Birds of Paradise
Anne Malcom
Copyright © 2018 by Anne Malcom
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Agoraphobia
Birds of Paradise
Beauty
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
End.
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Anne Malcom
Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia: abnormal fear of being helpless in a situation from which escape may be difficult or embarrassing that is often characterized initially by panic attacks or anticipatory anxiety and finally by the avoidance of open or public places.
“The people told us that those birds came from the terrestrial paradise, and they call them bolon diuata, that is to say, ‘birds of God.’”
Antonio Pigafetta
“The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.”
John Berry
Dedication
To all the broken people.
May you realize that sometimes you don’t need to kill yourself trying to pick up the pieces of yourself. May you see that broken is beautiful. The most beautiful of them all.
Beauty
Some stories aren’t beautiful.
Some lives aren’t beautiful.
But those stories need to be told.
And those lives need to be lived.
1
I awoke with that frenzied urgency you get when you’re trying to shake off a nightmare. But instead of the relief of safety in wakefulness, there was only increased terror. Every inch of me froze as I took in the dark figure standing in the corner of my room. My already thundering heart threatened to beat out of my chest.
I blinked, hoping this was a residual image from my nightmare. Nightmares were the norm for me. I was used to the terror that came with them in sleep, that lingered after waking. But most of the images, the horror, pain—they disappeared to the depths of my mind, lurking, waiting for me to lapse into unconsciousness before they struck again. I waited for this to happen. But the figure remained.
I didn’t know what to do—screaming would’ve probably been the best idea, even if I did live alone without neighbors, but a vocalization of my terror might make it real. So I didn’t scream, outwardly at least. I had an idea that if I remained calm, convinced this was a nightmare within a nightmare, I would will it to be so. But then again, I knew better than anyone that hopes of such things were for children and fiction; in real life, the most terrible of realities, of monsters, they couldn’t be wished or hoped away.
Woodenly, I leaned over to my lamp beside my bed, switching it on and illuminating the room in a soft glow. The light only magnified the menace of the masked intruder. We stared at each other in silence, my whole body shaking. I was captured by terror and held hostage by the piercing blue eyes that were locked on me, emotionless, cold and menacing. They burned bright like a predator’s in the eerie light of the room.
The huge figure stepped forward slowly, almost casually, toward my bed. Toward me. I couldn’t escape from his eyes, from the peril that seeped out of them and blanketed my body.
Oh God. He’s going to kill me. Or rape me.
I gritted my teeth. Two years—a lifetime, if we wanted to get technical—of being the victim was enough for me. I was not going to be another statistic. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t survive more abuse—there were only broken pieces of me left as it was. A hollow shell with shards of my soul rattling around inside. It would take one strike from this predator to destroy me. Maybe that wasn’t the worst thing, anyway.
No. I wouldn’t give up. Couldn’t give up.
Life was my penance, my sentence. The price I was paying. And I deserved to live through every second of misery. I needed more of it to pay for my sins.
He didn’t speak, didn’t seem surprised at my paralysis, so when he made it to the edge of my bed, I was able to surprise him when I snatched my lamp and smashed it into his masked head. I took advantage of the muttered curse and his stumble at the impact, shooting out of bed and darting toward the door. Toward escape.
I didn’t think about the lack of escape that lay behind that door, the lack of destination to run to. In my terror, I forgot about the thing that was otherwise the rock sitting inside my lungs, making me unable to breathe without recognizing it.
No, this one moment, I forgot about the thing that had defined me and kept me in captivity for almost a year. I was all about survival.
My fingers closed around the door handle before a sharp pain at the back of my head stopped me. He had grabbed a handful of my hair, yanking me back into his granite chest.
I didn’t make a sound as the rough fabric of his mask tickled my face.
“Though I applaud your effort, I wouldn’t recommend pulling something like that again unless you want a bullet to the brain,” a raspy voice informed me, chilling me to the bone at the firm promise behind his words.
I didn’t know what to say. How to respond. Fear was like a gag, silencing and suffocating me.
We stayed like that a moment. The man, whoever he was, seemed content to stay in this position. He had the power, after all.
After the seconds that seemed to drag like years when time was saturated with unadulterated terror, he turned me. I faced him, his hand still grasping my long ponytail, his head cocked to the side as if he was inspecting me.
I met his gaze, refusing to cower in terror. Refusing to plead. The cold emptiness behind those blue eyes told me such efforts would be useless. I wouldn’t debase myself to that.
Not again.
“What do you want from me?” I asked in a clear voice, one that only shook a little.
