Women Scorned Read Online Free PDF Page A

fly away in the wind.
    “They’ll see. I’m good at what I do. They’ll see it, someday.”
    She put Cerberus in the back seat of her car and secured him in a doggy harness. She ran inside for a moment. When she returned, her arms were loaded with a shovel, some rope, a lantern, and a lunch box with some snacks for her trip. She wore a brown wig, cut short and styled like a boy’s haircut. The thick mustache and goatee covered the lower part of her face and the bushy eyebrows obscured her blue eyes. A new tattoo of a scantily clad woman decorated the left side of her neck and she wore heavy gold rings on her fingers. The thick flannel jacket she had on masked her actual size. Work boots and jeans completed the ensemble.
    “I’m tired of waiting on these assholes.” She flung open her car door. “I need a body to practice on. Dammit! I can’t keep running from hospital security. I know last time didn’t go so well, but I’ll get a fresher one this time.” She dreaded what she meant to do, remembering just how awful the embalmed body she’d dug up had been, and looked back at Cerberus. “Mommy talks to herself too much, doesn’t she baby? I need to start talking to you instead. I will, okay? Okay.” She giggled as she drove away.
    With Mozart again blaring from her car speakers, Libitina used her finger like a conductor’s baton, punctuating the crescendos. She lowered the rear, passenger-side window, and Cerberus squinted against the wind in his face, licking at the air. On the Main Road, called this because it led to town and for no other reason, she noticed an abandoned blue car. It faced the opposite direction in which she was headed but stood out since the road was seldom used.
    She shrugged as she drove past and began humming along with the classical music. She drove for about thirty minutes through twists and turns, ups and downs before coming to a small clearing with tombstones, crypts, and systematically patterned pillars.
    She grabbed her dog and walked through the graveyard until she found a freshly populated plot. The date marking the time of departure indicated this person had died only a week before. “That’s the one,” she said. Back at her car, she wrote down the name and location, then drove off.
    A little after two a.m. she came back, a bounce in her step, a shovel in her hand, and the rope and lantern in tow. Cerberus bounded along at her heels.
    She went back to her earlier chosen site and set down her supplies. The lantern made the fresh engraving in the marble look like some kind of ancient writing, a script long since dead. She placed her hand atop the cold stone and hung her head, shying away from the name glaring at her like eyes cast in contempt.
    “I’m sorry to do this to you, Beverly.” She shook her head. “But I don’t really have much of a choice. I’ve got to practice somehow and they won’t let me in. If I don’t practice, I’ll never learn; I’ll never become good enough.” With a half-smile, she finally looked at the headstone. “But I’ll make it up to you, okay? As soon as I’m done with you, I’ll put you back as if you were never taken out, and I’ll bring you flowers every week, okay?” Cerberus put his front paws on her knee and wagged his tail. He seemed to be telling her it would be okay. Everything would be okay. She would see.
    “Well, here goes.” She picked up the shovel and dug at the soft earth. As she flung the dirt over her shoulder, she shuddered, a loud sob erupting from her thin chest. Cerberus scuttled out of the way and stood on the other side of the grave. Libitina’s fake, bushy eyebrows scrunched and danced as her features contorted. She sniffed and composed herself, took another deep breath, and continued digging.
    But only after a short time, she couldn’t do it anymore. She stopped and leaned on the shovel. Tears streaked over her mud-smudged cheeks, wetting her fake mustache. Whines turned into sobs as she hunkered down