And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Five
Our hearts are small and ever thinning
There is no hope ever of winning
So why fear death?
Be scared of living
Curled against the window of yet another Greyhound bus, Jess had her head resting on the glass, pillowed by a balled up sweatshirt. They had pulled up the armrest between them, and Meg actually was curled into her, head resting on the other’s chest as she sat, eyes half closed. Running her fingers through the other’s short blond hair, Jess murmured, “I feel sorry for him.”
“For who?” Meg murmured, one of her loosely curled hands resting on lowest rib of the other’s ribcage.
“For the brother,” she glanced down at the other woman, brushing her bangs off her forehead. “The Brooks, Robert, remember?”
“Mmm, yeah.”
They’d fled back to the historical society after leaving the house that night, and an investigation of the family with a greater understanding of what to look for let them find the real story. In 1912, a year before the deaths, the two brothers had both been living in the house with their families and their aged mother. When she died towards the end of the year, everyone in the family had been shocked that she had left the house to just one son, instead of both. And then, in an even bigger shocker, Andrew had unceremoniously kicked his brother and his family out of the house. The official reports got a little fuzzy then, but exactly a year to the day that Robert had been expelled from the home he’d spent his whole life in, Edward, his wife, and his two children were found dead in their sitting room.
It didn’t take a genius to realize that Robert had something to do with it, and his ghost’s clinging to the house made even more sense when they found the newspaper article about his death. Two weeks after his brother’s death, Robert fell off a roof while working on replacing shingles. Two days before his family moved back into the Brook family home.
They’d found his grave in the local graveyard after finding that information, digging him up, salting him, and lighting him up.
Jess had been right.
Digging a grave with two people was a hell of a lot easier than digging the grave with one person. Two people made it easier simply through the virtue of having an extra person to hold the flashlight, if nothing else.
“I don’t feel sorry for him.”
“Why not?” Jess blinked, looking down at the other, surprised, fingers hesitating in the other’s hair.
“The guy did what he had to do. He knew what he deserved, so he took it back. Simple enough.”
“He killed his family!”
“But he got what he wanted.”
“No he didn’t,” she shifted, sitting up a little straighter. “He fell off the roof, and didn’t manage to get anything. He killed his family, and got nothing except death for the bargain!”
“His ghost managed to keep the house for almost a century,” Meg shrugged, twisting a little so that she was still leaning on the other woman’s chest, but with her back to her. Toying with the strings of her hood - Jess’ sweater, that is, that she happened to be wearing - she grinned. “So I don’t feel sorry for him in the slightest.”
“…you have a sort of weird way of looking at things,” she murmured, quietly, still fussing with the other’s hair.
“I guess so,” she shrugged, still smirking. “It works, though.”
“Yeah,” Jess glanced out the window again, frowning slightly. “So, ah… where are we going? Do we know yet? I mean, I know where the bus is going, but…”
“Yeah, remember, the werewolf in New Haven.”
“Right,” she murmured, eyes flicking to the other passengers on the bus, a little worried that others might have overheard them. While she was willing to accept that she and Meg were hunting supernatural creatures and going out doing something to stop them, she still kept thinking that someone was going to realize it and freak out on them. Yet no one ever really seemed to notice. No one cared, even if they did hear.
“Humans are stupid,” Meg said, suddenly.
Jess blinked, looking down at the other woman. “Huh?”
“Humans are stupid. You’re looking at all these people on the bus wondering when someone is going to catch onto the fact that you hunt things that want to kill them. But they’re stupid, they don’t care. Even if you were to run in to save their very life, they wouldn’t care.”
“That’s not true…” she murmured.
“Watch,” Meg shifted, and stood up, then hollered, “Ladies and Gentlemen… listen up. My girl Jess and I here, we are going out to hunt a werewolf in New Haven, Connecticut.”
A few people blinked at her, and a lot of them muttered in amongst themselves, but no one said anything.
Meg flopped back into her seat, leaning back against Jess with an almost evil snicker. “See?”
“You are insane!” Jess hissed.
“Heh, maybe,” she snickered, stretching, tilting her head back to grin up at the other woman. “But I proved my point. Humans are stupid. Blind little sheep, following each other over the edge of the cliff to their own deaths. Individual humans can be brilliant, but the moment you put them in a group, they lose their minds and turn into blathering followers.”
