I met him online and we texted for about two days, then we met in person. It was like I had known him forever. That's how connected to him I felt. Maybe I had finally found my other half?
Could this be it? The magical feeling, the one I had been waiting for?
I had a feeling by the time the weekend was over I would have my answer. Either he would pass every test I put him through with flying colors or he would fail and I would have to move onto my next victim.
He took me to a quaint countryside inn, made out of wood from deforested oak trees. It was nice and quiet not something I was used to and I felt like the voices didn't like it. Well I didn't like it because then I could hear the voices, they only stopped talking when it was loud, or at least then I couldn't hear them. Now they all fought for my attention, each one louder than the other.
Salvatore didn't know this about me yet, that I could hear the voices but he'd know by the end. Then he'd think I was crazy just like the rest of them thought, which I wasn't. Crazy people never think that they're actually crazy but I knew I wasn't so it didnt matter what any of them thought.
When we walked into our suite it looked like someone with bad decorating skills had started and stopped decorating halfway through and then they had hired someone equally as bad to finish decorating, mixing the two into a sight for sore eyes.
I closed my eyes and shook my head the room looked like every other bedroom I had been in since I was a kid besides the atrocious decor. That night I talked Sal into going for a walk after dinner, since we were in the middle of the woods might as well enjoy the scenery. On the winding path we heard the lively songs of birds, croaking of frogs, chirpings of crickets and countless other animals and insects.
I also heard the voices singing along with them. They called for action but there was no action to be had here, in the quiet stillness of the night. Suddenly like they knew it was coming a baby bird fell out of a tall pine tree and broke its neck. It lay there motionless but I could tell and they could tell it was still alive.
This is it, they whispered. The perfect moment to see if he's right for us. Tell him to kill it.
I let go of Sals' hand and rushed over to the bird laying on its back, nothing moving but its eyes. "Aw his neck is broken!" I said squatting down by the bird. Sal rushed over to me.
"How do you know?" he asked grabbing my arm.
"Look at the way he's angled. If he had broken something he would've been moving but he's just laying there." I turned to Sal, "kill it."
He looked at me, his eyes going huge. "I can't kill it."
"Why? He can't move, he's in pain and he's going to be eaten now that he can't protect himself, so kill it."
Sal refused, "we can help him, take care of him."
"A paralyzed bird? Why would you want to prolong his pain?" No matter what I said Sal shook his head no, he wasn't going to kill the bird. I got up and stood over the bird looking at me with such pitiful eyes like it knew what was coming, like it expected it.
Sal watched me, no expression on his face for what I would do next. I lifted my right leg and it came down on the bird with much more force than I had anticipated and with a sickening crunch of fragile little bird bones. I heard a gasp and turned toward Salvatore, he had a disgusted look on his face and like he was going to give up the dinner he had eaten not long ago. The moment passed and he looked away from me seeming like he couldn't believe what I had done and couldn't bare to look.
He turned and headed back in the direction we had come not bothering to wait for me or to even check to see if I was following which I started to do after a few minutes. By the time I made it back to the room Sal was in the lobby with his bags in hand. I rushed over to him, "you're leaving because I killed a bird that could no longer help itself?" I asked incredulous.
"No I'm not leaving I just think I need space to deal with everything that happened tonight, put it all in perspective."
But I knew and the voices knew that if he did that, if he had even the slightest bit of doubt in his mind about me he'd call it quits and then the whole experiment to see if he was the perfect one would be gone. So I did what I did best, I manipulated. I wrapped my arms around his waist and cried, sobbed really long loud and drew everyone's attention to us.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Baby don't leave me."
He wrapped his arms around me but I could tell he was reluctant. H/e didn't really want to, I could feel the tension in his body. He rubbed my back and let his hands move up to my neck tightening around it. Yes choke me! I wanted to scream. Punish me for what I did to that bird, show me who's boss. Instead I said nothing just stood there quietly sniffling as his hands got tighter and tighter around my neck.
"Would you still like another room sir?" the desk clerk asked.
"No the one we have is fine for now, thanks." Sal grabbed his bags and my hand leading me upstairs to our room.
The next morning after breakfast we were laying in bed talking about life and where we saw ourselves in the future. Our room had a balcony with stairs leading to the ground floor, we had opened the curtains and sliding glass door to let the crisp morning air float around our bodies.
I lay at the foot of the bed on my stomach looking out the glass door while Salvatore lay at the head of the bed on his back. Looking out the glass door I saw the head of something slither into view, I turned my head in that direction and saw it was a snake.
