felt my fear ebbing away. And although deep inside of me I knew that I was in danger, I couldn’t help but want to trust him somehow. He was Marty after all.
6
Sophie
He ran a finger down the length of my face and then slowly dragged it over my bottom lip, the nail slipping into my mouth and brushing over the tip of my tongue. Part of me wanted to bite down on that finger and tear it off, but another part of me wanted to take his hand and cover it in soft, sensual kisses.
“See, I’m not going to hurt you,” he whispered in my ear, and I could feel him slip one hand into my hair and pull me close, his eyes never breaking free of mine. Then, in his bright yellow eyes, I saw us – like we had been before – before the letters, the distrust, and his affair. We were making love on the bed and I was crying out. His naked muscular body was pressed over mine as I pulled him into me. Those memories reminded me of how good we had been together; how sweet the sex had been. I watched us make love in his eyes; I wanted to feel like that again. I wanted to feel that ecstasy once more.
As I stared into his eyes, I could feel Marty leading me across the room towards the bed. “Who was the girl that came awake in the morgue?” he whispered again, his breath hot against my neck.
I wanted to say her name and even though I now wanted Marty more than I‘d ever had, there was a voice screaming inside of me: Don’t tell him her name! Don’t tell him her name!
Then, as Marty lowered me onto the bed and began to kiss my mouth, I sighed and closed my eyes. In the darkness I saw someone else and it wasn’t Marty. Part of me was scared of him, but another part of me loved him. He was handsome – like a god. But it was too dark to see him clearly and in the fleeting glimpses, I was sure that he had wings. They weren’t white like that of an angel, but black like some prehistoric bird of prey. His hands were strong as they cupped my breasts and his teeth felt sharp as they brushed up against my neck. His chest and stomach were as hard as stone as he lowered himself on top of me.
My heart raced with fear but my body, my soul, exploded with pleasure as he made love to me.
Then he was gone in a flutter of shadows and Marty was whispering in my ear again. “What was her name?”
I opened my eyes, and the yellow light streaming from Marty’s eyes was almost blinding.
And I knew that it wasn’t him I wanted – it was the other – the one I had seen in the darkness – the winged man, the smoker, the letter writer, Pott....
“Her name?” Marty asked again, and this time the softness had gone out of his voice, he had started to sound frustrated with me. I didn’t want Marty to touch me anymore. I just wanted him to be away from me. His touch repulsed me, made me want to gag.
“Hudson,” I whispered, in his ear. “She told me her name was Kiera Hudson and that she was one of the Dead Flesh.”
Hearing this, Marty began to chuckle. I’d never heard him laugh like that before, it sounded old and rasping like an old man coughing on a throat full of pipe smoke. As if waking from a dream to find my ex-boyfriend taking advantage of me, I pushed him away. He didn’t resist. Marty climbed to the edge of the bed where he sat and laughed.
“So at last she has come back,” he grinned to himself, his eyes spinning in their sockets. “Kiera Hudson has returned.”
“You knew her?” I asked, moving away from him up the bed, feeling confused and furious that Marty had been kissing me.
Then, turning to face me, he said, “I knew Kiera Hudson. Of course I did. I was the person who murdered her.”
“You’re scaring me, Marty,” I murmured, scrambling off the bed. “What do you mean you murdered her?”
But before he’d had the chance to say anything, someone started to scream from below.
“I’m blind!” the voice screeched. “He’s made me blind!”
Even though the voice was high-pitched and terrified, I knew it was