by D.E. Ladd
The moment Thomas Culver saw the mannequin in the window wearing the vintage 1940s red dress, he knew he had to have them both. An entire lonely year had gone by since he had last seen something so beautiful. Standing on the damp sidewalk outside the consignment shop, huddled inside his coat beneath the weeping gray clouds, a sensation of warmth quieted his shivering.
The mannequin’s short black hairstyle fit the dress’s time period. She looked out at the horizon with painted-on green eyes, her red lips shaped into a timid little smile. Her slender, peach-colored neck sprouted from a high neckline decorated with stitching like vines and roses. The dress tapered in to hug her slender waist and fell just below the knees. Peach-colored arms hung from sleeves that stopped mid-forearm. Red nails capped her slender fingers. In every respect, she was perfect in Thomas’s eyes. He imagined her in his small house on the other side of town: in the living room while he watched his shows, in the kitchen while he ate supper, in the bedroom…
Thomas blushed at the notion and chuckled to himself. Such thoughts had no place in a gentleman’s mind. He donned a humble smile and gave the mannequin a curt little nod.
Forgive me, my dear. Your intoxicating beauty has led me astray.
He didn’t speak the words out loud; doing so would have been strange.
Foot traffic on the sidewalk increased as shops up and down the street opened for business. Thomas took it as a sign when spotlights shone down onto the lady in red, accentuating her beauty. He turned on his heels and headed for the entrance.
He paid no attention to anything else in the small shop as he navigated his way to the window where the mannequin in red stood on display.
“Can I help you?” an older woman asked.
Thomas pivoted to take her in: a portly old gal in a white apron, barely five feet in height, with a rounded bundle of gray hair perched on her small head.
“I hope so. I would like to purchase the dress in the window, and the mannequin as well.” Thomas beamed at the woman, convinced that his generous offer would make her day.
“Oh.” The old woman touched a wrinkled finger to her bottom lip and blinked at him, as if confused. “Well…that dress is on hold. And I don’t think Miss Varney would sell the mannequin.” Her watery blue eyes flitted to land on Thomas. She offered a nervous smile, perhaps to compensate for the bad news. “I don’t own the shop. I only work here a couple mornings a week.”
Thomas barely registered what she said after telling him the dress was on hold. His cordial smile dropped and his brow tightened. “On hold? But…I can pay for it now.”
“Oh no,” the old woman said immediately, “It’s not available. A deposit has already been made.”
“How long ago was that?” He bristled at the idea of someone putting a deposit on such a treasure instead of taking it home right away. Leaving it in the window for others to see was not only rude, it amounted to an act of cruelty.
The old woman looked up at the ceiling. Her puckered mouth worked as she thought about it. “It was a week ago yesterday, I think.”
“I see.” Thomas forced the smile back onto his face. He turned to drink in the vivid red dress and the gorgeous woman wearing it. “What is the going price, if you don’t mind telling.”
“Oh. Um… Let me see…” the old woman waddled over to the counter and shuffled through some index cards. “That dress sold for…oh my! Twenty-five hundred dollars.” She giggled as if this were an amusing cause for celebration.
“Hm.” Even though it had been sold, Thomas tried to imagine where he would get that much money on short notice. He only worked part-time at Kinsey’s Department Store in the neighboring town. Stocking shelves and sweeping floors didn’t pay much, certainly not enough to buy the dress without saving for several months. A different tack came to mind. “May I ask who made the deposit? I’d like to reach out to them, see if we can come to an arrangement.”
The old woman was shaking her head before he finished. “No, I’m sorry. All purchases are strictly confidential.” She held up one doughy hand with an index finger extended. “I could take down your name and number and pass it on to the buyer if you like,” she offered.
“No, that’s okay. Thank you.” Thomas took one last look at the mannequin in the vintage red dress. From where he stood, the reflection of her painted-on green eyes in the window glass stared in his direction. The sadness and longing in those artificial eyes reached out to him. Spoke to him.
Please. Don’t leave me here.
“Is there anything else I can show you?” the old woman asked.
Thomas didn’t so much as glance at her. “Not today.” He turned on his heels and strode out the door.
In the pitch black of early morning, going on 3:00 a.m., long after all the shops had closed up and gone dark, and well before they were due to open again, Thomas crept down the sidewalk, hugging the shadows so as not to be seen. He wore all black, including a watch cap over his sandy brown hair. A black scarf covered his nose and mouth, leaving only his gray eyes visible. He paused several times in different places, immersed in complete darkness. Not a creature stirred anywhere. The only sounds came from the occasional autumn breeze and the distant hush of a car passing by on the main road fifty yards away.
Thomas spent close to half an hour observing the street from various places before making his move. He was not a thief. He had never stolen anything in his life up until that moment. Of course, he didn’t consider rescuing the mannequin from the cramped consignment shop a crime, not at all. If anything, it was an act of compassion. She needed him.
He eased his way to the consignment shop window and looked in. The mannequin in red stood out ever so slightly in the faint glow of a distant streetlight. Thomas had parked his car down a side street a few blocks away, hidden in a dark patch away from the nearest house; he couldn’t risk his plate being seen by someone’s doorbell cam or a traffic cam hanging off a light pole. He was smarter than that. He even had the escape route all mapped out in his head. After one last look around, Thomas picked up a loose chunk of concrete from the sidewalk. He cocked his arm back and hurled it at the opposite corner of the window from where the mannequin stood.
