...comes around

Mac and Amy stared stupidly at the body laying gracelessly on the kitchen floor between them. Deep crimson flowed like heated syrup from the misshapen hole in the back of the woman’s head. The spreading pool of blood sizzled angrily as it contacted and surrounded the upturned skillet and the scattered bits of garlic and fried cauliflower littered around the corpse like baby’s breath in some deranged floral arrangement. A small bit of skin and an accompanying tuft of sandy blonde hair still clung to the edge of the table where the killing impact had occurred.

Mac’s bloodshot gaze shifted slowly to Amy and hesitated sluggishly before registering his own surprise.

“The fuck er you doin here?” he slurred in a startled squeak. Amy’s eyes met Mac’s, a deep crease forming between them as her mind raced to clear the fog of confusion surrounding what she was seeing. “I azzed you somthin," he continued drunkenly, remembering his anger. Angry was a default condition for Mac, as was careless inebriation. Amy did not reply. Years of experience with Mac had taught her it was pointless to engage. It only ever ended one way, regardless. It was Mac’s way or the mother-fuckin’ highway!

She willed time to slow in an effort to match her own paralysis as she took in the scene. She could not recall, exactly, when she entered the kitchen or why. She leaped back gingerly as Mac suddenly lunged across the body toward her menacingly.

“Go-dammit, you fuckin’,” he growled as he lifted a heavy black work boot to step over the body, one meaty calloused hand extending ominously toward Amy. In his drunken and uncoordinated condition, he misjudged, and the toe of his scuffed boot caught on the back of the dead woman’s dress and he tumbled forward, landing with a unceremonious splash in the expanding gore. His stubby legs became tangled under one of the woman’s arms as he tried to right himself and the body flopped over halfway onto its back. The dress was now mostly gathered haphazardly around the woman’s waist, exposing pale and badly bruised thighs crowned by light blue panties.

Amy inhaled sharply in recognition, looking at the upended form and the now visible face, covered as it was in blood. Some shadow of reason in Mac’s stupefied mind caused him to look back and forth almost apologetically between Amy and the corpse. He hurriedly and clumsily reached down and tugged the hem of the dress down, covering the panties, already beginning to soak up blood. Mac’s arms were now covered to the elbows in blood, as was half his face and most of the front of his shirt and pants.

His belligerence returned quickly as he grunted and made a halfhearted attempt to wipe his hands on his worn work jeans. “Tha fucks gonna clean this shit up?” he asked on no one in particular. “Cannot leave it like ’is.”

Understanding began to dawn on Amy as she looked fixedly into the open eyes of the dead woman sprawled on the floor. “You did it, didn’t you?” she said flatly. “You finally did it.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Mac screamed, abruptly enraged.

“Or what, Mac? What are you going to do?” she asked, her eyes finally leaving the woman’s and fixing Mac with a cold stare.Mac wound his arm back, his meaty fist balled tightly; however, this time Amy didn’t flinch as she had so many countless times before.

“What are you going to do, Mac?”

Mac released the pent up swing with all his drunken fury and flew past Amy as his fist and then the rest of him sailed right through her as if she were vapor. A smile that didn’t quite reach Amy’s eyes lifted the corners of her mouth as she heard Mac crash painfully into the refrigerator door behind her. Her amusement double when that was followed by the metallic thumping clang of the heavy mixer falling onto him from its perch atop the fridge.

“What are you going to do, Mac?” she repeated, her tone darkening. The lights in the kitchen flickered and dimmed.

“Wha’ the thuck?” Mac said, spitting out two front teeth. “Whath goin’ on?”

“I think we’ll have plenty of time to figure that out together, you and I,” Amy said, a sardonic giggle creeping into her voice.

“You bish,” Mac howled, still unable to form the words through the wreck of his mouth. “You better … I … I’m gonna-”

“What?” Amy cut him off. He stared up at her as she turned to face him, gliding in a pivot without moving her feet. His eyes grew large with sobering terror. “What are you going to do…” she trailed off, squatting in front of him as he shrunk back away from her in horror.

“…kill me again?”