Permafrost (Summer Challenge, Rocky Road + Malt)
She's Baaack...
‘Verse: ✦ Standalone ✦
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Summer Challenge ‘14: Special Brownie #9 (I feel like letting my freak flag fly) & Akutaq #9 (permafrost), Rocky Road #4 (alley) + Malt (if I only had a heart)
Rating: M (gore, death, psycho/sociopathy, attempted rape)
Title: Permafrost
Summary: Beneath the spring tundra flowers, a layer of impenetrable ice is always just below the surface…
Notes: I should be saving my efforts for the brownie monstrosity, but this just came out. Like an alien!
Some poor bastard would die tonight.
It was a simple matter of slipping away from well-trod Downtown - where, even at the junction of much too late and much too early, the city was only now starting to nod off - and, not three blocks after the last open business was behind me, I plunged into the shipping quarter. Once housing workers for the bustling but nondescript industry this city was no longer famous for, now it was a crumbling ruin squashed between neon Downtown and the mansions on the hill above.
Here my work began. Drawing my shawl up, I slid into the guise of a woman hurrying home in the witching hour; held late at work, perhaps, but more likely a dinner party hosted and attended by people she - I - barely knew. The long coat in the same cut that strutted across every snooty women’s magazine this year announced that I never wanted for anything. Glancing over my shoulder at the slightest sound, I was the perfect victim. I fairly leapt between the bright yellow safety zones cast by the streetlamps.
This was the best part: letting my prey come to me and trap themselves in their sins. I could only do this for certain marks, of course, making the times I could that much sweeter. And the anticipation! That I could botch the job - unlikely - and become what I pretended to be was exciting beyond my ability to explain.
The street, though narrow as the gap between my Nan’s eyebrows, was too well-lit to draw out my mark. Fully clothed now as a coddled rich woman, I made a show of discovering I was on the wrong street. Near the entrance to an alleyway, I stopped, glanced at the buildings around me while mimicking the dumb surprise I’d relished on so many of my kills’ faces, turned on the spot, and peered at the alley. I daresay I was quite convincing, pretending to contemplate that wrong turn.
I stepped out of the streetlamp’s merciless halo and into the maw of the beast. Immediately, I heard boots crunching on shattered glass on the other side of the street. The hunter had begun the chase.
His footsteps would have been too faint for the heiress I shrouded myself in to hear, so I ignored them and kept picking my way through the trash strewn about in the alley. I drew up my skirt to inch around a puddle and I caught a glimpse of a man’s shadow some fifty feet behind, following me. I resisted the urge to look up at him properly; best not to let him know I was aware of him at all.
We played this game for a few more minutes: myself acting frustrated at there being no end in sight, and he little more than a rustle here, a smell of cheap cologne on the wind there. I listened hard for his position with every step, but keeping up the charade of ignorance was exhausting. I breathed an inward sigh of relief when I spotted the dead end ahead, even as outwardly I let out a squealing “Oh!”
My job was almost done, and soon I could spill blood again. In the moonlight, I clapped a hand to my chest - feeling the leather knife-sheath through the thin fabric of my blouse - and looked about frantically for a way through. When there was none, I slumped like a wilted flower, arms hanging limply at my sides.
Footsteps on gravel. “Oh, Sunshine… you seem to be lost,” purred my shadowed hunter, sending a shiver up my spine that was, for once, wholly real. This man was dangerous, or could play the part so well even I could not tell the difference.
Careful now. I straightened the mask of doelike surprise on my face in the split second as I whirled around, both hands flying up to rest on the smooth, fabric-covered plane above my breasts, my arms close to my body. The instant I sighted him, but before I registered any features, I shrank back, wobbling for a second in faux-imbalance. “Oh,” I breathed. “Please…” …hurry up and let me kill you, I added silently. The deer-in-headlights look was making my eyes hurt.
“Come now, sweetling. You don’t think I would hurt you, do you?” He grinned, white teeth flashing in the moonlight. I couldn’t quite make out the rest of him; he melded with the shadows so well I was envious of him.
“…I-I don’t know.” I backed up a bit more and I saw him shift forward from within the protective cast of the old packing plant. If I could draw him to me, my job would be so much easier.
