I shared this story in both my introductory and advanced fiction workshops so its been torn apart by two groups of people. Similarly, this is a story about a pageant girl who tears apart men who have wronged her while her ex-boyfriend's sister details the murders to him through psychic visions. You can try and figure out the real code as well...
Present
On a sunny day in April, in a pink room filled to the brim with sashes and trophies and tiaras and ballgowns, the white comforter on the four poster bed in the middle of the room isn't spared from mascara stains.
“He’s gone, Annie. He didn't tell me, didn't text, didn't call. I wasn’t even important enough for Alex to tell me if she got a vision of him leaving me after I’d been with her brother for over a fucking year.” Madeline sobs further into the comforter. “I thought he would at least stay in town until I graduated but the day after Alex’s 18th birthday I went by their apartment and the door was wide open. All of his stuff, and Alex’s stuff too, was just gone.”
Her sister's soothing hand rubs up and down her back as she sits crosslegged next to a keeled over Madeline, mouthing a ‘Fuck Yes!’ to the ceiling, “I know it's hard, Mady. Maybe it's for the best. You have the Miss America Teen pageant coming up next month, which you’re gonna rock, by the way, and you are destined for so much more than a 20-year-old manchild who doesn't do anything but sit on his ass and talk about how everything that everyone else does is wrong.”
“Then why does it hurt so much?” Her wails grow louder, and Annie resigns herself to a night of comforting her sister.
***
Past
It was an unusually warm night in September and it seemed like everyone from school was crowded outside the log-cabin esque house. Music blared from the surround sound system, which made it difficult to hear the voices of most of the people talking. But not all of them.
“Yo, Black! I cannot believe your parents let you throw this rager for your 18th.” One of the linebackers from the football team roared, slinging his arm around his star tight end whose talent had them destined for a state championship that year.
“Well I wouldn't say that they let me throw this, but they’re out of town and it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, am I right?” He smirked back.
“There’s so many babes here and, damn, Pageant Girl is here without her body guard. You see that, Capitan?” Another teammate added as his eyes scanned across the party and landed on Madeline Thompson, who was standing on the other side of the pool with a slight frown on her face and a half-empty red solo cup in her hand.
“I'll catch you guys later, let you know how she was.” He leered, clapping his two teammates on the shoulder as he left.
“What are you doing without that pageant smile, pretty girl?” he opened as his feet stopped in front of Madeline, putting her in between him and the pool.
Anger creased her brows for a second before she slipped her diplomatic mask back into place, “I’m just waiting for someone, my boyfriend, who said he would be here a bit ago.”
“Well since he isn't here, I'd be happy to keep you company, he should know better than to leave someone like you alone.” His megawatt smile ramped up, almost blinding her under the dim lights that surrounded the pool.
“No thank you, I'm okay.” she answered as she took a small step back, “he’s probably just running late and his phone died.” She almost believed that lie herself as she took another small step back, practically teetering on the edge of the pool. Her phone dinged and she frowned at the notification that wasn't his. He still hadn't texted her, even after she texted him multiple unanswered apologies for not being able to hang out with him earlier that day because she had to work on her college applications.
“I see you looking at me during class. Your boyfriend isn't here, you don't need to pretend that you don't want me.” He kept crowding her, pushing her closer and closer to the edge of the pool.
“He isn't here yet. He said he’s on his way.” Or at least she hoped he was as she continued to reject his advances.
Finally, as he could see he wasn’t going anywhere with his flirting. He picked Mady up, and threw her harshly into the pool before stalking away to grab another drink, knowing she couldn't swim.
Her body landed with a large splash that drew everyone's attention as her limbs flailed and her mouth filled with water. She tried her best to scream for help, attempting to tell everyone she couldn't swim but as seconds ticked by nobody helped and her thrashing stopped being productive, her head fell below the surface of the water.
***
Present
A completely full newspaper stand sits just inside of the gas station, the front page story blowing in the wind each time the door opens. As the door chimes overhead, a brother and sister glance down at the paper, only giving a second glance when they recognize the name in the headline.
Local Highschool Football Star and State Champion Robert Black Found Dead
“Woah, look at this.” The girl says as she picks up a copy and hands it to her brother.
