Thirsty

This story contains reference to sexual violence and physical violence.

The blood soaked deep into the dusty ground, turning the pale tan to a dark, rich burnt umber. I left a trail of drops as I walked across the dusty road, following the sun, my fingertips dripping—drip, drip, drip.

I didn't hurt anymore; the pain was a memory that faded when his heart stopped beating. My shoulder would be okay in time. He would not. I tore a strip of cloth from my shirt and wrapped it tightly around the wound, the slice like a piece of fruit—a mango—the inside bright and shining. Pushing the edges together, I tied the fabric in a make-shift band-aid and gritted my teeth.

There was running water somewhere; there had to be. This deserted town could have a pump, or a well, or a pipe somewhere. I needed water. I needed to wash off the blood and I needed to wash off the hate—the sticky hate that was smeared across me.

I stumbled up the front steps of the bar where no patrons had visited for years. There was no one. There was only silence. He had brought me here for the silence, but we see where that got him. It got him a scream in the face, a scratch from my nails, a screwdriver in the ribs, and eventually, a mouthful of dry dirt.

The bar had taps of all sorts. I pulled and yanked, but nothing spilled forth. Even the bathroom faucet only spat out dust in a hiss.

I pulled myself forward, onward to the next building. The hardware store, the shoe store, the bank… no water came forth. Then I found the grocery store. Far down the street, the sign, twisted and bent over like a lady tying her shoe, read SuperMart. I began my trek toward the promise of water. Bottles, cans, buckets… any water.

The street stretched on like an airport runway; it seemed to take forever to walk all the way to the storefront. The broken doors and the hollow windows showed the abandonment of the ghost town where I had woken up. This was not how my day started.

My day had started on the manicured quad of a university I couldn't wait to attend. The scent of freshly cut grass filled the air and in the distance, a melodic chime of the bell tower rang. The lead tour guide’s voice was monotone and made the arts program sound like a visit to the morgue. Thankfully, the tour was broken up, and each campus program had a different guide. I prayed the science tour guide was more up-beat.

It was mid-day when the tour guide called for a short break. The heat was stifling, and the lead guide’s voice had begun to grate on me like sandpaper. I just needed a cold drink and some fresh air.

I wandered away from the group in the cafeteria, my earbuds pushed deep into my ears. Letting the music wrap around me like a shield, I lost myself in a heavy bass line that drowned out the world.

I headed off to find the courtyard. I followed the signs down a hallway, passing a narrow staircase where the bright sunlight of the quad faded into the depth. The hallway was a labyrinth of closed doors and quiet labs. I was so focused on finding a glowing red exit sign, that I didn’t hear the door click behind me. I pulled one earbud out when I finally spotted the exit sign with an arrow in a dark alcove at the end of the hall.

I never heard the footsteps. I only felt the sudden, crushing pressure of a hand over my mouth. The bass from my dangling earbud was the last thing I heard—a tiny, tinny heartbeat fading into nothing as the floor rushed up to meet me. A flash of blue coveralls… the janitor?

When the world finally stopped spinning, the bell tower was gone. The grass was gone. There was only the smell of old dust, grease, and mold.

I pushed through the skeletal remains of the automatic doors, the glass crunching like frozen snow under my boots. The air inside was cooler, smelling of stale cardboard and ancient floor wax. I moved toward the back, past aisles of rusted cans and empty shelves, my eyes searching for a glimmer of plastic or the dull sheen of a gallon jug.

A floorboard creaked behind me. Not the settling of an old building, but the deliberate weight of a footstep. I froze, my breath hitching in my throat. I wasn't alone. I didn't turn around. I couldn't. My hand drifted to the makeshift bandage on my shoulder, feeling the dampness of fresh blood beginning to seep through.