I was debating what to say next and beginning to shiver in the crisp night when he, finally, tired of the game. A monstrously tall man emerged from the shadow, swaggering towards me with grace that such a big person shouldn’t have possessed. I stared at him, beginning to fear for the first time that this job may be too much. He came leisurely, in absolutely no hurry.
I would need the big knife for this. Hell, I would need a claymore. My arms dropped down slightly to hug myself around the middle, right hand feathering over the handle of the cleaver tucked cleverly into my skirts, the movement hidden by my left elbow.
Closer still. He stopped three feet away, rocked back on his heels and held up his hands in a gesture of sheepish helplessness. “Sweetling, come on. I’ll be gentle.”
He may not have had any weapons I could find with a quick glance, but I did not doubt that he had one or three, or that those hands could snap my neck in an instant. His eyes were on my face, though, drinking in my faux-terror, the idiot. Just a bit closer and he would never even see the cleaver slice into his belly.
His hands came down and the bastardized mimicry of kindness that perched on his face flew away, replaced by a confidence and a dark humor. He thought he was playing with me.
I was no longer backing up, but as he stepped forward again - long stride - I leaned back, slid out the cleaver and moved my left arm across and down to hide the blade, painted black to not flash in the moonlight. “Please…” I even sucked on my lip briefly, like a little girl trying to ward off tears.
But I was no little girl.
My mask shattered just as he took another step, sidling up to me. His eyes were on my breasts, heaving with my strained pants, but when my teeth bared into a manic grin he glanced up, startled back, and then I swung the cleaver. The huge blade arced up, up, with enough momentum to slice clean through his warding wrist and bury itself deep into his neck.
He dropped like a sack of stones, collapsing to the litter-strewn ground of the alley. He laid there twitching and gurgling while I stepped back and admired my handiwork. The cleaver was an indelicate tool, but I found the blood positively gushing from the mark’s neck was pleasing in its own way. I had come very close to severing the spine. I was glad I had not, even if the flailing limbs were a hazard, as this way I was absolutely positive he was feeling himself die.
I smiled, wiped the cleaver on his jeans, tucked it back into its sheath in my dress and ambled back down the alley, whistling a tune I had heard somewhere long ago.
“Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in… the sunshine in…”
‘Verse: ✦ Standalone ✦
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Summer Challenge ‘14: Special Brownie #9 (I feel like letting my freak flag fly) & Akutaq #9 (permafrost), Rocky Road #4 (alley) + Malt (if I only had a heart)
Rating: M (gore, death, psycho/sociopathy, attempted rape)
Title: Permafrost
Summary: Beneath the spring tundra flowers, a layer of impenetrable ice is always just below the surface…
Notes: I should be saving my efforts for the brownie monstrosity, but this just came out. Like an alien!
Some poor bastard would die tonight.
It was a simple matter of slipping away from well-trod Downtown - where, even at the junction of much too late and much too early, the city was only now starting to nod off - and, not three blocks after the last open business was behind me, I plunged into the shipping quarter. Once housing workers for the bustling but nondescript industry this city was no longer famous for, now it was a crumbling ruin squashed between neon Downtown and the mansions on the hill above.
Here my work began. Drawing my shawl up, I slid into the guise of a woman hurrying home in the witching hour; held late at work, perhaps, but more likely a dinner party hosted and attended by people she - I - barely knew. The long coat in the same cut that strutted across every snooty women’s magazine this year announced that I never wanted for anything. Glancing over my shoulder at the slightest sound, I was the perfect victim. I fairly leapt between the bright yellow safety zones cast by the streetlamps.
This was the best part: letting my prey come to me and trap themselves in their sins. I could only do this for certain marks, of course, making the times I could that much sweeter. And the anticipation! That I could botch the job - unlikely - and become what I pretended to be was exciting beyond my ability to explain.
The street, though narrow as the gap between my Nan’s eyebrows, was too well-lit to draw out my mark. Fully clothed now as a coddled rich woman, I made a show of discovering I was on the wrong street. Near the entrance to an alleyway, I stopped, glanced at the buildings around me while mimicking the dumb surprise I’d relished on so many of my kills’ faces, turned on the spot, and peered at the alley. I daresay I was quite convincing, pretending to contemplate that wrong turn.