A horrific crash rang out, shattering the silence along with the window glass. Thomas used the heel of his gloved hand punch out the jagged shards around the frame to widen the opening. He reached in and gently tilted the mannequin forward from her spot.
“Here we go. Okay…” He spoke softly, as if to put the window prop at ease. Lifting her out of the window, a shard of glass caught the pad below the thumb of his right hand. He ignored the sting and the soft burn that followed and kept moving.
Thomas rested the mannequin on his shoulder and backed away from the window. He turned slowly to make sure he was clear of the window before ducking back into the darkness and making his escape. He turned down the side street and hurried to his car—a dark-gray 1979 Chevy Impala. The spacious trunk was already open and left ajar. He eased the trunk lid up all the way and laid the mannequin inside.
“There you go. We’ll be home in a few minutes,” he whispered. He closed the trunk and got in the car. The smooth-running V8 started up with a soft purr. He shifted into drive and eased down the dark street with his lights off.
Thomas’s small house sat at the end of a dead-end street. He lived on the other side of town from the consignment shop, far enough to feel safe in his hideaway. The dark-green two-bedroom ranch sat on a small lot carpeted in brown grass beneath a pair of gnarled oak trees, the naked limbs of which loomed over the roof. Thomas had parked his Impala inside the crooked garage at the end of the driveway. A single yellow light seeped out through the tattered curtains in the living room.
Inside the house, Thomas sat in the only comfortable chair—an old recliner speckled with round burn marks that retained the musky scent of cigar smoke. He rented the place for cheap, and the mismatched furniture came with it. Dated shag carpet the color of pea soup spanned the living room floor and one of the bedrooms. Stripes of silver duct tape decorated the brown vinyl sofa cushions. Even the dull paintings came with the house: a bowl of fruit on a table in a dark room; an old house somewhere in the deep South with columns out front and Spanish moss dangling from the trees; an eerie portrait of a little girl holding a stuffed rabbit.
Because he seldom spent any time cleaning the place, dusty cobwebs hung from the corners of every room. A chalky film, likely built up over several years, coated every window. He hadn’t cleaned the bathroom in over a year. In short, it wasn’t the sort of place he could share with the company of strangers, especially those of the female persuasion. If he had been lucky enough to get a date, he would have cleaned the place well beforehand. The night’s spontaneous events didn’t allow time for cleaning, but his guest didn’t seem to mind.
The mannequin in red stood in front of the ratty couch, staring off at the opposite wall. In the warm light of a single lamp, she looked even lovelier than she had in the shop window. This didn’t surprise Thomas in the least. Even though his house wasn’t the cleanest, at least she wasn’t left alone in a cold consignment shop, standing in front of a drafty window in the dark. She looked happier now, her timid smile a little broader and more relaxed. And her presence made his house feel more like a home.
“I don’t know who put a deposit on you, but I think it’s criminal that they left you there. I would have brought you home right away. And now, I have.” Thomas beamed at her to visually express how much he cared. “What shall I call you?” He wasn’t actually asking her—she was a mannequin after all, and he knew she could not speak. Nevertheless, a response did flutter through his mind with the gentle grace of a spring butterfly.
My name is Scarlett. Like the southern belle from Georgia.
Thomas grinned at the lazy Southern accent he heard in his mind—an accent he had heard somewhere before, quite a while ago now, though he couldn’t remember exactly where. He knew the reference, of course—Scarlett O’Hara from Gone with the Wind. A faint memory surfaced of him meeting her somewhere, of taking her into his arms and dancing with her.
“Scarlett, my dear, it is lovely to meet you.” Thomas gave her a little bow from where he sat. He glanced at the time—a quarter past four in the morning. Working odd shifts and late hours made him a night owl. On his off days, he seldom slept more than a few hours. “I wish you could have a seat, take a load off.” Scarlett wasn’t made for sitting; her stiff limbs had no moveable joints, which meant she had to remain standing.
The excitement of Thomas’s early-morning caper left him feeling a little worn out. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and the weight of exhaustion ushered his body to shut down, at least for a little while. “I’m going to lie down for an hour or two. I’ll leave the light on.” He dragged himself up out of the chair and stretched. “Here…” Crossing the room, he clicked on a small radio and found a station playing classic jazz from the 1940s. “Ah! How fitting is that?” He stood only a couple of feet away from her, directly in line with her painted-on green eyes. “It’s as if you were meant to be here. With me.” Thomas reached up and gently rested a hand against her cold hard cheek. “I’ll be back in a few. Enjoy the music.”
Thomas took a quick shower and changed into a pair of sweatpants and an old T-shirt. He set his alarm to go off in two hours. Over the years, he had trained his body to make do with power naps, some as short as ten minutes. Thirty seconds after lying on his bed, sleep carried him away.
In dreams, he wore vintage clothing in the style of Rhett Butler, and a black frilly mask over his eyes. He waltzed through a ballroom filled with men and women, all dressed in period clothing, many of the woman shielding their eyes with lacy masks of gold or raven blue or snow white attached to sticks. Thomas spotted Scarlett across the room. She wore a puffy dress—a bold red, of course—that made her stand out in a sea of soft pastels. Thomas approached her and offered a bow. “Scarlett, my dear. Will you do me the honor?” He extended his hand, inviting her to dance.
