Page 14 of Caution Tape

“A little distant—“

“A little weird in bed—“

“Ha! You ever wonder what these guys do in bed?”

They go on, but I tune them out as I rotate that particular unique phrase in my head.

House of corpses.

Here are the bones, laid neatly in the floorboards.

Here is the gray, cold flesh encased in cement.

Don’t forget the heads tucked neatly in the rafters of the attic.

I can see it in my mind’s eye, a house with black shutters and white peeling paint, filled to the brim with bulging flesh, limbs and meat and eyes all tumbling out of the windows and doors. They’re oozing out in a mass of pink and red, like Playdoh pushed through a cookie cutter.

I need to get started.

The plan to build a camouflaged nest of a life won’t work if I snap and assault someone in public. I’ll need to kill and move, kill and move. I would be caught, eventually. I could picture it, faceless shadows pinning me down as I shriek at them. All the while knowing gleefully that they’re in for years’ worth of backtracking and digging up bodies in every corner of the map. My house of corpses—built only as a grim metaphor. I must first begin with the foundation, my basement.

My first kills.

My aimless driving ends abruptly as I realize I’ve driven back to Natalie’s house. There are lights on in the living room and I see shadows moving. I take three deep breaths and begin testing out different faces to wear. Different smiles, different forlorn looks, even different inflections of the eyes. I’m not going to be able to hide that I’m struggling with something; I don’t need to. I just need to make it into something she can understand, something she can sink her teeth into, that allows her to feel like a good girlfriend as she solves her emotionally stunted boyfriend’s problems.

Oh, no, it was one of those days, you know? Where you wonder what you’re doing with your time. With your LIFE. Ever have that? A little existential crisis during the work shift. You ever have that, babe? Sweetie? Honey?

She’ll take me in and give me a glass of wine and sit cross-legged on the sofa and listen to me complain, nodding her head in understanding. She’ll deliver some somber advice about finding yourself, yourrealself, and that’ll be that. All while swelling with that sense ofdoing good, and I’ll keep fucking her until something more interesting comes along.

I walk up to her door, the porch creaking and shifting after each step.House of corpsesflares up in my mind once again, so that when she opens the door, I’m smiling for real.

Chapter Seven

Cora

My deepening anger at the world intensifies over the next few days. I’ve always been told that something is wrong with me. That I need help. It’s been drilled into my head for so long now that I’ve almost started to believe it.

Almost.

Until my encounter with Tinder Guy, when I chased him through my apartment with a knife in a fit of rage. That was the first time I’ve felt truly alive.

These last few days, I’ve been chasing that same high ever since. I’ve always experienced dark thoughts. Intrusive thoughts, Michael calls them. Except, to me, they weren’t intrusive at all. They felt normal. They felt right. Except I’ve always been warned to never act on those impulses, and now I realize it’s because they could get me into a lot of trouble.

“It’s open,” I call out after hearing several knocks at the front door.

Jerald casually strolls into my apartment dressed in jeans, and a baggy hoodie, along with his usual black beanie. He’s the only person in my life who I would consider an actual friend. My inability to connect with people makes it almost impossible to have real friendships. Relationships of any kind, really.

But with Jerald, it’s easy. He doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t expect anything from me in return. He’s different.

“What are you supposed to be?” he wonders, looking me over.

I shrug, glancing down at my tightly fitted black dress and black boots that end just below my knees.

He grins. “Well, whatever you are, you look good,” he tells me.

“Thanks,” I say dismissively, brushing the knots out of my hair with my fingers. “I’m not finished yet.”

Jerald plops onto the couch and entertains himself with his phone. I grab the bottle of fake blood from the table and squirt some onto my finger, like toothpaste on a toothbrush. A warm sensation rushes through me, traveling all the way down my body as I smear some of the blood on my chest, staring at my reflection in the mirror plastered on the wall.

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