Nightmare Stare [Chapter Sixteen]

There we are in the garage still. I'm almost done with Audrey's legs. The knee is a very unusual joint, I don't know why I'm having so much trouble with it. The whole time Audrey keeps waving her hands, spinning them backwards and forwards, examining them. Even with stitches scattered around her entire body, she looks beautiful. Almost a perfect replica of the angel floating behind her. That angel's eyes still burning into me with their nightmare stare.
I've been working diligently this whole time, all four hours. Just work, work, work. The same kind of boundless determination students obtain when they've procrastinated. How they can write up a twelve page essay in one night, and get an A. That's the kind of working I'm doing. I want to see my angel live and walk before I'm forced to send her away.
"Victor?" Audrey asks me, she's still looking at every angel of her hands. I hum, affirming I heard her. "When will you be done?"
I don't stop my work to tell her that I'll be done in about an hour.
"Can we just jump to then?" She asks. I look up at her, my hands stop moving.
"Okay." I tell her and ding she's ready.

She jumps off of the work table I'd been building her on and falls smack onto her face.
"Ow!" She says, I can't help but laugh.
"You have to crawl before you and walk." I tell her still laughing.
"Okay, let me try again." She stands, wobbling like a baby. But she gets it, and soon enough, she's walking. I'm proud.
"Hey, Victor?" She says. "Let's go celebrate, yeah?"
"Well, I can't refuse a pretty lady." I say with a smile. "But let's get you dressed first."
I walk inside, quickly. Walking into my daughter's old room, I grab a few times Audrey can wear, then I rush back into the garage.
"Here you go." I say, handing her a pair of blue jeans and a small dress. Its a fashion trend I watch my daughter become a fan of, wearing jeans under a dress.
"No, underwear?" She asks. Then I turn around, feeling like an idiot and head into my room. I rummage through my ex-wife's old clothes, and find a bra and lace panties. I rush out to hand them to Audrey, who's still standing there naked.
She gets dressed as I wait.
"Victor, where are we going tonight?" She asks hopping up and down, pulling the jeans higher and higher up her hips.
"Do you like Mexican food?" I ask her.
"I don't know, I've never had it." She says with a smile. She attempts to put on the bra, but can't figure out how to strap it. I help her. Wrapping my arms around her soft angelic skin, smelling her mixing pot of beauty smell, I strap her bra. Quick and painless.
"Well, if you don't want to try Mexican, how about we go out for drinks?" I ask. Her eyes light up.
"Yeah!" She says, then puts the dress on. We head outside, putting on our shows by the front door.
"So where are we going for drinks?" She asks.
"The Abstract Tree." I say, her arm locked in mine. "I knew the owners, really odd guys but not bad."
"What happened to them?" She asked.
"They must have finally met up with that Godot guy they were always talking about."
"Who owns the shop now?" She asked.
"Some Boy. I think he used to work for Godot, but then took over the shop when the two owner left."
"That's interesting."
"Yeah, he's a good kid, that Boy. Got a good life ahead of him." I say.

Then we're at The Abstract Tree, having drinks. Audrey doesn't like drinking very much, she says that it burns on the way down. It burns each and every one of her scars. So it was defiantly a good idea we didn't get Mexican food. We spend a few hours at the bar, talking. She's asking me questions about my old life and my new one. She's asking me questions about the old angel and each of the stories of her body. She point to an arm and I'd tell her how I found a girl in the public library who first owned it, I'd tell her how I crushed her head with the photo copier. I kept the pages as a sort of animation booklet of her head crushing, smoothing out. Its really odd watching it in reverse. She'd point at a foot and I'd tell her how I took it from a stripper while she was spinning around her pole, it was just one clean cut. It was almost like I let my blade sit there and she ran into it.
We each laughed at these stories, having a good time. But like all good things, it ended too fast.
I carried Audrey home, my arm under hers, propping her upright so she could still walk. She was singing songs we had heard during the night loudly into the sleeping city. It was kind of funny how she didn't know the words to the songs, she would just mumble loudly. Well, it must have been her shouting that grabbed their attention, because soon I noticed we were being followed. I overheard them thinking.
"Damn, look at the ass on her! She needs to ditch that old man, I'll show her how the young men keep it real in the sack!"
Then three men surrounded us, Audrey was too drunk to really know what was going on.
"Hey, baby." One said to her. He was hulking and massive, large and black. "You okay? You need some help? Is this old man bothering you?"
"Who, Victor?" She asked completely smashed. "No way! Victor's God!" Then the three men, all just as black and massive, started laughing.
"God!?" They shouted. "She said he was God!"
Then one stopped laughing and said.
"Well, then that makes me The Devil." I pulled Audrey and kept walking, but the men blocked me, standing right in front of us.
"They're so buff." Audrey said, her head rolling around on her shoulders.
"Come on baby, let us take you away from this old man." The first black monster said.
"Nah, I don't want to. I want to go back home and sleep." She said.
"Well, too bad." He shouted. "You're coming with us, bitch!"
"Victor," Audrey said loudly to me. "just kill them already." The three of them started laughing at the sound of this.
"Okay, Audrey." I said and raised my left arm, my free arm, to the forehead of one of the massive monsters. "Bang." I said, and pointed two fingers at him slamming my thumb into my hand. The back of his head flew open, sending his brains all over, making a what looked like a butterfly on the sidewalk. The other two men screamed and ran away into the night. It only took them a few steps before I couldn't see them against the dark night.
"Victor, that was cool." Audrey said laughing, and then we were home.
I tucked her into my bed and left a trash can next to her, just in case. She was already asleep, and I was feeling tired too. Rolling the covers on me I heard the doorbell ring.

Who could it be at this hour?
Are those niggers back?
Is it another person about the electricity?

I walked to the front door and opened it. A small woman stood before me, long black hair hanging in a ponytail behind her head. Her small shoulders straining under the weight of a backpack. Both hands carrying luggage. She looked me in the eyes with her big eyes, her alien big eyes, glimmering blue, and said,
"Hi, Daddy!"

-Sir Jestro