Season of the Witch, Part Six

The three men who raped her. Who pushed her towards death. Who brought down a dark spirit to save her and propel her into this half-life of revenge.

The vision from several nights ago. The first in Bethesda, closest to her Silver Spring hotel. The first to go.

A tall, lean man. Hunched over, poor hygiene. A grease-monkey. A man who loved cars. A man who compensated for a lifetime of teasing, of troubled friendships. A man who lived now with a girl he started fucking when she was 15 and he was 26. Now ten years later. The woman, herself insecure, glad to stay in place and lose herself while this man twisted and burned up inside, the foul stench of self-loathing surrounding him as he snuck liquor at night and in the mornings. Three shots of Jager before the morning commute to relax him, three shots in the evening to put him to sleep. A man who carried wounds with him, and who forever burned with envy for those more fortunate.

She closed her eyes as the cab took her down East West Highway, onto Old Georgetown Road, and turned onto Battery Lane in Bethesda. She saw him, through the flashes in her mind, sitting alone in front of the computer. A day off while his stolen child bride worked. He was watching porn, his face inches from the monitor. A habit of his younger days that had never vanished. She glided onto the elevator, down the long, grim hallway, and to his door. She knocked three times, then stood back smiling towards the peephole. It darkened, and he answered the door a second later. No recognition. A shame. She wanted surprise, drama. She wanted to see realization and horror spread across his ugly little face. Instead, she was instantly in command. This weak, sad man simply stared blankly at her, backing up as she approached, stumbling over a table and couch as she entered his apartment and swung the door shut behind her. She wanted to say something, to pad the moment like a clichéd finale in a TV show. But this was far from the finale. This felt like a beginning. And there was no need to explain the beginning of a show to the audience. It simply begins with a murder.

She stretched her arms out, turned her wrists, the scars white hot. A show begins with action. Her power picked him up and flung him against a wall dividing the living room from the kitchen. It begins with excitement. She skidded him along the hardwood floor, his head slamming into a tri-level table with a TV perched on it. The television fell, crashing on his back as he cried out in agony.

Then she flicked her left hand and he was gone. Everything inside of him boiling and bursting. Scrambling organs and tearing his heart. Blood poured through nose and mouth as if she’d turned on a faucet and, unwilling to look on him a moment longer, she turned before his body had finished twitching.

She was soon back in the hotel, hugging herself, shivering on the bed. One down. Her decision made. Still the avenging angel.

She hung the do not disturb sign on the outside of her door and locked the security bolt. No more maid service. She was free. She was alive. And she was doing good. Saving the less fortunate. Protecting victims. Destroying criminals.

She pretended to sleep. To get back in touch with her life before she ended up bleeding on the bathroom floor. She closed her eyes and listened to her body, and to the hotel and street sounds all around her. She tried to regulate her breathing, to see if she could lull herself into an actual sleep, and then realized that she didn’t need to breathe at all, and that her body made no sounds. No heartbeat, no background sounds of life.

Her eyes popped open and she sat up, hissing, wanting to cry tears that couldn’t be produced.

The second one. A house up in White Oak, near her old home. A big man, unkempt curly auburn hair, a doughy face. A quiet follower, weak-willed, empty. A man who always did as he was told and followed the flow, even if it disgusted him. A man prone to insular meandering, private breakdowns, and troubled nights. These men who had taken her world from her were such losers. It was almost insulting to exact her revenge on such little people, such broken souls. Even more insulting that she had fallen prey to them. She saw that in all of her victims. These people she sent into the arms of her benefactor were small, evil creatures. People who would never achieve their fullest potential (perhaps thankfully), and who would never be of any merit to humanity. The vast, soft underbelly of idiots and scum who live today only because Mankind has defeated all of its enemies. Wars are fought by the poor, diseases are chased down by scientists, machines and medications prolong life, and money heals all wounds. The stalking killer in the dark forest is now mounted on walls, the clash of battle is now heard only on CNN. Multiple generations now exist full of men and women who have not been asked to grow up, or be responsible, or mature in any way.

With morning, there came no knock on the door. The maid left towels and toiletries piled neatly outside. Elizabeth threw them on her bed, removed the do not disturb sign, and took a cab up to White Oak. A Saturday morning, and her second rapist was sleeping in. Enjoying a break from the routine. A normal Saturday in the suburbs.

He lived alone. Easy prey. It was always easy, though. That was part of the deal. Free from fear, free from want. She was above the law, outside of the rules, beyond humanity.

A knock brought him to the door, cautious and timorous. Weak without a leader. He might have recognized her, but she didn’t care. Revenge was empty, meaningless. There was no reasoning with these people, and no need to speak to them. She flung his body against walls and through bookcases, over couches and into the kitchen, and left him as a bloody pulp next to the stove. The fragility of the human body made it all too easy. She felt like a stranger to the planet, an immortal beast designed to kill. No, to correct. Her first thought when she was offered her choice was to kill those who had indirectly killed her. Now, it didn’t matter. She had moved past the barriers and expectations of her old life. She saw how empty and sad she, too, had been. Trudging through a commute, to a job that paid pennies, managed by weak men who expected her to be grateful for her employment. Trying to make herself pretty, acceptable. Worrying about her aging flesh, the trappings of mortality. Avoiding dark alleys and stairwells and the permanent dangers of the unknown all to be raped in an affluent suburb, a victim to a random act perpetuated by weak, evil men.

What about that world – that life – was worth avenging? These three men had done her a favor. Through her death she had been saved. She had become perfect.

She returned to the hotel room. One left. Following the logical course, the obvious path. The last one was the leader. The larger voice, and the hands that first held her down. Another dirty hilljack, long thin hair, baseball cap, fat. An import from her own stomping ground in Ohio. Servicing computers had bought him a house in Layhill – far upper Silver Spring. She rented a car for this one. A hit on a dead woman’s credit card. If anybody cared enough to try and find her, that is. But there were no questions. There never would be. The police would be compelled to close the book on the murders and her own disappearance as if they didn’t happen, cabbies and clerks would never remember what they were doing, there were never any witnesses. Elizabeth was invisible. Impervious.

She strode down the hall when she left her room, the maid standing behind her cart, watching, but not speaking. She felt the maid’s eyes burn into her back, an unblinking, unwavering gaze until she turned a corner into the stairwell and escaped.

Jack. She had a name to go with her third rapist. He worked from home. He had a wife and a kid. A normal life. A happy life. And she wasn’t the only woman he had raped. For him, it was a hobby. Some sort of sociopathic impulse. But he wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again. She would send him into the arms of her dark angel. She would avenge that hazy, distant past life that she ended with a razor blade. She would keep going, and save the world from itself. Save Humanity from its dark inclinations and shadowy fantasies.