Kayla's Massacre: Part 7

Turn around and run, Kayla thought. Turn around and run. Turn around and run. Dammit, Micaiah. Turn around and run. Do you even value your life? Hop the damn fence and get out while your head's still attached.

Of course, Micaiah just kept following Kayla as she led the girl toward the locker room. She was very aware that she'd left blood on the ground where she'd killed Sena. Someone would find that eventually, and maybe follow it to her corpse. Or maybe they'd find her head first. Kayla needed to finish fast. Sena's eyes kept returning to her mind. She'd stared mostly in disbelief, but also in fear. What was there to fear after someone had slit your throat? She was going to die no matter what. Kayla actually knew very well why she'd looked scared, and when she acknowledged that, May's prayer came back to her.

These girls weren't afraid of dying—at least not after their throats were sliced open. They were afraid of what came after, or worse: what didn't.

"Are you all right?" Micaiah asked. Kayla felt a soft hand on her shoulder. She was about to murder a girl who cared about her. Her, a complete stranger.

"I'm . . ." Kayla started. She stopped and pressed her forehead against the locker room door. "I'm scared. Have you ever thought about dying, Micaiah?"

"No, not too much." Micaiah started to elaborate, then stopped. "How do you know my name?"

"Run away and hide," said Kayla. "Micaiah Miller, if you value your life, run away and hide."

Kayla's heart twisted around in her chest when Micaiah only backed up one step. Her cunt celebrated. Her mind fruitlessly demanded a part in the proceedings.

"Tell me what's wrong," said Micaiah. There was genuine concern in her voice. This was concern Kayla had never heard directed at her since after her own dad's change of heart. "Tell me. I can help."

Kayla turned around and looked at Micaiah's face. She kept her knife concealed. Her heart begged her to drop it. Her mind joined in. Drop it, drop it, drop it, they pleaded. Her cunt made her look down instead, at Micaiah's athletic, bikini-clad form.

"There's something horrible going on here," said Kayla. She managed to keep her expression calm. "If I open these gates, will you run away and never come back?"

Micaiah only looked confused. She put both hands on Kayla's shoulders. "Open the locker room," she said. "I'll call an ambulance. I'll call the police. Which ones do we need? Why are you crying?"

Kayla looked away.

"Come on," said Micaiah. "Say something. I promise I can help you. I don't know what's wrong, but my mom's a psychologist. I can make you feel better, whatever it is."

"How can you make me feel better after I've murdered eighteen people?"

Kayla dropped her knife. Micaiah watched it hit the ground. Had she kept eye contact with Kayla just a moment longer, she might have ended the killing spree right then and there. As it was, the moments of broken contact steeled something in Kayla and let her primal urges overtake her once again. She kicked the knife forward. It slid up Micaiah's foot and lodged itself flimsily in her ankle. Before she screamed, Kayla lunged. She got a hand around the poor girl's throat and started recording with the other. Her camera still hung around her neck. She got both hands on Micaiah's neck and squeezed hard. Both girls fell to the ground, Kayla landing on top.

"Stop!" Micaiah managed to say, but barely. She didn't get another word out, but she kept moving her mouth. Kayla tried not to read her lips. She failed.

"I can help you. You don't have to kill me. Please don't kill me."

Kayla closed her eyes and kept choking her victim. She felt Micaiah's hands on her arms. Unlike her own similar encounter with Alyssa, Micaiah didn't scratch her or even grab her. It was a gentle touch, like a nurse's. Kayla opened her eyes. Micaiah truly looked like a less lusty version of Irri Snowski.

"My mom says I'm a goofball," Micaiah mouthed. Kayla wasn't quite sure where the girl had taken the topic while her eyes were closed, but here she was. "I'm trying out for varsity swimming when school starts. My parents are John and Mindy Miller and I love them. I want to become like my mom after college. I want to help people. I want to h . . . elp. . . ."

