Page 136 of Roses Are Dead
Instead, he climbed up on the woodpile and sliced a slit in the hem of my dress. Then he tore it upward, baring my legs and only halting when the fabric met the stitched seam and the layers collected at my waist. Then he got closer. “Don’t move, Mary-Rose. I might cut you.”
His breath was fetid against my arm. He sliced again, this time with more force, powering through the layers of fabric and seams binding it together, rendering my clothing to rags.
He worked methodically, each time warning me of what would happen if the knife slipped. The cold, misty air hit my skin.
A breeze picked up from the west. It drove away the rancid fumes of gasoline, and brought with it the promise of rain. I inhaled deeply, getting cut as he sliced my bra band.
“I told you not to move.” His low chuckle slid over me like worms.
The small line of red widened as blood trickled from the wound. He stopped, fascinated by it. As he traced the drip with the point of the blade, I barely sipped air through my nose to keep from moving.
Finally, the trail soaked into the band of my underwear. Only then did he pull the knife through the elastic and fabric twice to strip me of everything.
“Now you’re ready.” He eyed my figure, not even stepping off the platform of wood and tinder.
I chose that moment to strike. I kicked out, using the post as leverage. My foot connected with his shoulder, driving him off the platform and into the dirt below.
But it was futile. My hands were bound, so I couldn’t run. He brushed himself off and laughed maniacally.
“You’ll pay for that, Mary-Rose. God will make you pay.”
My eyes watered from the pain and the fumes. He stalked the perimeter and piled up more logs and pallets as he moved from his truck to my funeral pyre. Every few moments, he’d stop, soak the wood with more gasoline, and winch me higher.
“Just light it already.” I was sick of the torture.
He froze and stared at me. “Did you know they say witches orgasm when burned?”
My thoughts raced through all of his threats and the memories of his obsessiveness about religion in our childhood. He’d always been a bit…off, but this? This was sick. My mind couldn’t rationalize it. But my heart, and more importantly, my will was thinking way ahead. I struggled to find a board or stick wedged hard enough to push against so I could get my foot on anything to take the weight off my arms. But I only knocked the pile away from my toes, leaving me with less than before.
So, I did what anyone would. I screamed for help. Screamed, “Fire!” Screamed for anyone to listen.
Deep down, I knew that help was at least a mile away. We were deep into the wooded area leased to the church. Not even the cemetery caretaker was close enough to hear me. The closest person was, or would have been, my grandmother. If she were alive. But she died on this very hill.
I cried to her ghost, hoping she’d hear me beyond the veil and call the Gods down on this asshole.
Carl stopped again to listen. “That’s right, unburden yourself from your sin.”
“Fuck you!”
His smile was eerie. “Another sin.”
It was as if he was keeping a running tally of my… what? Who was he to judge? I spat an appropriate Bible verse at him. Then went further digging up every hypocrisy he committed.
Carl’s unnatural calmness waited me out. Finally, he quoted Exodus 22, not stopping at verse eighteen, but moving directly into the nineteenth. “Whosoever lieth with a beast shall surely be put to death.” He paused and took a step closer. “That’s you, Rose. You didn’t even fight your carnal urges. You willingly fucked that man. I cannot let you live, you know that, right?”
My jaw clenched hard. “Who sold me to him?”
He threw the gas can in his hands to the ground. “You weren’t supposed to fall in love with him!”
Ah. That was my sin.
“I don’t regret a thing.”
Maybe one thing. When I was dead, there would be no one to remind Carl he’d promised to help his sister. But maybe that was what he intended all along. String me, her, the family, the doctors, everyone through his little game and then pull the rug out from under everyone at that worst possible moment.
“You have regrets, I see it on your face. I know you, Mary-Rose. I’ve watched you your entire life.”
“That’s not creepy at all.” My sarcasm was lost on him. I continued to poke around with my toe for something to brace against. The wind had picked up, and if I had to hang naked on some hill in the middle of nowhere freezing my ass off while Carl got his poop in a group, I’d die of hypothermia before burning.
