The Emerald Wasp
I can already tell that she’s chosen another one.
It’s in the air, that feeling of inevitability…the kind of feeling that reminds you that people are finite, fragile, that every single one of us will eventually lean over and die. She’s smiling at him, that poor, pale young man in torn jeans and a stained white t-shirt. There’s a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. It’s not lit. I look down at my own cigarette and can’t help but smirk.
Could smoking be a prerequisite for her selection process? I wonder if I’d be good enough for her. I can’t help it, really. She’s beautiful, like most unique things that kill. She reminds me of an emerald wasp with that sleek body, covered in deceptively powerful muscles that I know could tear her new victim apart. She has the strength of fifty men. Her hands could crush a man’s skull into dust. Which makes me wonder why I always think that I’m up to the task of stopping something like her.
The night club booms with the familiar thumps of late-night dance music. Neon lights of every color of the rainbow nearly blind me as they occasionally sail past my table. The dance floor is crowded with the sweaty, enthusiastic bodies of men and women looking for an escape from their dull, meaningless lives. Some of them’ll get lucky and escape the looming shadow of their real lives for a night in someone else’s arms. Most of them will end up alone in their apartment later, wishing that they could do just that. Some of those people will cry themselves to sleep tonight.
I can see her whispering into her victim’s ear. Her lips barely graze his earlobe, teasing him, keeping him eager. I can see it in his eyes. He’s imagining what it might feel like to fuck her. To hold her and thrust into her with everything he’s got. He’s imagining what she’ll sound like as he does it. He looks down her chest at the opening in her skintight red dress, observing her ample, mahogany breasts and the cleavage that they offer him so enticingly.
He’s wondering what they taste like.
And even though I don’t like to admit it, so am I.
All I have to do is wait for them to walk off the dance floor. It’ll be like I’ve been told; she’ll escort him out of the building, probably into that empty, damp alleyway across the street, maybe let him grope her and kiss those full lips she’s got, and then she’ll sing into his ear, putting him into a trance that he’ll never wake from. She’ll lick her lips and suck out his brains through one of his ears. Then she’ll probably leave his body there, to be found by either the police, some random citizen or the rats. I bet the rats’ll find him first.
I can’t help but feel sorry for the poor bastard as I watch her guide him away from the dance floor. She’s finally decided to make her move, and he’s finally thought to himself that he has her. That this is his lucky night, maybe one that he’ll remember for the rest of his life. They’re sliding through the club crowd effortlessly, almost disappearing on me once or twice until I realize that they have to pass my table on the way out of the building. Her prey, he…he looks so young. His forehead is smooth, there’s color in his cheeks and stars in his eyes. He’s ready to make an unforgettable memory that he can tell his friends about waiting back home. I really hope that he’s not a virgin.
They float past my table, I kill my cigarette and take a drink from my glass of whiskey. It stings the back of my throat as I lock eyes with my target, my emerald wasp. Her eyes are two different colors. One is orange and the other is blue. She winks at me and squeezes her victim’s arm, and he laughs. She laughs with him, but she doesn’t look into his eyes when she does. She stares directly in-between them, probably wondering what his brains’ll taste like. I watch as a drop of saliva runs down her chin.
She’s salivating. The poor bastard is already dead and doesn’t even know it.
I get up from my seat, leaving a wad of bills on the table for the young girl who made sure that my glass was full the whole night and follow the couple out of the building.
I lose them outside for a few moments, and for a split second I panic. This kill’s gonna pay my bills for the next few months, and without it, I could lose my car. I can’t let my emerald wasp get away. I decide to walk across the street, towards the empty alleyway that would make the perfect spot for a kill, and I’m not disappointed. As I get close I can hear the familiar sound of someone begging for their life. It’s game time.
I slowly draw my pistol and make my way past a few shadows that separate the alleyway from the world around it. It takes my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness of the confined space, and I’m reaching out to make sure that I don’t lose the guidance of a moldy wall as I push forward, step by step. And then the singing starts. Light, harmonious, elegant. Something that would make anyone’s heart weep. The begging stops, and its replaced by an ear-splitting crack before the disgusting sound of something moist being forced apart. I know that it’s not my target’s victim, but her, transforming into what she really is. I flip my pistol’s safety off and push myself away from the wall. I can see clearly now.
Just in front of me, partially hidden by a wall of overflowing garbage bins and abandoned furniture is my target. The back of her human form’s split open, revealing another rose pink, slimy body that was laying inside the whole time. It has no eyes, only a long, drooping nose, something meant to sway about in the wind to catch the scent of its prey. There’s no hair, no wrinkles of any kind and no legs. Only a disturbingly skinny torso and two stubby, deformed arms. Its human body continues to sing as its true form stretches out and wraps around the docile young man’s chest, holding him steady as it attaches the tip of its nose to the entrance of one of his ear canals.
Normally…I don’t like to watch. It doesn’t help me sleep at night to witness people being killed the way they do in my profession. But I have to make an exception tonight. The only time that my target is vulnerable is right after she’s eaten, and the window doesn’t last long. From the moment that final clump of brain matter has been sucked out of her latest victim, I’ll have exactly two minutes to line up a few shots and make them count. It’s just too bad that her victim has to die so that I can make ends meet.
The young man’s entire body convulses as I wince at the loud slurping noise that begins when she starts to feed. His eyes roll into the back of his head and his mouth falls open. He drools all over his shirt as his tongue flops out to fall over his chin, and then blood starts to run out of every orifice. I can see the color leave his cheeks as my target leans forward and pushes her nose even harder into the side of his head, clearly enjoying the kill. She’s getting full.
The last bit of the poor bastard’s brains are sucked out, and she drops him like a rock onto the ground. I guess I was right about the rats. It doesn’t take long for them to notice something dead and warm in their territory. They appear from out of nowhere and begin to swarm his body, biting into his skin.
My target leans backward and falls onto her ass. Her true form retreats back into her human capsule and sits, quiet, as she laughs to herself. There’s not a single regret inside of me as I line up my iron sights and call out to her.
“Boo.”
She turns around and I let go of two slugs. They sail through the night air like vengeful angels, eager to exact punishment on the dreadful creature that killed and enjoyed it. The back of her head disappears as my rounds puncture through her skull exactly as intended, and I frown to myself as I watch as few stray rats investigate the new buffet of innards that sprayed all over the ground as she crumpled. Pretty soon her lifeless body attracts the attention of my four-legged, ravenous friends, and I watch as every part of her is stripped to the bone for the rest of the night. I wanna make sure that she’s eaten clean. I wanna make sure that the rats get bloated from their feast, just as she was bloated from hers.
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