He glances at it briefly before putting it right back into the stand, “he was a tool, Alex. was constantly gunning for my girl, and would've drowned Madeline if I didn't save the day for her, which I still did even know she knows I do not approve of when she talks to those assholes from school who only want one thing from her, to fu-”
Her name triggers an unexpected vision in Alex, something only her closest circle knew about her. She tried her best to keep her psychic abilities under wraps and to this day she still doesn’t know what happened while her mom was pregnant with her that caused her to be born with this ability…or curse depending on how she looked at it. Bureaucracy says that it's a unique gene mutation that they test everyone for once they hit 18 so they can better understand the causes or triggers and try to find a cure. But Alex doesn't trust anything the government does for her well being. That's why she left, escaping the testing appointment that was sent to her like it was a draft summons because she didn't want to take the chance she was tested like a lab rat or turned into a government spy without emotions.
She didn't want her brother to come with her, believing she would be better hidden if she left alone. But he doesn't particularly listen to her when she has a different opinion to him.
In her vision was Mady, holding a hammer, that Alex recognized as she had left it in Mady’s garage after showing her how to properly hammer a nail into a piece of wood. It was held in her black gloved hands and she was slamming the blunt head into Robert Black’s skull, repeatedly, as if he were a nail, using the same method Alex had taught her a few weeks ago. After his screams of pain ceased, Mady had finally put the hammer down and was kicking and pushing his large, limp body into his pool, letting his blood cloud the water, and his body sink slowly to the bottom.
“Alex! What did you see?” her brother yells as he shakes her out of the vision.
She reaches for the newspaper again, flipping through the pages of the front story, trying to skim the lines, noting that as of now there are no suspects but the investigation is ongoing, “Holy shit!” she exclaims, “they haven't caught the killer, and the killer is Mady, and they have no idea!”
“Mady?” He questions, a quizzical expression appearing on his face in an instant. “Like Mady, Mady? Madeline Thompson, my girlfriend? No she couldn’t have. Mady’s too weak; she would never hurt a fly.”
“Probably ex-girlfriend considering you left last week with no trace.” he gives her a look, “But… yes it was definitely her. I just had a vision of her repeatedly smashing his head in with a hammer before she dumped him into his own pool. I think you should go back. I didn't want you here in the first place and I told you that I'm fine here on my own. Nobody important is going to find me, find out I get visions and experiment on me or use me as a government weapon, I promise. I’m good at hiding, you could never beat me at hide and seek as a kid.”
“ I don't care what you say about being okay, or frankly about hide and seek. You know I don't like that you cheated in hide and seek to embarrass me in front of all the other kids in the neighborhood. But, you’re my blood and I’m too good of a person to leave my blood alone. I won’t let there be even a chance of someone taking you, so don't bring it up again.” He replies, striding to the car and shutting down the conversation.
***
Past
It was the night of the qualifying pageant for Miss America Teen in November. Madeline was the last of the three contestants to come on the stage for the crowning ceremony with her signature bright demeanor and beaming smile. It was something she had grown increasingly sick of over the years, but this was how she was going to be able to get enough scholarship money to be able to cut her parents off for good.
She and the other two girls held hands as the announcer brought his microphone to his lips as he began to open the card that held their fate. “The winner and the girl who will be moving on to the Miss America Teen Pageant is… Drumroll please…”
Everyone in the audience tapped their hands quickly against their thighs, filling the otherwise silent ballroom with the sound of skin slapping and anticipation.
The announcer held his pause for a few more seconds before he announced, “...Madeline Thompson!”
Much of the crowd stood and erupted in claps as she walked elegantly. She came to a stop on shaking legs in front of the announcer and her town's mayor, Mr. Arnold, who provided her with her crown and sash.
The adrenaline continued to flow through her veins as she re-entered her small dressing room and even still a few minutes later when a knock sounded at her door. Re-dressed in her silk robe, she opened the door with caution, as Upton, the mayor's son, filled the doorframe.
He stepped into the room without an invitation, pushing past Madeline like he owned the place–which I suppose he, or his family, did. She, against her better judgement with her brain still clouded from the victory, closed the door behind the two of them, causing him to smirk. She was unsteady on her feet because she knew a single bad word from him or his father could derail her campaign for Miss America Teen and then she wouldn't be able to leave her absent parents behind.