He was supposed to be dead. I felt his pulse stop, hadn’t I? I began to question myself. I had seen the light leave his eyes before I dragged myself away from the street of dust. I hadn't buried him. I hadn't had the strength, or the tools, or the time. I had just watched him slump into the dirt, grabbing at his middle, falling like a stone, striking his head with such force I thought he was dead. I had got him good! He crumpled to the ground, his eyes glassy and fixed on the scorching sun. I had believed the lie my own mind told me just to keep me moving. I thought he was dead because I needed him to be dead.

I ducked behind a counter, the floor sticky with the ancient slime of meat juices and rotting produce. I pressed my back against the cold stainless steel, crawling backward, I searched for something, anything.

I needed a weapon. My fingers scrambled over the floor, searching through the debris of broken glass and discarded wrappers. My hand closed around something cold and heavy—a metal meat mallet, its head pitted with rust but still solid.

The floorboard creaked again, right on the other side of the counter. I could hear his breathing now, a wet, ragged sound that made the hair on my arms stand up.

I gripped the meat mallet, the cold iron biting into my palm. I couldn't stay here. If he found me behind this counter, it would be over in seconds. I needed to be the one moving; I needed him to follow a ghost of his own. I needed a distraction.

I reached out and grabbed a glass jar of pickles from a nearby shelf, my movements slow and deliberate. With a sharp flick of my wrist, I tossed it toward the far end of the store, towards the lines of coolers. The jar shattered against a metal display rack with a violent crack, the sound of breaking glass and splashing brine echoing like a gunshot through the empty building.

"I can smell you, sweetheart," he whispered. "You’re leaking and it’s making my mouth water. You’re getting weaker while I’m getting stronger." His footsteps echoed as he made his way down an aisle, following the noise.

I gripped the mallet until my knuckles turned white. I wasn't the same girl who had wandered away from the science tour looking for a soda. That girl was gone, buried back in the hallway of the university.

I didn't wait for him to investigate the noise. As soon as I heard his heavy, uneven footsteps shuffling toward the sound of the glass, I stood up and bolted for the loading dock doors at the back. I moved like a shadow, my boots barely touching the grime-slicked floor. I pushed through the heavy steel exit door.

The heat hit me like a physical wall, reminding me of my parched throat and the metallic tang of blood still coating my tongue. I didn't stop. I headed for the narrow alleyway between the SuperMart and the electronics store, a place where the shadows were long and the dust hung heavy in the air.

I tucked myself into the darkness behind a stack of rotted wooden pallets. From there, I had a clear view of the loading dock door. I gripped the meat mallet, my thumb tracing the rust on the handle.

I knew I couldn’t hide forever. I knew I couldn’t walk out of this abandoned town. I needed to think. I needed a plan. I needed his car, but it was back by the garage. I needed to move.

I stood up, stepping out from the long shadows of the pallets, and began my trek back to the beginning. The dust swirled around my ankles, a silent witness to my return. I knew the garage was only three or four buildings away. That was where this all came to a point. That was where I had first woken up to the smell of oil and grease that had filled my nostrils until the tang of his breath was all I could smell.

The old mattress he had prepared smelled of mold and dirt. I could still feel his heavy body on top of me, the rusted springs pushing into my spine like metal teeth. I needed to find a way to lure him there. I needed to go back to the start because I knew the end was at the beginning.

I had to find his keys and get to the car. But first, I needed him to follow me. I knew his wounds were deep, but they weren't deep enough. I needed to finish the job. For a moment, a dark thought flickered through my mind—I needed to be stopped—but the instinct for survival pushed it down. I wasn't the one who needed stopping. He was.

I needed the wild dogs to find him and devour him. I needed him to be erased. Although I knew I would never erase him from my memory, my body remained soiled by him, his breath and saliva on my skin. I knew I could never forget him, but maybe, if he was dead and buried, the world would forget him.

His body could nourish this dusty land; grass could grow in the ditches. Perhaps his filthy body could bloom a pretty flower. Perhaps some little, beautiful flowers could thrive from his ugliness. The earth could eat him up. The earth could drink his blood, grow a garden. Everyone could forget.

