+ - +

Fear.

Shock.

Escape.

Numb.

Song For Isabella  by Stimming   

Birds chirped in dew-sparkling palm trees that stood tall against the bright blue sky.  The desert air of the Central Valley lent itself to aridity, but the night held a mist of cold in its fading arms.

Sunlight warmed the cracking, faded asphalt of the street, making ants scurry more quickly.  Brown adobe bricks in a long, high wall grew lighter as they warmed and dried in the fresh air.

The thin whine of cicadas and heat bugs declared another hot day ahead.  Their buzz grew louder and louder until it became a howl.  Dogs in nearby yards began to howl along with the heightening whine until a cacophony of discordance culminated in an explosion of adobe and hard plaster.

A Chevy Suburban smashed out onto the street in reverse, then swung around and sped forward, hopping over the jumble of bricks and dust strewn across the road.

Emeralda did not look back.

+ - +

Inside the Purple Mansion of them Robed figures from Armedmenia, alarms awoke anew.  Lights flicked on along a map on the wall beyond the bank of security camera video feeds, each in a small black and white television.

One light showed that the garage was open.  Motion sensors announced that motion had occurred in the far-off back quadrant of the expansive estate. Another light showed something quite odd.  It was from the rear wall itself.  The wire inside of the wall had been cut.  This meant only one thing.  The wall had been breached.

The Chairman looked up as the bodyguard pulled out his radio and said, “Come again?”  His earpiece fell out of his ear so whipped the cord out of the plug.  The radio squawked. 

A voice said, “We have an intruder from the North East.  A wall appears to have been opened.  This is Lock Down.”

The Chairman shook his head.  He said, “Call the meeting of the Heads off.  This is not safe for them.  We will need to meet at the Armory.”

The bodyguard relayed this information as the Chairman looked back at the other two who sat across from him.  He said, “We will need to close up, compartmentalize.  Guards at every door, outside and within.  After we find the intruder, then we will leave.”

Sven smiled back at him, and Christopher kept mumbling.  He was saying, “Gone.  Gone…”

He was correct.  His real wife was gone form him forever, and now, the wife of the man whose body he inhabited had also flown the coop.  No one knew that yet, and this lent her time to escape without detection.

+ - +

Workers poked about the charred walls of the staff lodging.  The communal room leered a gap-toothed grin from its missing doors on each wall.  Blackened bodies lied in various positions of pain and prayer.  The darkest part of the day was over.  The supply closet still smoked, and within it, on the floor, lied the crisp body of the woman who had started the fire.

The maid had been overtaken by a the soul of a vindictive woman.  That one sought revenge for the death of her man, Lenny Sustenuto.

Lenny had opened the Gates of Hell.

Sherry did not know that Lenny walked, as she did, along the eternal plane of the Walk-Ins.  If she had, she might not have caused so many to perish in such a horrific manner.  But now, she was without the only one who loved her, and she was without her own body.  She had lost everything.  No one deserved to have anything of their own.  She would find the man who had taken everything from her, and she would kill him a thousand times.  She figured that she could follow him after she killed him, to see where he next would Walk-In.

She was correct that this was possible.

What she didn’t know was that an army of Walk-Ins was growing in that hellhole called Fuckno, and soon, unconscious bodies to inhabit would become a rare commodity, for all.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out

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