“How do you think you are going to convince me to do anything for you when you talk to me that way, and you fucking… you killed my neighbor!” Darius said. “He did nothing to you! He was innocent!”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Allison said from the window. “Yeah, yeah. Nobody is innocent honey. You know that. You can't really believe anyone. A person who seems innocent? They are just better at burying their skeletons. Ha! You are going to have to figure that out soon. If, um … if you don't just let me in!”
“There's no way I'm going to do that!” Darius screamed.
Darius turned and looked at his friend and neighbor, lifeless in his yard … eyes open wide—body crumpled in a heap on the grass.
“Someone is going to come looking for him eventually.”
“Yeah, and how will that look when you are the only one here and he's dead in your backyard? Hello? Think about it,” Allison said from the window. “Listen, your life has changed. Your life can be something bad, or it can be something good and you've only got two options. You don't let me in? It will be bad and it will be short. If you do let me in, we are going to have a long and happy life together. No one will ever find out about what happened to your neighbor.”
Darius was beside himself. Full of emotion. He couldn't tell whether he wanted to be sick, or cry, or pinch himself and find out that this was all just a bad dream.
“This is insane! This … I can't … I can't deal with this! This, um … this can’t be real!” Darius said. “I'm dreaming! I must be dreaming! It's got to be one of those lucid dreams where you realize you are dreaming, and then you do something, and it wakes you up!”
Allison scowled, looking frustrated—banged on the door with both hands hard enough that it vibrated the door on its hinges.
“Well wake up honey because this is real! It's not a dream and I'm not going to keep asking you. You wanted me here. You were going to let me in. You wanted to what? Huh, Darius? What? What was your plan? Are you that innocent? Were you just hoping I'd come in and we'd have a sport fuck? Or we were just going to have coffee and tea and chat about things? Right? Because that's what adults do,” she said sarcastically.
Darius sheepishly replied, “I didn't expect anything to happen like that,” defending himself. “It didn't have to be anything like that. I mean … I would never have pushed you and I understand it would have been weird.”
“Oh no! That's the thing. I would have done it and I would have made it the greatest experience of your life! I would have shared my gift with you because there's nothing that I want that I can't have now that I’m a creature of the night!” sarcasm seeped into her voice. “But no … the only thing standing in my way from getting exactly what I want is you! And you know that I really don't like that.”
Darius chuckled bitterly. “Yeah … I know! You like to get anything you want, whenever you want. You have a history of that, don't you? Regardless of who it hurts.”
“You know what? Don't even try it!” she said to Darius. “You don't understand. You never did! You have no idea what I went through!”
“What you went through? What you went through?!” Darius said, the anger returning back to his voice. “If anyone else in the world can relate to what you went through… it's me! We went through it together!”
“It's not the same! You know it's not the same!” She bellowed. Before Darius could respond, Allison changed the subject. “You know that dog? You know that dog sitting there that I told you that I'm going to kill when you let it outside? If that’s not enough to convince you, how about your family? If you don't let me in and I just go away and leave, they are never going to be safe! Think about it. What about your mom? How are you going to feel if I leave right now, and one day, maybe tomorrow, maybe a week from now … maybe in several years, you get a phone call saying that she was found with her neck broken, just like your neighbor here and two holes in her neck? You're going to know it was me and you are going to know that it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t made me do it. What if I do that and I make it look like your father did it? I mean … who else would be there? Who else could have done it? It’s not as if someone can break their own neck! Maybe I'll watch them suffer. Maybe I’ll torture them. Kill her and let him go to prison, let him get raped for a few years, and then go in and kill him! Maybe I’ll just let him rot forever and go after your sister! How are her kids by the way?”
“You are a fucking sadistic monster!” Darius responded.
“Yeah, maybe I am!” she said. “But I'm a fucking sadistic monster that's going to fuckin’ butcher your family if you don't let me in!”
Darius was troubled and frustrated. He didn’t know what to do. The situation still seemed so crazy and had escalated so quickly.
With his head in his hands again, he roared with frustration, “Aaarrrgh!” and walked into the other room.
She was already there. She was in the window.
“You're not going to get away from me, Darius. I'm not going to allow you a moment of rest. I'm going to work on you and work on you until you beg to let me in. Until you wholeheartedly invite me in. Give yourself to me. That's what I want, Darius.”
“I know!” he said. “I know because when I saw the therapist that I needed to see after our divorce and the psychiatrist I saw before our divorce, they both said the same thing. That my experience … my relationship with you was a classic example of self-destructive sociopathy. That what you wanted more than anything was a willing victim … someone that would let you abuse and mistreat them. Make them put up with all your shit. Torment them. Keep coming back! That's what all sociopaths want! They want to create a willing victim.”
“Oh … well … you know … la-di-da and all that psychobabble!” Allison responded. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so crazy! I'm the crazy lady! That's what it always was, wasn't it? You just wanted to convince me that I was crazy! Right? I belonged in a mental home. I should've been happier, or better, or let you control me more, right?”
“It was never like that. All I ever did was try to help you,” Darius replied.
“Oh yeah, you helped me all right! Yeah, that's why I'm the one who went nuts, right? That's the one … that's why I'm the one who went crazy? Yeah. You owe me this! I shouldn't have to beg you,” she said suddenly self-righteous. “If you want to make things right with me, all you have to do is let me inside, and we can undo everything that's been done in the past.”
Darius paused for a moment and felt the heat rise in his face.
“I don't owe you anything!” Darius replied, returning the glare he was receiving from the woman in the window. “I did everything for you. I sacrificed everything I could for you. I gave you a fortune!”
“Well it's not always about money, honey,” Allison replied.
“You could have fooled me!” he said before spinning on his heel and walking back toward the kitchen and dining room.
Allison was there in the kitchen window, her gaze pinned on him. “Well, we can play the blame game all day or we can deal with the reality of the situation we are in now. I want your blood. I'm going to have it. I'm going to get in there and I'm going to drain you dry. I am so frustrated right now that I just might drink you to death!” she said.
Suddenly, Allison was back at the patio door window… one hand placed across her body and resting on her opposite forearm.
“Maybe I just need to cut myself, huh? Maybe you'd like that? Maybe you'd like watching that! Seeing me cut myself and that would be enough to convince you to let me in?”
Her fingernails drug over her forearm, opening up slits that welled up with blood.
“No! I never wanted that! I never wanted you to do that! I never enjoyed anything like that!”
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