“Are you suggesting people as a group aren’t worth saving?” she frowned.
“Of course not.” She stretched. “Humans are fascinating. The world would be a terribly boring place if they were gone.”
Jess snorted, shaking her head.
----
You're holding my hand but you don't understand
So where I am going, you won't be in the end
“This is the stupidest idea we have ever had.”
“Pansy,” Meg drawled, smirking slightly. She tugged the clip out of the gun she was holding, considering the ammo, then slammed it back in.
“Guns?! I don’t know to shoot guns!” she hissed, flushed.
“That’s why we’re in a shooting range, darling,” Meg drawled, fixing her goggles, then lifting the heavy headphones from around her neck, hesitating. “Aren’t you going to put yours on? You know, to prevent the hearing damage?”
Jess hesitated, but did slowly lift the headset, setting it on, fitting it carefully over her ears.
Smirking slightly, the other woman fell into the proper stance, and fired ten rounds in quick succession. The gun snapped up slightly with each shot, and Jess winced with every one, even though she was wearing the headphones and the sound was muffled.
Setting the gun down on the little ledge, Meg pressed the button to make the target move towards them, and grinned. “Check it out.”
“Pretty good,” Jess murmured, considering the outline of a person, with bullet holes through the paper in both the head and the chest. “Wow, you really are pretty good at this.”
“Toldja I was. Your turn.”
She swallowed, considering the silver gun that she had been holding, swallowing. “Are you sure?”
“You’re not afraid of it, are you?”
“I am not afraid of it,” she muttered. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just a gun. For pete’s sake, I’ve done a whole pile of self defense courses, I’m not stupid. It’s just… I’ve never really shot a - what is it?”
“Handgun,” Meg drawled, leaning on the barrier between them and the range.
“I know that it’s a handgun, what exactly is it?” Jess rolled her eyes.
“A .38 special.” She smirked, considering her with a grin. “It’s often referred to as a lady’s gun, though I can’t imagine why… the thing is pretty friggin’ big, and it’s got a good recoil to it, but it’s easy to load, and in terms of grip, I think it’s great for your hand size. Just remember, when you shoot, not to brace yours arms too hard. People think they need to lock their elbows, but if you do, that’s going to make your arms go flying up. Keep your elbows bent just a little, and absorb the recoil, okay?”
Jess nodded, swallowing. “I can do that.”
“Good. Now, you remember how I told you to stand, to hold the gun, to aim, right?”
She nodded, swallowing again.
“Just do it, okay?”
“Yes, of course,” she nodded, and shifted forward, standing where Meg indicated, aiming carefully. The other woman rested her hand on Jess’ lower back, holding her carefully in place, almost a comforting thing. It certainly managed to give her strength, and she took a deep breath, aiming carefully along the length of the gun, and fired at the black and white silhouette at the back of the range.
The .38 special recoiled like a son of a bitch, and Jess gasped, startled. She could feel it in her palms, up her arms, in her shoulders.
“Nice,” Meg murmured, fingernails scratching softly at the other woman’s lower back through her t-shirt. “You didn’t miss by much, either. Go on, take another shot, you’ve got five more.”
Nodding, Jess took another shot, then another.
With each progressive shot, it got easier to do, and actually felt better to do, as well, until by the sixth shot, she felt downright confident and secure in her shots. The cartridge spent, she set the gun down on the little ledge, surprised to find that she was panting softly, and watched as the other pulled her silhouette target up so that she could see.
“You missed outright with one,” Meg considered the outline. “One outside the body, three in the body, and one in the head! Nicely done!”
“Considering it’s my first time,” she murmured, shivering.
“…shooting a gun get you all hot and ready?” the other drawled, looking up at Jess with a pleased smirk.
“Of course not,” she panted.
“Heh…” the shorter woman snickered, and picked up Jess’ gun, and handed it back to her. “Reload. Remember, this has to be like second nature to you, by the time we’re done. You have to be able to practically do it in your sleep.”
Jess nodded, and took several bullets from the little cardboard box they’d brought with them, clumsily sliding them into place.
