Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten (49 page)

It was Tirza.

She continued her imbalanced, slow-motion turn.  Her face came into profile.  Her left hand swinging outward as her momentum swung her about to face us.

Everything happened at once.

Katie released my slumping cock and stood in one fluid motion.

Ramona pushed herself from the bed, saying, “What the
fuck!
”

I flipped the waistband of my shorts over my sopping manhood with one hand and used the other to propel myself to a less compromising erect position.

Ignore the pun!

It didn’t matter though, Tirza had seen.  The comprehension was plainly written upon her visage – shock, revulsion… and something I had never thought to see her express, at a time like this -
terror.

Yet, before any of us could so much as move, Tirza’s eyes rolled back into her head and she crumpled to the floor
like a stone.  Her head banged onto the thick carpeting with an audible
thwack!
  It bounced once, before she settled.

I saw the dirt and the leaves and the bits of twigs and branches in her hair.  I knew in a heartbeat, something was horribly wrong.  This was something worse than her catching my cousin giving me a blowjob, while my girlfriend macked me down.  When I saw the blood, then I knew for certain.

Things had just gone from bad to
waaaay
fucking bad.

There was only one positive thing I could say about being in a situation like this.  It would be Ramona and Katie.  Here was my ex-girlfriend was lying unconscious on my bedroom floor, looking like she had just come through a warzone.  They reacted like any Human Being, seeing a person in need.  It didn’t matter, she had once been the center of my w
orld, that I had loved her deeply.  It didn’t matter that she had treated me badly, and was often cruel and Machiavellian after our break-up.  She was in trouble.  They responded.

[He comes forth.]

That is one of the things I love about my girls, they always step up when times call for people to step up.  They are more decisive than an army general and can cause infinitely more damage than a brigade of Talon Class Skytanks.

The more I think about it, the more I know that I am blessed.  Though, at times, I feel cursed, because I cannot die.  I’m doomed to live what might very well be scores of lifetimes.

My girls are my fire as much as they are my protection.  How could I not love them?

[He allows himself to be swallowed by recollection once more.]

So, on that night, when a bedraggled Tirza stumbled into my bedroom and caught us all in a tawdry, if not taboo sex act, my girls kicked in and rushed to Tirza’s fallen form only one step behind me.  Together we cared for her, though, in the back of our minds, we all knew when the tiny teenager awoke - we were going to be in the shit.

Her tale would make certain of that.

{ ¹Jack-in-the-Box:
an
American
fast-food restaurant
founded in 1951 by
Robert O. Peterson
in
San Diego
,
California
,
where it’s headquartered once stood. }

{ ²Curly Fries: fried potatoes with a twist to them; typically deep-fried and over-seasoned.  }

{ ³Sprite: a colorless,
lemon-lime
flavored
, caffeine-free
soft drink
, created by
the Coca-Cola Company
. It was introduced in the
United States
in 1961
. }

~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Summer – 2018)

Tirza

I
picked her up, which wasn’t all that difficult, seeing she was only four foot nine and weighed no more than eighty-five pounds.  I took her to my bed with both Ramona and Katie following.  I gazed down at her upturned face.  I could sense whatever had happened to her had been harrowing.  She was covered with muck, dirt smears and bits and pieces of leaves and bits of twigs tangled in her hair.  She was scraped and cut about her cheeks and neck, as if she had run through some sort of thorny bush.  Her shirt was snagged and torn.  The thin sweater she wore over it was nearly shredded.  It was barely a functioning garment.  Her jeans were full of brambles and smeared with stains of grime.  It appeared, she’d run through a jungle in the middle of our city just to make it to my house.  I wasn’t sure if her surviving the journey alive might’ve been a miracle or not.  It might well have been, she was in such a sorry state.

Katie whisked past us and ran into the bathroom, while I adjusted her more comfortably upon the bed.  I was very grateful and proud when Ramona
placed a pillow under the tiny girls’ head.  I gave her a small smile.  I was too worried to express more than that.

My cousin came from the other room with a hand towel in hand.  It looked damp with water.  She immediately began to clean away some of the crud that had caked upon Tirza’s face.  Slowly, her true state was revealed.  We were all heartened, other than a deep gash across her forehead, all the other wounds suffered by my ex-girlfriend proved superficial.  Katie went about cleaning her forehead wound more thoroughly.  Without looking up, she asked if I had any antiseptic or like substance she could use to purify the wound.

