Scary
Black Clothes
by
Alex Severin
The young woman, dressed as usual all in black looked up; she
could see him again, that weirdo behind his big ugly tulip
printed drapes; she hated tulips. Curtain twitcher.
Nosy bastard.
The man behind the flowery curtains looked out of his window;
there she was, that vampire witch bitch thing, flaunting herself
in front of him again, always tormenting him. He knew she
could read his thoughts. He knew she knew how afraid he was
of her and her kind, he could feel her probing into his brain
with her icy fingers of telepathy, teasing and caressing his gray
matter, poking and nipping and scratching at his mind with her
long black fingernails.
'Fucking bitch!' he screamed from the edge of the musty
curtains, stained and yellowing from years of sun exposure and
cigarette smoke.
The woman in black gave a little laugh. What a nutter!
Why did he always shout shit like that at her? She'd never
even met him. Must be care in the community or something,
she thought.
'Never see her through the day do you? No, never.
Bloodsucking witch! Creature of the night! Devil's
whore!' He ranted to the inside of his flat, nodding his
head and agreeing with himself.
The couple in the upper flat next door slowly turned to each
other and raised their eyebrows. Not the most
encouraging of words to hear from your next door neighbour on the
day you move in.
Inside the house was dimly lit; Babelesque towers of books and
magazines reached up toward heaven; books about witchcraft,
demonology, black magic, books about the saints and martyrs and
God and the Devil; rows and rows of shelves with pregnant bellies
lined the walls. Everything was covered in a thick layer of
powdery white dust; nobody had cleaned up in here for years.
The flat smelled like an old man; one of those dirty bastards
that try to rub themselves up against you while they play with
the loose change in their pockets; it stank of being unwashed,
reeked of cheep booze and dirty hair.
The air was heavy with the scent of his fear.
Just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean they're not out to
get you.
He felt safe in the brightly lit chain D.I.Y store; he took
comfort in the hoards of people choosing wall paper and kitchen
tiles, holding swatches of their new carpet against the little
square or circle on the front of paint cans, squinting at it,
could they get away with that? Yeah, looks OK.
Husbands and boyfriends wincing inwardly because it's just too
pink for him to feel comfortable sitting in front of the TV
watching the match with his mates sucking on beer cans like
greedy babies at a giant milky tit. Too pink, man.
He made his way to the wood section and picked out two lengths of
dowel,
half an inch in diameter. He also purchased a heavy duty
craft knife, a spare pack of blades and an axe.
The man sat in the dim glow; the light like the hazy and fading
sight from an old rheumy eye, fuzzy and distorted, haloed.
His shadow cast long on the wall like the Grim Reaper peering
over his shoulder, aping his position as he sawed the lengths of
dowel and whittled the ends into sharp points.
The woman in black would enjoy tonight - Halloween, her favourite
night of the year. She donned the new long, black dress she'd
bought for the occasion form a little antique clothes shop that
nested down a dark side street in the city. The plush black
velvet was so sensuous to the touch; she rubbed the sleeve
lightly over her lips as if she were tasting the sweetness of a
cherry brandy, or the virtue in a virgin's blood.
She stood in front of the mirror and admired the swell of her
ample bosom as it strained against the laces on the bodice of her
dress.
She sat down at her dressing table and rummaged around in one of
the carrier bags she had brought home from town. She took
out the new lipstick she had purchased especially for tonight and
laughed out loud as she once again saw the name of the shade of
red on the little round sticker on the end of the casing - 'Dracula's
Kiss'. She luxuriated in applying the lipstick, lingered at
her Cupid's bow, manoeuvred it up and down, up and down.
When she was done with her make up she put in her new joke fangs,
good quality ones, hissed dramatically into the mirror and
collapsed in fits of laughter onto her bed. 'Sooooo cool!'
She giggled.
She was ready; tonight was gonna be a blast! She'd give him
something to
remember and be at the best Transylvanian party in history; the
joint effort of the six largest vampire societies, clubs and
organisations in Europe; this party had been planned for years.
She practised her hiss for him a few more times from behind her
plastic fangs. She looked skyward and said aloud; 'Please,
please let that old fucker be sitting there tonight.'
He wasn't sat in his usual spot, peering from behind trembling
curtains. He waited in the darkness around the side of his
building, peeking over the top of the tall hedge every few
seconds, dodging to the left and to the right, his head bobbing,
bobbing, bobbing.
>From across the street she could see that he wasn't there;
her face slackened in disappointment.
The new couple next door kept looking over at the open window;
Josie got up and went to it; the rustling noise was driving her
mad - she had to see what it was. 'What's up, darling?'
Bill asked her and joined her at the window.
'It's that noise. Do you hear it? It's driving me
barmy!' Bill nodded; he'd been hearing it for about twenty
minutes.
They smiled as they saw the young woman in fancy dress striding
along the street, then masked their faces in horror as their next
door neighbour ran,
screaming, form the behind the hedge and rammed a fistful of
fresh stakes
into the woman in black's back.
Her eyes bulged and her mouth opened so wide that 'Dracula's Kiss'
bled into the tiny cracks that opened up on her lips.
She didn't utter a sound. She watched in silence as another
spike appeared through the front of her body, the once pale wood
glistened with the wet blackness of blood in the moonlight.
She bowed her head and sank to her knees like the Page of Swords.
As she hit the ground the plastic fangs fell from her mouth into
the growing pool of her own blood.
The new next door neighbours stood in silence, mouths agape, the
young woman shaking her head over and over, disbelieving what she
was seeing. The expression on her face and the hysteria
behind her eyes told Bill that this was the only thing she would
ever see again, in the daylight and in the night, in her waking
hours, in her sleep and in her dreams, especially in her dreams.
The old man looked down at the body of his nemesis; he smiled.
He kneeled down beside her, her blood soaking him through to the
skin; he stiffened at the cold stickiness and winced at the heat
of the blood coming from the wounds. He whispered a prayer
over her and placed a rosary in her hand.
He wielded the axe and brought it down on her neck; her head didn't
nearly come off; it nodded back and forth on strings of sinew and
nerves like a macabre marionette.
A mad little sound found its way up his throat as he pulled at
her head and began roaring, panic shredding his vocal chords.
'Its got to come right off! It's got to come right off!'
He fumbled frantically in his pockets for his cloves of garlic
and rammed them into her mouth.
The girl in the scary black clothes spat them out. 'You
missed my heart, asshole.'