----
There’s an art in seclusion, production in depression
If a stranger turns up missing, this song is my confession
Jess liked hunting with a partner. Together, they slipped through the streets, though her partner was smaller than her, and it was easier for the other woman to duck under fire escapes and between narrow spaces, behind dumpsters and through crowds of people. They were looping together, around the area where the last sighting of the unnaturally large and people friendly wolf had been reported. There had been close to a dozen sightings of the wolf, which made them think that the human that shift once a month into this beast lived in the area.
There was a clatter further up the block, metal garbage cans toppling over, and Jess tugged her cell phone out of her pocket, flicking to her address book, and dialing.
A moment later, Meg’s voice came over the phone. “I heard it too.”
“Loop around, we’ll pin it in,” Jess murmured, already hurrying towards the source of the sound, her trainers pounding on the pavement as she did, flicking the cell back closed and shoving it in her pocket as she sped up, hands free now. She could feel the gun in the back of her jeans, heavy against her skin, tucked between the belt and the fabric of her pants, and wasn’t sure she was confident enough in her ability to actually grab it.
The shorter blond came around the corner at the end of the block, and nodded when she saw Jess, holding up her gun so that the street lights glinted off the dark metal.
Swallowing, Jess nodded, and tugged her own gun out, terrified to use it.
There was another clatter of cans, then a soft mewling cry, like a cat trapped in a box, and Jess sped up, alarmed. It was against the plan - which was to move in slowly and together so that they could pin the thing and shoot it - but the sound reminded her of something she’d heard once when she was visiting her grandmother in the hospital once - a baby who had been sick, and the nurses were moving the bassinet from the mother’s room to the intensive care ward for children. It had let out a mewl just like that.
Her speed startled the thing they were searching for - which was a massive, silver furred wolf. Its head snapped up when she approached, lips curled back to bare its bloody teeth.
The mewl, as she was able to see the moment she saw the scene, was not from a baby in a bassinet like she remembered the sound, but rather from a man, lying limply on the pavement, chest rising and falling rapidly, eyes dull and blank. His throat had been mostly torn open, meaning that he was making gasping, sucking sounds as he breathed, the sound almost like a weak cry.
“Jess, you idiot, shoot it!”
Her eyes snapped up to Meg for a moment, distracted from the bloody mess, and the wolf bolted forward, those massive bloody jaws open and hungry as it leapt at Jess.
She fired, having no idea whether or not she’d managed to hit it, though she heard a cry of pain - more feminine than canine. Wincing at her terrible attempt, she shifted the gun again, and fired, the muzzle flaring as another bullet left the gun - but this one struck the chest of the charging wolf, and it let out a yelp of pain, listing to the side.
Meg’s gun barked in the silence, then the wolf cried out again, sagging slightly to the pavement. “Kill it!”
Jess bolted towards the massive wolf, which had half fallen onto its side, looking up at her with intelligent eyes. As it lay there, she could see how this massive thing was usually human, with a normal life, who behaved as a normal person would.
She hesitated.
“Kill it, you idiot, kill it before it kills you!” Meg screamed.
Started from her hesitation, Jess looked up at the other woman, heart clenching.
The werewolf hauled itself up from the pavement, and leapt up at Jess, teeth bared, determined to rip her apart as it had its victim. A strange sort of cold shifted over her, like she’d been plunged into ice water, and time seemed to slow. The wolf was still rising, hind legs crouched tightly with the power of adrenaline coursing through them. The front paws of the werewolf weren’t entirely like a real wolves paws, but instead more like a furry version of human hands, with long vicious black claws instead of nails, stretching out as it reached towards her, trying to rip into her.
Jess howled, and fired into the massive beast’s face, shot after shot going off in the minimal space between them, one striking it just above the eye, one in its mouth, one in the throat.
With a sort of sick sound, like a sack of flesh and bones instead of an actual animal, it crunched to the asphalt, head thumping onto the ground, tongue lolling out of its open mouth. She hesitated, ice water still running through her veins, and when the other woman shouted for her to separate the head from the heart, she crouched, jerking her new hunting knife out of its sleek black leather holster that was strapped to her right calf.
Grabbing a fistful of fur between the beast’s pointed ears, she jerked it up, easily able to ignore the fading intelligent look in its eyes this time as she slashed the blade across the neck, twice, until she actually tossed the head aside.
