll even give you a hint. It ain’t a ballpark frank in there.”

“What did you do?” she shrieked.

“I cut off his dick,” Jervis said.

She screamed very unbecomingly and without abatement. Now she was stepping back, and Jervis was stepping forward.

“But that’s nothing compared to what I’m going to do to you.”

Frid watched placidly from its high perch. Like all cats, it seemed to care only for itself. Sarah continued to scream, throwing things as she backtracked in a circle. People are always throwing things at me, Jervis observed.

A Brother typewriter bounced off his head. A stereo receiver hit him in the face. Jervis shrugged it all off, maintaining a measured smile. Life had bestowed only weakness on him. Death, though, gave him power, physical and spiritual. He was the Seer, the Knower, the Destroyer.

“Enough,” he said. “You’re the last loose end of my old life. It’s time for me to tie it up.”

He threw her to the floor and straddled her. How should he do it? Break her neck? Crush her throat? No, he thought. Be creative. He must execute this last symbol with diversity, with style. His brain seemed to tick as he deliberated.

She squirmed under him, her tiny fists beating his chest.

“Why wasn’t I good enough?” he asked.

She gave no reply, only continued to squirm.

“You dumped me like garbage. Why? Tell me.”

She raked his arm with her nails, drawing bloodless fissures.

Was he actually starting to choke up? Myrmidons don’t cry, he commanded. What was wrong with him? This was his moment of true existential triumph. Nevertheless, his grip slackened. A tear came to his dead eye. “How could you do that to me?”

She tried to claw his face, punch out his eyes.

I know.

“You took my heart,” he said. “Now I’m going to take yours.”

It was perfect. He would tear her heart out, just as she had done to him. Tear it out and eat it, feast upon it…

He pulled the Ram’s Head shirt up, cast off the pink lace bra. Her breasts were much more beautiful than he remembered. When he touched them, the warm contact rifled back images of love. Soon, his hands were shaking…

Do it! Take the bitch’s heart out! Eat her guts and puke them back up into her face! Just DO IT!

His fingers stiffened, lowering…

“No!” she whined. “You can’t!”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because you love me!”

He expected any reply but this. It silenced his thoughts like wind blowing out candles. Beneath him, her squirmings ceased; her heat flowed up into his dead groin. What could urge her to say such a thing? Suddenly her voice was quiet, soft as silk.

“You still love me,” she whispered.

Jervis jittered now. It was truth—the real truth—that summoned these words to her lips. At once, he was as helpless as he’d ever been. There was one thing that wielded even more power than him. She was right. He still loved her.

“Goddamn it,” he muttered. He hauled her up, put her car keys in her hand, and shoved her out the door. “Get in your car and drive!” he yelled. “Drive far away, because at midnight, I’ll be gone, and everyone on this campus will be dead!”

Sarah didn’t question this inexplicable revelation. She scampered away, into the elevator, and down.

Jervis watched from the window. He saw her frantic form jump into her car and drive away.

A marshmallow even in death, he thought. Some myrmidon I turned out to be. Yeah, some killing machine. “But, goddamn,” he griped aloud, “I’ve got to kill something.”

He realized the sacrifice even before he turned. From atop the refrigerator, Frid hissed at him, showing little feline teeth. Jervis’ smile almost cracked his head. He raised the Webley to Frid’s whiskered cat face and squeezed off one round. The report blew the wicked animal clear across the kitchen, where it splattered grandly against the wall.

««—»»

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” Wade said. “What time is it?”