Cold Blood

❥Chapter Fifty❥

Written by DeadlyDisasters and ChemicalWonderland

Ash POV

Three months later

The air carries the smell of fall, swirling around me in miniature currents of wind. The sky is a diluted bluish-gray, patterned with spotted pearly clouds. The neighborhood I walk along is lined with nice homes, slightly smaller in width than the one I live in but just as tall. They're kept in perfectly neat rows, spaced apart only slightly by well trimmed front lawns. There's no one outside right now expect for the figure of a frail old women trying to cross the street a bit ahead of me. She walks with a slight limp, and I wonder why she isn't using a cane. In her hands are bags of groceries, weighing her down and curving her spine even more so she looks like she's curling in on herself. A perfectly vulnerable victim.

"Hey!" I call loudly, and she turns her head to look at me. "Do you need some help!"

The women nods at me, a crooked smile lighting up her wrinkled face. I quickly make my way toward her, absentmindedly tapping the outline of the knife tucked away discreetly in my pocket. As I reach the old women, I outstretch my hands to take some bags, which are surprisingly heavier than I thought.

"Thank you so much young man. There aren't very many good kids out there anymore," she says with a short, twinkling laugh. Her watery, dull grayish eyes sparkle.

I laugh too, but for a different reason.

We walk down the street in silence, the bags rustle as I walk. Progress was slow and it really annoyed me, I get that she is old but do we really have to walk so slow? After five minutes of tortuous walking, I was ready to kill someone. Everything was too quiet, like every animal and person in this neighborhood could sense that something bad was going to happen very soon.

After what felt like fifteen minutes we arrived at a small cottage-looking home. Its quaint and sweet, painted a slowly fading, tainted pale pink. The shutters are off-white, the corners caked with dirt. We walk up the small, cracked, cobblestone, with her leading the way. My arms are slowly becoming sore from the weight of the groceries. She stops in front of the dirty brown door, it was repulsive. I honestly didn't want to get any closer to the door then I had to but that's clearly not going to happen. I have to go into the house meaning that I have to walk right next to the door.

"When we get inside you can place the groceries on the kitchen counter," the old women tells me, stepping inside and disappearing into the house.

I follow suit, finding the inside of the house to be much nicer looking than the outside. The living room is filled with pastel furniture and floral throw pillows, a vintage brick fireplace and small lamps. Large windows trap out sunlight with wispy crimson curtains, and a patterned soft rug is tossed across the glossy hardwood floors.

"You have a very lovely house," I say, following her into the kitchen.

The cabinets are a pristine pearly white, and the counter tops are made of a smoky black and white like ink dropped in water. She sets everything down, the bags making clanking noises from the food packages inside. As she moves, I spot a shimmer coming from the pearls around her neck. It continues to glimmer against her neck, so tight that it almost has her in a choke hold. . . almost. A burning sensation builds in my throat, and I resist the urge to lunge on her now.

Deciding to abandon the knife in my pocket, I slip on a pair of gloves I had in my pocket and grab for the necklace impulsively. Her face morphs into one of horror and the wrinkles in her face deepen as she stares at me with fear in her eyes. I stare into their watery depths, holding her pearl necklace tightly. The pearls dig into her flesh, leaving a deep imprint.

She tries to pry my fingers off but I have an extremely good grip and she has very short fingernails so she can't do much. I pull the pearls even tighter, she's gasping. She can't breath, she tries to claw my hands off even more now but it's still as ineffective as before. Blood starts to drip from her winkled neck, the pearls have cut into her skin. 

"Want to know something fantastic before you die?" I don't wait for a response because she can't speak. "You're not my first victim and you definitely won't be the last." 

I grin as the words spill from my lips, she passes out from lack of oxygen but I don't release my grip on the pearls. I pull even tighter and the faint pulse I feel pressing against my fingers stops. I don't stop though I wait a good two minutes before I pull my hands away. I laugh when I see that the pearls have been pressed so far into her neck that they don't fall back around her neck coated in blood they stay stuck. My gloves have blood on them, coated thickly like paint. Her eyes are unblinking, lost beyond the irises. The old lady's arms and legs are like spaghetti, limp and moving loosely. 

I look over to a doorway, seeing a staircase descending into the darkness. The basement. Perfect.

Carrying her body bridal style down the stairs, I squint through the dark so I don't trip until my eyes have adjusted. The basement is comprised entirely of stark gray walls and cold cement floors. It smells strangely of fresh paint and mold. There's no sign that anyone has ever even been in here before, the large open space absent of any furniture, junk, or even windows. Just blank space waiting for me to paint my masterpiece.

Tossing her body onto the ground, I whip my knife out of my pocket and proceed to slash her throat. Crimson spills onto her old, parchment-colored skin, which I collect in a gloved hand. Walking to the wall behind her, I begin to trace large scarlet arches and lines on the wall: a letter to all who believed I was gone forever.

Black combat boots clunk loudly on the cement floors, echoing immensely loudly in the dead silence. Blood drips quietly with a soft pattering sound, like dripping paint. A knife glimmers darkly against a torn ebony leather jacket. On the wall, written in blood, is The Reapers are back.