In time, I could forget, but the earth… The Earth could remember what we forgot. The Earth could use his body as a rebirth, and be the only evidence that a crime had taken place here.

I walked down the center of the road, no longer hiding. I let my silhouette stand tall against the bleached-out horizon like a gunfighter at dawn. I wanted him to see me. I wanted him to think I was fleeing back to my cage so he would feel the rush of the hunt one last time.

My voice cracked, but it carried in the stagnant air. "Leave me alone!” I demanded with a fake whimper. “I'm going back to the garage!"

I heard a distant, jagged laugh from the direction of the SuperMart. He was coming. He was taking the bait.

As I reached the corrugated metal siding of the garage, the smell hit me again—oil, stale sweat, and the heavy weight of hopelessness. But this time, I didn't feel like a victim. I felt like a harvester. I had injured him once. I could do it again. I just needed something sharp and bigger than the screwdriver I found near the mattress last time.

I stepped through the side door, the darkness of the interior swallowing me whole. I didn't try to turn on any lights. I didn't need to. I knew every inch of this room by the pain it had caused me. I moved to the workbench where the oil cans sat in a row, my hand reaching past the heavy wrench I had seen earlier. My fingers curled around a long metal bar with a point on one end. It felt cold, honest, and heavy. It was a tool for prying things apart, for breaking things that weren't meant to be broken.

I was broken, but I was not beat. I tested the weight of the bar, and I swung it. I envisioned swinging it at him. I moved to the other side of the room, holding the bar across my chest with two hands.

I stepped back into the deepest corner of the garage, the shadow of a rack concealing me. I waited. The smell of the old mattress—mold, dirt, and him—seemed to intensify in the stillness. It was a scent that used to make me want to vanish, but now, it just fuelled the fire in my lungs.

His shadow finally broke the threshold. It spilled across the floor like spilled ink, long and jagged. He was leaning against the doorframe, his silhouette heaving with every wet, ragged breath. He was hurting more than he wanted me to know.

He took a step, then another, his boots dragging through the grease. He was heading for the mattress, his head swivelling as he searched the shadows. He was looking for the girl who had cowered there, not the woman standing in the corner with a metal bar.

"Where are you, sugar? Come out," he said, and for the first time, I heard a tremor of doubt in his voice.

I moved then. Not with a scream, but with the silent, heavy efficiency of someone who had nothing left to lose. I stepped out from behind the workbench, the metal bar levelled at his chest. The light from the door hit my face, and for a split second, I saw his eyes. They weren't glassy anymore—they were wide with the sudden, sharp realization that he wasn't the hunter anymore. He was the harvest.

I jammed the point, HARD, into his ribcage. He stumbled back a few feet, wheezing and coughing and trying to get his bearings. I turned the bar around, raised the bar and brought it down on him. He raised his arm to shield himself, and I heard the forearm bone snap under my super-human force. He stumbled back, dazed. Confused. Blinded by pain.

I saw it then, perfectly positioned. It was like an answer to my prayers. Hoping that it had not seized in place, I turned my body and threw all my weight onto the lever. The safety released, and with a whoosh, the car lift fell from above. In an instant, he was a croissant, curled into himself like a delicate pastry made of flesh and bone. Barely able to breathe, the gasps came from his crumpled body.

“Please, please sweetheart,” he managed.

I raised the metal bar and delivered the swift justice that the law would never bring. Then I threw the bar onto the old mattress and turned to leave.

I looked back and saw the carabiner holding keys clipped on his protruding hip, the keys to my freedom. I unclipped them and removed the car keys, tossing the rest of the ring onto the mattress, his love-bed.

As I stepped through the open door, the bright light hit me. I squinted. In the distance, I saw a wild dog.

The car door opened with a squeak. The keys to my freedom slipped into the ignition. This morning, I was looking forward to university. As the sun was behind me now, I was looking forward to wild dogs, a refreshing drink, and finally, washing my skin.