Poison Orchid

Chapter 22

Fluffy and Isis took the back door from the side of the yard which was a considerably shorter way to the forest. Moreover she did not want anyone seeing her like that going out of the room in such a way.

After walking a short distance, she felt that the air around her had suddenly become much colder than before and Fluffy was whining which only she could hear. She turned left and found Riley gliding beside her in a slow pace. Isis nodded at her in acknowledgement. This might seem very strange to other people that nodding at a person who doesn’t even exist anymore but to Isis they were as much existent as much as the living people were. She was now a part of the world in which they belonged.

After some time, Riley glided before her and Fluffy and turned right. Isis understood that she was leading the way to her home. Suddenly Isis asked,”Did you come here after you died?”

Riley looked back her and nodded saying no.

“Wouldn’t it be much easier to haunt him by yourself?”asked Isis.

“I don’t know how to,” said Riley’s ghost in her usual small voice.

“Excuse me!!!!! Did you just say what I heard? You don’t know how to haunt????” asked Isis in an incredulous voice.

Seeing her nodding her head sadly Isis said in a calm voice, ”Do you have any idea that anyone is not going to accept you in the way I am doing? Your mere presence if anyone can see you is going to instill so much ear in them that they are going to s**t in their pants themselves. You are a goddamned spirit now Riley.”

Even Fluffy was amused at Riley’s reaction and went up to her and licked her muddied sneakers. Riley started sniffling and looked down at Fluffy and ruffled her head. A ghost was crying that too because she did not how to frighten people. What could be even more embarrassing than this?

“Do you want to try scaring the s**t out of that thing you called “Daddy”?”asked Isis.

Riley looked at her with helpless eyes as if asking that will it okay to do so or probably will I be able to do what you are saying. Fluffy barked her approval at what Isis said as if she herself was confident that Riley would be able to do that.

“Look Riley, I don’t mean to be crass but what is the maximum that can happen with you. You are already dead and are a ghost. If you can’t do this now when will you do it?” said Isis.

Riley was a bit emboldened by Isis’s words. She was a girl who never had any fun in her life and had absolutely lived by the books and listened to everything her father had said. So this is where she was today for her obedience, dead. She agreed that nothing worse could happen to her now that she was dead.

Riley again nodded and then they moved towards the trailer which was Riley’s home until a few a days ago. Isis went up and knocked the door in an unusually loud way and got ready for her part tonight. After a few knocks more a voice came out asking to leave him alone But she kept on knocking, because tonight if it was necessary she would burn this whole damn thing but she would definitely kill that creep.

After some time a man with disheveled hair, red bloodshot eyes and almost no clothes on opened the door. The man was handsome, it had to be said if his current state was ignored. Why the hell was he drinking? When Isis had last seen him in the memories of Riley he was not like this. So what happened suddenly?

“Hey Yah!! Look ere I lost mah way in this godamned forest and it is gonna be dark so soon, can I stay with you night?” said Isis in the best South-western accent that she could have mustered.

The man looked at her and kept on looking at her as if she was speaking in Hebrew.

“You’re coming from the forest?” asked Danny in a slurred voice.”I lost my daughter in the forest.”

“Awwwwww…..poor boy….so what say? Can I stay the night? Or might be we can both go to the forest?” she said in the sexiest voice she could muster.

“Okay. You come in,” said Danny without even knowing what he was allowing in the house.

When Isis went in with Fluffy and Riley she closed the door of the trailer locking it. What she saw inside she was not prepared for, all of Riley’s clothes were strewn inside and Danny had drunk probably every alcohol bottle which was found in the town. He went and sat down on the couch with a pink unicorn soft-toy in his hand. This man here whom she had come to kill had been grieving the death of his daughter which was both unexpected and discomforting.

Suddenly the room grew cold and winds started blowing inside the trailer from nowhere. Danny looked up and saw that Riley was materializing in front of him and Isis was standing just behind her. The beer can that Danny was holding in his hand fell down on the trailer floor with a clunk.

Riley took her bodily form in which condition she has died and said,” Hello Daddy!!”

“Ri…Riley… Riley….” stuttered Danny.

“Yes Daddy. It is me Riley. I found my way back home. Aren’t you happy to see me?” Riley asked in a bone chilling voice. Isis who was now seeing Riley for sometime even she herself was scared and goosebumps rose on her hands. Right now Riley was pouring out all the vitriol she had left inside her naturally with her violent death for which she considered her father to be responsible.

“You’re dead….ghost….please don’t do anything to me…please I am begging you…. I didn’t know anything… Please leave me alone…” Danny kept on saying not daring to look at Riley’s vicious condition.

“OHHH!!! Poor Daddy… I am not going to do anything to you… But tell me.. who this drama is for? The police right?And my clothes strewn? You are sitting with my toy showing the world how much crestfallen you are but in reality you are so very happy to get rid of me, isn’t it?”

