I rush sideways, back to a wall, as I search for threats in the dark. She’s one of them now. Said she wouldn’t let him go and that I was disgusting. Sad. So sad to be married. Poor Malachi. More bad men and badness.
Must hunt.
Save him from badness.
Save him always.
It’s the pills again. They’re doing something. Changing us. Changing me. I’m losing my own thoughts maybe, or joining with his. I feel warm, though. Like I did when I was on my knees and he was talking. And now I’m the one hunting. Chase. Find the badness.
Chapter 12
Malachi
I’ll wait now.
I’ll wait until she finds me.
Women pass me by, all of them showing me their capabilities in this kind of room. Naked women. Striped up women. Couples, throuples. None of them are of any interest to me, and I need my Alice to find me, to hunt me down and feel those pills swirling around inside her. I want that – need it. No separation anymore. Just her and me. Me and her. Clarity will find itself then. No noise around us. No others to interfere or irritate. My bitch of a wife included.
A bottle of vodka idles in my hand, as I stay sat on this throne of mine in the play pit. Men are fucking beneath me on the floor, some beating each other for the sheer delight of doing so. I watch the door the entire time, wondering how she feels out there all alone and capricious in nature. Maybe she’ll kill someone with her little knife, slice them open and gut them like the pigs they are.
More vodka swallowed and I close my eyes to the sights around me, imagining her instead. Red face now, a devils mask in place. Nice dress – black, skin tight leather and below the knee. Elegant. One of little Hannah’s dresses. Not that she wore it, nor could she ever own it like Alice is doing. There’s a perfect fucking body inside it now. She moves like a goddess, dances to our song. I’d like that new song to resonate forever to counter the fucking waltz that haunts me. I should finish the piece. Let it build around these walls to let them all know that I am caught somehow. Owned.
For a time, anyway.
Someone touches me. I grab the hand and throw it away. It’s not my Alice. Too light in touch. Too insipid. And I can't smell her yet, can’t feel her near me either. She’s still in my thoughts, still out there somewhere – hunting me. Damn Gray and his fucking moralistic view of my bloodstream. I miss the intensity we had because of the pills – the draw and pull that kept us connected. I’m almost barren of it now because of him, but she won’t be. She’ll be as primal as I want her to be – as instinctual. She’ll hunt and chase and ward off any who would try to dissuade her quest.
Time passes as aimlessly as it usually does here, and I eventually use it’s emptiness to peruse more sordid capabilities. I walk the edges of the room impatiently, irrefutably pissed that she hasn’t found me yet. It bolsters my own sense of irritability, making me rage filled at the prospect of her elsewhere.
I duck through the tunnels, smiling at the imagery of her with her little knife. I dare anyone to try playing with her down here. She’ll kill, or at least maim. Amusing. Others have already died here. They’ve either killed themselves or been ended because of the pills strange reactivity inside wayward thoughts. But that’s what can happen when you play with your mind. It happens with me anyway. Depression, anxiousness, waves of lethargy and despair. Or the opposite - anger and rage. Help them. That’s what they ask me for here. Give them space to indulge.
I sneer and swill more vodka down my throat. Indulgency comes from greed, and greed comes from minds that are, indisputably, tainted with moralistic denial.
Just like me.
If only Gray knew how many have been buried outside in my mountains because of his genius. We could debate that – amuse ourselves with yet more people he’s helped to kill over the years. He wouldn’t care that much. Death is, after all, a certainty. Especially considering how much he manipulates that part of humanity. And it’s peaceful. It’s quiet on the other side. Flat and black when you reach it. Those moments are ethereal. They’re filled with only a decaying heartbeat that thuds weakly, clinging on. No decisions. No noise. Just thoughts ebbing away to nothing and no one.
Taking the tracking necklace from my neck, I toss it and my phone to the ground and keep moving. I don’t want finding anymore. Not by anyone but my Alice. I’m going to get lost with myself and hope for something other than the norm. Maybe she’ll hunt true, or maybe she’ll think me unworthy and carry on living in her moments without me.
The eventual sight of the underground cavern fills me with calm and silence. I sit on the rock and keep drinking, gaze searching the occasional drips of water that fall into the sheen of glass like ripples. No one’s been in here for a while. It smells stale and cold. That’s a shame. So many have been reborn from this lake. They’ve swum, sunk, near drowned in the cold, and then strived for life.
Little Hannah was the last.
My usual melancholy begins settling in, as I keep gazing, and I find myself moving closer to the water’s edge. The empty bottle of vodka gets dropped, mask tossed to the ground, and I stare some more. I’m alone again. Just me and this calm echo of drips. No Alice to think with, nothing to search for. No reason to exist again. It’s too much, or too little. I don’t fucking know what anything is anymore. Right, wrong. Love, hate. Use, discard. It’s all so fucking clinical and sterile. Too easy. And yet that pull she gave me was debilitating, energising. Enthralling and weakening.
Frigid water attacks my senses, as my shoes sink into it. Sharp breaths lead me in deeper, and then slow breaths calm me back to the usual misery again. I pull at the bandages on my wrists, freeing my still split scars for the water to see. Never tried this before. There’s no pain in it down here. Life just slips away as they drown in the cold, some never to return to the surface. Maybe Hannah saw them when she was down there at the bottom and chose life instead of the bloated flesh on show.
Four more paces and I let the water take me under. Nothing. Quiet and calm. I search the depths lazily, trying to see in the murky depths around me. No bodies to welcome me home. No eyes to see. Just black and cold and lifeless. I should take a breath, pull this water into my lungs and disappear into the ether. Who would know, or care? No one. I can imagine our song, though. Feel it.
Thuds and heartbeats.
Something suddenly hauls me upwards. I lag in the feeling, fight its tug, as part of me tries to stay down here. No reasons up there. Nothing but her, and she’s not hunting me. She’s living, enjoying her new found fun. The though makes me grab a rock, hold it tightly. I’m not going up again. Not anymore. Down here is that calm and dark I crave. Its death and, hopefully, clemency.
The sharp stab of something in my hand makes me frown and shirk sideways, pushing the body away from me. It comes in closer. Close enough that I can see the face attached to it. Dark hair swirls, wide eyes filled with anger and attitude – my Alice. She’s come to rescue me.
Again.
She shakes her head, moves in even closer until her lips are pressed against mine and her body is coiled around mine. Seconds go by like that, as her coiling becomes even tighter. I try pushing her off, creating room between our faces, but she grips on like a vice, choosing to stay with me and die rather than live.
