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They finally escaped the hellhole that was the mausoleum. As they trekked along the damp earth in silence, Iris held Whiskers close. Not only was he providing much needed warmth from the cool breeze, but he supplied some comfort as well. Near death experiences were hardly ever well-received and Iris had been through many while trapped in that place. She had plans on shutting down the bakery for a week until she could get her bearings and figure things out. Or perhaps she just should leave; close up shop so her and Whiskers could relocate to somewhere that wasn’t swarming with cultists.
She glanced at the back of David’s head and decided the city was not an option. She’d need to go much, much farther if she wanted to leave all this behind.
After several minutes of uncomfortable silence, David and Iris arrived at David’s car. He turned to face her, expression blank but mind whirring. Whiskers shifted in her arms like he wanted to be let down.
“Told you we’d make it,” he said, taking note of the way she held her cat close. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. If the damn thing ran off again he refused to waste any more energy trying to find it.
Iris held Whiskers tight as he squirmed. He was letting off faint mewls of annoyance and she couldn’t figure out the cause. He only got like this when something threatened him. Had David’s mother escaped to hunt them down?
David’s gaze went to the path they’d just come from when Iris whirled to face it. For a brief moment, he thought his mother had somehow survived and come after them. Upon finding it as barren and lifeless as the cemetery around them, his focus returned to Iris. “We should get going,” he offered her uneasy expression.
“…Right.” She adjusted her grip on Whiskers and took small strides towards David, intending to go around him. She forced herself to ignore the way his eyes remained fixated on her, following her every move. Now that they were outside, she realized the darkness coating them wasn’t from the shadows of the mausoleum.
“Iris.”
She froze in place, only a few paces past him. Whiskers growled and tried to climb over her shoulder. The hairs on the back of her neck and arms stood with goosebumps.
“Come with me, to the city. Forget about this place, about your job, everything. I promised I’d help you become a model and I meant it.” He brought a hand near her shoulder but the damn cat growled again and he backed off. All this time, and the filthy pest chooses now to want to protect its owner? His voice remained welcoming despite the cruel snarl forming on his features. It seemed to scare the cat into submission. “There’s nothing left for you here. The remaining cultists will know what happened. They’ll look for us. They’ll find you first.”
Iris refused to fall prey to whatever sudden fear had overtaken Whiskers. Turning to face her unnerving company, she said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, David.” His expression was blank, empty. She thought he’d be angrier; his attempts to lure her weren’t working and she wasn’t about to up and vanish with him. She was expecting some sort of vile rage followed by an effort to force her into the car, but David remained where he was with little more than a frown. He didn’t even have his keys in his hand.
“You don’t trust me,” was all he said to her defensive look. He angled his gaze to the front of his orange hatchback. “I suppose that’s fair, given all that’s happened. I wouldn’t blame you for running away.” His eyes slowly drifted back to her.
Iris didn’t like where this was going. He had that odd look again, the one where she couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or not. On one hand, he seemed very manipulative given their prior conversations and his miserable excuse of an apology. However, there was just… something about his tone that made her question if there was some truth behind it. She was torn on what to do. She certainly didn’t trust him, but she had her doubts about her ability to escape him too.
If it came down to it, Iris wasn’t sure she could hold her own against him. He’d survived a nasty fall unscathed, was host to a supernatural evil, and he still had the knife. What could she possibly do to hurt him?
As if on cue, he shifted his weight and the blade glinted in the dim remnants of light.
David followed her uneasy stare to his side and was reminded of the knife he still had stuck through his belt loop. He slowly grabbed it and tossed it somewhere behind himself. Now that he was unarmed, perhaps he’d seem a little less menacing. Maybe she'd finally let her guard down.
Iris was no fool, but she couldn’t just turn tail and run. She needed more time to figure out an escape route. “David, I can’t just leave everything behind like that. This is my home, my livelihood.”
“Oh come on, as if you really enjoy baking that much. I know I was hard on you before, but I really do think you have a chance as a model. I can even get you in the same magazine that Mira K usually features in.”
The promise of being a model was no longer so alluring. Iris took a couple steps back, Whiskers silent in her grasp but staring intently at the man across from her.
“You really want to take your chances here, with these lunatics?”
“It’ll be fine, David. I can handle myself.” A bunch of cultists seemed less frightening than him right now.
He felt the tension in his face. “They’ll hunt you down and who knows what they’ll do with you. Just… come with me. They won’t find you in the city.”
Realization dawned on her. “The notes, David… Remember? They were spying on you. They already know where you are. They always have. How else would they have sent you the letter?” Was he in on it? Surely he had figured that part out. Or was he too stuck on the whole vessel thing?
This nightmare couldn’t end soon enough.
David’s mind churned as he tried to come up with better logic as well as stop the aggravation from spreading to his voice. “We can move to somewhere else. I travel a lot for my work, so it’s not like I need to stay in one place.”
She continued to back away from him, face strewn with fear.
No. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. She wasn’t supposed to be this afraid until after he’d started torturing her... Damn it all. He wanted to revel in her suffering. He never should have thrown the knife away...
David steadied his thoughts and hoped his vision would stop swimming. “Iris, I… Please. I just want to make it up to you.” He took a couple steps towards her to even the distance again. “Look… We can both start over and find happiness. Despite everything I want to help you… I’m no vessel,” he spat. “I want to help make you happy. I’m not a monster like those cultists think. I’m not like my mother.” He was far, far worse than the both of them.