I was proud. Years of living with the fear that curdled in my belly had obviously hardened me to its effect, my muteness only temporary.
He regarded me in silence, the stare making me uncomfortable. Well, more uncomfortable, if that word was even appropriate in this situation. But I didn’t have the energy to conjure up something more appropriate. It was disquieting, his gaze. It was the way a child looked at a butterfly before ripping its wings off.
“It’s not about what I want from you,” he said finally, his voice hard.
I blinked. “You’re the one who invaded my home. I’m assuming that violation comes with a purpose?”
My calm façade was just that, an act. A thinly veiled mask covering the mess underneath. I learned how to perfect it years ago. Men like these, with empty eyes, thrived off fear. The absence of it, or perceived absence of it, wouldn’t guarantee my survival, but it might prolong it. I could see I unnerved him. He was used to terror; the lack of it tilted his world, his power over the situation. His eyes, the only visible part of him, flared slightly at my question before the coldness came back.
“Yes,” he said slowly. “There is a purpose.”
My gaze flicked down to his hand. His gloved hand. The one holding a large gun.
My breathing quickened.
Don’t plead. Don’t reduce yourself to that agai
n.
“That part of the purpose?” I asked, gesturing with my eyes as he still held a firm grip on my head.
He followed my gaze, and then his eyes captured mine once more. “That remains to be seen,” he uttered quietly.
My breathing slowed. He wasn’t going to kill me immediately. That meant I had time. Time to think. To fight.
“What do you want from me, then?” I asked. “I’m sure we can come to an… agreement that stops that from being necessary.” I gestured with my eyes to the gun again.
His eyes hardened and the grip on my hair tightened. He yanked me flush with his body.
“You’re using your body to guarantee your survival?” he whispered, disgust seeping into his tone.
“No,” I hissed. “I’d die before I offer to let a man rape me,” I spat, my anger giving me the strength or stupidity to actually hiss at him, glare at him. But the insinuation unleashed a demon that I didn’t even know I had within me. One birthed amongst pain and weakness, one to protect me from complete destruction of my soul when my body was defiled.
His grip loosened and his eyes flared again, this time in surprise.
It registered to me, delayed, his violent reaction to what he thought I was suggesting. A little part of me relaxed. A tiny part. A smidgeon. The man who broke into my house, manhandled me, threatened me with a deadly weapon was against rape. It offended him. For whatever it was worth. Not that that was cause for relief. Rape may have been off the table, but I wasn’t fooled at the dangerous situation. Murder was still hanging in the air.
It seeped off him. The taste of it, the promise of it. Death.
When I was seven, my mother took me to a meat factory to scare me off eating meat—or more accurately, fast food—forever, as I had been caught sneaking a Big Mac. There weren’t many punishments in my childhood. Not when it became apparent that I wasn’t the daughter my parents wanted me to be. I was ignored, treated like an unwanted houseguest, and that was punishment enough. But there were appearances to keep up, and I had puppy fat, like most kids my age. I was on a strict diet, but somehow I’d managed to escape to a fast food chain and treat myself. Somehow, my mother had been uncharacteristically paying attention to me.
Hence the visit to the slaughterhouse before I hit double digits.
To say my mother was beyond surprised at my seven-year-old self’s detached reaction was an understatement. Though why she was surprised, I had no guess. Death was a way of life in our household. I was young, but I knew that.
I’d witnessed the blood and horrors of the killing floor and was indeed disgusted at the treatment of those poor defenseless animals, and sometimes, in my nightmares, the screams would jerk me awake in the nights afterward.
But it wasn’t that, or the blood, that I’d focused on. No, it was the men who were in charge of ending the animals’ lives. More precisely, their eyes. They were unseeing to the horrors in front of them. Blank. Empty. This was a job. A way to put food on the table, a roof over their heads. In order to do that, they had to desensitize themselves, distance themselves from it all. Lives of the cattle were inconsequential, a paycheck if anything, but mostly meant nothing.
I stared at the same eyes now. Icy resolve that told me death was his business and life was something that got in the way of that. Something meaningless.
His hand left my hair and gripped my wrist tightly. “Remember what I said about your little stunt with the lamp. Bravery means death,” he promised, dragging me out of the room.
Cowardice also meant death. I’d died the figurative death for cowardice two years ago. I wouldn’t be dying a literal one. If I had to die, I’d die fighting.
I let myself be dragged, going for compliance until I could get my bearings. I had barely come back to myself before this night. I was finally able to function—albeit with a gigantic weakness, but I was functioning—and now this happened. I let him lead me through the hallway in a sort of trance.
