Angel walked among the throng of drunken costumed masque
revelers, who danced in the streets, and drank from the communal rum bottle. The
music blared in joyous celebration of the Festival glorifying the Dead.
She strolled through
the horde thinking about her sister, Rose who loved this festival. Angel recalled how her big sister would always make them a costume and paint gruesome
masks on their faces. She smiled remembering
the way they would laugh at all the people with skeleton faces , and the delight
they felt dancing in the streets like
everyone else. However, it was on this night, which celebrates the dead, that
someone murdered Rose five years ago.
The wind was high as
it howled against the cardboard and tin shack that sat on a hill. It was held
together by mud, and had no amenities, but it was where Angel and her sister Rose called a home. They were poor, but fifteen-year-old Rose
provided for them the only way she knew how.
They lived near a
tourist town where rich Americans came often to frolic in the sun and sand and
a little under age prostitution. It was dangerous, and Angely knew
what her sister was risking every
time she left home. So the night Sheriff Plum knocked on the shack's door
during a rain storm, Angel knew her sister was gone. She only heard bits and pieces of what Plum
said that night, but she clearly remembers that burning in her gut when he said that they found Rose’s body on the outskirts of
town, a victim of rape/murder.
She was just ten years old when Rose when the Sheriff came
to her door. Nevertheless, it has taken Angel five long years to find the man
who murdered her sister.
***
The drunken white man,
with the strange accent kept the innocent little girl close to his side. He
wasn’t going to let her go, not tonight. He ran one hand slowly down the small of her bare back enjoying the suppleness
of her young skin. He whispered promises in her ear, while the glint in his
eyes danced at the prospect of decadence with this girl of fifteen. When he passed the Sheriff of this
fine town, with his underage companion, the two men nodded to each other. He enjoyed
coming to this town, which featured sun, surf and adolescents . He even told
all his pedophile friends to come for their summer vacations He looked at the
brown eyed girl, hungry to taste her
soft pleasing skin and feel her sweet tightness around his shaft . He giggled to himself at his good fortune.
***
This predator was clueless to the fact, he was this evenings
quarry, Angel thought, smiling as she walked passed Plum on the arm of her
prey. She allowed him to lead her down a dark path, but she was not afraid.
There were so many people out on this night, that every dark place had some
couple copulating. Besides, he was taking her to a hotel to do his business. She wasn’t surprised that Plum didn’t recognize
her, she was just another child prostitute. No one worth his time or effort.
The white man took her down another alleyway practically gleeful
at the notion of fulfilling his sinful
desires, while she prayed to the spirits of vengeance.
“Grant me strength, for I have the courage.
Gift them blindness; for I have the heart.
Allow me to strike this fiend down for Rose’s vengeance.”
Angel has never
grown weary of this desire, or pursuing
this end. Revenge led Angely to seek out
her sister’s killer. She found this man
of the cloth, that no one suspected, in
the dean of his desires. Now, as he had
led others, he was being led to his eventual end.
They were just about to enter the hotel when someone
screamed, and the crowd grew louder. He turned to face the excitement and in
that moment the universe dinged.
Angel struck quickly. The sharp blade winked in the moonlight
before tearing open his abdomen and then his throat.
Confused, he stared at
the girl before him , who was covered in his blood grinning like the costumed revelers who were celebrating the Festival .
“For Rose, “she said watching him holding his wounds and gasping.
He tumbled limp to the ground, eyes wide for his entrance into Hell, as Angel walked away joyously joining in on the celebration as she danced to
Rose’s grave to pray.
Copyright © 2013 Glynis Rankin
