A Hero

I stared down at my red hands, my heart lodged in my throat, and all I could think over and over is: How did this happen? This wasn’t supposed to be the way this ends.

The pressure in my head is threatening to crush my skull. I cover my ears but the sound persists, a constant as the crash of the ocean. I scream, but the sound is swallowed up by the roaring between my ears.

******

Go back. Back to the beginning. Back to when things were good. Back before the betrayal. Back before he revealed himself to me. Before he pulled back the face behind the face. Before the foundation we built our lives on collapsed in on itself, leaving only debris and a sense of loss. Of wrongness.

******

Further back still. It’s summer and I am at a rooftop party for a client. I feel uncomfortable there, and regret going to a party for someone I worked for alone. I looked pretty good, in a flattering silver/gray dress, and if I am honest part of the reason I went to the party in the first place was to take in the amazing view from this new and beautiful skyscraper. The sunset is fantastic, and I watch it alone, set apart from the rest of the party, champagne flute in hand. It’s a lovely moment and I felt happy. It was oppressively hot that night, and I debated leaving since I knew no one, and was no one, and had seen my sunset. And then you came up to me.

You were handsome, but in a way that made me suspicious of you immediately. Too handsome? With your glossy black hair and olive skin, your pale blue eyes that are impossible to read. You had too white and too straight teeth, like a toothpaste advertisement. You were so handsome and put together as to feel unreal. You would love for me to describe you that way. But you love compliments and affection like a cat does. Acting all aloof and indifferent but secretly wanting all the focus and adoration. Most things about you are cat-like. You hunger for affection on your own terms, and think nothing for others. And you use people like playthings. Toying with me like I was a mouse. Batting me around, puncturing me with needle sharp claws and teeth, never letting me escape. Worst of all thinking it was all a big laugh.

******

You offered me a drink and I let you get it for me. You wore a white linen shirt, and pale cotton trousers, sockless with loafers. You looked comfortable in the heat, whereas I was soaked through in sweat and kept nervously glancing down at my dress and wiping my hands. I told you I was a realtor and had helped Mr. Dalton with a pied a terre for his daughter recently, and he had invited me to the party. You told me you were a designer and was hired to remodel that same acquisition. We laughed about what a small world it was, both of us so intimately involved with the same property. Then you confessed that Mr. Dalton had mentioned me as someone he should meet. That he thought we would hit it off wither business wise or for a date, or both. “That’s why I came to be honest, to meet you.” I laughed, guardedly, put off by such a handsome man, being so overtly flirtatious with me. I replied: “I came to see the sunset from the Dalton Building, they say it’s one of the best views in the city.”

Mr. Dalton was pleased we had found each other at that party. He grinned, face flushed with drink, his considerable frame decked out in a tan summer suit and loud tropical shirt beneath. He expelled a plume of cigar smoke and approached us, arms wide.

“Ah, I see you two found each other. I admit to playing cupid, just this once. But you are both too good looking and talented to be single.”

I squirmed under his attention, and yours for that matter, feeling that you both had married me off in some backroom agreement. I felt like some medieval daughter being matched up for a prize steer and some land with no say at all.

But still, I did stay the night drinking wine and talking to you on that roof. And I did agree to dinner, and another, and another, and then breakfast after allowing you to sleep over. And over time I fell for you. It wasn’t overnight, it wasn’t some spell, it took time. Like a seed planted. And how patiently you courted and waited and wooed me.

Did I occasionally find your endless focus exhausting and possibly inauthentic? Did I catch glimpses of how cruel you could be beneath it all when your mask slipped? Did I tell myself to ignore all of that because you were such a catch?

And your name. Damon. How could I be so stupid as to not put it all together.

******

Let’s not forget the matter of your friends. I never liked how they all looked at me, too eagerly, too happily. How excited they were for us to get serious, and then to move in together. How badly they wanted us married off. How frequent the jokes were about babies on the way. It felt abnormal for so many adult men of middle and later age to push us, but maybe I am being sexist.

My friends could never get past your looks, your charm, your wealth, your beautiful aesthetic. The artful way you approached all things: fine clothes, good foods, lovely spaces. I confess I often felt like a curated piece to compliment your collection. How often you commented on how good we looked together, and how beautiful our children would be.

******

I am on my hands and knees mopping with towels and old clothes, pushing the water and blood to the center, creating a big puddle and vainly trying to get it all absorbed. The air is heavy with the metallic tang of so much blood. It coats my skin, it coats the inside of my mouth. The whole world at that moment is painted in blood. The walls have splatters, a particularly artistic one over our wedding photo. Even the ceiling has a few.

