"Authorities Make Gruesome Discovery in Downtown Office"

The dirt burrowing under her fingernails as she clawed her way out of the earth was fresh and wet, and when her head broke its surface, a sob ripped from her throat. She collapsed forward onto the mound of upturned mud, her lower half still buried, and let the tears spill from her eyes onto the ground below her. How had this happened? 

“Get up. Get up. Get up,” her whispered pleas to herself sounded hoarse and choked, but they were enough to at least spur her to slowly drag herself fully from the shallow grave. With her last bit of strength she rolled over to stare at the gray sky through the treetops above her. She’d never been a fan of being out in nature, she avoided hikes and camping like the plague; it seemed like cruel irony that she’d end up here after… she sat bolt upright, her last memories flashing in her mind and she started breathing heavily. 

She’d told Robert that she was pregnant, and his reaction had been surprising. The man was rich enough she figured he would offer her a check to slink off into the sunset and never speak to him or of him ever again, but then he’d said he’d care for it, he’d said he wouldn’t leave his wife, but he wouldn’t abandon the kid either. 

“I made a vow to Deborah, but I won’t be a deadbeat dad,” were the words he’d used, placing a wedding-ring-clad hand on her still-flat stomach, meaning the words to sound compassionate, but to her they sounded hollow- he hadn’t seem to care about his vow to Deborah when he had been fucking her. It didn’t matter to her anyway.

“Robert, I’m not having a kid. I told you my condition in the interest of honesty, but I don’t want to be a single mother, and I certainly don’t want to co-parent with you.” 

His eyes had immediately shifted, and he accused, 

“You’re going to kill my baby?” She took a step back,

“What? No. I’m going to terminate a barely developed pregnancy- I’m not even fully six weeks yet.”

“You’re not going to kill my baby.”

“Robert, it’s not a baby yet and it’s not your choice.”

“Listen, Anna,” he’d stepped forward, the diamonds on his Rolex glinting in the overhead light of his office, “if it’s a money thing, don’t worry. I will buy you a penthouse in the city, whichever one you want, you and the kid will want for nothing. You’ll never have to work again, you’ll have all the best clothes, a luxury car, jewels for every birthday and Christmas. He’ll go to the best private schools, and he will have parents that will support him through anything, we can do this, Anna.” 

“But I don’t want to.”

“That’s it? You don’t want to. Do you understand how selfish that is? This is my kid too, you know.”

“But it’s not your body, and I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“It’s not only your body anymore!”

Not willing to be guilt-tripped, Anna had started walking towards the door when she felt an arm come around her throat. She had thrashed and clawed to get free, but the last thing she remembered was his low voice whispering he was sorry and the feel of his cheek wet with tears against her forehead as her vision went black.

Anna’s guttural scream split the air of the woods around her. She felt no heartbeat in her chest, no blood rushed to her head, and the breaths she was taking felt hollow, like wind rushing through a derelict building without doors or windows. She lifted her arms and saw gray, pallid shin, waxy and stiff, her movements were jerky and there were blue and purple splotches along her limbs. She flinched and gagged when she saw maggots gathering on her bloated legs, no longer toned and shapely from the miles she’d run on the weekends. Robert’s first compliment to her had been about her legs, and now, because of him, they were deformed and being eaten away by maggots. She shrieked and batted them away the best she could with locked joints, she couldn’t fully bend her elbows or move her shoulders much, so the fight against the little wormy parasites was horrifying. Once she had swept away most of the bugs, she gagged again when she saw the pits and jagged holes in her once soft skin. 

  The dress she’d died in hung in tattered shreds of red satin around her, and she ripped the remnants away until she was clad only in the black slip beneath. It wasn’t clean, but at least it was mostly intact. Anna wrapped a longer piece of silk around one of her wrists and secured it, then she staggered to her feet. It took a few steps for her to adjust to the unnatural movement of her limbs, and somewhere in the back of her mind it registered that this was wrong and sick, but she couldn’t bring herself to care as she hobbled towards the sound of cars atop the crest of trees to her left. 

The corpse of Anna Hastings knew exactly where she was going.

She was following the pit of acid burning in her chest and belly, the haze in her mind that demanded justice for her broken body and ended life. It led her to the highway, less than fifty yards from her grave; the lazy asshole hadn’t even bothered to hide her body miles into desolate wilderness. He had pulled off the highway, dug a two foot hole, dropped her inside without care, and hastily covered her up. She hadn’t had the dignity of being laid gently to rest. If it had been up to him, she would never have a funeral, or a headstone bidding her rest in peace and proclaiming her a “Beloved Daughter, Sister, and Friend.” 