Micaiah stopped then. Her mouth opened and closed several times. Kayla tried to tear her hands away, but they stayed of their own volition. Micaiah shut her eyes. Her whole body gave a shudder, then went limp.

***

Micaiah wondered if she shouldn't have mouthed anything about trying out for varsity swimming. If this redhead strangling her was perceptive at all, she'd make the connection between swimming and holding one's breath. Apparently, she didn't. She got off Micaiah, allowing her air that she didn't take yet. But she'd only been denied

oxygen for 30 seconds. She had at least a minute left before she needed to take a breath and give away her game. She wondered as well if she should have kept it up a little longer. Maybe the girl would have let her go if she'd had another minute or so. Maybe. Maybe not. It was pretty obvious someone was forcing her to do this, the way she was talking and crying.

Micaiah heard a camera snap. Footsteps. Another snap. More footsteps. More snaps.

Would the redhead confirm her kill? It wasn't like strangulation was a particularly reliable method of murder unless there was a noose and a gallows involved. Maybe that was the point. Maybe the other girl didn't want her dead. Maybe, by some stroke of incredible luck, she hadn't killed the other 18 people she'd mentioned either.

Micaiah's heart beat so loud she was sure her would-be killer could hear it. She asked it politely to quiet down. It asked her to give its friends, her lungs, some oxygen first—to which she replied, I'll get back to you on that.

"I didn't want to kill you," said the redhead. "Why didn't you run away when I asked you to?"

She sounded so sad. Micaiah wanted to get up and hug her. There was no way she was doing this willingly.

"Wherever you're going," said the girl, "it's that much better than here because of you."

Micaiah waited. She heard the redhead walking away from her, away from the locker room. She cracked an eye open. She closed it quickly when the redhead started to turn. She waited ten more seconds and looked again. Her not-actually-killer was getting smaller in the distance. She'd taken her knife back. Micaiah started breathing again felt her senses return to normal. She hadn't even realized they'd been fading. She got on her knees, suppressed a cough, then gained her feet. She turned to the locker room door and jiggled the handle. Of course the girl hadn't unlocked it.

She caught sight of her reflection in the handle. She looked closer. There were red marks on her neck in the shape of two hands. She couldn't see them too clearly, so she felt them with her fingers. They felt tender, like poking them with a long fingernail would break them open. They probably weren't permanent, but Micaiah didn't really care about that at the moment. Somehow, she had to stop anyone else from dying and she had to get help for the redhead. She could let the police handle the rest. Right now, she was alive, she was there, and only she could save the rest of her classmates.

The rest meaning . . . six? Five? Micaiah felt an invisible hand squeeze her heart like it was her neck. If the locker room was locked and the gate was closed and also locked, that meant the girl's other victims had been her classmates. Eighteen of them were dead. Micaiah stood, open-mouthed, trying to process everything. Surely Ivy was alive somewhere. The poor little girl had enough mental baggage without dying being plopped on top of it like a sadistic cherry. And May, too. Micaiah's best friend. The redhead would have to be completely emotionless to kill May. Amber and Berri should be alive as well—Amber, at least, could defend herself. Berri never left her side, so those two should have made it. Chika and Diamond should have made it. Diamond's pregnancy would probably earn her enough sympathy that, if nothing else, she'd be killed last. Chika was too nice to die, on top of baking the best brownies Micaiah had ever tasted.

Micaiah stopped writing her mental list of girls she wanted to survive. She wanted everyone to live. She might be too late. Clearing her head, she started running after the redhead.

"Micaiah, wait!"

Micaiah slowed a bit, but didn't stop. Caroline Leese jogged to catch up with her. She still wore her thin glasses; the red frames and curly caramel-colored hair framed a pretty face Micaiah was glad to see alive.

"What's the rush?" Caroline said. "What's that on your neck?"

Micaiah ignored the second question. "Saving lives. Wanna help?"

"Heck yes. What do we do?"

"Find a redhead in an employee's outfit, talk to her, get her to stop. Maybe get her to tell us who's making her do this, because she's sure not doing it willingly."

