The Body

by ~Amberspike-Sama

He sat with his briefcase at his side, his head turned slightly to watch the ascent of the sun as the bus shuddered along the cracked pavement, moving at a snail’s pace with the morning traffic. The deep blue hues of the sky were nearly all faded in the west now, and what was left between the towers and turrets of the eastern city was tinged with a pale pink, just beginning to melt into gold, like the center of a pollen-coated blossom. The brownish tint of the smog hung along the horizon as well, the ever-present pall that had tainted the atmosphere for as long as he could remember. It did not bother him to see its presence in the pastel colors of the rising sun; every citizen had long gotten used to the price of the city’s industry, the gases that dirtied the air and made it somewhat hard to breathe. Air quality came second to jobs, after all, including the one Ned Malevol happened to be traveling out to that morning—a programmer’s station at a local automobile plant; not a very interesting career but one with a tolerable paycheck.

He hadn’t ridden public transportation for years. The reason he had taken a place on one of the city’s rickety old buses was because his car had suffered engine trouble that he was waiting on a mechanics’ shop to fix. He had driven the thing in the previous night when the engine had nearly refused to start, and by the time they were taking to fix it he expected a hefty sum to be demanded from him pretty soon. Ned speculated on how much it would cost as he stared out the bus’ dirt-coated window, his spirits sinking as the sky brightened. Running over different possibilities of what might have broken, the numbers seemed to be getting higher and higher…he would have to forget about those vacation days he’d been planning to take off of work that month; cancel the reservations to that hotel he’d been looking forward to staying at with his girlfriend. Dear Eloise…she wouldn’t appreciate another broken date in addition to the days he’d had to cancel due to his workaholic ways getting in the way.

He closed his eyes, envisioning her normally gentle face overcome by frustrated fury, her unavoidable rants about him never having time for her, even if he did love her with all his soul. She could go from kind and peaceful to violent in a second…and he always seemed to be fueling her anger, to be doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. Sure, the car wasn’t his fault, but she would become livid anyway and cast the guilt onto him with a mixture of threats and pleas. She was like that; and even so he loved her through it, though he shuddered to think of what would happen when she found out their vacation was not meant to be.

He laid back, his troubles running through his mind, becoming so absorbed in his own thoughts that he did not notice the light sniffling near him, hear the inquiry until a hand tapped him on the shoulder, causing him to jump and spin around with a harsher expression than he intended.

A girl stood there, a girl with long brown hair pinned up in a bun and hazel eyes that were streaked with tears behind thin-rimmed glasses. She was dressed in a black blouse and long black skirt, looking as though she were heading for a funeral. She carried no purse; nothing but a notebook under one arm with torn edges of pages poking out of it and a pen tucked inside the bent spiral binding—not an ordinary pen but a calligraphy pen, a sharply pointed thing that had to be loaded with an ink cartridge for one to write with it. Ned stared at the pen, surprised that such things still existed in the modern world, and that the girl bothered using such a primitive instrument at all.

“Excuse me,” she said, her voice quiet and sob-choked. “Can I sit here?”

Ned nodded, and she managed a weak smile as she took a seat next to him. She reached into some pocket hidden in the sweeping folds of her skirt and withdrew a tissue, blowing her nose into it. Feeling Ned’s eyes on her, she turned to meet them, but he glanced back at the window before she could. Though he was curious about the girl, with her funeral garb and obvious grief, he was hardly a tactful speaker…whatever he did, like with Eloise, would most likely upset her further.

Moments passed, Ned keeping his gaze averted, watching the shadowy city buildings inch by. After a time, he heard a faint scratching noise; the sound of the girl using her calligraphy pen. Wondering what she was writing, he moved slightly to peer over at her…

…and read a single sentence that sent a stab of terror through his heart.

It was in sloping, pointed script at the top of a blank page in her notebook, not in quotes as though it were part of a story’s dialogue, but a statement that it seemed the girl had written to herself, short and to the point. It sat there in still-drying ink as the girl put the end of her pen to her lips, appearing deep in thought, unaware of Ned’s horror, the way his mind had instantly labeled her as a murderer.

I hope they don’t find the body.

The rational part of his consciousness cried out to him at once, warning him not to jump to conclusions. But somehow, it seemed to fit all too well…what if the girl was grieving for someone she had killed—perhaps only accidentally, or on purpose? Had she murdered someone and then regretted her actions? Behind her weak, harmless demeanor, was she really…?