"Sal, there's a snake go kill it!" I yelled while I scrambled up from my position.
"Where?" he inquired not even moving.
"By the sliding glass door," I said pointing.
"What color is it?"
"Red, yellow and black."
"What colors are touching?"
Getting annoyed with his nonaction I turned over and pulled on his arm, "look for yourself." He looked over the side of the bed to where the snake had finally slithered its head through the door, sticking his tongue out to taste the air.
"Oh that's harmless. The rhyme goes 'red touch yellow, kills a fellow. Red touch black, venom lack. Yellow touches red, soon you'll be dead. Red touches black, friend of Jack.' So that that's a Scarlet King snake since red touches black." Salvatore reclaimed his position on the bed like what he said changed everything.
Kill it, you need to kill it. Feed us.
The voices in my head kept urging me to kill for them, I just wanted them to shut up. I didn't want to kill anymore and I knew Salvatore wasn't a vicious killer and if he saw that I kept killing harmless animals he would leave me. But he wasn't the one with all the voices talking to him at once. All his demons telling him that he wasn't worth anything and that the only thing he was good at was killing. It seemed like a natural gift to me ever since I was a kid. I've been killing animals since the ripe old age of three. I could tell you a sob story about how my uncle molested me but that would be a lie and one thing I didn't do was lie. I killed instead.
It was a blood thirsty need inside of me, not only to satiate the voices but because it gave me a sense of power in a world where women were treated as lesser. Unequal in everything even after we clawed our way to the top. It made me feel brave that I could kill things twice as big as me and even those that are small. I didn't discriminate. I killed animals, I killed people. Not even the bad ones either, just anybody.
I got up from my position on the bed and walked over to the snake. It hadn't slithered that much further from the door and if it had been a regular animal with a neck and paws or limbs or whatever it would have been inside up to its neck.
In one quick movement I slammed the door only managing to squish the snakes head. I did it again repeatedly until the head was severed from the body outside. Leaving the tail to jump around until all the life seeped out of it. I looked down at the head and kicked it outside closing the door. The snakes blood was splattered in the door frame which I would clean up later. I turned around and skipped back to the bed where I couldn't find Sal. In the midst of everything he head taken off but I would find him. The voices would help me.
I exited the room into the hallway the smell of lunch making its way up the stairs. I took them two by two and saw Sal throwing his bags into the trunk. I walked over to him quickly. "Where do you think you're going?" I asked from behind him jump.
"Far away from you crazy lady."
"I don't think so," I said putting the barrel of my gun to his back. "Walk to the woods and act like we're going for a walk. Don't try to get anybodies attention either or I'm killing you and them."
Salvatore took my directions and led us deep into the woods where the voices told me to go. That way if I lost my temper ad ended up killing him no one would know. In the woods I caught a squirrel that was running past with his nut and strung him up by his tail.
"Kill the squirrel if you don't want to do," I said nudging Sal with my gun."
"Alexa, why are you doing this? You don't have to do this," Sal said pleading.
"Oh, but I do or the voices won't shut up. They just keep talking and talking getting louder. I just want them to stop!" I said while hitting my head with the side of the gun.
"Alexa we can get you the help that you need, you don't need to keep killing."
"They told me that you would say that, that you would try to separate us, but I didn't believe them. I didn't want to believe that you would try to change me, I thought you were different from everyone else who called me crazy!"
"Alexa I am different, I want you to get help so you don't hurt yourself," he said holding his hand out for me.
Liar, he's lying to you. End him.
"Shut up! Shut up! Let me think," the hand holding the gun was turned sideways sticking straight out from my body, while my left hand was resting against the side of my head eyes closed. "Just make them stop, I want them to stop, tell them to leave me alone." I sank down to my knees. "I don't want to hear the voices anymore."
Alexxxa they whined. Alexxxa you don't mean that. You need us, you'd be nothing, have no one without us.
Yes Alexxa we are family. Family doesn't turn their back on family.
"Alexa I can help you, just put down the gun and let me help you." Salvatore said coming closer to me cautiously.
No Alexa! He'll only betray you! Listen to us.
Yes, listen to us Alexa.
Kill him, do it now before he takes the gun from you and you won't have the chance.
While Salvatore stepped toward me I opened my eyes and he saw the determination there. He lunged at me just as I pulled the trigger and he landed dead at my feet.
Three for Alexa.
None for Salvatore.
This weekend didn't exactly go as I had planned but it still turned out to be the perfect weekend.
For death.
