Page 23 of Apathy
I turned around, following her line of sight. “What?”
She was staring at Megan, at her torso, and as she turned her phone up, I could see exactly what. I didn’t see it before, didn’t notice it, but I couldn’t move my eyes from the spot now.
My name was carved into her chest.
Skylar
The police sirens echoed around us, as I sat shivering in the paramedics’ ambulance, trying to grasp what I saw. Lauren was next to me. We huddled together underneath the blanket one of the paramedics placed on us, but it did nothing for the shivers both of us had coursing through our bodies. I couldn’t look at my hands, keeping them under my legs, because I knew I would see the blood.
My blood, from the cut, mixed with hers.
Her cold eyes kept flashing in front of me. My name carved on her skin, her hair, the same color as mine… Jesus fucking Christ, who did this?
Neither one of us said a word after the police arrived. After we saw my name on Megan’s skin, the adrenaline kicked in, and we went up the hill almost running, trying to get away from the gruesome scene we witnessed. She’s been missing for seven days, but according to the policemen I overheard talking, she was dead for less than twenty-four hours.
Apparently, that explained the amount of blood on her and the lack of bugs eating at her flesh.
Who fucking did this?
That one question kept coursing through my head.
Winworth was many things, but it wasn’t a home to killers, especially not serial killers. And who would carve my name? Why?
“The second victim,” one paramedic whispered to the other when they thought we weren’t listening.
The second victim. I couldn’t comprehend how someone could do something like this to another person. I saw enough documentaries, enough horror movies, enough pain and sorrow, not to be fazed by these things, and yet when my hands touched her cold ones, I recoiled.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to run away. The fear that I felt in that moment was greater than anything else I had ever felt in my life. It was slithering, like a snake in the grass. It crawled up my spine and took residence in my head, refusing to leave. Its cold fingers touched every part of my body—they touched my soul, spreading the festering darkness throughout.
Fear was a familiar thing for me. I grew up surrounded by evil, but seeing it like this… Unhinged, left loose, it woke something primal in me—the need to run and never look back. Whoever did this was not in their right mind.
And my name… My name was there. Somebody hurt her. No, somebody killed her and carved my name on her pale skin.
My stomach lurched again as her face flashed before my eyes, the utter terror obvious on her. The violence that wrecked her, that took away her life, it couldn’t have been inflicted by anything else but a monster.
I’d always believed that there was always something good left in people. That there were parts of them you could love, parts you could cherish. But whoever had done this, they were the worst kind of monster.
Even animals wouldn’t attack unless they were in danger. Even the biggest predators roaming our planet wouldn’t attack for the fun of it.
But people… Us, human beings, we were the worst monsters.
We fed on the weaknesses of others. We took and took and took until there was nothing else left to take; until we sated the dark desires coating our insides, turning us into something vicious.
Something evil.
The monster that caused this malevolence—I couldn’t call them a person anymore—they terrified me. It scared the living shit out of me, knowing that there were people out there who could do such a thing. This brought back what happened to Zane, and I couldn’t help but think that all of this was connected. That somehow what happened to him, whoever happened to him, was now killing other people.
“Are you girls okay?” A masculine voice tore through the thoughts occupying my mind, and as I looked up, I noticed that it was one of the first officers who came to the scene.
“We just found a corpse with my name on her body, Officer. You tell me. Are we supposed to be feeling okay?”
I was bitter, cold, chilled to the bones from what I encountered, and he asked us if we were okay.
No, I wasn’t okay. I was angry. I was devastated by this whole ordeal and the only thing I wanted to do was to get home and sleep for a year. But I had a feeling that every time I closed my eyes, her face would flash before them, and the peace I yearned for would never come.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Blackwood. I can’t even imagine how hard this must be for you.”
