We Are Wolves

by Gemma Amor

we are not the sum of our damaged parts, we are not the Bad Things that happen to us, we are not the weariness we feel as we push, push, push. No, we are mothers, we are sisters, we are wives, daughters, partners, friends, lovers, survivors, victors, we are brilliant, shining things, but we are also the shadows at the end of the bed, the eyes that gleam in the dark, we are alpha, the things with teeth and claws and hearts of hot blood, and we stand side by fucking side, as a pack, and you can hear us singing, if you listen.

I drew the blade first across my right wrist, digging deep into the thin flesh, feeling the tiny bones snap. Then I felt the pop of my veins as I submerged my hand under the water. A spray of red. I repeated this to my left wrist and closed my eyes.

Bellows leaned against the table. “Smile, boss. It’s not that bad.” The scream stopped. The pain went with it, but then another scream started. This one from deep in Bellows’s throat. Helena watched, fascinated, as his eyes rolled back in his head, his mouth stretching impossibly wide. The skin strained, pulled tight. A nauseating crack as both jaws broke at once, and the man’s face split from his lips back to his ears. The top of his head flipped open, like a mangled Venus flytrap. His scream tapered off into a gargle, then even that went silent as he slid to the floor.

“She’s not being super helpful.” “She exists to be served now, not to serve.” “She barely exists at all.” “Soon, none of us will.”

For a time, it’s enough to grace the silver screen at all. Other genres exist, other roles, but they’re not for you, and who would want them? The western has a short shelf life. War flicks barely think on you. But horror, monster movies, those thriller chillers that draw up the skeletons from every audience’s closet? They’ll endure. And they’ll always need a girlfriend, a lover. A victim.

They call her the final girl. She doesn’t play the hero, not really, but she outlasts him, and more importantly, she outlasts the monster. She outlasts you. Dead and done two scenes before the climax, you watch helpless from the celluloid grave as the final girl is hunted and brutalized and stained red with fake blood, but despite her suffering, she survives the climax. Sometimes, she even wins.

You were beautiful once, rare with fluttering wings of exquisite patterns, a shimmer all your own. You cherished yourself and understood how to be alone, and maybe deep down you can find that again, but dear girl, you’re going to have to dig deep. See the carving knife? Take it. Cut off your wings because they are not yours anymore. You gave them away for the sake of pretty lies, and you can’t handle flying anymore.

Dead friends tell no lies.

“Where is Melinda?” “Dead,” Charles snapped. “Is she?” Charles paused. “Yes,” he said, more coolly this time. “I’m sure you hope she is.”

“I married the wrong man, Charles,” she said. “But you married the wrong woman.”

Sarah had never felt more like herself than when she had uttered the words that had shocked the room’s occupants. In my opinion, girls should have the same opportunities as boys. She wasn’t sure which part of her speech had shocked the most. Women were not allowed an opinion, even though one of them sat upon the throne of the British Empire.

She had always loved to be alone, had been frustrated at the people around her who equated alone with loneliness when it is not the same thing at all.

‘If you had a choice, would you change your life, even if it that choice caused you immeasurable pain?’

‘Remember me, Hugo,’ she whispered. And then she twisted her wrist and yanked her arm back sharply. A gargle came from his throat as dark blood spilled over his lips, staining the white sheets scarlet. He tried to speak but the muscular organ that had enabled him to do this lay in her fist. She wanted to feel triumphant, but the feeling that washed over her as she slipped out into the night was one of closure.

Vampire. A name found in penny dreadfuls and a recent literature publication from Bram Stoker. A smile quirked her lips. She had made a choice on that night as the soft mist fell, one she could never retreat from. A second chance to be what she wanted to be. To achieve everything that had been denied. And yes, it had come with a deep blanket of sadness.

She had been told her words counted for nothing. Now she wore her husband’s tongue as a reminder never to be silenced again.

A woman’s body tumbled down the steps, knees over ears, and crashed to the cement floor. “Got you another doll.” Mama’s broad shoulders eclipsed the light from the stairway as she came down the steps.

She forced open the dollhouse—no longer for miniature people and furniture. It was a home for her tools. Various knives, razor blades, many too old and jagged to make a smooth incision.

As Simon was asking Ben to check on the feral animal he had spotted in the stall, Rebecca jumped from the shadows and brought a crushing blow down on Ben’s head with the farm tool. Half of his head and face broke off, falling to the dirt floor like porcelain, shards and pieces strewn all over the ground. He looked like a stone doll, falling sideways with a rigid thud. There was no blood, no brain fluid or matter, easing out like a river. There was only emptiness and pieces.

