Mercy
Keywords: Mercy,
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In life, she was a dyke with a mullet who drove a pickup and listened to the Indigo Girls and did just what a typical lesbian would, at least that's what Dee always said. In death, Mercy wasn't that much different, although she'd scrapped the mullet for a sandy crew cut which, she had discovered, wouldn't ever grow back. That whole hair and fingernails growing after you're dead thing was apparently just an urban legend. She had learned the hard way. There wasn't a Snopes.com for vampires.
"What the fuck is this crap, Ang?" Mercy shoved the Styrofoam box onto the counter and continued to dig through the fridge. "It smells like raw fish."
"Raw fish," Angie replied, grabbing the box and tossing it into the trash. "Sushi. Sorry, forgot about it."
Mercy made a face, finding what she was looking for at the back. "The stuff you eat is digesting."
Angie raised her eyebrows, tucking her long Marsha Brady hair behind her ears as Mercy poured herself a mug of red fluid. "Um... pot, kettle?"
"I don't eat." Into the microwave went the mug and back went the container into the fridge. "I drink. There's a difference."
"I'll say," Angie laughed, nudging Mercy with her hip on her way to another cup of coffee. "Please remember, back of the fridge. If Ray finds blood in my refrigerator while he's looking for a beer, Lucy's gonna have some 'splainin' to do."
"Fucking Ray." The microwave beeped and Mercy swore as she grabbed the hot ceramic handle. "Oops, I forgot, you like him this week, right?"
Angie gave her a cool look, taking her black coffee back to the table to sit with her paper in the early morning light coming through the apartment's wide door wall. She had the blinds partially open, and the balcony gave them a nearly perfect view of the San Fran Bay and the bridge, the very reason Mercy and Dee had chosen the apartment five years before. That was when Mercy could watch a sunrise.
She transferred her steaming mug as quickly as she could to the table, blowing on her fingers the whole way and swearing, "Fuck hot fuck fuck hot!"
"It's all I ask, Ang," she said with a sigh, pulling the blinds a little further closed. "I'd rather not turn into a crispy critter in my own kitchen."
"Sorry," the blonde murmured over the rim of her cup. "I like the light."
Mercy snorted and blew the steam off her mug. Blood heated much more quickly than any liquid she knew. "Must be nice."
"Oh, this came for Dee," Angie said, reaching into the pile of envelopes in the middle of the table and tossing one across. "The insurance company."
"Jesus." Mercy grabbed it and slid her short, stubby finger under the edge. She had always bitten her nails and now they were ragged half-moons that didn't grow anymore, even though she still chewed on them whenever she was nervous. "She's been dead two years, you'd think—oh, fuck."
"Bad news?" Angie asked, hugging her knees to her chest and sipping more coffee, a glimpse of her pink panties showing underneath her t-shirt between the soft, pink insteps of her feet.
Mercy's eyes skipped up to her face. "Denied her death claim, for the third time. Lack of docu-fucka-mentation. Whatever. I don't know what more they want from me. You can't get blood out of a stone."
Angie snorted, putting her coffee on the table and standing up to stretch. "Listen, Ray is coming over tonight, and I thought..."
"Don't mind me," Mercy said, raising her hand. "I'll make myself nice and scarce if Captain Fuckhead is gonna be here."
"Come on," Angie sighed. "We both have to tolerate each other's little... idiosyncrasies. Give me a break, would you?"
"Sure," Mercy agreed. "As long he refrains from giving you one... what was it last time? Just an arm, right? Good thing you human-types still heal pretty well, huh?"
"Zoey is dying." Angie said, her voice tight. Mercy's head snapped up. "It should be tonight, anyway."
"Alright," Mercy nodded, shaking her head. "The damned pancreas. What do we really need it for, anyway? It takes them all so fast when it starts to go..."
"She wanted to know... will there be any pain?"
Mercy shook her head, closing her eyes, the memory of her own turning quite fuzzy, still, even going on two years now. "Not that she'll remember."
Angie nodded, reaching over to neaten up her paper with a yawn. "She's just scared."
"Aren't we all?" Mercy stood, shrugging off her jacket and hanging it over the back of the chair. "I'm off to bed. I'll be gone before Captain F—" Her roommate gave her a sharp look. "—FFFantastic... gets here," Mercy finished with a grin.
"Thanks."
Mercy waved it away with her hand, her eyes swimming and her head already thick with sleep. It wasn't so much sleep as it was a sort of running down, like a watch that slowly stopped ticking, or the slow buzzing of a fly in the cold. Eventually, whatever was left of her body grew still, and she had to stop.