Panting, she hesitated, blood dripping off her blade, more gore splattered across her chest as she watched the body shift and change. What had been a wolf a moment before was now a beautiful young woman, naked, long black hair matted with blood as it lay yards from her own body, which twitched a few times before going still.
The alley was silent for a moment, then a gun went off again, and Jess looked up sharply.
Meg was standing over the man that had been ripped apart by the wolf, her gun in her hand and still pointed at the head of the now very dead man, with the bullet hole in his forehead.
“You shot him,” Jess gasped, still crouched on the ground.
“Mercy kill,” the other woman smirked, and tucked the gun back into the back of her jeans again.
“He could have lived!”
“Sure, he could have.” She nodded, considering Jess. There was blood covering Meg’s left arm and the left side of her chest. “And then he would have shifted into a wolf next month, and we would have had to come back to kill another werewolf. I say again. Mercy kill.”
Jess stood, slowly, her knife still tightly gripped in her hand. “You’re bleeding.”
“Hm?” the other blinked, then glanced at her shoulder. “You mean this? Naw, that was her. When you shot the wolf, she kind of managed to spray me with blood.”
“Oh.” She murmured. It looked more like Meg had been shot, but she couldn’t imagine the other lying about that.
“C’mon.” the shorter woman held out her hand. “We need to go, before someone calls the cops on us and we end up in jail for a double homicide. Come on Jess, we need to go. We need to get cleaned up.”
The taller woman nodded, panting, and took Meg’s hand, following her willingly.
----
What you get is what you see
It won’t take much to get hooked on me
So shoot me right into your skin
And I will be your heroin
The hotel they were staying in had a small shower, and though Jess wished they had a big tub instead of a stand up shower, at least it had steamy hot water, and she stood under the pouring water, head leaning back against the back of the shower wall, eyes closed.
She was beginning to get a little freaked out by the adrenaline that seemed to pour through her veins every time she got close to killing something. It was worrying her. It wasn’t exactly normal for a person to feel cold and on edge whenever something tried to hurt her, was it? But it wasn’t like the cold shiver that swept over her hurt. It felt good, probably better than it should, like she had regained some sharp piece of power that she had been denied somehow. The weirdest thing was, Jess had no idea when she had ever been denied of power.
The only thing she knew was that the power she felt when she was hunting was as different from her fiery memories of hell as it could possibly be.
Jess jumped when the frosted glass shower door slid open, and she looked up, sharply.
Meg slipped into the little shower stall, grinning as she ducked under the hot water, closing the door behind her. She was as naked as Jess, but rather more shameless about it, as she pressed into the other woman, pinning Jess to the wall. “Hi.”
“….hi.” Jess blinked, surprised. “What are you doing?”
“Feeling amazing,” she smirked, splaying her fingers across Jess’ stomach, smoothing her hands across her skin. “This hunting thing… gets my blood pumping, gets my heart pounding, makes me feel amazing. So I thought maybe I’d come make sure you feel amazing too.”
She smirked, and reached up to brush the short blond bangs off the other’s forehead. “And here I thought you were waiting.”
“Fuck waiting,” Meg smirked.
“Not the reaction I really expected from you,” she laughed softly, flushed. “Are you in the mood for something particular?”
“Oh yes,” Meg drawled. “Most definitely.”
“Yeah?” Jess laughed, but leaned closer to her, to kiss her.
The other’s fingertips stopped her, soft hands pressed against her lips. “None of that,” she murmured. “I’m saving that for later. For something special.”
She hesitated. “Then… what do you want?”
“Naked fun times,” she drawled. “But no kissing. Kissing is for something special.”
“…you want me, but you don’t want to kiss me,” Jess said, slowly, frowning at her. “What am I, your little paid whore?”
“You are not little, I don’t plan on paying you… and believe me, you’re going to like it,” Meg may not have wanted to kiss Jess properly, but she did pepper kisses along the taller woman’s collarbone, her hands shifting down to rest her thumbs in the hollows of Jess’ hips, rubbing at the sharp edges of her hips with the pads of her thumbs.
“What, you’re my very own Pretty Woman, then?”
“I am pretty, actually,” she blinked.
“No, I mean… Pretty Woman… you know, the old movie from the nineties… Richard whatsiface and Julia Roberts?” She faltered. “She’s a prostitute and he’s a super rich man who wants to hire a date for this big event coming up, and they fall in love and everything, but she’s all… I will do anything kinky you want, but I won’t kiss you and they finally kiss later and it’s a big deal. How can you have not seen that movie? Everyone’s seen that movie!”
