This is a short story I recently penned for the Golden Pen competition, a friendly one on one short story contest in a community of writers. Just under 1500 words, this was done in freewriting style. Hope you enjoy it!
* warning - graphic content
Devine Invention
The living room wall was a bookshelf, recessed, no space left unfilled. The Zodiac Killer, Helter Skelter: The Manson Murders, Ted Bundy: The Stranger Beside Me, Inside the Mind of John Wayne Gacy, and dozens more serial killer biographies alongside abnormal psychology, human genetics, and anatomy textbooks. The rows of books were flush, perfect, precise in alignment. There was one exception— a book pulled forward several inches to serve as a bookmark: Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.
A peg board, six feet long and eight feet wide, opposite the bookshelf and to the right of the ocean-facing window of the beach cottage, displayed a collage of newspaper clippings. Headlines from across the nation covered every inch of the board, domestic homicides to mass shootings to robberies gone wrong, genetic oddities, and various research developments in various fields of biology. Some dated as far back as the 80s and were yellowing at the edges. Crime scenes printed from the internet on photo paper were added in what appeared a chaotic fashion, but when viewed from afar in its entirety, it created a rhythmic flow like the breath of a living being. A macabre collection with a pretense of tranquility. Her masterpiece.
Julia pinned an article from the Daily Post to the center of the board:
Missing Child Found Dead
Police Hunting the Southland Slasher
The headline was large, bold, black lettering; the picture, medics carrying a sagging bodybag, full color but a touch blurry. She stepped back to admire her design. A soft smile lit up her face. “Excellent,” she whispered to herself.
She went into the back room, designed to be a guest bedroom, altered for another purpose, windowless and soundproof. A large portion of one wall was handcrafted shelving, one by six inch boards, painted dark maroon like the crown moulding and door casing, appearing almost black against desert sand paint of the remaining walls and ceiling. The shelves held pint-sized Mason jars, twenty-six filled with layered liquid, dark bottom, light at the top, labels on each— name, fill date, attributes. The remaining shelving space held empty jars with blank labels. Every jar faced forward, no spacing between. Uniformity. Balance. The harmony of symmetry was calming to Julia, gave her a sense of peace.
In the center of the room was a large wooden table, unfinished, scarred with blade nicks and carvings— initials, he loves, she loves, slandered names, the usual. She had snagged it from the school when they replaced the wood shop tables. A simple luxury of being a professor, freebies and first choices on furnishings.
Julia looked into the blue-ringed emerald-green eyes of the young girl, flat on her back on the table. She was held in position with belts— one through her open mouth, one across the waist, one on each wrist, pinned down by her hips, and each ankle, spread apart twelve inches exactly.
“Don't worry, darling. It won't hurt,” Julia said, her words dripping with fake, condescending affection.
The girl, her eyes wide, began to jerk her body, violent, desperate to break free. Julia put her palm on the girl's forehead. “Shh little one,” she stroked the girl's hair, calming her. The girl quit moving, hopeful, her brow creased as she pled with those hypnotic eyes.
“Don't fear death. It's life that hurts,” Julia breathed. The girl shook her head no, but the strap through her mouth was tight, attached to the sides of the table, and reduced her ability to move. Tears welled up in her eyes.
Julia walked to the mirror that hung opposite the shelf of jars. She stared into her own eyes, dull and without emotion. Julia had trained her brain not to see the rest of her face, not to see the burn marks from the stove. “You are not my child! You are not my beautiful child! She was not a hideous monster like you!” her mother would scream while holding her face to the red hot coils. Julia’s twin sister had died in a house fire at the age of three; her face served as a constant reminder, and she was punished for being alive, punished for being a reflection of failure.
Julia smiled at the thought of replacing her eyes with the breathtaking orbs the girl possessed. They had a mystical element, a hint of magick. She looked back to the girl, sensing intense watchfulness. “Don't stare at me!” she screamed, more a reflex than a reaction. The girl wet her pants, a puddle forming on the table between her legs. Julia pretended not to see. Humiliation was not necessary.
“I will make this quick, sweetie. You will pass out before your brain registers any pain. When your heart stops beating, your brain will release DMT, a naturally occurring substance of your pineal gland. It's a powerful psychedelic substance. People seek the experience I'm about to give you. They crave it!” Julia said, attempting to sooth the child. The girl was only eight, but Julia thought her old enough to understand.
The girl squeezed her eyes shut and trembled as tears rolled down the sides of her face. A hoarse moan escaped her, every muscle in her body tense, strained. Julia wrapped herself in a long-sleeved back-opened leather apron and picked up the filet knife from the foot of the table. She took the first empty jar from the row on the shelf.
“When the DMT is released, all you will feel is pleasure. It's heaven. Good feelings, euphoria, paradise. Relax for me now.”
Julia drew the knife briskly across the girl's throat without warning. The knife sliced through the trachea below the larynx, preventing her from screaming, slashed the carotid artery, preventing new oxygenated blood from reaching her brain, and severed the jugular vein, allowing the blood to flow from the wound in a gush.
Julia moved the empty jar close to catch the blood. It filled within seconds. The spurting slowed, keeping with the pumping rhythm of a heart that was about to give way. Julia bent down to the neck and drank the blood, the medium between the physical and spiritual. The girl took giant gasping breaths through her slit windpipe, gargling blood and coughing until she fell unconscious. She died quickly.
Julia wiped her mouth with the back of her hand then grabbed a clean towel to clean her face and neck from beneath the table the dead girl laid upon. She sealed the jar with a lid, wiped the blood from the sides and edges, and wrote on the label with a sharpie pen:
- Name Rosalyn Andrew
- Fill Date 7/12/2017
- Attributes Ethereal Eyes, Immortality
Julia returned the jar to the shelf next to the last filled— Jackson Madden, a thirteen-year-old prodigy with an IQ so far off the charts it was immeasurable, the youngest nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize for his research on genetic manipulation. She then removed her apron and changed her clothing. On her way out of the room she paused to look back at the girl. “Goodnight, Rosalyn.” She clicked off the light.
It had taken over a year, but she had finally completed the physical characteristics section of her book: Creating a Genetically Engineered Superhuman.
The coming tasks would prove more difficult, but with her newly altered genes, her homemade evolution, it would no longer be an impossibility. She had three defined goals for the final section of her book, and her next subjects would need to possess mind control abilities: telekinesis, moving objects, elementumkinesis, controlling elements, and the most important, genekinesis, manipulating DNA. She had done the research, seen the documentaries, and knew people existed that held these gifts. The hard part would be finding them, but for now, she simply wished to enjoy her latest achievement.
Julia poured herself a glass of wine and walked out to the front porch, leaned on the railing and inhaled the crisp ocean air. Her entire being buzzed in elation, a tingling sensation from the molecular changes occurring inside her body. It had been several weeks since last she had blood; she had become weak, fatigued, listless, now reveling in exhilaration, her energy revitalized, her mental faculties sharpened. Julia glowed with pride, her success far beyond that of any others who killed. They took lives for shallow reasons: sexual thrills, fear of rejection, empowerment and control. Unlike her, they lacked ingenuity and true purpose.
She raised her glass high, dipped her head in a quick nod, a toast to herself, then smiled a vigorous, sagacious smile. She sipped the wine. Here's to godhood!
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