Micaiah briefly went over everything she knew.

"So you wanna talk a serial killer out of killing?" Caroline said. "After she already strangled you for trying once?"

"She was blubbering like she'd stop any second. I don't want to hurt her. You shouldn't fight violence with violence."

"Actually, if it'll save lives, you totally should."

Micaiah conceded philosophical defeat. Then she tripped on something round and hairy, rolled through, and almost kept running. Something about the texture of the thing made her stop. It felt like someone's head, but there had been no scream.

"Stop," she said. Caroline halted. They both turned around and looked down. The thing Micaiah had tripped over rolled up against her foot. She knelt beside it and picked it up.

"Is that. . ." Caroline started.

"Don't scream," said Micaiah.

Caroline actually didn't scream. She covered her mouth, though, took a few steps, and barfed somewhere. Micaiah brushed long brown strands from the decapitated head to reveal its face.

"Sena," said Caroline and Micaiah at the same time. Sena's head had been lodged between a pole and a tuft of grass—of course Micaiah hadn't seen it. The dead girl's head was completely pale. All the blood previously in her head had apparently dripped out into the grass and been soaked up by the dirt.

"This is real," said Caroline. "Holy . . . crap. This is actually real. Micaiah, are you crying?"

"A little." Micaiah stood and set her dead friend's head aside. "Come on. We have to hurry."

***

Kitty Grant found herself outside the alley she'd died in. This time, she was here to investigate. She'd given Adrian the money and told him to have Irri done by the time she got back. It was impossible to do that quickly, he'd said, but Kitty didn't intend to return for a while. She waited for the kittens to start coming out. One came, a little gray kitten with a white spot on its nose. Kitty smiled and hugged it. Memories flooded back into her old brain—of her first cat, a little white kitten whom her dad had unfortunately allowed her to name.

"Baseball," Kitty said, chuckling. She held the gray kitten at arm's length. "I named a little milk dud like you 'Baseball.'"

Milk dud? Kitty tapped her head. Surely her old brain used better words to describe kittens, but she didn't hate this one.

"You're so cute," Kitty said. She touched her nose to the kitten's and looked into its eyes. "You're such a good honey trap I came back twice after I died once."

The kitten mewed. Kitty set it down and watched a couple more accumulate at the alley entrance. Some didn't stray out of the shadows, but the shadows weren't dark enough to hide them in their fluffy glory.

Kitty's cat, Baseball, was still alive if her old brain wasn't messing with her. He was 12 now, four years younger than Kitty.

"Where's your mommy?" Kitty asked as she scratched a black kitten's chin. "She killed me, and I don't feel she was entirely justified in doing so. So I'm here to file a complaint."

Someone laughed behind her. Kitty looked over her shoulder. There was a black-haired man with a short beard she didn't entirely recognize, probably in his early thirties.

"Bart Dresden?" she said automatically. Her old brain sent her a couple memories of this man showing up to watch tennis matches. He'd complimented her on her form, and even played a few practice matches against her and Adrian.

"Look at you in your natural habitat," he said with a smile. "You look as happy as ever. The whole dying thing couldn't keep you down, could it?"

Kitty grinned. "You talk like you thought it would."

Bart shrugged and knelt beside her. "I always figured people died when they were killed. And here you go, challenging my perceptions all nonchalant."

Bart petted a kitten as well, a white one.

"That one looks like my cat," said Kitty. "But young. I named him Baseball because he had red yarn wrapped around him when I opened the shoebox."

"That's adorable."

"Yeah. Do you have a cat?"

Bart shook his head. "I did when I was around your age. Little calico girl, old as I was. She died the day after I left for college."

"I'm sorry," said Kitty. "I can't imagine how hard it'd be to lose a cat."

Bart nodded. "It's inevitable. Cats have shorter lifespans than us, like we have shorter lifespans than tortoises. If a tortoise kept you or me as a pet, it would live around two hundred years after we died and probably grieve for months, as we would grieve days for a cat."

