Chapter Six - Miss Nancy #2
Miss Nancy shouted after Antonio as he continued his run down the street, ignoring her offensive remarks. She watched him disappear from sight.
“Only cowards run from the things they fear!” she called after him.
Antonio gave Miss Nancy one last, concerned look before looking away. “Who was it from, then?” he thought.
Moving slower than in previous years, Miss Nancy spent most of her days lounging in her home.
Her knees hurt and popped constantly, as she had always declined arthroplasty.
She never planned for a double knee replacement at the age of seventy-four.
She liked to remind herself that pain was just part of life; she liked feeling some pain.
In a world of solitude, she believed that a little pain helped her remember that she was still alive.
After her husband’s death thirty years ago, she could never find love again.
She had forgotten the feeling of being wanted by a partner; her devotion to her late husband kept her from seeking love again.
She never bore children, so grandchildren never played in her backyard.
Her loneliness followed her like a cloud of tears she never got to cry.
Her words sounded like thunder, but no one was willing to listen.
Bitterness was her friend and her most reliable companion.
Years after her dog’s death, Miss Nancy often thought of Betsy.
She had grown old and gray like her, but she never lost her spirit.
She would always love and remember her for that.
A tiny box containing Betsy’s ashes sat on the end table next to her TV recliner, with a framed picture of Betsy beside it.
Miss Nancy had her cremated because she could never let her go. Sometimes Betsy’s imprinted bark would echo within the walls, a ghostly reminder that her soul still lingered, or maybe it was just the old creaks and cracks of the house.
Sometimes, while watching TV, Miss Nancy would open Betsy’s box.
She would often take a gentle whiff of the ashy aroma, just long enough to fill in her phlegmy lungs.
After delicately licking her pinky finger, she would ever so carefully tap the top layer of ashes.
A thin coat of ashes covered her finger, and after sticking her salivating tongue out, she ran her finger from the top down to the tip of her thrushy tongue.
She liked the chalky, earthy taste of Betsy; it made her feel more connected to her.
Miss Nancy thrived in routine. From morning to night, every day looked relatively the same.
She enjoyed three cold beers before bedtime, a recent habit she had developed.
Now that she was older, her care for her health had deteriorated alongside her.
Nearly every night after dinner, she would pop two or three beers into the freezer.
She loved the ice-cold glass bottle against her crusty lips; an unexpected pleasure would fill her brain after the first icy sip.
That one night, after finishing her beers and her TV show, Miss Nancy stumbled towards her room.
She landed gently on her bed face down, her feet dangling off the side.
A sudden crack on the floorboard drew her incoherent attention.
She saw a shadow approaching. With blurred vision, she tried to look up to see what it was, but her eyes were too heavy.
Without fighting it, she quickly fell asleep.
“Pin Pon es un muneco,
Macabro y pálido.
Se lava su carita,
Con sangre y ácido.
Pin Pon se desgarra el pelo,
Invocando un gran llanto,
Aunque se lo arranque todo,
él no para aquí.”
The lullaby filled the empty sounds in the air, waking Miss Nancy.
Groggy and confused, she opened her heavy eyes.
She realized she was back in her red recliner, feeling concerned and unsure of how she got there.
It wasn’t until she noticed that she was tied to the chair that she began to panic.
After struggling to break free, pain intensified at the end of her arms.
When she tried to open her hands, it dawned on her that her hands were gone.
The skin at the end of her arms was sewn together with the same thread she used for her knitting, and worse, the flesh had been stitched directly into the arms of the recliner itself, pinning her in place.
Small drops of blood seeped through each stitch and onto the ground, weakening her by the minute.
She recognized the same tones of red she personally chose for her projects, and the long sewing needles sat on the end table next to Betsy’s box.
From behind, a raspy, playful voice sang a tune she had never heard before. Sounding like a child’s song, she grew wearier. “Who the fuck is there?” she barked, as she continued to wiggle within the stitches. Shock dulled her mind, muting the pain for a moment.
“It’s just me, don’t you worry. I will take great care of you,” Belinda said, as she became visible to her.
“Oh, you demon child. I should have known! You did kill those poor squirrels. Let me go now. What did you do to my hands?” Miss Nancy barked, rage and horror tangling in her voice.
