Teen Idols And Happy Meals

Cookie Dough And Horror Stories

As if sugar solved everything. For someone who claimed to love me, Eleanor seemed to think I was rather simple minded. “Oh goodie,” I snarled, “I’m sure that’ll take the sting out of my broken ribs.”

“It’s cookie dough,” she said mildly, coming forward. Despite the pain permeating throughout my body, the urge to get up and deck her was overwhelming. It was powerful enough to make me tremble. My whole body was alight with the pain, and I pulled anxiously on the chain around my wrist.

“I wanted to apologize,” she went on, coming forward. Nikki, bound by the door, was glaring daggers at her but remained silent. I knew she was still hoping I would just take the painkillers and be done with it. It was a useless hope though. I understood where Nikki was coming from – I wouldn’t have been able to tolerate seeing her in pain – but that didn’t mean I had to give in. This wasn’t over.

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” Eleanor went on, coming to sit at the edge of the bed – on the far side – just out of my reach. I weighed my chances of being able to nail her with the picture frame on the bedside table – containing a picture of me, creepily enough. I decided my chances weren’t good, given that my free wrist was also my broken one.

“I know you’re just not feeling well,” she continued on, her laser green eyes focused on the bowl in her lap. “And you didn’t mean what you said.”

“Keep telling yourself that cow,” I spat unforgivingly, rattling the chain on my wrist angrily. The metal bit into my skin, irritating the scabs there, causing them to bleed more.

I’d only been handcuffed to a bed once before. Of course, those handcuffs had been fluffy and there’d been no bloodshed involved. A kinky weekend with Rosalyn was a long way off from the hell I was experiencing at the unstable hands of Eleanor.

“You’re just cranky,” Eleanor rationalized my behavior. She was rather proficient at deluding herself. There was a word for what she was, actually there were a lot, but the medical term was erotomaniac. There’d been a few famous ones throughout the ages, like John Hinckley, the guy who shot Reagan. He had convinced himself that Jodie Foster was in love with him, even though she had no idea who he was, and he was going to impress her by shooting the president.

 I was no doctor, but Eleanor certainly seemed crazy enough to shoot the president.

“The ice cream will cheer you up,” she said confidently, handing me the bowl. Half a second later it was a pile of broken glass on the floor, courtesy of the back of my hand.

“If you really wanted to cheer me up,” I snarled darkly. “You’d kill me.”

“Jacen!” Nikki admonished sharply, speaking for the first time since Eleanor had walked in. “Don’t say things like that!”

Eleanor gave a smile like the cat that ate the canary. I wouldn’t even be surprised. “Why?” she asked bemusedly. “Do you think I’ve killed before?”

“I know you have,” Nikki snapped back. “Don’t even bothering pretending. I know you’re the one who took those girls.”

“Took maybe,” she allowed, not at all ashamed. Shame of course being one of the many human emotions Eleanor was incapable of. “But kill?”

She rose then. She was a tall girl, too lanky for her own limbs. The awkward way she held herself didn’t help much. Still, the insanity that hugged her like a second skin was frightening.

“You want to hear my story?” she asked darkly, acid eyes sharp as they darted about the room. “Fine. But just remember, you can never unhear it.”