"I've been preemptively grieving since I was old enough to understand Baseball would die."

"You're a special case."

Another voice chimed in then, this one immediately familiar to Kitty.

"What's going on?" said Fay Ryan.

"Cat stories," said Kitty. "Do you have a cat, Fay?"

The young intern squatted beside Kitty. She had a camera bag, but made no move toward it. Seeing her now, a few memories came back. Fay was a little younger than Adrian, probably 18 or 19, and looked exactly her age. She had a refreshing look about her, smiling easily and genuinely as she picked up a kitten. Windswept brown hair covered her shoulders and framed an oval face that looked like it would fit right in with a shampoo ad. She was a reporter—of course she kept herself looking pretty as possible. She wore short jean shorts and a gray tank top, completing her casual fashion model look.

"I have a cat," said Fay. "Her name's Mouse and I love her dearly."

"What kind?"

"Sphinx."

Kitty turned to Fay. "Oh, I love sphinxes. Do you have pictures?"

"I don't," said Fay.

"I do," said Bart. He pulled a picture from his wallet. "Your cat photobombed my wedding picture."

Sure enough, a proud-looking sphinx was strutting across a fence behind Bart and Alyssa Holmes in a suit and a dress respectively. Kitty and Fay looked at the picture and started laughing at the same time. Bart chuckled and let them look.

"See," said Fay, "mice are usually subtle, right? Not Mouse."

"Apparently not," said Kitty.

"Hey, quiet," said Bart, standing slowly. He motioned toward the alley. Fay and Kitty shut up and handed Bart's picture back. The kittens stayed around, but there was something else moving in the alley—something bigger.

"Stand back," said Kitty. "I want to see this thing."

"It killed you once already," said Fay. "I have no idea how you're back, but don't risk your life again to the same stupid thing."

"She's probably right," said Bart. "We know there's something else back there and we know it killed you."

Kitty stood just outside the alley entrance. The kittens were starting to migrate back toward the thing in the alley, which was beginning to take shape. Kitty saw it for what it was as the shadows faded to reveal it.

"A cat?" Bart said.

"I knew it," said Kitty. There was a huge cat there, just a bit bigger than a full-grown lion, but resembling a cross between a housecat, a panther, a lion, and a skeleton. It was way too thin for its size. A little more than half its skull showed. It was charred and blackened. Only one of its eyes was there, but it was yellow and bloodshot. There was something circular and brass lodged in its forehead—a bullet. Its neck was a little too long for its body and was bent just enough that it didn't look natural. It had a mane down at the base of its neck that faded out to the rest of its fur. It had chunks of fur missing, with burn marks and slashes down the bone scattered along its body. It was difficult to see through everything, but its fur was all black.

"You ate me alive," said Kitty. "That wasn't very nice of you, but I do suppose you were starving."

The cat-thing approached the edge of the alley. Kitty stood about two feet from it, out of the alley and in the sunlight, accompanied by a man and a young woman.

"It must be hard feeding so many kittens," said Kitty. "You never get to eat for yourself, do you? You didn't even get to eat most of me before the police found me."

Kitty knew very well it didn't understand a word she said. It was all in the tone.

"Would you like it if I brought food for you and your kittens every day? You wouldn't have to starve here anymore, and you wouldn't have to kill me or anyone else just to survive. Does that sound good?"

The cat-thing didn't move. It held a staring contest with Kitty. For a full minute, neither contestant blinked or twitched. Kitty kept talking, telling the beast reassuring things and even praising it for its mindfulness of the kittens. Finally, Kitty blinked, smiled, and walked away. She joined Bart and Fay, who had already backed across the street.

"Kitty—" Fay started.

"I'm going home," said Kitty. "When I get there, I'm going to scream because that was the scariest thing I've ever seen."

Fay held out her camera. On its screen was a picture of Kitty holding out her hand to the cat-thing, whose huge half-nose was poking out of the alley. She didn't remember that moment specifically, but her mind had been focused on two things: talking nicely and preparing to run extremely fast.

