The Metronome.

TRIGGER WARNING- this short story contains Violence, Language, and Nudity as well as Mature Themes.

The Metronome.

Introduction- The Metronome.

There was not a seating arrangement. Everyone sat where they pleased on the wet ground to witness what was about to happen. Then the metronome began, and that was that. They would all watch Draselle walk forth from that den and out of the forest- alive!

Round One- The Den of Evil!

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. The metronome was all that could be heard by the small crowd when the devil whispered in her ear.

“Draselle. Come forward,” and she did! She arose as was promised. Then, out of the forest, Draselle walked in the moonlight towards the small town where Tom had shot her dead. He had left her deep in the woods in a den. A den where town rituals were sometimes held by day, and where wolves feasted by night, but only when the metronome played. Sometimes they waited, but the devil wanted Draselle to have her second chance.

Round Two- Villagers Beware!

“Cursed! She was cursed- I say!” Said Tom, who thought he knew it all. “Cursed! You all know me. The vulgarities, the blasphemy! Those plays had no weight in our village!”

Round Three- The Directress of Horror!

Draselle was thirty-five when she died. She began her career in the village theatre that had been standing since 1912. She mastered plays of the absurd. Some would call them presentations of bizarro fiction. It was all so… macabre. Fantastical. Plays she wrote herself during fits of madness. Some may even say fits of hysteria.

“She should be committed.” Her Momma would carelessly, and blandly say. “I don’t want her here.”

Draselle was angry at the world, and the villagers that did not understand her plays. The night of her death, after the curtain closed on her last play, she took to the stage, and she ripped at her purple dress, as she did so, her Stiletto’s heel broke, so she went down on her left side.

“Look at me!” She demanded. “I am the creator here! Me! No one else, and I shall tear pounds of flesh from your bodies if you speak ill of my imagination! My creativity! Now, go!” As she buttoned her dress back up she cried out, “To hell with those who judge me!” The last strap of her beautiful, purple dress went over her shoulder, then SPLAT! Tom’s bullet hit that very clavicle, and she speedily bled out as most of the audience fled in sheer panic. Some threw up their consumptions. The rest just clapped thinking it was just more of the grotesque play. Draselle was dead, and Tom would drag her off to the den in the forest for revival. It was not the end for Draselle. It was the beginning for he knew that she had a horrific side. A side of evil expressed in her writing. She could do his business with ease. His business. The business of death. There were people he needed dead. Now, she would terrorize the village in a different way other than with her plays, and no one would know Tom would control her. Now, she, and he, would rewrite the village’s history!

Round Four- Constance.

Constance owned the theatre outright, and she lived in the basement as she worked on the props. The musty, moldy, old basement- she liked it there. Sometimes beams of light would shine in from the tiny windows, and she enjoyed running her soft, but arthritic hands through the dust that swirled in the sunlight.

Draselle showed up, naked, and all covered in blood. Little did Constance know what Tom, and some of the villagers had done in the forest that night, but Constance wondered why she was darkening her door, but she let her in anyway.

“Oh my! You’ve come back!” Gasped Constance anxious for an explanation, but Draselle just went at her all blank eyed, and she choked the bitch to fucking death. She was angry. Her shoulder was all fucked up, and she felt each and every throb full force. Gravity pulled hard on her shoulder, so, oh yes, the dead do feel pain, too!

Constance would sometimes censor Draselle’s plays. Her thoughts. Her ideas. Her torment put down on paper. Well, not anymore! This was Draselle’s theatre now. No one could have it. No one! Especially that degenerate- Tom! He really messed up my shoulder! She thought. Then she got a strange look in her eye. She was seeing red. Tom!

Round Five- Pretty Little Things.

Molly sang along with her group of peers from the schoolhouse. They all wore the prettiest, white, mother-made gowns.

“There’s a hole in my bucket. Dear Liza, dear…” then her teacher shot her not even one full verse into the damn song. It was the Cazan tradition. Random sacrifices had to be done by those whom had already passed the age of thirteen. They were the lucky ones, or were they?

The local student’s teacher was bold. She upheld each, and every tradition as she was told. Her gun was always loaded, and ready for a shot. Cross the line, young ones, and you’re next! She thought. Cazan will allow us to have you! Soon, you shall be with sweet Cazan, and his devil of a friend. The teacher felt great power for Cazan had entered her soul, and once he entered- he never left.

“Sear her. Boil her! Do it for Cazan!” And the students did as ordered. Some gathered blue flowers that looked purple in the sunlight. They would look nice for the table scape, and the body if they could salvage the clothing and eyes. Molly had the prettiest light blue eyes you had ever seen. Surely, they would be able to salvage them.