Her head turned. Ned whipped around, but he was sure she had seen him looking at what she had written, her declaration of guilt. His pulse quickened as he waited for her to speak, to threaten him not to tell a living soul, or else…

“Something wrong?”

Her voice was innocent, troubled. Had she not seen him after all? Or was she just playing the part of confusion at the way he had stiffened and turned from her so quickly, in order to catch him off guard?

Don’t let your overactive imagination run off with you, Ned, he warned himself. You’re getting scared over nothing. She’s probably just a writer; writing from the viewpoint of one of her characters or something…not from her own thoughts.

“I’m fine,” he told her sternly. She gave a sniffle in reply, blew her nose once more and continued writing, the scritch-scratching of her pen mingling with the light chatter of the bus’ occupants.

Ned folded and unfolded his hands, feeling nervous and wholly distrustful of the person sitting next to him. There was something deep inside him that had filled his senses with dread as soon as he had read the seven words the girl had written, something that his reasonable mind could not suppress. Something like instinct had surfaced, a deep-rooted apprehension that seemed innate and primordial, an intuition that had been hard-wired into his brain. Though he told himself that the odds she was a murderer were very low, his emotions spoke otherwise, and more loudly than his rationale. He wanted nothing more than to be as far away from the girl as possible, and he itched to jump to his feet and run to the front of the bus, demanding to be let out—Ned Malevol, a practical-minded, middle-aged programmer, wanting to run from an unhappy girl that looked to him to be little older than twenty.

An awareness of the other members of society on the bus kept him in his seat, however. The last thing he wished to do was to draw too much attention to himself; to let the girl know he had seen her writing, if she wasn’t aware of that fact already. He focused his attention on the bus’ movements, his heartbeat slowing and quickening with each advance and pause along the traffic-choked street, willing the cars ahead to keep moving. The seconds ticked by with agonizing sluggishness, Ned watching and hoping, the scratching of that pointed calligraphy pen torment to his ears.

He thought of Eloise. She would most likely laugh if she knew of his situation; if anything, his anxiousness would be pleasing to her, the knowledge that he feared a weeping, vulnerable, weak-looking girl, the kind who all too easily turned the hearts of men with her pitiful lamentation. Eloise’s unpredictability included fits of jealousy, accusations of him loving another spawned from the mere sight of him being near another woman. Her paranoia took repeated explanation and plenty of time to dissolve, and though it wore Ned’s patience thin, he had never shown anger towards her. He chalked up her protectiveness to true devotion and left it at that; unwilling to think otherwise and risk seeing her gentle face contort in fury.

Ned’s reflecting turned back to the subject of the girl. He wondered whether he should sneak a peek at her notebook again, just to see if he could catch a few lines that confirmed that she had committed a murder—confirmed the truth of his instincts. She had moved onto another page, though, and held the book at a different angle, one that concealed her writing from him and that made it so he’d have to bend close to her shoulder to read. He doubted that it would aid him emotionally to try a second look, either…if anything, he’d most likely frighten himself more.

After what seemed like an eternity’s wait, the bus finally pulled to a stop a few blocks from where Ned worked. A few passengers filtered out, and though he knew he would have a bit of walking to do, Ned got up as well. He pushed by the girl, mumbling a hasty “excuse me” as he bumped that confessional notebook of hers, causing her pen to shake. She gave a light gasp of surprise behind him, but he ignored her, not wanting any more to do with someone that scared him so much. He bolted out through the bus’ doors and onto the sidewalk, panting in relief only when the vehicle had sped off, leaving him safe and out of harm’s way.

“Looks like we’re going the same way today,” a female voice remarked.

Ned’s blood froze in his veins. He spun around, meeting the girl’s tearful eyes, her trembling, ever-so-innocent smile. She stood there as if her following him was such a funny coincidence, an odd occurrence indeed—but Ned knew it not to be happenstance; that the wicked point of her pen could be used for more than just writing. Somehow, she’d managed to leave with him when he’d been sure she had been still sitting there, recording her deeds—but now she must be done repenting her sins; now was the time to act. He had seen her admit to her crime, and she could surely not let him walk free; he was a threat to her, and therefore too dangerous of a person to continue walking the Earth. She must wipe him off the face of it…

“No…no…” Ned moaned, backing away. The girl cocked her head inquisitively, and the hand in which she held the pen began to rise.