Each crooked, lurching step she took along the road grew the abyss inside her. What did it mean when a rich man didn’t even bother to hide a body that well? It meant he was confident he could get away with it. And why wouldn’t he? Anna recalled the body of a prostitute found on the banks of the river last year, the story had been everywhere… until it wasn’t. The victim had been two years younger than Anna, wearing expensive jewelry that ruled out a mugging or burglary, and with bruising around her throat suggesting she’d been strangled. Anna had cried when she looked up the crime scene photos. The poor girl had fought back, she had broken her expensive manicure trying to claw her attacker’s eyes out. When she’d heard that, Anna had felt a sad triumph when she’d read that there was DNA under the victim’s nails, if she couldn’t stop the man who’d murdered her, at least she could be the one to deliver him to justice. But justice never came. They’d arrested a man who’d matched descriptions given by witnesses to suspicious activity; he had bank statements for jewelry shops; he had been photographed with the victim. Then, one day, all of the headlines had stopped, and when Anna had looked into it, she’d found out the suspect had been an incredibly wealthy board member of a Fortune 500 company, and the charges had been dropped. Robert was the CFO of one of the largest employers in the city, and Anna knew he hadn’t been very worried about whether her body would bring her justice when he’d dumped it. He hadn’t even bothered to remove the emerald earrings he’d given her two weeks before he murdered her, a desperate attempt to keep her after telling her he had a wife stashed upstate. She’d walked away from him, but kept the earrings.

 The burning rage in Anna’s chest began to cool thinking about that poor woman murdered a year before her, and was replaced with dark ice that steeled her and showed her the face of the man who killed her, rotting and festering like hers was. Anna would not let the system rob her of justice like the others. She lumbered closer to the city, and by the time she reached the business district, night had fallen. Though she’d trekked mile after mile, the corpse never tired, driven not by muscle and ligament, but by a black hole sucking her ever closer to revenge. The miles she covered melted into fantasies of a brown eyed, bulky man crouching at her feet in terror. Of knife hilts protruding from a sweater vest-covered back. Bullet holes through a leather briefcase held tightly against a gym-hardened chest as if it was Kevlar. Sputtering lips under a thick mustache, gagging around white foam as a poisoned glass of bourbon fell from a hand sporting a glistening Rolex. Nobody seemed to notice the dead walking amongst the living, and even if they had, Anna would pay no mind to the affairs of those who still had things to live for. There was nothing left for her in life, only what he would die for. 

His office building’s ground floor was empty save for the single security guard sitting behind the check-in desk. When Anna crashed through the glass doors, she picked up a shard from the floor and let loose a guttural sound from her bruised, rotting throat- tilting her head so the mud-caked, stringy strands of once lustrous hair fell to the side. The guard, his name was Allen from what Anna remembered, immediately stood up and screamed. As she moved closer, he scrambled away from the desk, crouching next to the wall behind it, begging, 

“Oh god, please, please just leave me alone!” Anna dragged herself behind the desk and stood before him, the closer she got, the wider his eyes went. He began coughing and when she bent at the waist to get to his eye level, he turned and vomited on the floor. 

“Elevator key, Allen,” she thrust out her hand and it took him four tries to unclip the badge from his belt and drop it into her hand, snatching his fingers back and tucking them into his chest. She wrenched her upper body back to her full height and began to lurch away, from behind her she heard a whimpered, 

“It’s Adam.” Whatever. 

The ride up the elevator made Anna glad she didn’t have to breathe. She replayed every moment she’d spent with Robert; she was sure he was still in his office late at night- he did everything possible to avoid going home to Deb. The moment she’d met him, she’d thought she’d finally lucked out after all these years of trying to find a man who treated her with respect and who could give her the lifestyle she wanted. In her mid-30’s, she’d almost given up when his broad frame had strode up to her confidently in that bar all those months ago. Anna could still feel the spray of the sea on her face when he’d taken her on a spontaneous trip to the Maldives, but the moment he’d snatched her phone away from her and thrown it across the room when she’d tried to post a photo should have given her a clue. She could still hear the mariachi music spilling out from the reception of her sister’s wedding as Robert held her to him the first time they’d slow danced. He’d refused to be photographed there too. The corpse of Anna Hastings could still see the look on Robert’s face as she’d thrust her phone towards him, demanding an explanation for the woman in a white dress posting for her anniversary, standing entwined with the man she’d been sleeping with. 

