In Chelsea's Garden

In Chelsea’s Garden
 
Kenword

When there was no answer at the front door the two Mental Health Professionals Gordon Burke and Timera Craig went to find the back garden gate.

“I swear I heard someone back here Gordon. You know what the chart on this Chelsea Knight says: 'she spends all of her time in her garden.' It also says, 'she’s never assaulted anyone and she has no weapons.' You don’t always get to walk away from these cases just because no one answers the door.”

“And I swear you’re not dragging me all over this freaky place just to put another lunatic in the court system. I want to go back to the office now.” Timera saw real fear in her partner’s eyes and his tone was more cowardly than usual. She continued her walk to the wrought iron gate.

“Come on Timera,” Gordon pleaded, “There is something I didn’t tell you about this Chelsea Knight.” Timera stopped and waited for her partner to catch up. His eyes were downcast and the leering look he usually had for her was greatly diminished. “She was once Chelsea Burke. Timera, she’s my ex-wife. I shouldn’t have come out on this call. Its wrong and besides, you know we’ve got enough history on Chelsea to send her back to Western State for another 180 days.”

Timera pushed back a laugh and took in the full scope of her lazy wimpy partner. He was fifty-five, and already used up in that bloated dissipated way. He was completely harmless, and while his lust filled looks sometimes made her skin crawl, she couldn’t help teasing his libido when he was being an overt coward.

She took his hand for just a moment to get him to look at her. What he saw was her simmering dark eyes that teased and beckoned him to follow her. Timera’s black hair brushed against his skin and Gordon nearly went into a lust filled trance.

He focused on her lush, youthful body as she returned to her quest for the garden. She gave Gordon one last flirtatious glance over her shoulder as she walked through the black iron gate into Chelsea’s back yard. Gordon was four steps behind Timera as she stepped into a black rock grotto on the other side of the gate. He followed along slowly. His nostrils filled up with the smell of fertilizer and chemicals. The foul aroma came from the other side of the rock wall and he stopped and waited for Timera to step out of the grotto into the garden.

“For God’s sake Timera, I smell death, let’s get out of here now,” Gordon hissed.

“No. Wait you idiot,” Timera said, “I see her, she’s sitting at a table in the middle of the garden…” Timera rounded the wall as an automatic misting system kicked on. Timera struggled back towards Gordon gagging on the inhaled combination of dew-like water beads and deadly pesticide.

Gordon froze, Timera’s choking body writhing against his. His eyes locked on those of the woman seated at the table in the middle of the garden. He nearly collapsed with fear as he recognized the woman he had abandoned thirty years before. She appeared to be a hundred- stiff and dried up. She sat in a wheel chair, her cold blue eyes calmly watching Timera in her final life and death struggle.

Chelsea raised her bony hand and pointed towards Timera.

“You better bring her here quickly Gordon," Chelsea said. "She could die in just another minute. I have the antidote for what she inhaled,”

Gordon picked Timera up as a sudden burst of adrenalin pushed through his sagging muscles. She was nearly dead the skin turning blue and black around her mouth and nose.

Chelsea’s hands were outstretched indicating that she wanted Timera’s head on her lap.

“Be careful now Gordon,” Chelsea said. “Please don’t bruise her.”

There had always been a maniacal presence in Chelsea and Gordon was terrified of the shriveled woman now painfully ministering too his fallen partner.

“Its nice to see you again Gordon," she said. "We’ve got to catch up on things don’t we? Yes. We’ve got a lot to talk about. But first lets put some life back into this little girl.”

Timera was positioned perfectly on Chelsea’s lap. Chelsea bent over the corpse and put her mouth over the blue black lips that were slightly parted. Her claw-like fingers worked on the dead body’s chalky white throat. Gordon choked backed nausea as he witnessed the sight of the corpse-like Chelsea mouth to mouth with the dead Timera.

Chelsea exhaled a storm of air into the half open mouth; the storm was filled with a dark power that came from her own dying soul. Once she had expended the air from her lungs she inhaled deeply, not from the mossy air of the damp garden but from Timera’s soul mixing it with the cancerous malice that fed on Chelsea’s mortality. She quickly breathed it back into Timera who began to breathe on her own. The breaths were shallow. Her chest did expand with new life and that new life seemed to now abide where the old had vacated. Timera’s color went from blue-black and chalky grey back to a soft, warm golden color.

Chelsea raised her eyes to Gordon. They were like he remember from long ago - metallic, watery blue with only a small flicker of life and intelligence.

“You promised me children,” Chelsea said her voice nearly a sob, fading to a whisper.

“You promised me children,” Timera said, an echo of Chelsea’s voice, softer, hesitant but with nearly the same intonation.

Gordon could not get up off his knees. He was repulsed by Chelsea’s ravaged features. He was horror struck by what he had just witnessed and yet amazed that his partner was quickly regaining life. He was paralyzed with fear and revulsion and powerless to do or say anything.

“I’m so tired of waiting for your Gordon,” Chelsea’s voice came from both her and Timera this time. Gordon’s mind could not process thoughts fast enough to realize that his partner’s soul was actually now gone and that his own life was in peril. He suddenly felt the talons from Chelsea’s cold claw dig into his arm and his view of the world around him grew dim and fuzzy.

Chelsea’s eyes closed. With her free hand she pushed a plastic nozzle of a nasal drip bottle into a nostril and squeezed. She choked and coughed and her face turned a reddish purple and then all breath from her used up body stopped.

Timera pushed herself up from Chelsea’s lap by kicking both of her feet into Gordon’s chest. He fell flat onto the flagstones, nearly unconscious. She knelt quickly beside him.

“You always were so wimpy,” said Chelsea through Timera’s body, mind, soul and mouth.

“But you were never faithful were you? Never trustworthy. I wanted children. You wanted sex. I wanted you. You wanted every woman you could get your hands on. But I think I have something to fix that. It’s a method I’ve studied carefully and I think if you don’t move you’ll survive.”

Timera picked up a mallet that was concealed under Chelsea’s long dress. She swung it with a deliberate pull back on her strength so that the mallet only deflected off of Gordon’s skull. He blacked out.

With the flagstone walkway as her operating table, Timera found the ice pick concealed in the pocket of Chelsea’s bed jacket. She worked Gordon’s right eye lid open and pushed the tip of the ice pick between the soft layer of flesh to the bone at the bridge of his eye socket. With one precise stroke she drove the tip of the pick through the thin, shell like bone, to imbed two inches of steel into Gordon’s frontal lobe. She pushed down on the handle of the pick to direct the tip up towards the top of his skull and tapped the handle of the pick again, driving the steel another half-inch into Gordon’s brain.

Timera removed the ice pick and stroked Gordon’s balding head.

“Now love,“ Timera whispered. “Isn’t this less painful than our wedding day? Or our wedding night? It certainly is for me my sweet little cheater. We’re almost their love. You know you’ve always been my weakness and you should have never left me.” Timera’s words caressed what was left of Gordon‘s frontal lobe. “You promised me children. Lots of children. I think its time you keep your promise to me Gordon. Don’t you? You‘ll love our children. You‘ll see.”

Timera performed the same surgery through Gordon’s left eye socket and then used his shirt to wipe the blood from his eyes. Seated next to her patient on the flagstone path she lovingly whispered her sweet words into Gordon’s ear. With each syllable she prepared him for his new life as her faithful husband.