Upton sang her praises for a moment, every thinly veiled innuendo met with a reply about how she was grateful for his family’s support but had a boyfriend that she loved very much. After the third or fourth rejection he grew annoyed at his dismissals, grabbing hold of both of her wrists that stretched limply at her sides and pushing them behind her with shocking strength for his skinny frame.
“Sto-.” She tried to scream, but he covered her mouth with his spare hand before she could finish her plea.
“Just be quiet, I want this and I get what I want.” He shoved her back to the small loveseat in the dressing room and climbed on top of her while she sat, her voice trapped in her throat from fear and shock, making her unable to speak or call for help as the mayor's son took advantage of her, his slimy hands running up and down her, now unclothed, body.
***
Present
A notification pings on Alex’s phone as she's driving, so her brother looks at it, seeing a familiar headline from their town's newspaper.
Mayor's Son, Upton Arnold-Crown, Found Castrated and Deceased in Childhood Home
“Do you think this is Mady, again?” he asks his sister. “She let the entitled scumbag into her room at some dumb pageant and they hooked up. I forgave her for cheating on me–which is something I would never do to her–and then she had this whole sob story about how it was rape but if she didn’t invite that douche into her dressing room he wouldn’t have even had the chance to get close to her, so whatever she thinks happened is her own fault.”
Alex pulls the car to the side of the road and reads the headline, getting sucked into another vision. She watches Madeline sneak through the back door of the mayor's estate and into Upton’s room in her same black gloves. She peels back the covers and he stirs, not anticipating it as she reveals a knife, the same knife Alex had left at Mady’s house after helping her cut a bunch of loose threads on her hundreds of pageant outfits. She takes the knife, and in one fluid motion like she's cutting a thread, slices his manhood off, his eyes bursting wide open as she stuffs the appendage down his throat, choking him until life leaves his eyes.
“Yep it was her,” she says, "she choked Upton with his own dick.”
“He shouldn't have touched what's mine.” he responds.
“You say that she's yours but you still won't go back to her, what kind of logic is that?” Alex asks with an edge of concern on her face, “You did the same thing with me, didn't give a shit about me when we were living at home and then all of a sudden I leave, something I did not want you to come along for by the way, and now you’re all ‘I don’t leave my blood alone.’ For the thousandth time, I'm fine and safe here on my own.”
He ignores her anger and refocuses on Mady, “She’ll come running back to me whenever I want her to, she’s mine. And like I said, don’t fucking bring this up again, I told you I’m not leaving and thats fucking final, Alex.”
Alex doesn't respond, knowing getting through to him would be like getting through a rock with a safety pin. She can only roll her eyes away from his sightline and pull the car back onto the road.
***
Past
It was a frigid night in January. Outside, snow fell through the air and ice lay under the blanketed roads. Madeline Thompson could see her breath as she started her car to leave her boyfriend's house later than she had hoped as he refused to let her leave until he said he had spent enough time with her for the day. Her headlights felt almost obsolete against the limited visibility as she merged onto a backroad for a shortcut, hoping to make it home before her curfew that was quickly approaching. The road was empty aside from Madeline's car for a couple miles until another car merged behind her, quickly and shakily swerving onto the road, unable to keep their car within the lane or at a consistent speed.
Nerves rose through Madeline's veins, her eyes half focused on the winter roads and half focused on the large, lifted truck behind her with a guy from her class, Nathan Knox, sitting in the driver seat, clearly intoxicated and half asleep. She pulled all the way to one side to try and let him pass her on the narrow road but he continued to tail behind her, barely giving her any room to breathe as even in his half asleep state his eyes were locked on her with a snarl on his face.
Mady couldn't understand why he would look at her with such ire. He had asked her to a school dance right before she had gotten into her relationship and when she told him that she was going with another guy as a friend, he was very understanding and simply replied with a “next time, then” and a polite smile. All her interactions after that with him were polite smiles and waves, not giving away any visual cues of anger.
