by Harry Markov
Nocturne Kiss
Night's haunting touch spread its quilt of urban shadows over burly streets, intertwining into a macabre stage for shadow play. Among the foul scents of darkness sweet cherry fragrance bloomed, so obvious, so out of place with its vulnerability.
Emily waltzed wearily down the street, her high heels dictating a steady rhythm on the paved ill lit alley. The monotonous sound subdued her grief and sedated the madness, bubbling in her heart. She took big breaths of the frigid, slimy air. The rich odor made her cringe her face in disgust. The thought how she ended up here alone ran through her mind, but was dismissed in an instant. Now Emily was following her own path away from him, away from her prison.
With trembling hands Emily straightened her wavy strawberry blond streaks . Doing something with her hands always helped her calm down, a quirk left as a mark from an unhappy childhood with ever changing stepfathers. With a decisive breath she shook off her emotions - the obstacles, which painted a hollow world of pink, and led to her total submission to this man. His touch in exchange for her freedom and her heart had been one of her worst trades and right now did she experienced the drawbacks of a wrecked soul and failed expectations.
She walked, her frail silhouette, suffocated by the unseen embrace of the nocturne shadows. Thoughts of panic burst into thousand sparks, which ignited new explosions of primal fear. Where would she go now? Who would help her now, after she had foolishly parted with her previous life ?
Emily wondered lost accompanied by sickly silence, the charcoal mass of night misleading her steps, luring her within the still domain. Yes, she could feel the silence there, judging her with ignorance, glaring at her with the sterile shine of platinum stars, keeping all the sounds for someone else.
Raged whimpers filled the air as Emily shook her head. Things had gone downhill so fast, only because of a kiss. Tears flowed down her face again, following dried u p paths on her cheeks . For a careless second she let her lips to belong to another and here she was now, cast way. But a sudden tapping rhythm shook her conscience and she stood dead in her tracks, straining to hear every sound around her. For a breath she heard footsteps, but now silence sneered at her paranoid mind. There was not a single living soul out there. At three a.m. nobody dared to walk outside in the dark, except for those, who were left without a choice.
Emily continued, shaking with fear as her high heels clacked feverishly on the pavement. Then the chills clashed over her body. It felt as if she had fallen in ice cold water. Emily stopped, unable to move. Shivers enveloped her skin as she felt something cold and slick crawls up her inner thighs and disappear. The sensation both terrified her and sparked residue lust towards the man, from whom she ran.
‘ Sean! ' The salvation crossed her mind like a speeding bullet and his image appeared inside her head, chasing away the tight straps of paranoia, binding her chest. ‘ Yes, Sean. H e will help me. He will safe me, ' s he repeated to herself in attempts to ignore the night, which threatened her. To Emily the shadows danced in circles around her defenseless body, fighting to feel her body, bringing her mind back to that kiss. Every turn made led her to his silhouette, the man, who abandoned her and Emily fought back the screams .
“He is not here, ” She whispered to herself, dissolving his shape i nto the nothing. “He won't come, ” She muttered, ignoring the new set of footsteps and heavy breaths, which echoed louder and sounded more real than ever before.
‘He can't be here, ' She thought, but yet the presence that invaded her sen ses denied this . Bodiless and formless like nylon, it wrapped around her body, slowly suffocating her in panic.
Then she heard it. A frightening sound avalanched from everywhere. The high pitched cacophony, resembling the squeaking of rubber, overwhelmed her with the first tones and Emily ran to the lamp post driven by a primal instinct. There she saw him clearly.
“Don't be scared, darling. I only want to give you a kiss.” The words came out, dry and devout of emotion, faking the soothing tone. The faint light of the lamp post faded and she saw her lover's eyes glowing in violet. A dark m ass spawned from the shadows as Emily screamed.
***
“What do we have here, Jim?” Officer Wilson asked with the sternness of a man with enough experience in police work to be woken up early for a regular murder. He stepped out of the police car with a yawn and squeezed his eyes, trying to adapt to the grayish dawn.
“I am sorry for the urgent call, sir, ” The young policemen apologized quickly, sensing the annoyance in his college. The rookie hurried after Wilson, who already had a routine to fulfill. The years visiting crime scenes had taught him to ignore the fact that he was going to stare death straight in the face and focused his mind of his personal time.
“You won't believe what has happened here. The woman, who called was sent into a mental ward until she calms down. I still can't imagine how someone could do this to a woman.” Jim explained in nervous mumbling, his stomach still struggling with the sight. Wilson finally reached the lonely lamp post on the str eet, where the body lay covered.
“Have we identified the victim?” Wilson asked, starting with the basic question at handling murder , and put on a pair of surgical gloves to preserve the remaining evidences.
“No, sir. I couldn't do anything more, but cover her with my jacket.” Wilson nodded after he had noticed the spot of vomit on the paved street. This set his mind to expect the worst.
“Don't worry now. We will see who this unlucky lady was, ” Wilson said, remembering the days, when he used to vomit at murder scenes, and with a swift move he pulled off the jacket.
The site wasn't pretty. The woman was young with wavy blond hair and from what Wilson could gather beautiful as well . Her body lay on the pavement like a grotesque puppet, her limbs bent unnaturally . Even though she seemed intact, the woman's skin bared multiple small scars cut from her ankles up her whole body, covering every inch of her flesh with an intricate crimson net. The most disturbing wound on her face and probably the cause of her death was her mouth, which was missing , leaving her cavity exposed like a dark hollow . The skin and flesh on both sides of her jaw down to the lips and chin had been removed. The missing sinews and muscles left her mouth gaping wide, frozen in a silent scream of terror.
‘Great. One of those cases. I hope that this isn't going to be the debut of a serial killer,' Wilson thought and shuddered inwardly, as the odor of decaying flesh crawled inside his nostrils and soon nausea conquered his stomach. The way the dusk surrounded the corpse gave the dried up blood deep obsidian color as her skin darkened with several ghastly shapes of gray.
“How fast must a killer be to inflict such wounds on a woman on the street before being spotted?” Wilson asked out loud and thought how painful she must have died , observing how the tissue inside the victim's mouth was scrapped out with something rough like sandpape r or maybe with a blunt blade, leaving nothing but blood stained bones.
‘A psycho,' Wilson thou ght expecting the woman closely with reluctance, fearing that he might lose his appetite for the morning and for a man of his pre-retirement age this would disturb his otherwise upset stomach. The woman threatened to jolt back to life as something from hell and bite his throat out with her demonic teeth, looking sharper and longer after the killer had carved out the gums and tongue.
What made this murder stand out and imprint itself in Wilson' s mind was the lump in the woman's body. It seemed small and pulsed somewhere below her abdomen and above her groin. Her dress shifted slightly as the lump moved up, zigzagging slowly. Wilson held his breath as an unexplainable feeling of dread constricted his lungs, watching the lump travel up the abdomen and disappear below the woman's chest. Her breasts heaved and then seconds later her throat swelled. Wilson could hear faint squeaking noise accompany the sounds of shifting tissue inside the woman's throat. Then he saw it, a rat crawled from her mouth and scattered off to hide from the day light, leaving its nocturne meal in the hands of the police.