We Dance With Death

By RaeRae

Death is an old friend, an intimate one. Death is my master. Death is a lover. Her smile is as slick and red as blood flowing from an open wound, as toothsome as that of a skull. Her hands are as cold as the earth, and her sense of humor is as twisted as that of her sister, Life.

I cannot help but want to touch that smooth, pale skin and the ash-blonde hair that tumbles down her back like a waterfall of sunlight over marble. She smiles coyly at me, watching me with featureless, milky eyes. She lounges on my couch, a dainty, long-nailed hand toying with her silken hair.

“Let me see,” she said.

I turned the easel toward her. The paint on the canvas was still wet, making the blood look as if it had been poured on the canvas. I admired my own work, it was my best yet, I had to admit. The boy’s head was thrown back, as if from ecstasy, his arms spread in a helpless gesture. The ribs were split down the middle and ripped open like wings, flesh torn and blood running down his torso and legs and exposing the vulnerable heart. “I call it ‘Flying to Heaven’,” I told her, smiling.

“It’s lovely,” she purred.

“Thank you,” I said, touched by her words. “It was very…invigorating to create. My model was quite enthusiastic.” I smiled to myself, eyes drawn toward the crimson splashes on the walls and on the boy’s dead, cooling skin. My painting was a near-exact replica of the scene on my floor, although the blood pooling under him had grown, running in rivers and canals along the clear plastic I had set down.

Death got up. “Ah yes,” she breathed, going over to the dead boy. Her feet made no mark upon either plastic or blood. She knelt down and stroked the boy’s dark honey hair. “You always do such wonderful work, Keoni.” She kissed the boy’s white lips. I knew that if she pulled away slightly, I would see the glimmer of his soul leaving the body, going into Death.

I watched this intimate moment for a while, then turned to gather my paints and other supplies. Afterwards, I would dismember and dispose of the body, but for now, he was Death’s lover.

I went to the bathroom and washed the blood and paint from my hands, then splashed my face. I looked up in the mirror, examining my pale skin for any telltale splatters of blood. I had rather unremarkable features; a mop of messy black hair, dark brown eyes that tilted slightly. As a child in Hawaii, I often got made fun of for my paleness and inability to tan, and got teased even more for being a halfu, half-Japanese. To be more specific, and indeed, more condemning in their eyes: half-white.

I shook my head and rubbed my towel over my features. I had work to do. I left the bathroom and entered my study at the end of the hall. Tacked upon the walls were hundreds of paintings from various horror movies, some of them my own. Dismembered and twisted corpses with their viscera scattered everywhere, screaming visages, monsters, and so on all stared back at me as I worked on the latest artwork for an upcoming film.

I found it comforting.

I sat down at my art desk, and got out my inks, my pen, and reached for my stack of paper I always kept handy. I then raised my eyes to the movie poster I had put before me. Wild, slightly crazed blue eyes met my stare, those wonderful orbs nearly hidden behind straggling ash-blonde hair. His shoulders were slumped and in his hands he held a bloody axe.

It was a film called Dance With Death, about a young man who calmly and methodically murdered his lovers, so they would stay with him forever. The whole film had an air of despair, perpetual loneliness, and lovely, bloody scenes. The actor, Jesiah Moore, played the perfect killer…perhaps too well. It was his one-hit-wonder…no one went to see any of his other films…for, in their eyes, he was always that cold-blooded killer he was in the film.

I looked down at my paper. Glistening wetly, drawing in rough, harsh lines of ink was Jesiah’s face, his intense eyes staring at me with a knowing gaze. It is said that the best actors must understand their character to their very core before they can play them. I wondered if this boy knew too much about killers than he was comfortable with.

Closing my eyes, I felt a familiar urge. I wanted this boy, more than anything. I wanted to open that fragile envelope of skin to see what lay beneath; to discover all his secrets written in blood and bone. So beautiful, he would be, with his pale hair stained a vivid crimson.

But first, I had to lure him here. I had a plan…no, a project. Before he died, we would work on art together, a wonderful project of blood and tears. He would no longer be a one-hit wonder.

Looking down at the stark ink drawing of him, I pondered upon the details. The script was still being polished. His agent had already been contacted. She had seemed rather surprised, but I imagine Jesiah hadn’t had an acting job in a while.

Thinking over my plan, I wondered if the fans of Dance With Death would love the irony of the actor meeting a death as grisly as his on-screen victims met in the theatres.

--

I returned to the den to find Death gone. This was not unusual, for she only appeared before or after a kill. I imagine she had other things to do. As I spread my tools out on the bloody plastic, I wondered if there was anyone else in the world that saw her, that did her work.

I first saw her when I was a child, right before my grandmother died. When I asked my mother who the strange lady was, she merely smiled condescendingly, as if I were playing pretend, spinning an imaginary person out of light, shadows, and air.

I don’t believe I spoke of Death to her again, for I knew from the vacant look in her eyes that she could not see her. As Death and I stood vigil over my weakening grandmother, we talked. She did not seem like a stranger, but rather an old friend who knew my secrets intimately. In the world of youth, where questions often go unanswered, I did not think anything of it, merely accepting my new friend.

I shook my head out of my reverie. I had work to do. Turning my attention to the boy, I spread him out to lie flat on the plastic sheet. I touched his face and cold skin, eager to find what secrets lay beneath that thin membrane. I closed my eyes and sighed softly, eager to get on with my task, but savoring the moment. Then, I got to work.

There is no such thing as creation and destruction, only transformation. You can break down, put together, develop, or otherwise change something, but you cannot get rid of it completely. As an artist, I am a conduit for such transformations…to make art, and to learn to make art. As I put the organs in Tupperware containers and trash bags, as I sawed off the head and limbs of the boy and put those in the bags as well, I marveled at the transformation I had worked upon the boy, as I had marveled at countless others. How easy it is to reduce a charming, smiling boy into rotting flesh and pale bone.

I peeled the skin and muscle away from the ribs, using a knife to help it along, but trying not to scrape them. For every kill, I kept a souvenir. The delicate arch of the cage bespoke a grace that I could not help but admire. I would soak it in bleach, then put it among my other treasures, old friends I knew would always be there. These items…the essence of beauty of my victims could never run away, never fear.

They could never hurt me.

I set the trash bags aside, to be stuffed with other refuse, cleaned my hacksaw and knives. Afterwards, I would take a shower, then take out the trash. The truck would arrive tomorrow…as always, I planned my kills around trash day. I hummed softly to myself; tomorrow would be a lovely day.

For tomorrow, Jesiah would arrive.