Scarlett turned her head slightly away and gave him the side-eye. “My my. You look like trouble.” Her red lips curled into a coy smile as she gave him her hand.
“Yes, but I am the good kind of trouble.” Thomas took her hand and rested his other hand on her waist. Scarlett lowered her chin as he led her in a slow waltz. “You and I were destined to be together, in this moment in time, and for all eternity.” His seductive smile waned as his hand wandered into something wet. He held it away from her to look at it and saw an oily black substance covering his palm. “What…the hell is this?”
Scarlett raised her chin to look at him. Empty black sockets had replaced her eyes. The same oily substance leaked out of them. In a deep, gravelly voice she asked, “Shall we begin?” She opened her mouth wide and—
Brrrt! Brrrt! Brrrt!
Thomas jerked awake at the sound of his alarm going off. He fumbled in the dim light of dawn and turned it off. In his foggy state of mind, he strung together recent events and remembered what he had done. He remembered Scarlett—the actual one he had liberated from the shop.
After taking a few moments to brush away the troubling dream, he tossed back the covers and got up. The cut on his hand burned a little every time he flexed his thumb. A sleepy grin formed as the classic jazz music wafted down the hallway from the living room. He padded toward the sound and entered the living room.
“Scarlett my dear, I hope you’re enjoying—”
Thomas stopped dead in his tracks.
Scarlett sat on the couch with her back perfectly straight, facing the radio with her stiff hands folded in her lap.
Thomas blinked at her. He closed his eyes tightly for several seconds and opened them again. Scarlett remained sitting on the couch, an impossible feat for a couple of reasons: first, when Thomas lifted her out of the shop window, Scarlett’s dress had hiked up above the knees; he clearly saw that her legs had no joints. Secondly…
Mannequins don’t move on their own.
Despite the impossibility of what he saw with his own eyes, Thomas did not react with fear. Rather, he approached Scarlett one tentative step at a time, stopping a few feet away. He stared down at her, watching and waiting for her to move. A twinge of guilt plucked at his heart.
“I’m sorry I left you out here all alone last night.” He waited for a reaction—the blink of an eye, a twitch of a finger, anything. It occurred to him that, if Scarlett could move on her own… “Would you like breakfast? I’ll make something.” He stepped closer and gave her stiff hair a gentle caress before retreating to the kitchen.
Thomas whipped up some scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes. He arranged a plate for Scarlett and returned to the living room. “It’s ready. Here…” He carefully gripped her around the waist and carried her into the kitchen, where he positioned her in the chair opposite him.
“I have to go to work soon. But I’ll be back later.” He gave her a grin and a wink as he ate.
Scarlett stared off at the wall behind him with her unblinking green eyes. Thomas couldn’t be sure, but he thought they looked more realistic than they had before. The flat stickers now had dimension and depth, like two glassy marbles set into her plastic eye sockets. Her lips also looked thicker and fleshier than before; he could see vertical lines and a faint sheen of moisture on them. Even her skin, which had looked too smooth and artificial, now bore a closer resemblance to his own, with pores and fine silky hair.
“You look beautiful this morning.” He raised his coffee mug to her in a toast. “Here’s to our destiny together.”
Thomas finished his breakfast and left Scarlett to finish hers at her own pace. He suspected she might be shy about eating in front of him and bade her farewell.
He left the house at around 7:00 a.m., fifteen minutes earlier than usual, and made a quick detour that took him past the consignment shop. From a safe distance, he pulled off the road and observed the storefront. A flurry of activity surrounded the shattered window: a police car sat nearby, and two officers spoke with the little old lady. She gestured at the gaping hole and shook her head. Thomas had no idea what he expected to gain by returning to the scene of the crime. He felt confident that no one had seen him, aside from the old woman earlier in the day. Inquiring about Scarlett would surely make him a suspect, but he hadn’t given his name, and he had no intention of returning to the store.
As he sat there by the side of the road observing the investigation, one of the officers leaned closer to the broken window and pointed at something. The other officer stepped over for a look.
“What the hell are you looking at?” Thomas muttered. He clenched his fists as he watched them. A sharp pain flared in the pad of his right hand. The old lady waddled over to the window as well, blocking his view. “Son of a bitch.”
Going against his instinct, he drove toward the store for a closer look. He put on his sunglasses and hunched down in the seat to make himself look smaller and older. His heart hammered away the closer he got. Stealing a quick glance didn’t give him much: he saw one officer wearing latex gloves reach in and carefully pick something up. Thomas couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a sliver of glass. The officer dropped it into a plastic baggie.
Thomas’s gaze wandered to the little old woman, who stared right at him as he passed.
“Shit.” He faced front and accelerated away from the store. He checked his rearview mirror and saw the old woman speaking and pointing in his direction. By the time the officer came into view, Thomas was too far away for him to get a plate number. He rounded the corner and let out a sigh of relief, vowing to never return to the area again.
Thomas kept to himself during his entire shift, even more than usual. Though he felt certain no one had seen him rescuing Scarlett from that awful storefront window, which was exactly what he did (he was not a criminal by any measure), the itch of paranoia pestered him the entire day. Given the chance to do it over again, he never would have gone into the store to ask about Scarlett. He would have skipped that step and simply rescued her. Asking the old lady about her beforehand had caused a bit of a wrinkle. She could describe him to the same police he had seen bagging a piece of glass from the broken window.
