TRAPPING EVA GREEN

Close your eyes. I SAID CLOSE YOUR EYES! Thank you.

Now imagine an ocean. The wave’s whooshing and washing, over and into and over again. See, floating at the edges of that whooshing water and sand, blood washing into the sea. A young woman. She's dead. Dead and naked.

You can open your eyes now.

THE LETTER

“Now, I’ve had it with all this garbage!” Sheriff Arbuthnot said slapping a small file on the rough wood of my desk. I calmly took it and opened it to find in it a letter titled: COMPLAINT LETTER TO COUNTY SHERRIF.

 As soon as I was about to skim through the letter, the sheriff swiped it back with such vigor that he almost had it ripped. “Seys right here, RIGHT HERE EVA!” Pointing to that line in a paragraph that only he saw and still he pointed, “Thet Mr. Alexandra’s wife had seen your Mercedes packed just nearing their house.” His often pale face was now red and agreed with his fiery eyes and amber hair. “And whets worse is thet!” he marched about back and forth, putting the file in his armpit. “She seys, and her son seys and Mr. Alexander himself seys. It seems their dog might as well have a thing to sey seeing thet there is not once but a whole week of different eyes seeing you packed about their house.”

I sat in my chair waiting for him to finish and when he did I popped a file from under my desk and gave it to him. “They have something to do with it sheriff, I know they do.” “I understand Eva thet you are needing someone to blame for your brother’s death…” At this, I blew from my desk and stood to him as if I was a man, throwing my arms at his jacket and holding him to my face. “This is not just ‘bout my brother. One way or another the Alexandra’s have something to do with it.” I drew back. He stood there, red but now turning pale. He was afraid of me, every man with at least two senses about him was afraid of me. I was about a man as many of them and for some twice as much.

“Twelve people have died in the past three year’s sheriff, all in the same manner. You tell me that it is not strange?” “Eva, I do not sey it not strange. It is in fact most strange, in all my years I have not seen such a thing as this, and I doubt any man ever will.” He took my file and begun to watch through the pictures of the twelve victims, all of them as that lady by the ocean. All of them dead by the same spot and in the same manner. Dead and naked. “Strange as it may be, there is not one once of evidence to suggest anything but a series of suicides.” He picked one picture and stared sadly at it. I immediately knew it was the one with my brother. “He wouldn’t want you chasing ghost-stories you know!” “Don’t tell me what my brother would want sheriff!” “I do not mean to offend.”

He put the picture back in the file, and gave both files to me. “I do not want to hear about the Alexandra’s, and I do not want you near the matter. If you must grieve then do but do not make this about you. It’s been two years Eva.” With that he bowed, turned, and left the room.

THE HOUSE

Two cars followed each other into the woods. The leading car, a black Bugatti, gave its follower, the Mercedes, a breathlessness as it tried to keep up in both speed and class. The road too was of its own class, being grand and perfectly maintained, without a doubt leading to a place of higher standard.

The road finally came to an end ‘bout an hour from civilization, at a house so grand and rich it could only belong to the Alexandra’s. In went both the cars and parking and then entering into this fairylike mansion; Mr. Alexandra from the Bugatti and the Mercedes Eva Green.

A very unlikely thing seemed to have happened a few days after the sheriff had received that letter of complaint from the Alexandra’s. That richest man of the county (and probably of the country too) had sent a private letter to Eva Green asking if she might want to get more acquainted seeing that there might be a misunderstanding.

First they went to dinner and then having won Eva’s smile a little, the man asked her if she wanted to see the family mansion in which he promised all that she might want to know was there.

And thus it was, they drove an hour from civilization and then arrived at this place grand and fairylike with its many servants and summer air. It was summer.

It was summer. When they entered the house and, she was amazed by its rich insides. It was summer. When she was led to the kitchen and all the other rooms. It was still summer.

She found herself obsessing over the library and all the secrets of the Alexandra family, which at first she was hesitant to go through but Mr. Alexandra insisted, and promised he had nothing to hide. And thus she read.

A bell rung, sounding like that of an old doorbell. Mr. Alexandra bowed, apologized and then excused himself to have see who it was that had come.

Eva was left in that library and having such excitement she begun to read and then read, and there she sat in front of a window so large as she had never seen before.

There was a book that seemed odd and enchanted. She picked it and begun to read. It contained things grotesque, of sacrifices and witchcraft. It had also pictures and names of the twelve except now they were thirteen. Her name was the thirteenth and her in a picture, her dead body, naked and bleeding by the ocean.

