Page 86 of Caution Tape

She wipes away the wetness from her cheeks and stares down at the mixture of blood and tears on her fingers, taken aback.

She turns to leave but stops by the doorframe. I notice she doesn’t have my keys; she has Michael’s.

“Mutual monsters, right?” She jingles the keys and waves the money I was going to take. “Frame me. That’s fine. Tell them all the nasty things I did. And when you’re reading headlines about the nasty things I keep on doing, think about me.”

I can only stare at her while I’m sliding off the bed in a wetthud.

Then, wonder of all wonders, she crosses the room abruptly. Her hand digs at my side, and I scream in her face, my hands frantically trying to beat her away.

She steps back smoothly and takes her handfuls of blood and begins painting the wall over my bed. In jagged letters, she scrawls:

I LOVE YOU

Then, amazingly, she blows me a kiss and saunters out of the room.

Did I just get dumped?

Cora

My hand is on the doorknob when I notice a pink box with a bow on it, sitting on Nolan’s kitchen table. I glance quickly down the hall, expecting to see Nolan, bloody and naked, sprinting at me with an axe, except there’s only darkness.

There’s a note on the lid. It reads “Cora” and then there’s a brief, hasty line like he gave up on writing something.

Inside, there’s a mask made from flesh.

I recognize Jerald’s skin tone immediately. And of course, I recognize Michael’s, having had that face pressed against mine. There’s even some stubble left on one of the jigsaw patches of cheek flesh.

Nolan groans in the bedroom. I hear a thud. He’s more alive than I expected.

Two choices spring to life before me as I slip on the mask made of men.

I could walk into that bedroom and execute the man I love. On some level, I think he’d respect me more. I’d be the monster he always wanted to be.

Jingling the car keys, I twirl in a delirious circle, the mask warm on my face, the eye holes muffling my vision. Narrowing it. There’s a chemical smell fusing with the acrid scent of dead flesh, and it mats my hair to my head.

I take it off—putting it back in its box—and look down at its mutated features. There are holes in it. Spots where new skin will need to be added.

My second choice glows in neon.

Run. Take the car. The mask. The violence. Disappear into what Nolan called the American abyss.

And kill as many as I can.

I take the steps two at a time, stuffing the pink box into my bag full of Nolan’s money. Michael’s car keys jingle cheerfully as I slide into the front seat and music clicks on.

It’s time to go.

No more Jerald. No more Michael.

No moreNolan.

I adjust the mirror as I back out of the driveway and the song on the radio yells at me about how breakups are tough.

He thought he had everything planned out, shaping me into the perfect little killer, all while planning to dump all the murders on me so he could run off into the sunset. I pull out the box and set it onto the passenger seat. The horizon greets me, and I wonder what the newspapers will call me. I wonder if Nolan will be jealous.

“Breakups are tough,” I mumble as the car accelerates away from my hometown.

I will be a new monster soon.

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