Free The Queen of the Dead by Vincenzo Bilof Page A

represented the turmoil within her confused mind. “I wanted Patrick. He cared for me and wanted the best for me. I didn’t know what it meant to him. I was afraid of myself, but he didn’t understand and I hurt him. Betrayed him.”
    “You’re suffering from a bout of clarity,” Jim said.
    “The dreams will never go away,” she said. “I should be dead. You should kill me.”
    “Are the dreams a product of your madness, or is your madness a result of the dreams? The question is simple, but you don’t have the answer. How does your hunger drive the nightmares away? Does your psychosis affect the way your body operates, the way it digests food? How do you feel pain while you’re asleep? The doctors at Eloise Fields had many of these answers before they found you.”
    Mina’s hands shook. Everything was wrong. She had never wanted to question these things–she assumed that she was fucked up because she deserved it. Daddy told her she deserved everything bad that came her way. When he put on the zombie mask and unbuckled his belt, she would watch his fingers slide the zipper down while he breathed behind the rubber face. She let him do it because she killed Mommy by being born. It was all her fault.
    “This was inevitable,” Jim continued. “Death is man’s destiny. It is the ascension from chaos into stasis. The evolution of life is the termination point. To quote Macbeth in the Shakespearean play of the same name, it is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Art gives meaning to life. It serves as the ultimate expression of sensation and the subconscious, of desire and madness, damnation and suffering.”
    “I don’t want you to talk no more,” Mina said. “I don’t want your truth. You’re in love with yourself, just like any other killer. Go away.”
    Jim stared at her. Mina could smell piss and body odor, and she wasn’t sure if it was her, or the man beside her. Her nipples rubbed against the fabric of the sweat-soaked gown, and she wrapped a curly tendril of red hair around her forefinger. She’d been in this position before, prostrate before a man who stalked the side of the bed, his hungry glare scanning every inch of her exposed flesh.
    “This is what you wanted all along,” Mina added. “You wanted the video. You played with Jerome and all the others to make me happy, and you did some of it out of boredom. You kept me from Patrick so you could have this.”
    With his fists clenched to reveal the veins and tendons of his arms, a beam of pale light slanting in through the blinds shaded half of him in darkness, the other in gold. His eyes were invisible in the stuffy room.
    “You’re a poet,” he whispered. “If I knew what love was, I would experience it with you.”
    “I guess it doesn’t matter if I want to or not,” Mina said.
    “Correct.”
    He placed the headphones over his ears and returned to the foot of the bed. “We’ll do it my way. No need for you to strain yourself. Just lie there and do as you’re told, little girl.”
    She shuddered when she heard him speak her father’s words.
    Jim turned on the camera and placed it on the dresser. “I have to teach you a lesson,” he said. “You’re a murdering little bitch. You killed your mother. She was so innocent and beautiful. She gave her life for you, and I want you to show how grateful you are to be alive!” He roared with her father’s voice, plucked from the files he knew all too well.
    She cringed, put her fingers into her mouth, and sucked on them. She knew what Daddy wanted. He was vicious, but he meant well. He would play nice with her if she showed him how much she loved him, how much she appreciated the care he gave her, the food he put on the table for them to eat. She knew how to love him.
    Her fingers slipped down to her hips.
    “Look into the camera, silly girl,” Daddy said. “Keep your eyes on the camera. You don’t want to upset Daddy, do you?”
    “No, no, I don’t want to upset