The sun got in her eyes and made the reading difficult. And then Eva suddenly felt a weird Loneliness at which followed the air wenting suddenly cold and the sun was no more. Snow begun to drop gradually and grew into a blizzard covering everything. The workers acted surreal for even when the snow covered their feet, still they worked, their knees and still they worked, and shoulders, and head, and still, even then, still they worked. Then came smoke forming from the ceiling and covering the whole library. Eva went woozy, tumbled over, and she fell in a faint.

Fade to black.

AWAKE?

Eva woke to find only darkness. It was difficult to tell whether she was actually awake or still dreaming, for while she felt awake her, her surrounding was dreamy, in that manner of a nightmare about to happen for she was surrounded by nothing but darkness, from below and from above and yet the darkness was solid enough to step on.

As she stood onto that darkness, the noise of her heart echoed around. Fast went the beat, and faster and louder. Then there was another noise, of feet as if slapping at wood, of wet and muddy feet running. Then came from among the darkness those feet, running. The feet were there, the mud was there, but there was no man, only those feet cut off grotesquely from the knees and running.

Even though the feet alone were ghostly and grotesque a thing to see, there subsisted a thing about seeing them run that made one understand that they too were scared. For they run not of a race or of that childish play run, but there was a fear in their run, a breathlessness in that invisible chest, a beating restlessness in that imperceptible heart and terror on that invisible face. They run not towards Eva but away, away from something, something more horrendous than those eerie legs, something indeed more ghostly.

And after those feet, was heard more feet and after their sound came their parts, each pair running about in all directions except from whence they came.

Then came a thing out of the darkness, a thing that seemed part of the darkness and yet it had a form. It was more pronounced on its face and hands and feet. From its face and hands dripped blood, shaping its long nails and vampiric canines.

The thing stopped in its run, as if surprised by Eva’s presence, the breath from its nostrils whooshing in and out like the ocean. Eva's heart was pounding at this. Her body didn't know what to do, she gasped. The sound startled the thing in that manner that causes a dog that was first undecided to attack. And it did. It went faster than Eva could react and grabbed her by the throat.

In Eva’s mind she expected being eaten, but what she did not expect was that thing to screech so boisterous and ear-splitting that her heart stopped right away. But her mind was still alive and saw the whole thing that happened next. The thing drew its right hand and while she screamed, it drove its hand into her mouth and reached into her stomach and pulled her insides out, and it proceeded to feed. Her body, or what was left of it, fell onto the darkness with a thud.

AWAKE.

And she woke, startled by that thud.

The sun was in her eyes. It was difficult to see with all that sun and having that her vision was just now gradually getting back to focus. When they finally came into focus, she saw a worker of Mr. Alexandra coming to help her to her feet. The book she had been reading lay open on the ground, two pages; one having that list of thirteen. The other page having the grotesque image of that creature and its name: Nagal parachoró ploútos roughly translated: the wealth giver.

Having such trauma, no sooner was she on her feet and sane enough, than she run. Run- out of the library and down the stairs and into the entry, and out the door. Mr. Alexandra watched her flight from the front yard flower garden as he strolled with an unfamiliar man. Eva went straight for her car, into it, started it, and in the most vigorous manner she u-turned and was out of the place in no time.

As she drove, that hour road, her heart thumbing and confused, she suddenly remembered the death of her brother. This was in part because of the fact that that road that went back to civilization cornered somewhere towards that ocean. And so less than an hour later she was by that corner and decided to go and take a respite by the ocean.

As she drew closer to the ocean and towards that scene of blood and naked men and women and her brother, she was greeted by police cars parked, red and blues flashing. A perimeter was set around what was certain another body and, the closer she got the more officers she recognized. And at the center of the crowd was the Sherriff pointing around and taking notes. She parked her car and came from it.

AWAKE!

There I was, relieved to see the police and especially the sheriff. Happy to be alive but remembering that I did not take that book that would for sure have been evidence "Sherriff!" I called out, but he took no notice. "Sheriff! You will not believe what just happed!” and still he did not even look up, nor did any of the officers seem to take any notice of me. I skipped over the perimeter and then I saw it. The reason why.

I saw the wave’s whooshing and washing, over and into and over again. Floating at the edges of that whooshing water and sand, blood washing into the sea, a young woman. She was dead. Dead and naked. I was dead. But I was here, how could I be there dead and here alive?

TRAPPED

The thought made her woozy and faint. Everything turned immediately black and then, there was a light from a window, that large window. She was back in the library. She felt not fear nor anything at all except an intense desire to clean the library. At that very instance she was dressed in workers clothing and a duster was in her arms. Robotically, she went at her job, picked up that book she had previously needed, and now took no matter of it, she put it in its place and went on dusting...

Just like that.