Burlap

20 - Another One Bites The Dust

A/N: The chapter title song and accompanying music video... I couldn't resist. I tried to keep to a certain style of music and keep it pretty serious, but I was just so dang happy that Ernie was dead and that George did it! 

Also, the picture on the side from The Shining? I have no idea why, but it just reminded me of this chapter, for no apparent reason I can come up with. So, just deal with that for my sake, mk? Maybe the garden/maze scene at the end and the garden they're in now? I dunno. My brain is weird. 

I darted in front of the berserking teen, gripping the coiled muscles covering his arms in my fingers.

“George!” I cried, my heart pounding against the walls of my chest. He shook me off, glaring at me with ice in his veins for interrupting the only thing I’d seen give him real, tangible joy since knowing him.

And that thing was murder. Murder with his bare hands, pounding his fists into what was left of Ernie’s now unidentifiable face.

“Please! George, stop! He’s-he’s dead! Please, stop!”

He shot up to his feet, a feral grin adorning his young face as he tilted his head back to bask in the moonlight. He ran his bloodied hands through his dark hair, slicking it back with Ernie’s useless liquid life and leaving scarlet hand prints on his smooth cheeks and forehead. His chest heaved, grinning mouth hissing in pleasure as he sucked in deep, satiating breaths.

I stumbled to my feet, feeling my bones crack against each other as I trembled with adrenaline.

“What? No ‘thank you, George, for saving my life’?” he asked, looking down to meet my shaken gaze. I took the sight in, memorizing every sick and twisted detail of the scene without wanting to.

“Y-you killed him. I… I…”

Tears didn’t spring to my eyes, even though I begged them to for the loss of life. It didn’t matter that Ernie was a bad man. He was someone’s son, maybe a husband or father. Someone had to love him, and someone would now have to mourn him. No, I couldn’t be sad that Ernie was dead. In fact, I felt more relieved than anything. It was those who knew and cared for him I wanted to break down and plead for forgiveness from.

George stared at me, an amused smirk playing at his lips. “Are you really so shocked, Kate? It’s not like you haven’t killed before. Would you rather I had let him turn you into pulp?”

“No… I…” My voice cracked with the hard lump of emotion in my throat, threatening to rip through my esophagus.

He tossed his head back and laughed, gripping the ruby stained strands of hair in his fingers, as if he’d just won the lottery and couldn’t believe it. Bile swirled in the pit of my stomach, threatening to make its way up my throat. He’d enjoyed the thrill of the kill.

“You’re no virgin to this, you know! You’ve slaughtered more people than any of us! You can’t tell me you didn’t feel the adrenaline! The rush! God, it’s exhilarating, isn’t it?”

Tiny, pathetic whimpers squeezed their way past my quivering lips as I sought for some kind of rationality in what I was seeing right in front of my face. “I… I…”

He swooped down to stand right in front of me then, taking in my white face with sparkling eyes filled with pure bliss. His wet, sticky hands gripped both sides of my jaw, stroking my cheeks with his thumbs and no doubt leaving blood smears all over my skin. “Red is such a striking color on you, Kate. You should wear it more often,” he whispered, his excited eyes flicking between mine, searching for my compliance.