His heart fluttered in panic. He flexed his right hand—the one he had cut on the glass. Looking down at the bandage, he struggled to remember the exact moment it happened. He vaguely recalled a slight sting while lifting Scarlett out of the window bay.
Relax. You’re not a criminal. A little drop of blood doesn’t mean anything.
Thomas drew a deep breath and blew it out. He had seen enough police shows to know that one had to be in the “system” for blood or spit or hair to be of any use. Thomas was not in the system. By all accounts, he was a model citizen.
That old lady, though… She saw my face. I spoke to her.
He was reasonably certain the consignment shop had no security cameras. While he was inside, he had casually checked all the usual high spots and corners and hadn’t seen a single one. And again, he hadn’t given her his name. Nevertheless, Thomas entertained a fantasy of leaving work that very moment, packing up his essentials, and fleeing town with Scarlett riding by his side. A short-lived fantasy, little more than a silly notion prompted by panic. Thomas barely had the resources to keep himself fed, much less fund a spontaneous escape from town.
Another thought arose to fuel his panicked mind: what if his busy-body neighbor down the street saw him lifting Scarlett out of the trunk and carrying her into his house?
No way. It was late and it was pitch dark. And I was super quiet. I didn’t make a sound.
Still, he worried about his neighbor up the street, a nosey guy in his mid-fifties named Vince Carter who lived alone and always kept his yard clean and perfect. Retired military. He had veteran license plates on his spotless pickup truck. Thomas imagined him spying on the street in the wee hours, possibly with binoculars. Or night-vision goggles.
Christ. If he saw me…
The thought of Vince calling the police made him break out in a cold sweat. But he pushed the notion aside, writing it off as yet another paranoid delusion.
The dragging workday finally limped to its conclusion. Thomas couldn’t get out the door fast enough. He struggled not to run at full speed to his car and tear out of the parking lot for home. A few coworkers bade him farewell, to whom he responded with a curt reply—a quick “See ya!” and a wave of his hand.
He purposely drove out of his way to avoid taking the usual route home. Until he could be certain that no one suspected him of rescuing Scarlett, he would have to be extra careful.
Thomas turned onto his street and rolled past Vince Carter’s house. The old veteran was out there, watering a section of lawn that looked more like a brand-new carpet. Broad shoulders and cropped hair. Steely gaze aimed right at Thomas. The man didn’t smile or wave. He looked suspicious, as if he knew something. As if he had seen something. Thomas pretended not to notice him. He continued on to his house, pulled into the drive, and parked. When he stepped out and headed for the front door, he swore he caught a glimpse of Vince standing closer to the street, watching him.
Upon closing the front door, Thomas leaned against it and took a moment to embrace the safety and comfort of being home. He took a breath to calm his nerves before striding toward the kitchen. He stopped short in the doorway.
Scarlett wasn’t sitting at the table where he had left her.
At first, he thought she had been abducted while he was at work. Then he noticed the breakfast dishes had been cleared from the table. He glanced over at the counter by the sink: the clean dishes leaned against the tile wall, sitting on a towel to dry. Before his confusion had time to set in any deeper, the hissing sound of the shower turning on drew his attention to the bathroom.
The angelic hum of a woman’s voice rang out, echoing with the hypnotic grace of a church choir.
Thomas crept down the short hallway, toward the yellow bar of light spilling out of the ajar bathroom door. He lingered outside, leaning left and right to see who was in there. He nudged the door open, and the heavenly song grew in strength. A blurry female shape moved behind the foggy plastic shower curtain. Scarlett’s red dress lay across the back of the chair. Before Thomas could summon the breath to utter a single word, the water turned off. A hand tugged back the curtain, and there she stood, naked as a woman could be. Scarlett. She wiped the water away from her dark-brown eyes and blinked at him. “Hey, you.” She said this casually, as if she had been expecting him.
Thomas stared at her naked body, his eyes bugging and his jaw slack. He let his gaze wander up and down, from her perfect feet to her slender legs to her supple breasts, all the way to her perfect face. To those eyes.
“You gonna fetch me a towel, or just stand there staring at me?” She licked the water from her lips and grinned at him.
Thomas blinked away his shock and hurried to the closet on the far wall. He took out a clean towel and handed it to her. “You… You’re…” He didn’t know how to finish his sentence. All he could do was watch as Scarlett toweled herself off.
“I’m what? Beautiful? Irresistible?” Her smile widened. Even her teeth were perfect.
“Uh. No. I mean, yes. You are those things. But…”
Scarlett gave her hair a quick shake with the towel before wrapping it around herself. She stepped out of the tub onto the mat and wrapped her arms around him. She rested her damp head against his chest before pulling back to appraise him. “You seem stressed. Because of me?”
“No. Not really. Well, kind of.” Thomas wasn’t prepared for her to kiss him. She pressed her soft lips against his. He closed his eyes and an explosion of colored light erupted in the darkness. He quivered in response. Her tongue darted between his lips several times before she pulled away. Thomas opened his eyes and snatched a breath.
“There’s a cure for that,” Scarlett took him by the hand and led him out of the room.
