A Scene In Which Dear Iris Meets Her Untimely End, Right Under Our Heroine's Nose ...
One step, then two, brought me to the door. Rapping lightly with my knuckles, I grinned to myself as I heard the heavy smoker’s cough of the resident within the apartment. “Franc, you left your damn keys at work again? Hang on, I’m comin’.”
I stepped back from the door as it opened to reveal Iris Feldman, longtime resident of my dear Elise’s apartment complex. “Good afternoon.”
“Oh, hey, it’s you again! Comin’ to check on whether Elise got her package? I know she did – saw her carry it right in. She asked about you leavin’ it there, so if ya got another one, it’s prob’ly better to leave it with the front desk – those upstairs guys, they can’t be trusted not to kick it around, ya know?”
I didn’t, but that was all right with me. So she asked about me. I wonder what you told her? No matter. “Actually, I was coming to thank you for being so understanding the other day – I brought you these.” From behind my back, I produced a half-dozen long-stemmed roses – freshly cut from Elise’s garden.
I do hope she won’t mind too much.
“Oh, hey, they’re gorgeous! Come on in while I find a vase for them! And what a pretty little bit of ribbon! You mind if I keep it?” Her tobacco-stained smile turned shy. “I’m kinda in to crafts and stuff,” she confided in me.
Laugh lines crinkled the corners of my eyes as I smiled, careful not to display my fanged teeth. “Of course not … I don’t mind at all.” Allowing her to take the flowers from my gloved hands, I glanced cautiously past her. Good. I was right – she is alone this afternoon. Excellent. I wonder when her paramour will be coming home? I might have to make this quick.
“Thanks!” Giddy as a girl, she stepped back to allow my entry and hurried into the kitchen, humming. Silently, I locked the door behind me, careful to leave it as I had heard her unlock it, snicking both locks into place. I wouldn’t be needing to open it again, after all.
And neither would dear Iris.
Drifting silently up behind her as she reached up on tiptoe for an appropriate vase, I let my lips peel back from my teeth. I could be as brutal as I liked, I realized, for I wasn’t planning on making myself a doggy bag of leftovers tonight. “Iris,” I murmured, grinning wider as she jumped.
“Ooh, ooh, you scared the life outta me!” she gasped, whirling around.
Imagine that. “Did I? I’m terribly sorry. I was wondering if I could impose upon for a bite to eat. I’m terribly hungry, you see. I’ve been running errands all over town – haven’t had a chance to even stop and smell the roses …”
“Sure, I guess – lemme just get these in some water and I’ll make ya a sandwich. It’s the least I could do after you brought me such pretty flowers. Elise grows roses like these, ya know. Amazing what that girl can do with a little bit of rainwater and some fertilizer.”
Rain … water…?
Shrugging the thought aside, I struck fast, slamming Iris forward into the sink. Her breath whooshed from her in a harsh blast, and I bit deeply into the side of her neck before she could draw in another. Blood sprayed in a fine arc over my face and the sink, growing thicker as I worried the hole my teeth had made, tearing deeply into the soft, flabby skin of her throat. She half-turned in my arms to attack me; expecting this, I tightened my hold on her until our bodies met in an unspeakably gory embrace. Drawing back briefly, I drove my face into her neck and took her windpipe between my teeth, crushing her vocal chords and gnawing away at the thick rings of cartilage protecting it. She was making weak gargling sounds now as some of her blood traveled down her trachea, and I smiled, smoothing her hair back gently. Her eyes rolled back in her head until all I could see was their yellowed whites, and I let her fall gently to the kitchen floor.
Quickly, still lapping her blood from my face with my hungry tongue, I stepped out of the athletic jumpsuit I had worn, and the next layer of clothes beneath that, wrapping my gloves within the bundle once I’d slipped on the extra pair I had stuffed into the back pocket of the jeans I wore beneath the two pairs of jumpsuits. There was some blood on my boots, I noticed, so I took those off, too, tucking everything into a ball. Inspecting myself carefully in the full-length mirror in the little dining nook, I padded barefoot into the master bedroom, grinning when I found what I sought.