“NO..no…no..no…no… Riley you are thinking wrong about me,” Danny tried explaining but his pleas and his arguments fell on deaf ears.

“Why the hell then the foul-mouthed woman visits you after the sun sets down? Every single night????” screamed Riley in her same chilling voice. Isis knew that she was seeing someone else. This was not the girl who was murdered that night. The extreme amount of violence and pain and the betrayal that she had suffered had not only caused her death but also made her grow into a woman from the small girl. This was not that same girl who had shown her memories.

“Isis,” said Riley in the same bone-chilling voice.

“Yes sweetheart,” was her reply.

“Kill this man whom I had called Daddy these many years,” said Riley looking at her father’s eyes. Danny was on the floor slithering almost in a serpentine manner and begging for his life when Isis went forward and caught hold of the pathetic excuse of a man by his collar and pulled him up.

“You are nothing, do you understand that? The w***e whom you f**k each and every night without thinking about your daughter, the w***e who just said that she wanted Riley out and you kept her in mid-forest at night to die, that damn bloody bimbo is not gonna save your life. And know this that I will make sure that your existence is faded to nothingness and tethered to Earth so that you can never be free. So that you can always understand the crime that you have committed against this poor child who had lot to do in this life, who was not destined to die this death,” breathed Isis viciously in his ears and turned his face so that he saw Riley in the state of her death.

Without any warning or any preamble, Isis pulled Danny’s face towards hers and kissed him on his sloppy and wet, fat lips which almost made Isis puke but exchange of saliva was really necessary and within a few seconds Danny slid down on the floor with his lips blue and white foam coming out of his mouth along with blood. Isis dropped a fair amount of her saliva in the beer can which Danny was holding so that it would serve as an evidence of poisoning, and even probable chances of suicide due to immense grief.

“Come Riley, no point staying back,” said Isis.

“Why don’t I feel good?” asked Riley again in her usual small voice.

“What are you saying Riley?” asked Isis perplexed.

“I thought that maybe killing him or getting him see get killed, watching him die would find me some peace but it did not happen, I feel nothing Isis,” said Riley in a broken voice.

“Who said nothing has happened?? Why are you even thinking it that way? Do you know the reason you are feeling empty? It is because the extreme violent negative emotions that you were holding inside yourself against him are now gone, that is the reason you feel nothing. Revenge is not something to be enjoyed Riley. Moreover it is not known to you but know this that the exact antonym of love might be hate but in reality and emotions it is apathy, which is what you are feeling at this moment,” Isis explained to Riley in a very and understanding voice.

Riley quietly nodded her head, it was not completely comprehensible to her what Isis had just then explained but again that could not be expected of the poor girl. She was a girl who was motherless from the time she had her first memories and her father rarely spoke of her mother. But she had seen how Isis had cared for her like an elder sister or probably even like a mother because she had even killed for her. Riley could not leave Isis. She wanted to stay with her only.

“I don’t want to leave,” said Riley.

“Well then you can stay back if you want to scare that b***h Eva but you need to be there at your grave at the witching hour tonight so that I can free your soul,” said Isis.

“I don’t wanna scare anybody anymore nor do anything like that. I don’t wanna leave this place. I don’t wanna leave you Isis,” said Riley sitting down on floor cuddling Fluffy.

“But Riley you need to understand that if you do not get free then you can’t even materialize anymore, you will be tethered to earth in your corporeal existence forever. That is something which is even worse than death Riley, I can’t let you do that to yourself,” said Isis.

“There has to be a way Isis. I can’t leave you. I want to be with you, you are like my mom whom I have never even seen,” cried Riley.

Fluffy was listening to their conversation intently and suddenly leaped up and went near the couch where there was dump rack and started scattering all the books which were inside and then finally brought out a book and brought it to holding it in her mouth. It was a book of baby names.

“What are you trying to show me Fluffy? Baby? From….” Started Isis but then she stopped suddenly thinking that yes, this was the only way to keep Riley with her without wasting anytime but the preparations were complex and she would have to find a hostess who would not object to what she did.

“Okay girl, I get it what you are trying to tell me but where do I get a heavily pregnant woman going into labour now? I can’t sneak in the hospital surely,” said Isis to Fluffy.

Fluffy then stopped wagging her tail and without any idea to Riley and Isis got out of the locked trailer door and then Isis and Riley followed her suit opening the door. Fluffy ran and ran and kept running towards a house which was abandoned. There in the barn of that house there was a young girl teetering from the cold winds in rags and a thin blanket, heavily pregnant and almost on the verge of going to labour.

Suddenly Isis could hear in her mind Fluffy was speaking to her,” This woman is going to die Mistress. And so is her child. Riley can take birth again from this woman’s womb tomorrow at dawn break after her soul is free because the child inside is already dead and the mother does not know it yet.”

Isis had stopped becoming shocked at many things, so when Fluffy spoke in her mind it was again something marvelously unusual but not impossible in her world. She needed to make preparations for Riley’s birth.