They crossed the hallway and stepped into his bedroom. Scarlett let go of his hand and stopped beside the bed. She undid her towel and let it fall around her ankles. Thomas traced her body upward, from her rounded calves up to her slender neck. She yanked back the covers and slipped into bed.
“Well? You gonna join me or what?”
Thomas started to undo his belt when—
A horn tooted somewhere outside, followed by a door slamming.
As much as he wanted to ignore the sounds, Thomas pictured a cluster of police cars blocking the end of the street. He imagined several uniformed officers marching up his driveway, up his steps to his front door, and—
Thump! Thump! Thump!
The knocking on the door made him gasp out loud. He stared at Scarlett, who blinked at him, seemingly unafraid. Thomas held up a hand and then pressed a finger to his lips to tell her to be quiet.
Scarlett smirked and made the gesture of locking her lips.
Thomas closed the bedroom door and crept down the hallway toward the front of the house. He saw a shadow out there, tall and broad-shouldered. Vince. That motherfucker.
“Hello?” Vince called out in his booming ex-military voice. Thump! Thump! Thump! He pounded on the door like he was the police.
Thomas started for the door and stopped short. He noticed the lock pin in the center running vertically. He had forgotten to lock the door. The knob rattled and started to turn.
“Anyone home.” Vince wasn’t asking, because he knew Thomas was home. And now he was coming in, despite not being invited. He had done this once before, a few days after Thomas moved in. He barged into the house like he owned the place, pointed out that the door was unlocked (as if that gave him permission to walk right in), and introduced himself with a crushing handshake and the piercing stare of a psychopath.
Thomas looked around in a panic. He ducked into the kitchen to hide.
Vince turned the knob and found the door unlocked. He smirked and shook his head as he pushed the door open. “Hello? Your door’s unlocked. I saw you get home a few minutes ago. Need a favor.” He stepped inside and surveyed the living room with a critical eye. A coating of dust covered the end table by the door. Food wrappers and bits of random junk poked out from under the couch.
“Where you at? Hello?”
Vince listened for a response, a sign of movement, anything. The silence held. He huffed with annoyance and went farther in. He peered into the empty kitchen and continued down a short hallway. A dampness hung in the air by the bathroom, along with the flowery scent of soap or shampoo. He glanced in and did a double-take upon seeing a red dress folded over the back of a chair. Vince couldn’t recall ever seeing his neighbor with a woman. “Hey! Where are you? I know you’re home!” He sounded more confrontational than he intended. He approached a closed door across the hall—a bedroom if had to guess—and rapped on it. “Hey. You in there, partner? Your door was unlocked. I need a favor.” He gripped the knob and it turned freely. “Everything okay?” He knocked again as he pushed the door open.
A woman lay in bed with the sheets pulled up to her chin.
“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…” Vince took a second look. He squinted in the faint light spilling in from the hallway. The woman didn’t look right. She wasn’t moving. “What the fuck…?”
The floor creaked behind him.
Vince started to turn around when—
Something struck him from behind with a wet Shulk! sound.
A dull burn filled the back of his head. Vince swung his left arm in a desperate flailing motion at whoever stood behind him. His body felt clumsy and heavy all of a sudden. Dizziness consumed him. His knees wobbled and a stunned warble tumbled out between his numb lips. “Gahlk. Gahlk…”
Vince caught sight of his odd neighbor stepping out of reach before he staggered and went down. He hit the dusty carpet face-first. Before he could push himself back up, another blow came down on the back of his head. Numbness filled his entire body, cold and complete. Another Shulk! sound rang out, followed by total blackness.
Thomas stood over Vince’s twitching body and kept watch until it stopped moving. He lay face-down, half in the hallway and half in the bedroom. A grayish bloody pulp oozed out the back of his broken skull. Thomas let the heavy mall slide out of his grip and hit the floor with a muffled thud. The wooden handle tapped against the open door. He looked up at Scarlett, who stared down at Vince’s body for a few seconds before looking back up at him.
“Are you coming to bed or what?” Her pouty lips curled into seductive smile.
Thomas nodded at her in a daze. “Yeah. Um… Let me uh…take care of this first.”
The last thing he wanted was for the blood to set into the carpet. He left the bedroom light off to conceal the mess as much as possible—to avoid spoiling the mood. First, he had to move the body. He dumped out the small trash can by the door and wrapped it around Vince’s head. He then strained and grunted as he dragged the body into the bathroom and flipped it into the tub. A quick yank of the shower curtain would have to do for the time being. After that, he went to the kitchen to grab some stain cleaner and some paper towels. He soaked the bloody spots on the carpet and wiped down the bathroom’s tile floor. Before returning to the bedroom, and to Scarlett, he washed his hands vigorously and dowsed his hair with cold water.
Thomas stepped across the hallway and peered into the bedroom.
Scarlett lay on the bed, propped on one elbow in the dim light. The flawless, peach-colored skin of her perfect breasts left him hypnotized. She beckoned him with a devilish grin and a come-hither twitch of her forefinger. Thomas glanced down to kick off his shoes and bump them out of the way. He looked back up and… And…
Scarlett’s perfect skin had taken on the dark-brown shade of tree bark after a cold and heavy rain. Bits of dead leaves and small twigs littered her once-silky brown hair. A swollen wet tongue the color of fresh tar wriggled behind a crooked nest of rotten teeth, pushing out a colony of panicked beetles and spiders.