Her bed was made, the room painted black, the curtains the thick, heavy kind they used in hotel rooms. Mercy opened the closet, collapsing onto the twin mattress at the bottom, and slept.
*****
So she lied.
She wasn't gone before Angie and Captain Fuckhead were getting it on in the next room. They woke her, the sound of Angie's moans pulling her out from under, like low wails of lament. Maybe that was just her dream. AIDS had taken Dee even quicker than she'd watched pancreatic cancer take some of Angie's hospice clients.
Healthy and fine one day, sick and dying the next. Who really dies like that? It was like some sort of Hollywood-movie-disease, something made up to barrel downhill before the ending credits. Death was fucking painful; there was no way around it. Dee had sobbed and howled, in spite of the morphine the docs kept giving her, in spite of the pump they eventually hooked up that she could use to give herself the meds.
"Kill me!" she begged when she was lucid. "Please, Mary, kill me, please, have some goddamned mercy!"
And Mary, who was months away from becoming a vampire, and even further away from calling herself "Mercy," couldn't do a thing except hold Dee's hand, and just watch and cry. She did a lot of crying.
Angie had been there, she remembered—what a way to meet someone, holding your dying lover's hand and sniveling on the hospice nurse's shoulder. I don't know what I would have done without her, Mercy thought. She was "my" angel of mercy. Not many friends would keep you around after you turned into the undead.
Mercy rolled over on the little mattress, hearing the two of them in the next room. The sounds that she had mistaken for sobs were actually Angie's cries of pleasure. At least Captain Fuckhead was good for something once in a while, Mercy thought morosely, sitting up and pushing aside her clothes on their hangers.
In the back of the closet, there was a hole between the walls that that they had discovered when they moved in, but had never patched. Dee had joked that some kid must have whacked himself silly watching either his mother or his sister get undressed at night. Mercy had always found it a little creepy, but now it was too much of a temptation.
Angie's dresser was in front of it, and she probably didn't even know it existed, but if Mercy leaned back a little, she could see past the dresser's edge, the angle giving her a full view of Angie's bed. Angie was kneeling on it, her long blonde hair hanging in her face, and Ray was on her from behind. Mercy watched his twisted visage, his lip curled up almost in a snarl, as he squeezed her hips and pulled her into him.
"Fucking little whore!" he growled, his hand coming down on her ass. Angie squealed and then moaned, arching her back for more. "Say it! Tell me, you little bitch!"
Mercy winced as she watched Angie push her hair out of her flushed face, turning to look over her shoulder at him. It was always like this between them, and it made her stomach turn. Well, not literally... but whatever blood happened to be in her veins at the time, whether it was from the butcher's pig or perhaps some willing victim, always came to a heated boil whenever Ray was around. Especially whenever she saw him from this closet vantage point.
"I'm your whore!" she gasped, her hands grasping the covers. "Oh Ray, yes, yes, I'm your little whore, fuck me good!"
"I'll fuck you good!" he spat, his hand coming down again on her ass, making her yelp. "I'll fuck you so good you won't sit for a week!"
"Oh Ray, oh Ray, ohhhh Ray," Angie moaned, over and over. Mercy watched as her full breasts swayed underneath her as she rocked, her nipples pink and hard. She was enjoying it—somehow. The look of pleasure on Angie's face was hard to take, with Ray grunting and straining behind her.
"You fucking slut!" he groaned, rocking his hips deep into her. "Get over here and swallow my cum!"
Angie did as she was told, turning eagerly on the bed and pumping the wet head against her lips. He bucked his cock into her mouth as he came, filling her mouth with white stuff. Mercy made a face and shuddered as she watched it dribble down Angie's chin and neck.
"I said, SWALLOW IT!" he roared, grabbing her hair and shoving his shaft down her throat. Angie gagged, trying to say something, but couldn't with a mouth full of cock.
Gotta get out of here, Mercy thought, her jaw tightening, releasing, tightening again. She scrambled out of the closet, looking at the clock on her night table. It was ten o'clock already. She still had a few hours before she would visit Zoey. She wanted the rest of the house to be asleep before she went to work.
*****
The window was open just a crack. Mercy slit the screen with an Exacto, sliding it back into her pocket as she edged the window wide enough to climb through. It smelled like a sick room and she fought the urge to gag. Her senses were keen and the smell of death still elicited that human response.
"Is that you?" The hoarse voice spoke from the bed.
"I'm here," Mercy murmured, pulling a wooden chair up and reaching out. The hand that grasped hers was small and bony, like a trembling bird.
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Keywords: Mercy,