It hadn't been hard to find her. A few discreet
questions had led to
the club.
A fine mist clung. Every breath was full of humid
night air. The
streetlight at the alley's mouth was broken. The
darkness hung as
thick and as heavy as the humidity.
White teeth flashed in a smile. All the better.
The doors opened and she stumbled out. It was her.
Her hair was
different, darker. Another smile flashed in the
darkness. How
appropos. But it was her.
An image flashed. The woman, naked, writhing beneath
her lover.
The smile fled, lips twisting into a grimace. It was
her.
A figure separated from the shadows, following her
stumbling gait at a
distance. She was singing. It was full of
sadness...lost love.
A soft bark of bitter laughter floated on the night
air.
She spun, eyes searching for the source of the sound.
She didn't find
it. Between the darkness and her alcohol fuddled
brain, the
approaching figure might as well have been invisible.
Hands wrapped around her, covering her mouth, stifling
her scream. The
blackness of the alley enveloped them, her white shirt
stark in the
darkness.
Water dripped. Trash cans rattled, crashing as a cat
raced from the
depths of the alley out into the night.
She slammed into the far wall, bouncing off the wet
brick only to fall
back against it. Her eyes darted frantically,
searching the darkness.
"Who...who are you?" her voice trembled. "What do you
want?"
Silence hung between them for a long moment. A gloved
hand lashed out,
gripping her by the throat and pulling her up against
a tall body. The
scent of new leather filled her nostrils as the hand
tightened. There
was an audible click. Warm breath fanned over her
cheek as a husky
voice whispered, "I want to watch you die." The hand
fell away, and
she drew breath to scream.
It never came. Heat sliced across her throat. Blood
gushed from the
gaping wound of her neck, spraying the brick with new
wetness.
The figure stepped back, and she sprawled to the
ground. Clouds
scudded across the sky, leeching moonlight into the
alley. Her blood
soaked into her shirt, the white even more stark for
it's sparseness.
Blood bubbled from the long slash at her neck with
each ever slowing
pulsebeat.
There should be joy.
Exultation.
"I won," the figure said into the darkness, eyes on
the woman dying in
front of her. A spreading pool of blood slowly inched
over to her
booted feet.
Stepping back, she took a deep breath.
Where was the joy? The victory? The peace?
She could smell the sickly sweet stench of the woman's
blood, and
beneath it, the odor of old urine on the alley floor.
She was numb. There was no more emotion. It had all
been spent in the
premeditation. It was over.
And it wasn't.
A dog barked nearby, and her head snapped up. She
took one last look
at the dead woman, turned, and walked out of the alley
without a
backward glance.