Thomas winced at the dreadfulness lying on his bed. He forced his eyes closed to block it out.
“What’s the matter?”
Scarlett’s angelic voice, sweet as ever, vanquished his terror in an instant. Thomas opened his eyes to find her staring back at him, as beautiful and perfect as she had ever been. A trace of amusement shaped her lips; the promise of unforgettable sex flickered in her bright green eyes.
“I… Nothing. I’m…” Thomas stammered and forced a smile as he tugged at his clothes, shedding them without taking his eyes off her. Scarlett swept back the covers to expose the rest of her shapely body. Her long legs joined to form a dark triangle just below her hips, and her small feet rubbed together playfully. As if in a trance, Thomas approached the bed and slipped in beside her. She let out a soft giggle and rolled on top of him. Her warm body pressed against his, causing him to gasp with delight and disbelief.
“You’re all I ever wanted. This is my heaven,” Thomas whispered. He closed his eyes as she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. Their mouths joined and they drank from each other.
So familiar—the sensation of pinching her full lips between his own.
It had all been so romantic, the way they met at the costume party, how they had danced together in a quiet bubble of time, and how Scarlett had dashed away like Cinderella in the middle of it all.
“Do you remember how we danced?” he asked her.
Scarlett’s grin blossomed into a bright smile as she nodded. “And how I left you there alone, searching for me.”
Except Scarlett hadn’t left the party alone. An itchy thorn of bitterness rose to the surface, tainting their joyous reunion. Thomas recalled the song ending. He held her in his arms, held her up as well, as she had been a little woozy at the time. As he leaned in for a kiss, a tall and sturdy horse-faced woman with the manners of a rattlesnake appeared from nowhere and pulled Scarlett away.
“She took you away. You didn’t want to leave me. Why would you?” Thomas caressed her smooth skin. He cupped her face in his hands and marveled at her beauty.
“Kim is very protective,” Scarlett said through a giggle.
She probably wanted you for herself. Fucking lesbian cunt.
Thomas grinned away his anger, because it didn’t matter now. He had passed the test: rather than slinking away in defeat, he had followed Kim and Scarlett outside, where Kim loaded Scarlett into her white minivan.
“I wasn’t about to let you get away.” He winked at her and stroked her hair.
Scarlett reached down to their nether regions and grabbed hold of him. “I’m not letting you get away either.” She fed him into her and let out a breathy gasp that broke into a soft laugh.
Thomas arched his back and closed his eyes and saw—
Scarlett’s house. Kim’s white minivan pulling up in front. Thomas rolled along at a distance, his headlights off to avoid being seen. Kim led a wobbling Scarlett up the stairs and into the house. Minutes ticked by. Finally, Kim appeared in the doorway again, muttered something before closing the door, and went bobbing down the steps. As soon as the minivan’s taillights vanished around the corner, Thomas stepped out of his car.
“It was so romantic. Wasn’t it?” Thomas’s voice came out in heavy breaths as Scarlett rocked back and forth on him. With her eyes closed, she pressed her nails into his chest and licked her lips.
“Just like in the movies,” she panted.
And it was. A locked front door was no match for a love that was meant to be. Thomas punched out one of the small windows beside the door and reached inside. He crept up the stairs, quiet as a mouse toward the sound of a shower running.
“Nothing could ever stop my love for you.” Thomas pulled her close and nibbled on her neck.
He closed his eyes and relived that night, how he had pressed a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh as he approached her bedroom. Scarlett hummed in the shower with the voice of an angel drunk on love. The door stood open, inviting him in. A spattering of water from the attached bathroom tapered off. A shower curtain rattled. Thomas stepped inside and closed the bedroom door. He waited for her.
“You saw me and you smiled. Then you ran into my arms.” He kissed Scarlett’s neck some more.
She stopped rocking back and forth and pulled back to look him in the eyes. Her thin eyebrows joined and her smile molded into a pout. “That’s not what happened. Is it?” Her tone sounded heavier than before. Scolding. “What did you do, Thomas?”
He blinked at her, confused by her sour look and scathing tone. His mouth shaped words that wouldn’t come out.
“What the fuck did you do!” She groaned. Her deep voice rattled like a pile of broken bones. She dug into his chest with her nails, piercing his skin and—
Thomas stood in her bedroom with his back against the door. Scarlett emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel. She saw him standing there and…
She screamed. She screamed and demanded that he leave. But she didn’t understand that they were destined to meet and dance and kiss and be together for all time, happy and in love.
“I didn’t… I…” Thomas gawked at her, wincing in pain as Scarlett dug deeper into him. Blood flowed. She gritted her teeth and said nothing. Dark blotches marred her perfect peach-colored skin and—
Scarlett clutched the towel to her body. She wobbled a little and went to grab her phone and Thomas told her to calm down and to listen for a minute and to please, please, please be quiet and to stop screaming. To stop screaming. He told her that love—real love—can come as a shock and it’s going to be okay if she would just calm down and stop—STOP!—screaming and be quiet and listen to what he had to say and look deep into her heart and she would see him there and… And… And…
“What did you do, Thomas?” Scarlett sounded calm and more like herself again, though her perfect skin continued to deteriorate. The dark blotches spread and grew, as if a pool of ink had ruptured inside her. Her claws remained dug into his chest. “What did you do?” A hint of sadness touched her voice. Tears leaked from dark-green eyes that now looked blackened with rage.