The eerie desperation in his voice snapped Iris out of her uncertainty and she stopped pretending. “Stay away from me, David. You’re right, I don’t trust you at all.” She backed away again, moving to the side of the hatch. With the car between them, perhaps she could avoid him long enough to get to the knife. Then she’d at least have a chance.
David let out a long sigh and looked at her tiredly. “Are you sure there’s nothing I can do to change your mind?”
Her voice caught in her throat under his half-lidded gaze, obsidian orbs staring right at her—through her to her very core. She shook her head. Every muscle was tense, waiting for him to make a move so she could run to the discarded knife.
His eyes closed for a moment as he regarded her answer. “Fine.”
Without warning, David lunged at her, easily closing the distance.
Iris staggered back with a gasp and managed to twist just out of his reach, letting him stumble from his own momentum. She was wrong about the car offering any sort of protection. He was too fast for her to use it as a shield. Taking advantage of his momentary loss of balance, she sprinted towards the knife. She could hear him running behind her and tossed Whiskers to the side in the hopes he’d avoid any harm.
Iris dove for the blade and had whirled to point it at David when his hand gripped her wrist so tightly she cried out. She refused to let go and attempted to pry his hand off before taking wild swings at his face and arm.
Her blows did little to faze him and after a few more seconds of her struggling he restrained her other arm before giving her a swift knee to the stomach. The knife slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground beside her.
“It’s a real shame,” he said as he picked up the muddy blade. Any pretense of friendliness was long gone. “I would’ve preferred to do this in my apartment where I could capture your soul, but at least I’ll still get to keep those eyes of yours.” He wiped the muck from the knife and brought it just above her left cheekbone.
Iris whimpered as cold metal pressed into her skin, drawing blood. Her vision was filled with David's demonic smile as he slowly started dragging the blade across the space below her eye.
A harsh yowl sounded before an orange blur entered Iris’ field of view. David and the knife snapped away from her in an instant, his angered screams matching the volume of hissing and growling. He blindly staggered over to the car, loosing his footing and bumping into it as he fell. The alarm sounded as he kept screaming, trying to pry Whiskers off his face.
Iris’ breathing was frantic as she watched the struggle. When her fight or flight response kicked in, she snapped to and grabbed the knife once more.
“Get off!” David roared, gripping the damn cat by the scruff and tearing it from his face. He flung it into the distance as hard as he could. The coppery stench of blood filled his nose as he brought his hands to his face and eyes, only for them to come back slick. Opening his eyes revealed nothing but blurred discomfort. He cursed in rage and slammed a wet palm against the hood of his car as he used it for leverage. The alarm was beginning to grate his nerves.
He had no idea Iris was rushing him until the blade sunk into his stomach.
The knife went in easier than she thought, and she held back bile at the feeling of David’s insides shifting under the force. She ignored the nausea and dragged the knife diagonally before he could fight back.
A wet cough was all that escaped David’s lips as his legs gave out. Although there was no pain, his body still betrayed him as he lay in the dirt, blood oozing from the gash. Any attempts to stand merely risked him losing his innards. He couldn’t get his voice to work his and sight was already gone, stolen by that accursed pest. All he could do was wait for his body to surrender. Part of him wondered if there was an afterlife for monsters.
The only sound was the car’s alarm and a few faint gurgles and gags from David. Eventually, the blaring noise stopped. David twitched for several agonizing seconds amidst the silence until finally he was still, body having succumbed to blood loss.
Iris stood over David’s corpse with the soiled knife still clutched tightly in her hands, shaking like a leaf. Despite everything, she was still in shock at having killed him. Laying in the dirt like that, face and body mangled, he looked an awful lot like the twisted corpse of his mother.
She shook the thought from her mind and let the knife fall by her feet. She was at a loss. David had been right about one thing: She couldn’t just go back home and pretend this never happened. The cult would find her. Prior to this they would’ve likely just killed her, but now that she’d murdered their precious vessel, there was no telling what they’d do.
She couldn’t stay here, but where else was there to go?
A soft meow snapped her out of her thoughts and she whipped her head over to Whiskers. He slowly limped towards her, front left leg held in the air and bent unnaturally. She knelt down to inspect him.
Whiskers purred as she ran her fingers through his fur to remove some of the mats and debris. He kept purring even when she inspected his leg and caused him to flinch. He mewled and butt his head against her hand at the sound of her soft sobs.
Iris sniffled and wiped her face against her shoulder to avoid getting David’s blood on herself. Aside from the broken leg and being covered in blood that wasn’t his own, Whiskers seemed to be fine. “Where do we go now?” she asked the orange tabby. Her gaze eventually traveled back to David before landing on the car.
There was nothing left for her here and there certainly wasn’t anything for her in the city where David had lived, but perhaps elsewhere…
She took careful steps to David, mindful of the blood still seeping into the earth, and felt around in his pockets until she found his keys. “C’mon, Whiskers,” she whispered. First on her list was to get him to a vet. From there she could spin a convincing tale of narrowly escaping a violent death. It wasn’t as though she was lying. She gingerly picked the tabby up and set him in the passenger seat. Climbing into the driver’s and firing up the engine, she took one final look at the cemetery.
It seemed her grandfather was right: they were no place for the living unless you were looking to join them.