Anna cursed herself for the guilt she’d felt when she considered just ending the pregnancy and never telling him about it. She thought of herself as a good person, for the most part, and she didn’t think she would be able to live with herself if she’d lived that lie. Ironic that it was that guilt that got her killed. 

“It’s like raaaiiin, on your wedding day…” she whisper-sang to herself in that awful, scratchy voice as the elevator climbed the last few floors and let out a loud ding! to announce its arrival. Her small bit of amusement faded as she stepped out onto the floor where she spent her last moments alive. She felt his arms around her throat again, her vision narrowed, and if her heart still beat, it would be rushing blood to her head. But she was unburdened by the distracting physical symptoms of her post-trauma, she felt the fear, she felt the panic, but she had nothing left to lose, nothing left to risk. He could hurt her no more. 

“Bill, I keep telling you, if we can’t take those assholes down in HR to the cleaner’s I will fire your ass so fast your head will spin. I don’t give a shit what Emerson’s secretary says, he made us 50 mil last year and what did she make? A problem. Get it done,” Robert’s voice cut off as he slammed the desk phone down and picked up the glass of Blanton’s sitting next to it, “Fucking Emerson.” 

When the man circled the oak desk and sat behind it, he looked up to see a nightmare in his doorway. It had been 52 hours since he’d shoved the woman in front of him into his trunk and dumped her in the woods. 52 hours since he’d cried into her lifeless hair and sobbed, asking her why she’d made him do this, why she couldn’t just do what he’d asked. 52 hours since his dreams of being a father had been dashed. 

“Hello, lover.” Her voice made him jerk to his feet so violently he knocked the heavy rolling chair over. It sounded like death; like metal being dragged over gravel, but it wasn’t hollow. She didn’t yell, but he could hear the rage, could feel the icy hands of dread slink into his gut and squeeze. She held a large shard of glass in her hand, her face, once the picture of loveliness, was now bloated, blotched, and bloodless.

“Oh my god…” he stumbled back, retching, “the smell…” 

“Yes, Robert. The smell of decay, of rot; flesh beginning to peel from bone and bugs burrowing into pockets of burst skin. Do you still want to buy me that lavish penthouse?” she cocked her head to the side. 

“Anna…”

“Shut up, Robert,” she growled, and threw her whole body ungracefully at him, knocking them both into the giant window behind the desk. He was more disgusted than hurt, scrambling away from her, gagging, while she lurched at him again, latching on to the red sweater he was wearing pulled over the oxford shirt and khakis. Robert let out a girlish shriek as she threw herself backwards so he landed with his full weight on top of her. Anna didn’t feel the weight, but Robert could feel the sickening give and squelch of a rotting body beneath him, for just a moment paralyzed staring into dull eyes with a filmy haze over them. They may have been dead, but behind the film was something more terrifying than he’d ever thought could come from a woman. That rage, the ice forming over Anna’s mind exploded out as the fire returned. His fear wasn’t enough, his disgust and horror wasn’t enough, not for what he’d done to her. She reared her head back and darted forward, biting into the soft skin on the side of his neck before wrenching away, then an animalistic scream tore away from his throat with the flesh between her teeth. 

“Anna!” He wailed as she spit blood back into his eyes, and he rolled off of her to try and staunch the tide of red flowing from the ugly gash, “please, stop!” 

She didn’t. As he lay on the floor, writhing in pain and fear, she crawled to him with a crimson smile on her face, her limbs’ movement still jerky, and when she knelt behind his head she placed a soothing kiss to his forehead, soft shushes falling from her grin. Slowly, making sure he could see, she unwrapped the scrap of red silk from her wrist, and gently flitted it across his face, teasing him. Then the corpse fisted his hair and lifted his head, ripping his hand away from his wound and wrapping the silk around his throat. He realized too late what was happening, only starting his feeble struggle when she braced her knee against the back of his neck and began to pull the loose ends of the red fabric back. 

As his body flopped and his arms flailed, Anna thought only about her last moments. The feel of his arm around her throat, the black spots that danced in the corner of her vision, and the sound of his whimpered apologies for what she’d made him do to her in her ear. It took longer than she thought it would, but eventually his movements slowed and just before his heart stuttered for the last time she leaned in close and whispered, 

“You did this, to both of us.” 

His body went slack, his eyes no longer saw, and the blood flow from the wound on his neck began to ebb. There was no soul left in Robert’s body; he lay as broken and empty as she had on this same floor 52 hours ago. The older corpse took one last look at the justice she’d wrought, and she was free. 

Anna Hasting’s body slumped to the floor, and she died for the second time- this time, on her own terms.