Thomas trembled beneath her, gasping in shock and bewilderment. Something crawled within her clotted nest of hair, a rodent or an insect of equal size. Scarlett’s tears turned to blood. Her nose dripped as well. Crimson droplets pelted his face. Her hands dislodged from his chest and slid upward and wrapped around his throat. As she began to squeeze, the two of them flipped upside down and—
He found himself on top of Scarlett, both of them lying on her bed. An awful silence filled her bedroom. Thomas looked down at his beautiful Scarlett, her once-bright eyes staring up at the ceiling. He slowly peeled his hands away from the tender flesh of her neck and winced at the reddened skin. Crawling off of her, he stood back to look upon her still body, half-wrapped in a white bath towel. The vintage red dress she wore to the party lay beneath her—a broad swath of blood made from cloth.
“I… I won’t leave you here alone. You belong with me.” He returned to the bed, and gently scooped her into his arms.
Thomas struggled to breathe. He clutched at Scarlett’s cold hands wrapped around his throat. Her fingers remained locked onto him, bony and hard and unrelenting. Gooey bits of blackened flesh caked under his fingernails as he struggled against her. Droplets of rot, blackish-red bits of blood and liquified flesh dripped down onto his face and into his mouth. He gagged and spat and turned his head from side to side.
“Where did you take me, Thomas? What else did you do?” Scarlett gurgled at him. Her dripping nose dissolved into a blackened cavity. Her lips dried up and pulled back to form a ghoulish grin.
Thomas choked and whimpered and sobbed. Closing his eyes didn’t stop his face from burning as rancid droplets continued to rain down on him. He couldn’t hide in the darkness from—
During the darkest part of night, he brought Scarlett home. He put her in the tub and ran the hot water. He washed her pale skin and smoothed out her hair and hummed out the song they had danced to mere hours before. With her eyes closed, she looked so perfect and peaceful and so deeply in love with him. He scooped her out of the tub and carried her to his bed and… Their bodies joined together with the warm bliss of two lovestruck souls destined to be together.
A rancid breath pushed against Thomas’s face. It reeked of damp soil and rotten leaves and flesh gone sour.
“You promised to never leave me alone. Didn’t you?” Scarlett’s voice no longer flowed like a smooth ribbon. It spilled out with the grinding clatter of wet gravel scraping over a coffin. “You promised. And what did you do? What did you do!”
Bits of dirt and wriggling worms pelted Thomas’s face. He whimpered and wept and struggled to keep his mouth closed. He didn’t want her to be alone, but—
After only a couple of days, Scarlett began to smell funny. Thomas tried to mask the odor with soaps and perfumes, but the off-putting scent only persisted and grew. He had no way to stop or even slow down her inevitable decay. On the fourth day, he wrapped her in a white sheet, crept out to the small yard behind his house, and dug out a place for her in the soft earth.
“I… I’m… I’m sorry…” Thomas stammered. He gagged and spat, keeping his head tilted to the side as much as he could. Small worms wriggled on his skin, seeking out warm places to crawl into and take root.
Scarlett smeared cold mud and jellied flesh on his cheeks with her bony fingers. She heaved putrid breaths onto him as she leaned in closer. Her muddy skull pressed against his forehead, grinding wet dirt into his skin.
“You wanted me forever…and forever I will be yours.”
The explosive sound of a wood and glass shattering rang out though the house.
“Garland PD! We have a warrant!” a deep voice bellowed down the hallway.
Thomas kept his eyes closed and his head turned away. Bright lights flashed and pressed against his closed eyelids.
“Hands! Show me your hands now!” another deep voice demanded.
The sheets flew back. Someone pulled Scarlett off him and then yanked Thomas off the bed. He hit the floor face-first. Strong hands pressed him into the damp spot of the dingy carpet he had scrubbed only minutes ago. The strong scent of stain cleaner made him gag and cough.
“Don’t fucking move,” the same deep voice warned him.
A metallic sound rattled. Cold steel clamped around his wrists.
“Got a body in here!” someone called out from the bathroom.
The room spun. Thomas blinked open his eyes. A female mannequin’s plastic face stared back at him. Her pouty lips didn’t smile or frown. Her eyes weren’t eyes at all, but little stickers made to look like eyes. Her dark-brown hair had fallen off completely, leaving her bald head exposed.
“Cover him up and get him the fuck outta here!” someone else yelled.
A dog barked outside. More voices chattered back and forth. Both sounds edged toward the backyard.
Gloved hands pulled on his boxer shorts and that was all. Two police officers, one at each elbow, raised him to his feet with ease and shoved him toward the shattered front door. Red and blue lights spilled in and spattered the inside of the house. Police radios buzzed and clicked between snippets of conversation.
“…suspect is in custody…”
“…copy that. K9 unit is onsite. Got something in the back…”
A gust of wind whipped the cold night air against his face. His bare feet barely touched the steps as the officers carried him down. Beside one of the cars, Thomas spotted Kim, the horse-faced lesbian. Upon seeing him, her eyes grew wide and she pointed at him.
“That’s him! That’s the motherfucker right there!” She tried to lunge for him, only to be held back by a woman officer close to her size. “Where is she? What did you do to her!” She screamed through a flood of tears.
Thomas stared at the cold ground all the way to a waiting police vehicle. The two officers loaded him inside and slammed the door.