I stepped out of the streetlamp’s merciless halo and into the maw of the beast. Immediately, I heard boots crunching on shattered glass on the other side of the street. The hunter had begun the chase.
His footsteps would have been too faint for the heiress I shrouded myself in to hear, so I ignored them and kept picking my way through the trash strewn about in the alley. I drew up my skirt to inch around a puddle and I caught a glimpse of a man’s shadow some fifty feet behind, following me. I resisted the urge to look up at him properly; best not to let him know I was aware of him at all.
We played this game for a few more minutes: myself acting frustrated at there being no end in sight, and he little more than a rustle here, a smell of cheap cologne on the wind there. I listened hard for his position with every step, but keeping up the charade of ignorance was exhausting. I breathed an inward sigh of relief when I spotted the dead end ahead, even as outwardly I let out a squealing “Oh!”
My job was almost done, and soon I could spill blood again. In the moonlight, I clapped a hand to my chest - feeling the leather knife-sheath through the thin fabric of my blouse - and looked about frantically for a way through. When there was none, I slumped like a wilted flower, arms hanging limply at my sides.
Footsteps on gravel. “Oh, Sunshine… you seem to be lost,” purred my shadowed hunter, sending a shiver up my spine that was, for once, wholly real. This man was dangerous, or could play the part so well even I could not tell the difference.
Careful now. I straightened the mask of doelike surprise on my face in the split second as I whirled around, both hands flying up to rest on the smooth, fabric-covered plane above my breasts, my arms close to my body. The instant I sighted him, but before I registered any features, I shrank back, wobbling for a second in faux-imbalance. “Oh,” I breathed. “Please…” …hurry up and let me kill you, I added silently. The deer-in-headlights look was making my eyes hurt.
“Come now, sweetling. You don’t think I would hurt you, do you?” He grinned, white teeth flashing in the moonlight. I couldn’t quite make out the rest of him; he melded with the shadows so well I was envious of him.
“…I-I don’t know.” I backed up a bit more and I saw him shift forward from within the protective cast of the old packing plant. If I could draw him to me, my job would be so much easier.
I was debating what to say next and beginning to shiver in the crisp night when he, finally, tired of the game. A monstrously tall man emerged from the shadow, swaggering towards me with grace that such a big person shouldn’t have possessed. I stared at him, beginning to fear for the first time that this job may be too much. He came leisurely, in absolutely no hurry.
I would need the big knife for this. Hell, I would need a claymore. My arms dropped down slightly to hug myself around the middle, right hand feathering over the handle of the cleaver tucked cleverly into my skirts, the movement hidden by my left elbow.
Closer still. He stopped three feet away, rocked back on his heels and held up his hands in a gesture of sheepish helplessness. “Sweetling, come on. I’ll be gentle.”
He may not have had any weapons I could find with a quick glance, but I did not doubt that he had one or three, or that those hands could snap my neck in an instant. His eyes were on my face, though, drinking in my faux-terror, the idiot. Just a bit closer and he would never even see the cleaver slice into his belly.
His hands came down and the bastardized mimicry of kindness that perched on his face flew away, replaced by a confidence and a dark humor. He thought he was playing with me.
I was no longer backing up, but as he stepped forward again - long stride - I leaned back, slid out the cleaver and moved my left arm across and down to hide the blade, painted black to not flash in the moonlight. “Please…” I even sucked on my lip briefly, like a little girl trying to ward off tears.
But I was no little girl.
My mask shattered just as he took another step, sidling up to me. His eyes were on my breasts, heaving with my strained pants, but when my teeth bared into a manic grin he glanced up, startled back, and then I swung the cleaver. The huge blade arced up, up, with enough momentum to slice clean through his warding wrist and bury itself deep into his neck.
He dropped like a sack of stones, collapsing to the litter-strewn ground of the alley. He laid there twitching and gurgling while I stepped back and admired my handiwork. The cleaver was an indelicate tool, but I found the blood positively gushing from the mark’s neck was pleasing in its own way. I had come very close to severing the spine. I was glad I had not, even if the flailing limbs were a hazard, as this way I was absolutely positive he was feeling himself die.
I smiled, wiped the cleaver on his jeans, tucked it back into its sheath in my dress and ambled back down the alley, whistling a tune I had heard somewhere long ago.
“Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in… the sunshine in…”