Meg shrugged. “I don’t see every movie in the world.”
“Well, yeah, but… it’s one of those classics, you know?” she flushed. “It’s exactly like that.”
“Trust me,” she drawled. “It’s not exactly like that.”
Jess hesitated, breath catching slightly. “I dunno, Meg. Maybe it’s not a good idea right now…”
“It’s a great idea,” Meg drawled, sliding her thigh between Jess’, and rocking mischievously against her. “Believe me, Jess, in a few minutes, I can make you forget that you ever reconsidered this.”
“You say that now, but you might just be wrong,” she smirked faintly.
“What… you need a deep loving commitment before you get orgasms?” the shorter woman drawled. “What, you’re married to your fingers?”
Jess snorted. “I never said that.”
“Then stop making silly complaints, and let me touch you in naughty places,” she smirked, fingers sliding lower. “Yes?”
“I guess,” she murmured.
“Good,” Meg nodded, slipping her fingertips between the other’s lips, sucking on Jess’ collarbone as she teasingly clipped her clitoris with her fingernail, grinning against the other’s skin when the taller woman bucked slightly.
Jess knew better. She knew she should probably point out that this was stupid, especially since Meg was clearly just in it for the mindless pointless sex - well, not that sex was pointless, there was always a point, but pointless in terms of a long term point - and didn’t even want to kiss her. But on the other hand, Jess hadn’t lied to Meg when she told her she was the only solid person, the only one that didn’t feel like a shadow. That, and frankly, she was actually just fine with the idea of mindless pointless sex.
Looping her arms lazily around the other woman’s waist, Jess held her slightly, gasping when one of Meg’s fingers slid slowly into her. “Oh!”
“Liked that, didja?” she smirked, nipping at the other’s collarbone. “I thought you might.”
“I’d have to be a moron to not like it,” she murmured, breath hitching again when Meg curled her finger inside her, fingernails scraping slightly, thumb pressing into her clit. “Shit… Meg… that feels good…”
“I know,” she drawled, smirking crookedly. “I’m damn good at this.”
----
I am the crack of your voice
(Static in the sound)
I am the bias in your choice
(Your lack of common ground)
Jess had slipped away from the motel room in the middle of the night to see if she could find an open coffee place. There was a little coffee shop on the corner of the main street that she found, finally, and soon sat curled in the back corner of the almost circular dining room, sipping at a paper cup of half black coffee, half hot chocolate.
There were no other customers here. It was just her and the two girls behind the counter, working, who were chatting as one baked off the fresh pastries for the morning and the other cleaned everything in sight, which gave her a comforting lull of background noise, making her feel less alone.
Shifting slightly, Jess opened another newspaper, flicking slowly through the pages as she looked for any information. A hunt.
Sighing softly, she leaned back to grind the heels of her hands into her eyes, then jumped, alarmed, when her cell phone rang. Picking it up, she blinked at it, frowning slightly, considering the screen. Unknown Caller, the screen read.
Flicking it open with her thumb, she held it to her ear and said, “Hello?”
“Is this Jess?”
She hesitated, frowning slightly. “….this is.”
“Oh thank god,” the man’s voice said, sighing softly. “I didn’t think I’d be able to get a hold of you… shit.”
“I’m sorry… who are you?” she frowned, still holding the phone tightly, brows furrowed as she considered the voice. She didn’t recognize it, she didn’t know who it was, but she could tell that the man was desperate. “Do I know you?”
“No, sorry, um… a friend of mine gave me your number… my name’s Stuart. Um, my friends… they said you were at the historical society in their town… asking about the Brooks?”
Cold rushed through her insides, and she swallowed. “Huh. Okay.”
“Right, and then… he said… there’s been nothing happening in that house. Nothing. Since you came there, and talked to them and looked around… it’s been gone. I - did you get rid of them?” his voice sounded very small, like he was almost scared about it.
“Why do you ask?” Jess asked tightly, standing, half expecting this to be some freak who was going to start screaming at her for getting rid of the ghosts.