Dear Franc is just my size, too. Perhaps I’ll thank him personally for the loan of his shoes … not that he’d need them again once I was finished expressing my gratitude. Sliding into the scuffed old loafers, I gathered my things and drifted out of the apartment through the wall which faced an alleyway. Letting myself fill the spaces between each molecule of which the wall was made, I pushed myself into the outside air until I stood between Elise’s building and the next, my bloodied bundle wrapped carefully against me so that no gore showed through.
Craning my neck back, I smiled, remembering the little rooftop garden I had visited not so very long before. Rain-water and fertilizer, hmm? I shall have to inform Father – he might find it amusing indeed to know that the secret to such perfect roses is one of the liquids his son loves best in all the world.
Darting through the alleyway, I shook my black hair free of the restrictive skullcap and wig I’d worn all morning. Leaving it atop my bundle in the alleyway, I slipped into a nearby grocer’s. Iris had whetted my appetite, and I had too much more to do today to ignore the demands of my body. Stuffing the gloves in my back pocket, I approached the cashier.
“Just the salad and the water, hon? Want it bagged up so you can go eat in the park? Ain’t seen such gorgeous sunny weather in a while.”
I smiled at the older woman behind the counter, sliding cash from my bill-fold. “Yes, thank you.”
Rejoining the populace a few minutes after, I settled my purchases atop the bundle of my clothing, satisfied that I looked like nothing more than the usual weekday shopper. Blending into the crowd, I returned to my car and drove the few short miles to the townhome I kept on the eastern edge of the city.
Disposing of my clothes in the incinerator, I ate my lunch standing in the sunlit kitchen. While bright, warm days like this one were not my preferred weather pattern, I found myself not wanting to spend the rest of the day indoors.
What better way to spend the afternoon than by people-watching … Certain people in particular, I think … Grinning to myself, I changed out my contacts, switching my green eyes for a charming slate-blue, and debated on wearing another of my wigs before deciding that if I was going to have the luck to run into Ms. Lambert, I’d rather not run the risk of her spotting a stray black hair or two.
After all, I shouldn’t want our game to end so quickly.
I mused on what to do. Heading back to her apartment would be quite risky – eventually, poor Iris’ fate would be discovered, after all, but the idea of watching Elise in action soon proved too difficult to resist.
When I arrived, I found I had been correct in my theory. Police swarmed in and out of the building, and I watched the ME shaking his head as he spoke to a swarthy man of distinctly Irish descent. My eyes sharpened on him from my vantage point across the road as my instincts screamed at me to be careful; this was a man of whom I would have to be most cautious. From this distance, I could not hear their conversation until the stocky man roared a name.
It belonged to someone with whom I was becoming most familiar.
“Lambert, I need you here!”
She came around the corner of the building and I froze in my place as our eyes met for the briefest of seconds before her attention was pulled away. Her features were drawn and pinched; her fury was almost a tangible thing, nearly audible even with such distance between us. I grinned to see her anger worn so openly on her face. My revenge has begun in earnest. You have suffered the first drops of my poison – do you feel it burning through you? I can see its agony written on your features.
It was not enough, of course; nothing would be until I could sink my teeth into the soft flesh of her neck and taste the hot spurt of her lifeblood as she kicked and screamed, trying to fight her way free. Jessica deserved only the highest standard in retribution, and I would deliver nothing less.
But, as I watched her lithe form stalking purposefully through the crowd and the long tail of her braid swinging madly back and forth down the back of her uniform, I began to wonder what she would look like on the specially-designed web I had made, hidden in one of the interior bedrooms of my woodland home.
I leaned against the building, my eyes tracking her progress back and forth through the throngs of people, and smiling to myself. Yes, I think you would look quite nice on my web … And with a little morphine to sweeten your fierce disposition… you would make a tasty meal indeed…
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