She could see the exit she needed to take and sped up slightly, relief beginning to fill her system that she was about to get away from him and his reckless driving. But, when she sped up he did too, going way too fast and slamming into Madeline's car before she could reach the turn she needed to take. Madeline's small coupe, which could barely withstand the snow as is, began spinning wildly off the road, careening across the icy ground. Her passenger side crunched itself into a tree and sent her jolting, pain radiating through her body.
“Serves you right for rejecting me in front of everybody, Prissy Princess. Have fun with a nasty scar that's gonna make you one hideous bitch.” He said, rolling down his window to spit at the crash in front of him. Without another word or thought of guilt for his actions his engine revved and he fled the scene down the snow covered road. As the exhaust from his car floated up through the air in tandem with smoke from Madeline's crushed one, her eyes fluttered closed slowly and she worried that she had taken her last breath.
***
Present
Walking up the stairs to a dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere, the paper sat blowing in the breeze but not enough for it to blow away. She bends down to a kneeling position to pick it up, seeing a headline that was almost familiar by now.
Suspected Serial Killer Claims Another Victim, Eighteen-Year-Old Nathan Knox
The familiarity of a vision beginning swirls in her head and the same girl as always, Madeline Thompson was seen, this time, in the back of the sketchy parking lot where the liquor store Alex had taught Madeline how to get alcohol underage without a fake ID sat, wearing her signature black gloves and holding two large glass bottles of Everclear. She walks up to a car that seems familiar to her and peers into the driver's side, seeing Nathan Knox passed out, drunk with a half empty vodka bottle sitting in one of the cupholders. She douses Nathan and his car with the contents of the bottles without managing to wake him up before throwing the empty bottles in the back seat. The clinking of the glass bottles on the seat shakes Nathan awake as she throws a lit match in the back seat at the same moment. He screams in pain as she steps back and just watches the car, along with the man inside, go up in flames.
“Hello? It's not safe out here, get insid- Oh God, again?” Her brother scolds but refocuses as he sees the newspaper.
“Yeah, she doused Nathan Knox in Everclear and burned him alive in his car.”
“Wait, he was the one who got her into the car wreck in February. That night I told her she should've just stayed over at our apartment with how late it was but she said she had curfew, and pageant shit she needed to do. If she would’ve just done like I said, for once in her fucking life, she wouldn’t have been on the roads to get hit by Nathan and she wouldn’t have almost died in the hopsital. All three of these people she's killed, if she just followed my orders, maybe these bad things wouldn't have happened to her.” It was as if a lightbulb went off in his brain as he spoke, “Maybe she realizes that too and needs me to come back and save her.”
“Are you serious? You leave her and she starts killing people and you think it means she wants you to save her?”
“I said to stop fucking undermining me, Alex, I’m the smart one here. Anyway, back to what I was saying, what if the names are like a code she wanted me to crack? She knows how much I love mind games and puzzles. Think about it, Robert Black, Upton Arnold-Crown, and Nathan Knox, if you put all the first letters of their names together it spells out ‘RUN BACK.’ That must mean If I go back to her she’ll finally listen to me. I’m a genius.”
"I don’t think that's it,” she tries to reason, hoping he's not too far gone to listen to rationality.
“ You with your fucking back and forth mind, Alex. You wanted me to leave you alone and go back to her and now all of a sudden you’re undermining me and not wanting me to go, make up your damn mind.” he says with anger lacing his voice. “Give me your car keys, I'm going back.” he finishes, holding out his hand expectantly, ready to sprint to the car and not giving his sister any time to respond.
He doesn't give her time to hand them over as he yanks them harshly out of her back pocket and gets into her car, leaving her at the house.
***
On a night in the middle of May, She's in the same place she was in the qualifying competition back in November. Clinging to the other girls, all of them dressed to the nines in ballgowns as nerves and anticipation eat them up inside. The same announcer from her qualifying pageant makes his same speech about how fierce the competition was, quieting once the envelope with the winner enclosed is placed in his hands.
“Your newest Miss America Teen is… Drumroll please…” He opens the envelope ever so slowly, feigning a look of surprise before he announces, “...Madeline Thompson!”