******

The wedding was held a top the very same rooftop garden that we met, at sunset, and it should have been perfect. My gown was perfect, your crisp black suit was perfect, the food was perfect. The music floated on a spring breeze filled with the scent of flowers. We danced the night away and I thought everything was going to be perfect forever. I looked at you and thought yes, this is the man for me, this is my forever. Did I find it off putting how much I was fawned over, how much your family, your friends, your colleagues, even Mr. Dalton, positively gushed with joy and pride and excitement over our special day.

After the cake, as guests started to leave, Mr. Dalton’s daughter, Aubergine, came to me. Pretty, in a gaunt junkie model sort of way. She was twitchy, paranoid.

“Can I talk to you?” She asked quietly, discreetly.

“Of course,” I beamed, feeling drunk and carefree and happy.

“Be careful. Damon is not what he seems. None of them are what they seem.”

“Them? And what about you?”

“I am nobody. Damon didn’t want me, so I am nothing.”

Before I could respond, she left and I rubbed at the goosebumps suddenly painted up and down my arms. Had Mr. Dalton tried to set Damon up with his daughter before me? Probably. He was a meddler, he set us up after all and she probably just had a broken heart. Damon was perfectly handsome, thoughtful, talented. Of course there was a line of broken hearts trailing behind him. How could there not be? I had a few myself after all.

It was then that Damon found me, kissed me, and took me to dance. And I forgot about Aubergine entirely.

Forgot about the way her father watched us talking with concern, no doubt angry at her bringing ancient history to my attention on my special day.

It was only a day later that she leapt to her death from the same rooftop, leaving the pavement a riotous star of blood and cracks around her crumpled body.

At the funeral Mr. Dalton pulled me aside, assured me she was mentally ill, always had been. And delusional. And a liar. And she couldn’t be trusted. So, anything she said to me should be taken with a grain of salt. He squeezed my arm tight as he said this, eyes boring into mine. “Now go and have an amazing honeymoon. Don’t let this ruin it for you.”

And we did jet off, touring Europe for a month. It was a decadent and wonderful trip, touring all the sites, buying lovely things, sumptuous meals, and making love endlessly.

Did I notice how often you would dissuade me from taking my pill? Or how often you forgot to use a condom? Why were you trying to get me pregnant so fast- why did everyone want us speeding down the aisle and to the maternity ward? What was the urgency?

We were standing on a balcony in Paris, sunset, always sunsets with us wasn’t it? And the dying light lit your eyes up as if they were on fire. You held my hand, skin hot almost feverish to the touch.

“We are going to remake the world you and I. Make it perfect, and in our own image.”

I agreed, laughing, thinking you were just drunk, or being melodramatic.

And by the time we got home, I was pregnant.

******

The apartment is clean now. Or as clean as it will ever be. All the bloody linens have been incinerated. All surfaces have been scrubbed and scrubbed. Walls and ceilings have been repainted. The room is conspicuously missing its carpet and drapery, the pillows are missing their covers. The air smells overwhelmingly of cleaners.

But there is no sign of violence. Of horror.

Bags packed at the door and a car service scheduled to pick me up and take me straight to the airport.

I won’t be coming back here if I can help it.

It may look clean, but like Lady Macbeth, all I can see and smell is the blood. Coating everything, congealing, filled with screams. With the things we became. I will never come back to this apartment.

******

When you found out it was a girl you wept with joy, and I was infected by your excitement. I had wanted children, but in an abstract ‘someday’ way, but the reality of being pregnant had left me feeling uncertain, scared even.

And then the gifts rolled in, every client you had, every friend, and Mr. Dalton, the newly daughterless Mr. Dalton, bringing us silver baby rattles, bags of handmade clothes, and endless positivity. Too much positivity. My family and friends were excited true, but it was nothing like yours. At night, tossing and turning, I realized it was because their interest was abnormal. It was weird how interested everyone was in me, in us, in our baby daughter.

I confided this to you one night, and you laughed, claimed it was hormones making me paranoid. But it wasn’t. It was something else.

“Why do they all love you so, Damon? It’s like they worship you or something.”

“And what if I told you that they did? Worship me. What if they believe that our child is going to be something amazing?”

“World changing?” I teased. But he agreed, totally serious.

“Well they do. And that makes you one of the most important people in the world, you are the vessel carrying a new world inside of you.”

“Why you?”

You never answered, just smiled, like a cat. The baby moved at that moment and a dread settled over me.

A month later, I went into labor late in the night, waters bursting, soaking the mattress, contractions following quickly. I wanted to go to the hospital but you told me no, you hid the phones, you locked the doors. This is a private matter you said. A private thing. I was terrified of you then, terrified I was going to die in our apartment.

The only ones you would allow were those friends of yours, those clients, Mr. Dalton included. Would you like him to call them?

No way. I freaked. No way, no way was I having my baby unassisted save for some over involved deluded tycoon like Mr. Dalton and his cronies. I pushed at you, crawling on hands and knees, screaming and begging. I did not want them there, a bunch of freaks who heralded my baby as some sort of god. Or whatever they believed. Finally, you agreed to not call them. In the end it was just you and me, on the floor, on pillows and blankets. You with rolled sleeves and shining eyes.