"Mind if I put this in the paper?" Fay said.

"Sure," said Kitty. "Say I said to stay away from the alley no matter what, and let me handle it."

Fay gave her a blank stare.

"I'm serious. I think I can resolve this without hurting the megacat."

"Megacat?"

"Megacat."

"Megacat it is," said Fay.

"Right," said Kitty. "Now I'm gonna go scream. I'll see you around."

"Wait," said Fay. Kitty waited. "I never got to talk to you properly. You came back from the dead and didn't get interviewed. I've got an hour before I pick up my little sister from the water park. Would you be okay with an interview, provided it took less than an hour?"

Kitty nodded. "I was planning on being out all day anyway."

"Walk and talk," said Fay, motioning toward a bench a couple blocks away. She turned to Bart and opened her mouth. He merely waved. She waved back, and they went their separate ways.

"What kinds of things should I say?" Kitty asked.

"Firstly," said Fay Ryan. "You haven't lived with your parents since you came back from the dead, but you said a minute ago you were going to go home and scream. Tell me about your home."

***

Kayla found Jenny and Allison next. Jenny, in her 20s, was curvier than the 14-year-old Allison and better-endowed. Allison, though, had a sexy, light brown skin tone that Kayla couldn't resist. It was half as dark as Tay's, but still looked amazing. Jenny's was lighter, closer to white—still attractive, by all means. Jenny wore a white monokini that wouldn't look out of place on a Playboy cover and Allison wore a strapless pink bikini top with gym shorts.

Best of all, Kayla thought, they were talking to each other in Spanish. Kayla couldn't understand a word they said, and for that, she was glad. She wouldn't get to know them before they died, and therefore, she wouldn't feel guilty. May, Tay, Amber, and

Micaiah had all been hard kills, even if Tay's death had resulted in one of Kayla's best orgasms ever. She felt guilt for all of them, especially Micaiah.

Jenny and Allison were a different story. They were walking toward a set of three slides that Kayla and Bart had spent hours rigging. These were actual slides, not tunnels. Kayla didn't need to adjust the tiny cameras' lighting for these kills. She set up her own camera for the higher resolution, higher FPS footage. Jenny and Allison would see her, but not the camera until it was too late. And even if they saw it, what could they make of it? It wasn't like either of them knew the rules against video cameras.

Kayla resisted the temptation to masturbate as the girl and the woman ascended the steps to the top of the slides. Finally, she could sit back and enjoy a kill without the angel on her shoulder bludgeoning her heart with her staff. She watched closely. Allison got in the first slide, the light blue one, and Jenny got in the second slide, which was yellow. They counted down, then pushed off. Allison started off faster. She only reached her final destination faster. Lying on her back, she yelped, then went silent when a pole shot out of the slide, stuck straight up her crotch, and returned to its hole within half a second. Moments later, Jenny hit her deathtrap. She ran vagina-first into a blade Bart and Kayla had sharpened and tampered with for longer than Kayla cared to count. She didn't even have time to move her head. The blade sliced her cleanly in two vertical pieces. Not a second later, the grenade stuck in Allison's lower throat exploded. Kayla would have to go back and slow the clip down later, but for now, all she saw was Allison's chest and head pop like red popcorn in a nova of blood. The pole with the grenade on the end had killed her, but the grenade had made it a better spectacle. It wasn't even loud. It was just a slightly wet pop, almost exactly like a water balloon exploding. Kayla heard the sharp schloop as Jenny's body came apart and slid another ten feet before blood started to spray everywhere. The corpses came to rest at the bottom of the slides. Kayla took a few close-up shots, masturbated to climax on Jenny's brain, and didn't even bother cleaning up or hiding these two.

There were only two girls left alive: Caroline Leese and Fiona Banks. If their Facebook photos were anything to go by, they'd be amazingly hot in bikinis, and therefore, amazingly hot corpses. Kayla only had to make sure they couldn't talk.