Chapter 3: Rotting Cabbage

Kevin Dally promptly sent Isabelle home for the condition of her business casual apparel. She walked towards her car with a spring in her step. The air was brutally cold, and Isabelle who was already soaking, quickly began to freeze. Her hair was gathering icicles. The faithfully unreliable Geo Metro was waiting in the corner of the parking lot. Isabelle pulled open the door with some force to dislodge the ice that had formed. She flopped into the driver’s seat and put the key into the ignition. The engine sputtered and died. Isabelle dropped her head onto the steering wheel in frustration and the car’s horn went off. She jerked her head right back up and looked guiltily around the lot for some offended party. None appeared. After many failed attempts to get the vehicle to comply, Isabelle gave up and zipped her grey coat all the way to her neck. She slipped her red wooly scarf tight around her exposed throat and started the trek home on foot.

Any average human being would have gone back into their workplace, placed a few calls to devoted relatives or friends, told a sob story to their co-workers, or called a garage. Isabelle, however, was thoroughly sick of dealing with everyone in Grange City Bank, completely exhausted with her bitter angry mother, and had no real friends. So with a soft crunch of her feet on the snow she began a very long walk.

Four blocks later a fat snowflake landed on the tip of Isabelle’s nose. It was followed by never-ending comrades. The sky vomited up a giant ocean of frozen water. Isabelle was a tiny figure in a blinding white blur. She shivered, hunched her shoulders, and kept on.

Adrian sat in a coffee shop, diet forgotten, sipping a warm vat of espresso and caramel. She tried to fight the hysteria that was bubbling quietly to the surface. Twenty years old and her life was over. She tried to remind herself that phrases like those were melodramatic and not to be tolerated, but somehow it didn’t matter. Her carefully composed demeanor started to flake silently away. She felt as though she were sitting naked in a pile of her designer clothing. She could even imagine the bleach stripping from her naturally brown hair. She was undergoing a reverse metamorphosis. Adrian sat in the café a lonely little seventeen year old with a tragic haircut. Michael would be livid. He’d probably abandon her. The thought brought water to her bright blue eyes. She made up her mind as she finished the last sip of the caramel-coffee cocktail. It had to be done.

The weight of the decision made Adrian’s steps heavy and slow. She got in her little green car and started the engine. The car shuttered down Main Street, the wipers on full blast. It was still hard to discern much from the road ahead, but Adrian drove five over the limit despite this.

Too late to stop the green Mitsubishi as it thundered towards the wispy looking black-haired girl crossing the street.

Adrian heard the thud across the right side of her car and slammed on her brakes. Her heart beat out a drum solo, breaking ribs and dislocating lung tissue in abject terror. Her throat closed up and she could taste blood. She wanted to scream, to call the hospital, to die, but she just sat with her hands rigid on the steering wheel.

Isabelle crossed the street without so much of a glance in the other direction. She was miserable, teeth chattering, hands frozen, hair crunchy with ice, and toes that she felt she would surely lose to frostbite. She hated her house, she hated her job, and now her shitty car, the only method of escape left to her was sitting in a parking lot, and finally dead from the struggle. One moment she was lost in these black thoughts and the next she saw a bright yellow glow of headlights, and felt herself fly up into the air, seemingly forever and finally a pain that was so intense she couldn’t draw breath. Isabelle lay on her back in the road trying to breath, losing the world with each second. She was aware of cold, the snowdrops melting on her face. She watched the snow spiraling down and everything was white.

Adrian got out of the car after a moment or two, grabbed her cell phone and stepped into the blizzard with cold wind whipping into her medium length blonde hair. Red was leaking from the bedraggled creature in the snowy road. Its coal eyes were open. The skin matched the snow. The lips were pale and parted, mouth slightly open. Adrian stared down in numb disbelief. It was a girl.

Police and ambulance medics milled about the scene in a sort of frenzy. Nothing of this magnitude happened often around this town.

Isabelle woke up three hours later in a haze of white and wondered why it was taking so long for her to die. Surely hypothermia would have set in by now. The details began to emerge, like a hideous still life, the boxy television set hooked to a wall, and the sickening sterilized smell of death. She tried to move her head and the muscles clenched fiercely, screaming in resistance. Wincing, she dropped the inch of progress she had made in the endeavor. She relaxed her body and breathed deep. The pain was a living thing. It pressed on her ribs and smothered her face. It dug its fingers into her intestines and squeezed her brain tissue. A strange noise was coming from the corner of the room, just out of her range of vision. It sounded like toenails on tile. The thing skittered across the room rapidly. Without knowing why Isabelle’s heart jumped and began to beat frantically. Her hands clenched, and anxiety rapidly took control of her body. She was terrified of some silly unidentified sound. It was probably a rodent, or someone’s cat. Maybe it was even one of those ridiculous little purse sized dogs. The clicking drew closer to her bedside. She felt a slight breeze on her cheek. The window was firmly shut. The gust was tiny, and smelled slightly of vegetables and rotting fruit.

It was something’s breath.

Isabelle shut her eyes. She wanted to jump out of bed and run, but she knew her body would rebel instantly and she would crumple into a useless ball on the floor. She was trembling violently and breathing in short gasps. She could still feel and smell the thing’s breath. Her left hand inched up to the red nurse button.