I realise that the receptionist sent us to Room Seven for a reason. She has made a sacrifice of us, or an example. Room Seven is hungry for sin, and the quivering walls are about to feed upon ours. I thread my fingers through his thick, lustrous hair. A woman, reborn, only to be smothered, moments later, by circumstance. Was it worth it? I know in my heart that it was.

Oh god, please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. I grab hold of Asha’s hand and pull. Her body freely drifts toward me. I turn to swim up to the surface and pull her up with me when suddenly, she holds fast. I whip my head around and see another face below in the darkness by Asha’s feet. I find myself staring into eyes that look like white marbles pushed into a crumpled Halloween mask. The mouth is curled in a snarl. When I open my mouth to scream, big bubbles escape and I can’t see. Panic and confusion trigger a flight or fight response.

Before I died, I hated “girl comes back from the dead to seek revenge” stories. For one, they hardly ever explained the woo-woo to make it possible. For another, I just couldn’t buy that those women mustered the strength to come back for revenge, you know? Once I died—crossed through that invisible veil of unrealized wishes and memories unmade—I realized there was only one force strong enough to allow someone to tear their way through that one-way gatekeeper. My baby needed me.

I am Woman. I am Mother. I am Goddess. I am Death and I am waiting.

They say adversity brings out a person’s true colors. Jamie, however, hates that expression. Colors can’t be hidden, but people can blind themselves to what they don’t want to see. Choice is a powerful thing.

“I—I’m sorry. I freaked out, alright? I wasn’t gonna leave you. That was—I thought you were right behind me.” The lies. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have pushed me,” she says slowly.

“You don’t want to do that, sweetheart. Believe me. I’m a man of my word.” “And I’m a woman of action.” Jamie taps her ear. “Beta. You’re a go.”

Tolliver grabs for Jamie. “You were the one I wanted. Vanessa was…was an accident, I swear. You can’t listen to them, they’re lying. Jealous.” “Funny thing about women who find their pack,” Jamie says. “We adapt. We survive.”

There is no goodbye, no final word or witty Final Girl catchphrase. There is only her blade as his neck unzippers.

It reminds her she doesn’t live in her fantasy world; no gentlemanly prince was coming to marry her and take her away. She is not a sparrow riding the breeze. She is not a bird, or a bride. She is a little girl, not strong enough to fight. She is a little girl, doomed to the fate she was born to.

She is a somnambulist programmed to sleepwalk to the beating of his drumming voice, and to ache solely for the dreams he proclaims only he can offer her. His reputation is his shield, his notoriety a sword which could cut her in two if she told anyone of the real man hiding beneath his pious façade. She remains silent while the outside world adores him, her heart knows the truth.

Her feelings for him are ugly things hidden beneath the rib cage, love and hate stitched together in a scar tissue puzzle. They hurt, wept, and bled together. The truth festered there until the pain was unrelenting and shame blossomed out of control like black fungus from keeping secrets hidden in that darkness where no light or justice ever shines.

“What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of our heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

“A man should be your equal, not your master, little sparrow.”

The bride is adorned in a gown of dust. A veil of dried blood traces down her face and back in a train of crimson. She is following a procession of vultures gliding toward the outline of a distant city. She has buried her past and her pain along with him. She is ready to fly.

“Oh, no,” I said, eyeing the wound. I’d severed his jugular. A stupid mistake. A child’s mistake. One my mother would never make. It’s why I liked when she and Dad did the hunting. They knew just how to bite into the prey’s neck so that they couldn’t scream but were still alive long enough for us to enjoy our meal. Dad always loved the liver. I’d get one of the lungs. Mom always ate last because she liked to eat the heart up until its last beat.

Human to the naked eye until we feed and then our real sets of teeth descend from behind our disguise ones. Our skin thickens until its near-impenetrable all over except for our skulls. Our talons grow from our fingertips, sharp enough to claw through steel. Our yellow eyes glow, cat-like with vertical slits for pupils. We must be hideous to them, but not as much as they are to me.

But the things we love and the time we had Are never really ours to own

You must remember this my love That my body was my home And you filled it with good, warm, living things And you wrapped it tight with care And you made my body a thing of joy And the stars, in time, Will repair.