In a sterile hallway outside an interrogation room, the lead detective, Lieutenant David Grossman, stepped out with the county prosecutor, Angela Foley-Meredith—a slender woman who always wore dark clothes and had no sense of humor. Grossman closed the door and peered back in through the small window lined with wire, where Thomas Culver sat cuffed to the table, staring off at the wall.
“Christ, I don’t even know where to start with this one.” Grossman fussed with his unkempt nest of graying hair and shook his head. He fixed his watery blue eyes on Angela. “What’re you thinkin’?”
Angela pressed her lips into a tight line, as she were trying to hold in what she wanted to say.
“It takes a special kind of crazy to profess innocence with your neighbor’s body in the bathtub and three more buried in your backyard. I hate to say it, if they go for the insanity defense—which they probably will—he won’t spend a single day in jail: they’ll send him up to North Casterland, and he’ll probably die there.” She turned to glare at the door. “But not soon enough.”
North Casterland was home to the largest sanitarium on the East Coast.
“You think there’s any chance of him getting out? Or worse, going free?” Grossman asked. “Last thing I want is to be blindsided in court by something we missed.”
Angela frowned and shook her head. “We matched the blood from the consignment shop window to DNA left at Ellie McKenzie’s house—the victim he keeps calling Scarlett. Got a positive ID on her remains, along with two other women who went missing several years back. And then there’s the dress, which Ellie had worn the night she disappeared. It still has her DNA on it. As well as his.” Her gaze dropped and she let out a tired sigh. She looked up at Grossman. “As much as I’d love to see Culver fry for this, I don’t think he’s fit for trial.”
“As long as he’s locked up and never gets out, I’ll take what I can get.”
* * *
Thomas Culver resented being chained up like an animal. A thick leather strap cinched around his waist, and a set of wrist shackles locked into thick metal rings. He couldn’t even reach up to rub an annoying itch on the end of his nose. He shuffled along a few inches at a time, constrained by the shackles clamped around his ankles. The coveralls they made him wear smelled funny, some odd combination of laundry solvent and burnt hair. Two burly men escorted him through a tall gate topped with barbed wire. The gothic-looking structure ahead looked more like a castle with bars and cages over the windows than a mental hospital. Thomas didn’t bother trying to enlighten his escorts about how unfairly he was being treated. He didn’t belong in this place. He belonged with Scarlett.
The two men led him to a small room with a sturdy metal door. A nurse came in and gave him a shot of something that made him feel soft and gooey inside. He barely noticed them removing his restraints. One by one, the three of them filed out of the room. The nurse lingered a moment longer, her cold eyes fixed on him for a few seconds before she turned off the light and pulled the heavy door closed. A stout lock clicked into place.
Thomas lay in near darkness, alone and dazed, on a hard pad with no covers. He blinked at the square of soft light seeping in through the door’s window. In the darkened corner to the right of the door…something moved.
He glanced into the corner. Nothing there. When he looked back out the small window, the subtle movement returned. He couldn’t tell if it was a person or a rippling cloud of dark smoke. It vanished each time he tried to lock onto it.
“Who…” Even the effort to speak challenged him. “Who’s there?” He pushed the words out on a tired breath.
A woman emerged out of the darkened corner.
Thomas sucked in a choking gasp as Scarlett’s pale face and smooth neck took shape in that inky pool. Her hands wriggled at her sides like two spiders made of bone.
“How…?” Thomas murmured.
Scarlett glided out of the darkness and moved toward him. A black dress with snakelike ribbons of fabric slithered around and behind her.
Thomas’s heartbeat remained sluggish, despite his swelling unease as she drew closer.
His thoughts evaporated before he could speak. He glanced down at Scarlett’s dirty bare feet. She left a trail of dark blotches on the floor as she approached.
“Nuh… Nuh…” Thomas slurred.
Scarlett’s red lips parted to reveal brown, rotted teeth caked with dirt. A centipede slithered out between them and fell to the floor with a soft Thuck! and scurried away.
“Nuh… Nuh… No… No!” Thomas fought to pull in even the tiniest sip of air.
Scarlett’s porcelain-white face and neck and perfect hands degraded before Thomas’s eyes. Bits of flesh fell off her and hit the floor. A blackish-red syrup poured out of her and created a sprawling pool at her rotting feet. She shuffled closer. Her jaw came unhinged on one side. A horrid black tongue flailed about inside her ruined mouth. An ungodly stench filled the room as she crawled on top of him, cold and wet and covered in rot.
Thomas’s agonized wailing seeped out of the room into the empty hallway.
So began one of many long nights alone with Scarlett, the mysterious woman of his dreams, who now belonged to him until the end of time.
*A Shade of Scarlett is the 1st Place Winner – Short Story (Prose) Category Killer Shorts Contest Season 5. Featured image created for Killer Shorts by D. E. Ladd.
D.E. Ladd has written short stories, novels, and screenplays in the genres of fantasy, action, horror, thriller, science fiction, and drama. Derek is a PAGE Awards winner and a regular contributor to Scary Monsters Magazine. His acclaimed horror story, The Thing in the Window, appeared in Wicked Creatures, an anthology published by New England Horror Writers. When he’s not writing or recording his own audiobooks, he spends a great deal of time preparing for an alien-zombie-ninja warrior invasion.
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