He broke into a run, sprinting down the street away from her, his heart pounding in his ears.
Her footsteps pounded on the pavement in pursuit. In the midst of his terror, Ned wondered vaguely what people might think, watching him bolt like a madman away from a girl armed with a notebook and a calligraphy pen. He did not ponder the thought for long, though, as mindless, animal fear had dissolved his sense of reason; instinct kept his feet moving as fast as they could take him. He ran like a rabbit from dogs, a lizard from a hungry bird—prey from a predator, desiring only to leave his hunter far behind.

Soon, a windowless, sprawling building appeared up ahead; the automobile plant that was Ned’s employer. His breath coming in wheezing gasps, he turned the corner, crossed the street and ducked into a narrow alleyway between the plant and the brick wall of a textile factory that stood beside it. He flattened himself against the wall in the stinking half-darkness and stared out at the rushing traffic he had managed to dodge at a stop sign nearby, waiting for the girl to come after him.

She did not appear. He laughed, a hyena-like, inhuman sound, grateful for having lost her in the chase.

Then cold steel touched his throat, and his eyes widened in renewed horror.

“Think I wouldn’t have seen you? Seen you playing with that pretty little thing?”

Ned swallowed hard. “Eloise…”

“I saw you running with her; that big grin on her face. Don’t deny it.”

Grin? The girl who had been sobbing on the bus while she wrote…she’d been grinning as she chased him?

“Eloise, no,” whispered Ned. “She—”

“I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses!” Eloise hissed, tightening her grip on the knife. Her scraggly, unkempt hair brushed his cheek, and her ragged breath came in long, shuddering puffs, entangled with dangerous emotion.

“You unfaithful jerk…”

Ned opened his mouth to respond, but the blade prevented him from forming any words. For the first time, he began to realize that Eloise’s infernal envy was not devotion, but something far deeper, far darker. He realized that she was the one he should have been running from, that everything he had done that had invoked her fury, every action he had considered a mistake, had not quite been his fault after all—his biggest mistake had been loving her in the first place. He had neglected to see the warnings, the darkness that lay inside her, and now it was too late to turn back. There was nowhere left to run.

He thought of the girl, of her tears and her writing, and somehow, through the insanity of it all, he began to understand. Somehow, somehow, he saw the girl in relation to him and Eloise, and knew who that black-clad devil had killed.

Ned burst into laughter, mocking fate, scoffing in the face of his manipulator. Incredulous and insulted as to how he could find humor in his situation, Eloise pulled her hand back viciously and plunged her former boyfriend into darkness.


* * *


The girl strode down the sidewalk, notebook and pen in hand, her skirt billowing out behind her in the wind-trails left by passing cars. Glancing around carelessly as she made her way to the alleyway, she wiped the salty remains of dried tears from her eyes and straightened her glasses. Her remorse had left her now; she was filled with only a feeling of satisfaction, that of a job completed.

She stopped at where the alley met the street and peered down it. In the shadows, Eloise was removing her bloodstained rubber gloves and shaking off her coat, next to a convenient dumpster that held her knife and the prone form that had once been Ned. The girl watched as Eloise tossed the coat and gloves into the dumpster, withdrew a tissue from her pocket and wiped some of the crimson wetness from her face, cleaning up all signs of her murder. For an insane woman, Eloise certainly was pretty thorough. The girl watched in mild interest as Eloise finished up and slammed the top of the dumpster down, smoothing her hair with one slightly red-stained palm.

“I hope they don’t find the body,” the woman muttered, examining the alleyway one last time. Though her gaze settled on where the girl stood for a moment or two, Eloise showed no reaction to the sight of her watcher, as though the girl wasn’t even there. She retreated back into the darkness to where the side entrance to the plant stood, granting her entry back into the normalities of life.

The girl opened her notebook and read some of the writing there with a smile.

“Sad,” she said. “Always so sad to kill off characters like that…but the crazed girlfriend plotline was just too interesting to resist.”

She jotted down a few last words, then slid her pen into the spiral binding of the notebook, tucking the book under her arm. Still smiling, she turned from the alleyway and resumed her stroll along the street. The sun was shining strong from behind the smog’s brown haze, and the cool air brushed her cheeks in gentle tendrils, bearing the promises of spring.

It’s a fine day for a walk, she thought. A fine day indeed.