Without so much as a grunt, I ran for the bathroom and pulled forth cotton balls, the Hydrogen Peroxide and the Rite-Aid¹ brand of Iodine Tincture my mother stored underneath the sink should the need arise.  I made my way back to the girls, both of them hovering over the tiny form of Tirza.  They had removed her ragged sweater and were wiping down her arms.  It stopped me for a moment to see them care for someone who they really didn’t like.  The fact she was in need had pushed those ill-feelings aside.  They might be possessive at times, but it didn’t mean they were monsters.  They were good people.

I shook myself, coming up to them already twisting off
the cap of the Peroxide, pouring some on one of the cotton balls.  I came around the girls, by Tirza’s head and began daubing the disinfecting medicine along the entire length of the gash on her forehead.  The wound began to bubble at once, then foam as the dirt and filth were burnt away.  I repeated the process time and time again until the bubbling stopped altogether, then stoppered the Peroxide and began to open the Tincture.

Katie took off Tirza’s shoes – a light pair of Nike
² trainers – and walked back toward the windows to pound off some of the mud that was stuck to the soles outside my bedroom, not wanting to dirty it even more.  I felt bad as I caught a glimpse of my ex-girlfriend’s socks.  They were dirty as well.  It saddened me terribly, because I had known Tirza a long time and seeing that pair of soiled socks was a bad sign.  It had always been one of her pet peeves to keep her socks as white as she possibly could.  She utterly despised the sight of discolored ones.  It made her gag.  Now, her socks were filthy. 
What had happened to you?
  I couldn’t imagine what would drive her to ruin her socks.  It would have to something horrific.

Again, I shoved aside my thoughts and went back to work on the cut on her forehead.  I made sure the capturing fork at the end of applicator was full with the dark ocher-colored liquid.  As lightly as I could, I applied it.

Below me, Tirza gasped in pain, her eyes shooting open like twin fire-crackers, dancing with light.  Her balled fist flew from her side, aimed directly at my exposed jaw.

If it hadn’t been for Ramona, I think she would’ve cleaned my clock.  I hadn’t moved a muscle.  I hadn’t even seen the blow coming.  I just stayed put in wide-eyed shock as my girlfriend brushed Tirza’s punch aside with her forearm.

“Hey, we’re trying to help you!” yelled Ramona.

From the window, Katie called, “Get back from her, give her space!”

We both backed away.  Tirza scrambled to her knees, her fists before her, ready to fight, warning us to stay back.  Her eyes were glazed with pain and fear.  The horror that had driven her to my house made her look like a mad-woman.  She knelt there huffing and puffing, her small breasts heaving under her ruined shirt.  Her soiled, white bra flashed periodically beneath.

“Tirza is us!” I implored the girl, trying to get her to realize where she was, that she was no longer in…
danger?

Why had I thought that?

“Tirza!  Tirza, it’s me, Estefan.  You’re safe now.  You can relax, we are not going to hurt you,” I continued, hoping to get through to her.  “You ran here, remember?  You’re safe now.  It’s me, Estefan…”

Her gaze focused on me, her brow knitting in the middle, her head tilted to one side with two or three sharp, jerking movements that appeared more bird-like than human. 
Was she in shock?

“Tirza, it is me Estefan.  I am not your enemy; I’m not going to hurt you.”

The other girls remained motionless, staring at the diminutive teenager upon my bed, awaiting her next move.

“Tirza, do you remember now?  You came here… to be safe.  You’re here now.  You’re safe.  Do you remember?”

Her hands unclenched and slowly came down to her sides.  Her eyes began to clear and well up, her chest beginning to heave ever more violently.  “They’re all dead,” she began pathetically.  “They killed them all, right before my eyes.  Oh god, Estefan, my whole family is
DEAD!!!
”  She crumbled back on the bed like a leaf before a vicious wind, heedless of where she would fall.

I stood there, rooted in shock, the Iodine nearly tumbling from my grasp.  I had to grab it tightly so that it wouldn’t spill, staining my carpeting.

“What did you say?” inquired my cousin, placing Tirza’s shoes near the wall by the window, stepping closer to the rest of us.  “What did she say?” she asked again, dismay beginning to take root upon her face.

On the bed, Tirza was crying in anguish, her whole body writhing and contorting as if she were in physical pain.

“She said…,” began my girlfriend,”…that her family was killed…”  Her voice was measured.  She was still trying to digest the import of Tirza’s words, stomaching if they were real or the ravings of an overwrought teenager.

“What the fuck?!” exhaled Katie in disbelief.  Her gaze snapped from Ramona to Tirza to me and back again.

“She said - ,” started Ramona, but couldn’t go on.  Her eyes to filling with moisture, then to me, “Go to her, Estefan, make her feel better…”

My mouth gaped.  “
Me?
  But, I don’t know how - .”