“Oh, we’re coming to pick up sticks, pick up sticks, and pick up sticks!” They sang. “A fire, oh, a fire. We’re building us a bright, big, burning fire!”

Skinning. Boiling. They did it all! And they were pleased by her taste.

Round Six- They Dropped Her Off.

The students dragged the rest of Molly to the den that was deep in the forest where she was chewed on by wolves in the night. This was their way. Molly had signed up for this shit for all the pretty little things would perish before their thirteenth birthdays anyway. They were not damned, or were they? Once they were all gone, Cazan himself, would come out of the sky with the devil, and spare the rest of the villagers the ability to die. Eternal life on Earth. Despite what the teacher had done- Molly forgave her in the afterlife- a place, for her, that was an absolute joy. Angels flying everywhere singing with her such beautiful music- yes, please?! Marlene Dietrich and Audrey Hepburn singing, “Moon River,” over and over- YES!!!

Round Seven- Panic!

There was panic at the theatre the night of the shooting, but, unfortunately, half of the audience understood for her last play was crazy. Monkeys, jackasses, and rabbits roamed the stage all denouncing that humans should have ever been born. Eden. They could have all lived in Eden with their Divine Maker. They spoke of their ancestor’s stories of how fecund, yet perfect the Garden of Eden had been. They never went hungry, and now all they did was starve. Some famous lines from the play were from the rabbit characters who stood in breadlines only to get radishes day in and day out- which just gave them gas and heartburn.

“Oh, what a play!” Shouted one man who had a crooked nose on his face. Then, of course, the speech, then Tom shot Draselle, and, well, you know what happened next- a simple resurrection in the forest.

Round Eight- Tom Had Better Run and Hide!

Draselle wanted to push Tom right down the theatre steps. She had a long talk with the devil in hell before her great resurrection. Even he said that Tom would not be able to control her, and as hard as Tom tried, he could not.

Round Nine- I’m coming!

I’m coming! I’m coming for you! Thought Draselle. To the theatre! Tom, watch out! Hide! She thought as her eyes glowed red.

For you have no idea. No idea of what I am now capable of! Run. Take cover for if I meet you on those steep steps- I’ll push you right down them, and I will relish the copper scent of your blood as it trickles through my fingers, and down my own throat!

Round Ten- The Theatre Late at Night.

The teacher exited her vehicle with a clear umbrella to guard her makeup from the mist, and she creepily stumbled in her nightgown up to Tom- who stood in line to buy advanced tickets to a performance of, “Fulminant- Strikes of Lightning.” A one-time showing that promised shock from scene one. She had one hand in her purse, and she had forgotten to put in her dentures, or was she simply not being herself. Her gun… was it loaded?? Absolutely!

“Tom! You son-of-a-bitch!” She exclaimed, then the next thing heard was loud! BANG! BANG! Then there was another BANG!

“Shots fired! Shots fired!” Exclaimed a patron who oddly wore a blue jumpsuit to the theatre, and there, at the bottom of the theatre steps was Tom. He was dead, and the teacher had shot him.

Driven by Cazan, she felt she had to do his dirty work. The teacher had done just what was needed for little did she know that Draselle was just around the corner hoping to do the very same thing.

”You killed him. You killed him?!” And nothing more was needed to be said. The teacher’s crazy, messed-up mind had briefly cleared, and Draselle wanted to slap the bitch for stealing her joy. Tom was her business. Her job. Her job of death! “I wanted to do it. Oh, I wanted to do it so badly.”

Round Eleven- Well, I’m just All Ground Up!

Sometimes we make bad decisions. Yes, we do. Really poor decisions… Tom Burgers. Ten dollars each? Why the fuck not?

“We sell them? Cause I don’t want to eat… Tom.” Said Draselle.

”Sweetheart. Soon you’ll be so poor you’ll eat anything!” Laughed the teacher as she drooled all over the cooked meat.

Round Twelve- To the Den!

As Draselle, and the teacher delivered the rest of the crappy corpse to the den, they said a prayer, and some of the villagers heard!

Round Thirteen- Feeding in the Den of Evil!

Once again, there was no seating arrangement. Everyone sat where they pleased on the wet ground to witness what was about to happen. Some even enjoyed Tom burgers. Then, they all heard it!

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

The wolves howled as they approached late at night with empty stomachs . The villagers watched by firelight, and were delighted by the sight as Tom was gobbled up all in big bites in the den. Those that Tom had wanted dead joined hands, and sang Molly’s song,

“There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza. There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza. A hole.”

The women lowered their hair down. Tossed their old furs into the flames for soon they would get new ones.

Then the devil put the wolves to sleep. The villagers headed back home- some still humming, and stuffed from the meal, and the metronome that still played in the forest finally stopped tapping. It would stay silent until the next time.