Nodding, he sniffles quickly, attempting to turn his face away so that I can’t see the faint hives forming above his upper lip. “It’s my fault.”
“What’s your fault?” Gently cupping his face, I coerce him back to me, looking up at his self-content.
As if he has his own slaughterhouse, that old bulb kicks on, spearing against violent hooks and darkening his eyes, his expression dissolving into something arsenic, something inhumane and spiteful. “Athanasius.”
“Atha…” I frown, digging through my mind to try and remember what he could be talking about. But of course. It’s just dark.
Calmly taking my hand from his face, he presses my palm to his sternum. “You gonna forgive me?”
Shaking my head, I mumble, “I don’t… I’m not…”
“You will be.” Threads of ink spread from his pupils, stretching through his irises and reaching over the whites of his eyes in knots and tangles.
My heart expands, ballooning up my throat and trapping a yelp. I try to pull my hand away, but he’s locking my wrist in a vise-grip and forcing me to watch the jet color crowd his eyes, the hollows of his skull deepening with shadows migrating across his skin.
“What’s the matter, Bunny?” he tilts his head, slashing on a smile—showing me the sharp extensions of his canines.
Horror paralyzes me, my lungs trying to keep up with the climb of my pulse. I don’t manage to say anything. I can’t. My eyes are fossilizing and my tongue is dry, watching the tan on his face fade to white, the cadaver hue intensifying the black shadows he…paints on.
I’ve seen this before.
Not just from his performative makeup. I’ve seen his face shift to soulless cruelty on its own. I’m familiar with the beast smiling at me. My body’s safe with the fangs he’s slowly been teasing my memory with.
“Run! Everyone, run!”
“Onee, twoo, Razor’s coming for youu.” I skip, swinging the dripping axe up, following close behind the woman running for her life.
Blinking hard and swaying back, I shake my head, refusing to accept that as a memory. “No.”
Must’ve been something I saw on the TV… Or my anxiety manifesting visuals to make me sick.
“Bunny, Bunny, Bunny,” he hums, getting closer, retracting the sinister shadows from the hollows of his face. “Onee, twoo, Bunny’s coming for youu.”
Stumbling, my knees shake, wildly staring up at the haunting song I just heard in my mind come from his mouth.
“You said you wanted to see.” He cocks his head, straightening up to his towering height and holding the VHS between us. “Pop it in.”
My hand trembles, reaching up for the tape. But I don’t make it further than scathing his knuckles with my fingertips before the porch is shaking, the loud rumbles of fast feet splitting both of our attention toward the front door.
“COPS!” Cash yells hoarsely.
Distant gunfire sinks through the walls. I start to shift to the window near the TV in the corner, to the noise, but Cash ripping open the screen door and barreling inside snaps me right back to him and the underwater screams he’s letting in.
“Co-” His second warning gets eaten by a loud pop, his weight teetering onto each foot as he lazily reaches up to his chest, his fingers spread in tense claws.
No…
“Cash?” Razor panics, forming a hand over my shoulder and rushing past me.
Crimson blooms through Cash’s jersey shirt, the jarring wetness spreading through the number 13 embroidered in black.
A gasping cry scrapes down my throat, innately closing a shaking hand over my open mouth, my eyes pinned into rounded glass that’s quicklyshattering. Razor gets his hands on Cash’s arms to yank him away from the door, and as he does, several more loud pops are resounding in my head, their sharp, echoing abrasiveness drowning every fearful scream coming from the park.
Everything slows.
I see Cash collapse to the broken glass of the door. I watch each shot whip Razor’s shoulders. But time doesn’t become real until the last bullet knocks Razor back, his weight becoming too heavy and dragging through his heels.
“RAZOR!” I scream. I scream it so loud his name burns itself into my lungs.
