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Leda
Melancowski yawned and stretched. She rolled over on the couch and plummeted to
the floor. A sharp pain flared in her right buttock. She screeched, reached
under the buttock and dragged out her cat.
“Damn
you, Hamilton.”
The
cat looked at her, eyes crossed and stunned. She spat on Hamilton and tossed him
against the wall.
Muttering
curses at the cat, but mostly at Carl for leaving, she staggered up and dragged
her feet into the kitchen. Leda surveyed the room with disgust. Her good china
lay shattered on the floor. A can of moldy beer, replete with cigarette butts,
lay in the middle of it.
Just
like Carl to do this to her.
“Dammit,
Carl.” Leda tried to edge past the shattered china. She stepped on a piece of
glass hidden under a dusty pair of her underwear and she screamed in frustration
and pain.
She
glared at the mess. To hell with it. Carl would clean it when he got back. If he
got back.
Leda
shrugged.
She
stumbled over garbage sacks containing more of her dirty clothes. Have to get
Carl to wash them some day. She scowled and eased into her bedroom. She had a
pair of new shoes in here . . . somewhere.
Eyeing
the bed, she shook her head. She’d never go into another bed if she could help
it, not unless it was some jerk that looked like he’d make a good slug, a
slave.
Kicking
through her things scattered on the floor, she went to her dresser and peered in
dismay at the heaps of discarded shoes and clothes piled there.
With
a strong look of distaste she plowed through it all and spotted a small, brown
and yellow shoe box.
“Aha,”
she yelled and dragged it out. New shoes. Leda yanked off the top and gagged on
the gut churning stench.
It
was a black smear, streaked with mold.
Hastily
replacing the top, she tossed it at a window. It hit the pane and thumped to the
floor. Something from a past sacrifice at the ‘Stone, she guessed. A keepsake.
Not from the last sacrifice. Her smile matched Hamilton's when he held a living
bird in his claws.
“Ah,
Carl, if only you knew how much you’ve given me.” She sighed. “Your babies
were all so welcomed. On the ‘Stone.”
The
phone jangled and wound forgotten, Leda raced to the kitchen. She leaned around
the wall and peered at the screen.
Eyeing
the number on the top of the view screen, she smiled.
“Why
you old buzzard.”
Leda
punched a button and waited. The face of a dour old man appeared in her screen.
“Darling
Leda, how are ye, me love?" Lecherous and yet innocent all at the same time
he smiled. Rather like her Benny.
Cool,
she nodded.
“What
can I do for you, Mr. Ryan?” She cocked an eye and smiled with her lips.
“I
have a bit of a proposition for you, love.”
She
yawned. He blanched, and snarled in a cold rage, “Listen to me, you ungrateful
guttersnipe-”
“Chill.”
Leda bared her teeth in a cold smile and nibbled at a blood-blackened nail. The
Cu:alani boy had been exciting and an excellent sacrifice. She was sore in all
the right places, in all the right ways. She raked his back and chest until
little skin was left. He had been so eager, so willing, right to the end. Then
so terrified.
“I
know.” Leda smiled and Ryan felt a quiver of pain run through his heart.
“You’ve been acting a little . . . mischievous, Mr. Ryan.” The smile
somehow missed Leda’s eyes.
Staring
at him, Leda reached to cut his transmission.
“No,
wait.” He screamed then, his face splotched purple and ashen. Ryan clutched
his heart and his other hand scrabbled for his medication.
Leda
smiled.
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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