Fake Me To Church

Chapter 23.3 - What Ever Happened to Baby Lane?

- STEVEN -

"You know, I gotta admit: I never was really any good at anatomy." Lane wore a mischievous smile as she spoke. "But I guess it's never too late to start studying." She pressed down lightly with the hacksaw she held, penetrating into my father's back with the frontmost two teeth.

Dad groaned weakly, a trickle of blood running down his side.

"Lane," I could hear the tears in my own voice. "Lane, please."

"But, Steven?" Her words were full of acrimony as she drew back the blade. "We've only scratched the surface!" She sliced the saw down again, this time harder, stabbing a full gash just below Dad's clavicle. Blood spurted upward, scattering to stain the saw in dots as my father howled in agony.

I felt throbbing, aching behind my eyes, thick in my skull. "I...he was wrong," my confession came out more like begging, shivering a final plea into the unforgiving air.

Lane left one hand perched on the hacksaw's handle, blood seeping from my dad's back onto the carpet all the while; with a cock of her neck, she turned to me.

"Lane, they were all wrong. Everything my dad did to you...everything that happened with Glenn...and Marissa...it was dead wrong." Tears were streaming down my face now. "But...you don't have to do this."

Lane shook her head. "You know, you really are just like him." She tightened her grip on the hacksaw blade. "I'd say I feel bad for you, but...well, that's the thing. You don't deserve my sympathy. And neither does anyone in this town."

I felt my teeth chattering together as Lane stared at me with those bright blue eyes as cold and unforgiving as a winter's night. How could such a flawless figure so nearly porcelain in its beauty house such a relentlessly brutal heart?

As Lane Alexandria Martin stood before me, it was almost as though I could feel the heat of her hatred, the blaze of her outrage, exploding forth in a maelstrom of pure execration.

I closed my eyes against the blaring bitterness of it all, just as the spray of pale light fell against my face.

I peeked one eye open, glancing first at Lane and then to the window, the source of the mysterious brightness—

A car?

"HELP!" I was screaming before I'd scarcely had the chance to process what I was seeing. "HELP! HELP! PLEASE HELP!"

Lane left the hacksaw lodged in my dad's back, then turned to the stage and grabbed her pink comb.

"HELP!" I screamed again. "PLEASE! PLEASE HELP M—mmm!"

Lane covered my mouth with one hand, then shoved her comb's pointed teeth into the middle of my throat. Each tip was like the sting of a scorpion, the penetration of coarse metal rods through skin that felt already to be wildly blistering. Liquid strips of blood poured from my neck to my chest, soaking into my shirt as the rawed nerves in my windpipe were forced into spasm.

Just beyond the pain, I heard footsteps, hard-bottom shoes.

Sam? Ahmed?

My throat screamed, and my eyes fell groggy, just as Lane withdrew her hand from the comb stabbed in my neck and resumed her full height before walking back to finish with my father.

"S-S-Salrrr..." I tried to call out to Sam, to whoever was roaming through the church—were they looking for me?—but my words escaped as gargled slurs while blood squirted intermittently, streaking down my body and all along Lane's girlish pink comb.