This isn’t happening. I’m still dreaming. This doesn’t happen to me. It happens to other people. People on the news, on Dateline, as cautionary tales, a distant reminder of the brutality of humankind. A loud shout in my mind, more of a plea than anything else.
That’s what people think about monsters, a little voice told me. And look what happened there, you married one.
That’s what people think about their children’s death. And look what happened there.
Ice settled over me at that thought, true, bone-chilling sorrow chasing away the fear. Pain that deep, that visceral, would always trump fear. I learned that. Because when it settled into my core, I realized there was not much left in life to fear than what existed inside me.
He jerked me into my living room, switching the lights on to reveal the white suede sofa, the white fluffy throw on top, the white pillows. White coffee table. White everything, actually.
I had to make my cage as pretty as I could. Maybe all the white would blank out the bars that covered every entry and exit.
Not literally. Symbolically, if you will.
In the middle of my symbolic living room sat a chair. And rope.
My mouth went dry. He’d come prepared.
“Sit,” he commanded tightly.
I paused for a split second, everything in my body telling me to run. To fight. To do anything to avoid me getting tied to a chair like an animal. Defenseless. At a man’s mercy.
Cold steel pressed into my temple. “Don’t make me repeat myself,” he muttered in my ear.
I jerked and did as he commanded, watching while he methodically tied my hands behind my back so they were clasped together, then tied to the frame of the wooden chair.
He did the same with my feet, tying each one to the legs.
When he was done, he straightened, standing in front of me. I met his cold gaze, trying not to focus on the casual way he held that gun. The easy way he tied those knots. His calm demeanor.
My blood is going to stain all my beautiful white furniture when he shoots me.
“You’re not crying,” he stated flatly. “Or begging.” His voice was still flat, cold, but something else lay underneath it. Confusion. Respect?
Hah. Respect from a murderer.
I jutted my chin up, meeting the gaze that unnerved as well as terrified me.
“Will that make any difference to the end result?” I asked.
He kept staring at me for a long time, longer than was socially acceptable. Then again, it wasn’t exactly socially acceptable to break into someone’s house and tie them to a chair. “No,” he said finally.
I nodded. “Didn’t think so. Whatever the outcome of this, I’m not giving you that. Nor am I robbing myself of my dignity.”
Not that I have enough left to fill a cup.
His entire frame jolted at my words, and he stepped forward so his hips were level with my eyes.
He was big, as previously noted. But not as big as the shadow had made him seem. It was something about his presence that made him seem monstrous. In reality, he was a taller-than-average man in an excellent suit. The close cut of the black suit showed that he was buff, muscled.
One needed to be fit in order to break into people’s houses. Overwhelm their victims.
He bent down so he was level with me.
In some vague recess of my mind, I thought he was doing this in order to equalize us, as best he could. That, of course, was preposterous. But something told me it was true.
“Are you a serial killer?” I whispered into the masked face.
“Yes,” he answered simply, coldly. “Maybe not in your society’s depiction or dramatization of the word, but my body count speaks for itself.”
I tilted my head. “My society?” I repeated. “You speak as if you aren’t part of it.”
I watched his frame harden underneath the black fabric. “I’m not,” he clipped. “People like me don’t live in your society. We exist in the shadows. In the darkness. Coming out only in your nightmares,” he stated, straightening.
br /> Without another word, he turned and walked out of the room.
And I pondered that.
I didn’t exist in society either. Not in the same violent way he did.
Or maybe it was exactly the same.
He came bursting back into the room minutes later.
At least it seemed like minutes. Maybe it had been hours. Maybe I’d been looking at that picture on the wall—the one of the white horse that I’d bought online at 2:00 a.m. thinking it might bring me some form of peace—tilted slightly to the left, for hours upon hours, in a terror-induced trance. In that place I went to before, when reality was cruel, harsh and unbearable.
But then again, reality was always cruel, harsh and unbearable.
And my solution for that was to go somewhere else when the worst of reality became too much to bear.
My soul did a walk around the block, so to speak.
When my husband beat me.
When he raped me.
When he—mustn’t think of that—it took a prolonged holiday.
But even with that distance, it tore, it broke. It shattered. My soul. Whatever made a human… human.
I don’t even know why I did that, in those weeks after my world turned into a wasteland. Why I retreated in a vain and idiotic hope to protect whatever was left to hurt.
My soul was gone.
My sanity.
My identity.
But still, I journeyed. Right till the end. And it seemed, maybe, it might’ve been what I was doing now.