“Shhh. If you try to scream, I will use those same needles to sew your lips shut.”
After seeing Belinda’s black eyes, she could no longer recognize her, and fear began to shake her. “I won’t tell anyone, not a soul. Just untie me, and I’ll figure out how to leave,” Miss Nancy begged, her lips trembling.
Belinda, now dressed similarly to her doll, wore a satin burgundy dress, and her dark hair looked even darker at night.
She went back around Miss Nancy and took out the clip that held her thin hair bun in place.
Short strands of white and gray cascaded over her delicate shoulders.
Belinda played briefly with Miss Nancy’s hair, exposing the aged bald spots on her scalp.
“You’ve got soft hair, softer than my mom’s,” Belinda said.
“What are you going to do with me? Why did you take my hands?” she asked again.
“I am going to brush your hair now. Can’t have you looking all messy.”
Long, skinny fingers ran through Miss Nancy’s hair as they massaged her scalp; the fingers felt cold against her skin. Belinda’s hums were subtle and calm, and she was careful not to tug too hard.
“Why are you doing this?” Miss Nancy asked.
“She told me to,” Belinda answered.
“Who did?”
“Pin, my doll. She is sitting over there. Can you see her? She is watching us.” Belinda grabbed Miss Nancy’s head with the old woman’s severed hands and turned her towards her right.
The doll was propped up on the other couch across the room; her face was smudged and filled with darkness.
The finger-brushing continued for a few minutes; Belinda kept singing while Miss Nancy remained quiet.
A cold glare filled Miss Nancy’s eyes as she looked at the doll, her strength fading. At this point, she longed for death.
“All done!” Belinda announced as she walked around the chair to face the old woman.
Miss Nancy’s blood slowly dripped from the stubs of her arms as she felt her life fading.
Her eyes felt heavy from blood loss, and the alcohol began to wear off.
The skin remaining on her hands pulsated, and she could feel the wetness of her own blood; she was too weak to scream.
Her heart pounded faster than it had in decades, and her stomach sank when she saw Belinda in front of her with her dismembered hands.
Belinda held both hands like two bony combs, a grim smile adorned her face.
“Oh, you little bitch, how dare you brush my hair with my own fingers. Burn in hell, you demon!” Miss Nancy shouted. Belinda quickly dropped the hands on the ground, ran around behind her, and pulled the old woman’s fragile head back.
With one hand, she opened Miss Nancy’s mouth.
With her other hand, she grabbed Betsy’s box of ashes and, using her index finger, snapped the hook open.
Opening Miss Nancy’s mouth wide, she poured the ashes into it.
Miss Nancy choked and coughed, but the thick powder clogged her throat.
After a minute of struggling, her body went limp, leaving her lifeless eyes staring wide open.
“Well, that was no fun,” Belinda said.
She hated how fast Miss Nancy had died: her death brought her no joy.
She untied the old woman’s arms and body but left her in the recliner.
Standing tall in front of Miss Nancy’s limp corpse, Belinda’s bloodthirst grew at the sight of the blood on her arms. Curious, Belinda held one of the old lady’s bloody stumps.
Slowly, she brought her mouth towards the sewn limb and began to suck on it.
Her teeth rubbed against the threads, making it feel like nails on chalk.
She didn’t care, however; she sucked long and hard.
Blood slowly filled her mouth, giving her shivers down the back of her skull.
The blood was still warm, tasting sweeter than the squirrels she’d been feeding on for years and less metallic than her own period blood.
She sucked hard, and swallowed deep, draining every ounce she could get of that morbid nectar.
Belinda opened the kitchen windows, allowing the animals to come inside. “It might take days for her to smell, but by then, the animals would have done some serious damage,” she thought to herself.
After removing the threads off the arm stumps and leaving them on the ground, she packed the hands into plastic bags.
A trail of blood leading back to her house would not be ideal, so she triple-bagged them.
Belinda then walked over to her doll, grabbed her, and snuck back into her house through the front door as the sun began to come out.
Without fear of her mother finding them, Belinda placed the bagged hands in the back of the refrigerator. After changing into clean clothes, she lay in bed with her doll. Her eyes cleared, and she quickly fell asleep. It wasn’t long before she drifted into dreams where her Pin awaited.