Then there was our daughter. Slipping out of me, wet and rubbery, after hours of pain and work into your arms on a fount of gore. And then she was here and you were gnawing your way through the cord. Feral, with sharp teeth and a bloody mouth. And then she howled, her cries powerful, angry, alive.

With what strength I had left I reached out for her and I could see your wariness at giving her to me. Fear? Reluctantly you passed her over. My blood froze up in my veins, breath hitched. Something was wrong.

Her skin was rough, almost leathery, and her eyes, when she finally opened them, were entirely black. Small claws with sharp nails, and a small, fleshy tail whipping back and forth against my forearm.

“What is wrong with her?” I whispered, mouth gone dry as ash.

“Nothing.” You said, offended.

“What the hell is she, Damon?”

“Our daughter, and she is perfect. Just perfect.”

******

I often wondered, on the plane, settling into the new apartment on the other side of the Atlantic, at restaurants, staring into crowds, when they will come for me. I know they will, I know that they are well connected, and that they have wealth and power and more important than that the blind faith of zealots behind them. So, it is not an if but a when of finding me.

And when they do, what will they do? What can they do besides kill me for my sins, kill me for taking away their new world order and the leaders of it? Destroying the kingdom and the dream. Taking it away like they took my life from me.

I picture all those acolytes rushing into our apartment and finding nothing and no one. The stink of bleach and an absence of linens the only clue. The nursery untouched. Our mattress stripped bare. And no one there.

******

I remember screaming, crawling on hands and knees, trailing gore and afterbirth and making my way to the kitchen, running on what little reserves I had. I had set the baby on the floor in revulsion before making my way and you were retrieving her, wrapping her up, she wailed pitifully, no doubt cold and afraid.

I couldn’t be in the room with either of you, I needed to be as far away as possible. But you followed me, holding her wrapped in a blanket. It was pink with ducks. I shudder at the memory of opening it at my baby shower, a gift from one of the many wives and friends of Damon.

“You will learn to love her. You were the perfect vessel and will be the perfect mother I know it. I didn’t make a mistake picking you for such an important job.”

Could the world have turned further on its side then? My entire reality crumbled before my eyes and I stood, bleeding and shaking, exhausted beyond words, staring at my husband and my daughter. Neither of which I knew. I squeezed the handle of the blade held at my side, hidden behind me.

“No Damon, I don’t think you know me at all. I don’t think you ever did. And you have no idea what I am capable of.”

Then I rushed him with the knife.

******

I rushed them with my knife. And he fought, but he was caught off guard, and the baby was crying and crying. I stabbed him in the neck, a great fount of blood jettisoned out spraying the wall and ceiling. He dropped the baby. He fell to the ground. I crawled to them and finished what I had to do. Make no mistake, I know what I had to do. Perhaps there was a scenario where I raised this unspeakable gargoyle to be a good person and have a regular life. But I doubt it. Damon’s sycophants would take her from me I was sure of it. When it was done, I felt my grisly deeds had sealed my spot in heaven and hell. There was only silence save my gasping breath and the pat pat pat of blood dripping on the tile. I slept there on the floor for some time, in a blanket of intermingled blood and corpses, too tired to move.

My horrible family, together at last.

Then, I cleaned. I cleaned it all. I carved you up, bundled you up, took you and the baby rolled in rugs and trash bags to the basement incinerator. It was lucky we lived in a pre-war building, one that had a grandfathered functioning trash incinerator, when the city outlawed them so long ago. Interesting the details you know about a building if you are a good realtor. Like I am. Was. So, I burned you both up. And the towels and the rugs and the pillows. I cleaned and scrubbed and painted all while swiping at tears and bleeding below, my body still aching from giving birth hours before.

******

Sunset on my balcony in Europe. I am sipping a glass of wine, and trying to embrace the new city and the new life. But I know it is only temporary. I may have cut and dyed my hair, may have stopped wearing my contacts, trading them in for big distinctive glasses. May be renting this sublet under a friend’s name and credit card. But it’s only a matter of time. The world is too small to hide forever.

And I stopped caring about much of anything after that day anyways.

But I like to think of myself as a hero, who saved the world.

A goddamned hero. Even if no one knows it, but me.

THE END

Bio: Victoria Dalpe is an artist and writer based out of Providence, RI. Her dark short fiction has appeared in over thirty anthologies and her first novel will be re-released in October 2023 through Nightscape Press. Her short story collection, Les Femmes Grotesques, came out with Clash Books in the fall of 2022. She is a member of the HWA and the New England Horror Writers. Victoria also co-edited the Necronomicon 2019 Memento Book with Justin Steele.

E-mail: Victoria Dalpe

Website: Victoria Dalpe's Amazon author page.

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