“Yes, you do,” was all she said.  An odd sort of acceptance seemed to pass through my girlfriends’ entire body.  She was suddenly less strained than before.  She had somehow become less burdened, under less duress.  Something had been mercifully lifted from her shoulders.

I was utterly dumbstruck.

Did my girlfriend actually
want
me to go to Tirza, to hold her in my arms?  Really?  Truly?  After everything that had happened between the three of us?  After all the arguing, the veiled threats, the silent abuse and neglect, did Ramona really mean that?

“Effy, go… she needs you.”  She urged me again.

Katie stayed where she was, watching the entire episode unfold, swallowing deeply every now and again.

I stared back at Ramona, frowning with uncertainty.

She nodded yet again and motioned for me to go to Tirza with her hand.

“Ramona?” I asked as if her name were enough to explain all that I was thinking.

It was.

“I can sense it, my love, and there is nothing I or anyone else could do about it,” she explained.  I told myself I had absolutely no clue what the fuck she was talking about, but I remembered our conversation from before.  “It is stupid to try and fight inevitability; I just hope there won’t be too
many.  I don’t know if I could manage it.”

“What are you talking about, Mona?”  I was still playing dumb.  I couldn’t agree with her conclusion, not just yet.

“You’ll figure it out,” was all she said and made her way to Katie, intent on something else.

Upon my bed, Tirza continued to wail in agony.  I felt like a complete shit for waiting as long as I had before approaching her. 
I stoppered the Iodine bottle and placed it on my desk.  I walked back to Tirza’s side, kneeling upon the floor where her head was nearest me.

“Tirza?” I probed as sensitively as I could.

She just went on weeping.  To her, I could have been a piece of dried shit sunbaked upon the highway.

This shit isn’t going to work!
I told myself, trying but failing to understand why Ramona had done this.

My ex-girlfriend kept crying for her lost family.  I reached out for her the wrist as lightly as I had spoken.  I touched her with only the tip of my index finger, unable to think of anything else of value to do.

Beneath my touch, Tirza seemed to stiffen.  Her tears and breathing arrested for a second or two, before she seemed to accept my feeble attempt to sooth her.  She went on grieving; only now, she wasn’t quite as loud.  She didn’t sound as distraught as she had before.

Unwittingly, as I listened to her with growing scrutiny, her smell began to fill my nose.  It was a sweaty, meaty sort of scent, doused with an earthy loam and the barest hint of blood, which left an after-smell of metal – iron.  There no sense of soap or perfume or anything artificial about the girl.  Her exertions had overcome all of that, leaving behind only what she would’ve smelled like after a long, hard day’s work in the fields, not unlike a farmer of bygone years.  Yet, it wasn’t a manly scent; it was not harsh or sharp in any way.  It was girlish, sweeter, gentler, the sort of thing some men prefer to revel within, where they could lose themselves in the raw nature of womanhood…

That was when I noticed that her crying had lost much of its vigor, its volume down as well; she seemed calmer, more subdued, though she still wept. 
Was I doing this?  Was this what Ramona was talking about?
 
Was this my “power” at work?

If so, then I had better trod carefully.  I didn
’t want Tirza to go ape-shit with lust, so I pulled back my olfactory sense, that way I could only smell the over-arching scents that were emanating from her and nothing more specific than that.

I tried speaking to her once again.  “You ok?”

I know it was a stupid fucking question, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She moved her wrist, the one I had been touching, and slipped her hand into mine.

I chanced a glance over at Ramona and Katie, who were both watching.  Katie leaned toward my girlfriend and muttered something below my ability to hear.  My girlfriend nodded in grim affirmation, her head dipping.  They both turned to stare at Tirza and me once more.

“I-I…
huhk
… have n-n-no r-real recourse, b-b-b-ut could yu-you hold m-mi-me…?” asked Tirza suddenly.  I knew my girlfriend had been right.  I knew she understood a whole hell of a lot more about me and what was happening than she was letting on.  It was her “power” - whether inborn or Muto - she could always divine human emotion like a scythe through wheat – cut out the bullshit and get down to brass tacks.

I didn’t answer the girl, but stood.  Her hand was still in mine.  I scooted onto the bed.  Before I could say or do anything of merit, she crawled onto my lap and cried like I have never seen her cry before – or since.

It was a long time before she stopped.

{ ¹Rite Aid: a drugstore chain in the
United States
and a
Fortune 500
company
, once headquartered in
East Pennsboro Township, Pennsylvania
,
near
Camp Hill
. }

{ ²Nike:
an American
multinational corporation
that is
engaged in the design, development and worldwide marketing and selling of footwear, apparel, equipment, accessories and services. The company was headquartered near
Beaverton
, Oregon
. }

~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~