“Because I got a problem,” Stuart said tightly, and she could actually hear his footsteps in the background as he paced while talking to her. “I got a ghost or something… it’s in my house and my… I just… can you help me?”
“I - you’re going to have to tell me more than ‘it’s in my house’.” Jess frowned slightly.
He let out a long, shaky breath. “About six months ago, I moved into a new house. Everything seemed just fine at first, then about a month ago, my wife started… she started acting differently. Weird. I thought maybe it was just the move, but she wasn’t acting like my wife at all, she was acting like some stranger, and it started to freak me out, and then… then I found her doing stuff that made even less sense, and…”
“Stuff,” she repeated.
“She was in the garage,” he hissed. “She had used spray paint to paint this weird symbol on the floor, and she was sitting in the middle of it, with this rabbit in front of her, and she’d killed it and gutted it, and its entrails were all over the floor, and - and she pretended that she didn’t know that she’d done it, but…”
Jess shuddered, closing her eyes for a moment. Gross. “And is that the biggest event? The one that stands out the most?”
“Well… what’s happening now is… is actually freaking me out more.” He whispered.
“Now?” she repeated, frowning.
“I freaked out,” his voice was still trembling. “I went on the internet, and I did a ton of research, and I - I found a whole bunch of information for fighting ghosts and spirits and devils and all sorts of evil things that might come into your house.”
“Yeah, there are a lot of those online,” Jess nodded, quietly. She had stumbled across many of them herself when she’d first started trying to figure out how best to do what she was planning to do.
“Yeah, well… this one had lots of protective symbols, you know? Things to put up to scare things away.”
“Yeah, like the symbol she’d painted?”
“Nothing like that,” Stuart said quickly. “But I did a whole bunch up… I mean… I - I’m not a gung ho ghost hunter type of guy, but I’m not - not really a skeptic either, you know? Like… I believe it’s possible, so I thought… I thought this was the best thing to do.”
“Stuart.” She said firmly, trying to redirect his panicked rambling into something more pointed and more effective. “What happened?”
“Well, there was this one symbol… I hid them all, you see. I didn’t want this ghost thing that was making my wife act like this to see that I was trying to scare it off, I just wanted it to go, so I - I hid all of the symbols I’d painted, and this one was under the big old Persian rug in the living room, and - and…”
“Yes, Stuart? What then?”
He still sounded reluctant to answer the question, and dimly in the background she heard a crash, like something had been knocked over.
“Stuart,” she said sharply, glaring out the windows at the darkness. “What happened?”
“She stepped onto the rug,” he said, slowly, swallowing audibly. “And she hasn’t stepped off since. She can’t. She’s stuck there, like… like it was a mime act or something, and she’s trying to pound on the glass walls of a box, and - I just really don’t know what to do, but it’s starting to really freak me out, and - “ there was another crash. “And she’s getting angrier, and… I don’t know what to do!”
Jess shuddered. “Where are you?”
“Nebraska.” He whispered in the phone, and there was another crash. “Oh god, please, please hurry…”
“I’ll do what I can… give me the address,” Jess scrambled for a pen, scrawling the directions he recited onto a napkin, knuckles white where she gripped the phone. “Okay, don’t do anything to antagonize her, or anything. Just keep an eye on things. Hold her there. Wait. Has her appearance changed? At all?”
Stuart hesitated again.
“I need all details, Stuart, if I’m going to be able to help your wife,” she reminded him, firmly.
He swallowed again, and murmured, “Sometimes. When she gets really angry, or when she slams herself against that invisible wall too much… her eyes…”
“What about her eyes?”
“They kinda… flicker. Like the pupil has gotten too big.” He whispered. “She kinda… her eyes go black. All black. Like no whites or anything, just black.”
That didn’t sound promising in the slightest. Shit. “Okay,” Jess nodded, frowning. “Okay. We’ll see what we can do.”
“Please,” he begged softly, “Hurry. I dunno how much longer I can keep this up…”
“Of course,” Jess nodded, trying to sound soothing, folding up the napkin with his address and shoving it in her pocket. “I’m going to come. Just try to hold things together, okay?”
“Y-yeah. Okay.”
“I’ll see you then.” Jess said, and hung up.
Taking a deep breath, she shook her head, and headed out of the coffee shop to go wake up her - well, whatever it was that Meg was to her - so they could leave.
Part Six
----