Page 55 of Bake the Town Red

Al’s here.

Motherfucker. His bleeding, grinning image materializes a few feet away, in the living room. He’s alive again. His teeth are red and he’s spitting blood on my floor.

Mine.

I growl at him.

Al. Is. Not. Fucking. Here.

Tyler was. We’ll be together by the end of the month. I’ll make sure of that.

“Go away,” I snarl.

His image begins to fade at my voice. At the reassurance that I’ll have Tyler with me to take the pain away. Killing people helps too.

No more Al. I flip the ghost of him off anyway.

Without him here, I’m back to staring at the Post-it. Maybe Tyler wasn’t in the mood to write anything. Maybe he left a note on my body like he always does.

My fingers slide beneath my sweater and T-shirt, tracing my breasts. The undersides aren’t sticky. The swells of my breasts aren’t either. My nipples are soft and smooth.

Al’s back. Cackling at me for being pathetic.

Normally, the sight of him would fuel my murderous urges. It’d push me to shower and dress fast, to go feed my stray dogs extra early.

This morning isn’t just any morning. Tyler has left a message on my body and I will find it. Fuck this fake Al.

My belly. There. It’s there. Baby crows caw in my chest at the sticky feeling. They’re as alive and thrilled as I am.

The note was Tyler’s way of telling me he visited. The cum was how he let me know he loved me.

Al vanishes into thin air, hopefully for good.

Tyler’s helped me push him away. My Tyler.

Breathing doesn’t hurt as badly anymore. I’m far less angry. My softer side—the part that’s obsessed with Tyler and not with killing people as a form of therapy—resurfaces.

“You were here,” I sigh, letting my fingertips brush across the note.

The sticky center, I notice, now that I’m paying attention.

I’ve never turned on the lamp on my bedside table so fast in my entire life.

“Sneaky, sweet asshole,” I murmur to myself as I hold the note up to the light. As the letters he undoubtedly wrote in cum shine under the light.

Mine.

“Tyler.” My lips press gently to the note. My nose sniffs the familiar scent of Tyler’s semen. “You need a push in the right direction? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

I look at each letter with longing in my eyes. In my soul.

“I’ll give you that. I’ll show you nothing bad happens when we’re together. To other people, yes. To us? Never. You’ll see. You will see.”

The morning flew by while I did my thing. Baked cupcakes. Worked on frosting and decorations for my Halloween specials. Ground the freeze-dried meat, peppered it over dog food, and fed it to the five strays I love with my whole heart.

The other eleven months of the year, they miss the taste. Obviously, they can’t tell me they do. I’m aware dogs don’t speak English.

But I see it in my babies’ eyes. It’s glaringly obvious that they miss feeding on the bad, bad people they get to have every October.

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