It feels it, anyway.
Each time the light slices through my retinas, I get a choppy shot of my arms swinging up, my hands gripping the axe I vaguely remember grabbing by a sandbag behind the curtain.
I swing it down. Over and over. Chopping into thickness.
Each hack squelches, sputtering and spitting warmth over my face and up my arms, some of it clinging and hanging from my hair.
I blink hard, shaking my head with the hope that I pull myself out of the slasher film playing through it. But even when I do come out of it, the spotlight flaring over my eyes is raining its warm light on tattered meat and limbs swimming in liquid crimson around me.
Shit.
This is a fucking mess. And it’s not like I can expectyouto help. Even if you did do something other than silently lurk, it’s not your fucking mess. This isn’tyourfault. But I’m getting mad like it is and I’m sorry.
“Fuck,” I exhale hoarsely, relaxing my numb hand.
The loud clank and thud by my foot shoots my shuttering focus down to the wet axe that’s already leaving a puddle. Which has me panning around the chopped-up body, each chunk jagged from impulsive swings, some garnered by remnants of clothing, others twisted and lashed, drenched in blood.
A white strip catches my eye. I circle back to it, angling my head to step closer to the black and white photos marred with scarlet, like wine spreading over film.
Squatting down, I reach over what used to be a waist, plucking the photo strip up. Demonic hands are attached to it, stretching and snapping, as if the images good ole Junior was carrying with him are meant to be taken to the grave.
Voreis his grave. He’ll never leave.
So… don’t mind if I do.
I wipe the photo strip off with my fingers, smearing and clearing, until my favorite big, awkward eyes and button nose are relieved of his funk.
“What… the… fuck?” I mumble through gravel, scanning down the blocks of Bunny and Ora in the Photo Booth.
“Tell me, does he know you kiss other people when he’s not around?”
My stomach sinks and ice penetrates my veins, slamming my face with all the heat of my body and gluing my eyes to something I never wanted to see again.
Bunny.MyBunny. Kissing someone else.
Oh, but, Razor, it’s a girl. Her friend. Most guys like-
Nah, she locked lips with someone else, knowing how fucking desperate I’ve been to kiss her. I just fucking killed for her, for chrissake.
Feeling a quiet presence sink through my skin, my barbed sight slices up and hooks on the faint, sweaty faces looking right at me from the front row.
“Dude,” Xene shakes his brain a little, a laugh splitting his face as he rakes his fingers through his hair, his head falling back over the seat he’s lounged in.
Cash doesn’t uncross his arms. Just… remains standing, staring at me with shame, like he hasn’t participated in worse. “Now how the hell you thinkin’ you’re gonna clean that up, huh? Or did you wanna get caught?”
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” I grit out, my voice dry. Folding the photo strip, I straighten my legs up and stash the film into my side pocket. “But standing here gossiping isn’t gonna make it magically disappear.”
“Who even was that?” Cash raises his voice, directing a stiff hand to what might be in the turkey legs next.
“A homicide detective that’s been targeting Bunny,” I tell him.
Cash’s lips stretch tight to his teeth, his eyes flaring wide and his outstretched hand clenching into a fist. “Homicide? Detective? Alreadysent out on the job to poach answers? And you-” Clutching his damp head, his eyes fade from mine, absently landing on the massacre. “Chemicals, bags, distraction. Go!”
“No,” my shoulders flex back, my head shaking. “Get the fuck out. Both of you. You were never here. You did what you got paid to do, got fucked up, then went home, ate some shitty food and passed out. That’s all. That’s it.”
Cash sticks a hard middle finger up at me, his face stressed and his other hand balled at his side. “Fuck you and fuck that!”
“Can I be the distraction?” Xene asks, not having moved a single inch. “I don’t really wanna touch that right now. I can go out there and swing my dick around, make some helicopter noises.”