The shock on Madeline’s face is evident as she slowly, and slightly stumblingly makes her way to center stage. This is the last thing she needs so she can get into college on the other side of the country and cut off her parents for good. A city councilman presents her with her crown, sash and trophy because the mayor was too grief stricken to attend. As stagehands pin the crown to her head with millions of bobby pins, she scans the crowd absentmindedly looking for her sister, her eyes instead zeroing in on the last person that she thought she would see here. Him. He's standing there, clapping along with everyone else in the audience, acting like he never left in the first place. For the first time, she ignores his presence instead of begging.
After all the flashy pageantry is done and the cameras are cut, Madeline tells the staff to tell her sister she’ll meet her in the dressing room after she gets a bit of fresh air.
“Mady, baby.” A voice interrupts her silence as she slumps against a wall outside and she looks up, seeing him, “I did it, I cracked your code. I know you wanted me to ‘RUN BACK’ to you, because you can't save yourself and you need me to save you,” getting closer with each second, “and because I'm so selfless, here I am, I'm back for you. How about a thank you?”
She creeps towards him, voice raising with each passing word, “What is wrong with you? Did you really have to do this tonight? You leave for an entire month and then you come back on one of the most important nights of my life so far just to, what? Act like you’re fucking Jesus Christ and I should be lucky to be the dirt under your shoe?”
“What are you talking about?” He fakes ignorance, this conversation not going at all the way he expected after a year of Mady always taking him back whenever he fucked up.
“Don’t pretend you aren't very aware of what I'm talking about, you fucking narcissist!” She practically screams, getting closer to him as he stops in his tracks.
“Mady, seriously, what other reason did you have to kill those assholes if you didn't want to get me back so I could tell you the right things to do and you could stop getting yourself into stupid situations that could be avoided.” He responds with his hands put up in surrender, unable to see the wrong in what he’s saying.
“Do you even hear yourself? You act like everything you say is supreme authority and anything that happens when I don’t listen to you is the fucking universe punishing me for not listening to you. You blamed me for almost drowning, for getting raped and getting into a car wreck that wasn't my fault. I never should’ve dated you in the fucking first place as revenge for my parents for missing my birthday because you are exactly what everyone warned me about for an entire year and it took you fucking leaving me for me to open my fucking eyes. We are done.” She keeps screaming, raising her trophy over her head.
“Don’t say that. You just need to calm down. Why don't we go somewhere private to talk this out and I can tell you where you’re twisting my words.” He tries to crowd her, reaching for her arms but she escapes his grasp.
“You’re still doing it! You never listen to me but maybe this’ll make you listen. We. Are. Done.” She finalizes, bringing her trophy down on him with each word. The first strike with such force that he falls to the ground, unconscious.
She continues to beat him bloody, her sash falling off her shoulder, her crown staying on by some miracle of bobby pins and her dress becoming more splattered with blood as the brutal hits rack up. She must’ve been ‘out for air’ for too long because she hears a familiar blood-curdling scream behind her and turns, seeing her sister with a hand over her agape mouth looking at her in horror.
Both sisters freeze before Annie breaks the trance and speaks, her voice barely above a whisper, “Mady what did you do?”
“Men really need to learn to back. Up.”
***
In an odd sense of deja vu from last month, Alex walks up to the gas station. It's normally completely full newsstand is almost entirely emptied, with only one lone copy left at the bottom. She bends down to grab it and sees a headline she was almost expecting.
Pageant Princess Psycho Caught in the Act, Fourth Murder Victim Identified as Ex-boyfriend Mitchell Erickson-Peters
She doesn't get a vision of her killing her brother but she doesn't need to, the front page story details how she killed him. Instead she gets a vision of what happens after her brother is already dead, lying on the floor lifeless and bloody with body parts showing that normally stay tucked under the skin.
Mady’s sister Annie is sitting on the back of an ambulance in shock with a shiny ambulance blanket wrapped around her shaking shoulders and tears streaming down her mascara stained cheeks as she watches her sister get taken away. And Mady doesn’t show any signs of resisting when the police show up, simply dropping her trophy when she feels the job is done and placing her hands behind her back with the same polite smile on her face that Alex had seen when she would rehearse for pageants in her bedroom, following the police amicably into the station and taking her mugshot, still clad in her bloody pageant-winning dress and crown.