By Ast Riske
Ellie sits on damp cement. Her wet hair hangs in small braids around her face. Eye shadow and mascara have run down her face and the foundation has been rinsed from her skin. The stars are shining through breaks in the clouds and a single light illuminates the alleyway. Rainwater collects in puddles and holes in the asphalt where maintenance is poor. Ellie’s hand is wrapped around the handle of a hammer, which looks spotted with rust in the dim light.
Ellie stands and, on shaky legs, she wobbles down the alley. She stops under the light to examine the hammer. The rust smears and wipes away from the head. Red-stained water drips from the claw end and splashes in a puddle on the ground.
“What,” Ellie says. Her voice echoes off the concrete walls, ringing metallic in her ears. She looks at the hammer again and then opens her hand in a jerk. Metal and wood clatter to the ground and her hand jumps to her face. She touches her cheek and pulls her hand away, bloody. She stifles a cry and pulls her foot away from the tool on the ground.
Ellie spins and surveys the alley. A pair of legs lay across the asphalt. A dumpster obscures Ellie’s view to the owner of the limbs. She glances at the dripping hammer, at her hand and back at the legs. A small noise escapes Ellie’s throat and she looks down at herself.
“I,” she says, looking at her blood-stained shirt. “I didn’t.” Ellie shudders and folds her arms against the damp air, smearing blood on her pale skin, and looks away from the end of the alley. “He’s not dead,” she says.
Ellie looks out to the street and across to closed storefronts. Even the sign at the bar is dark. The only source of light on the street appears to be the single lamp overhead, just outside the alleyway.
A drip of water splashes in a puddle at the end of the alley, near the body behind the dumpster. Ellie’s head snaps around and looks to the dumpster again. Like a zombie, she walks toward the legs. “I have to,” she pauses, “see,” she says as her sandal-clad foot splashes down in an oily puddle on the ground.
Brown water runs down Ellie’s shin and drips from her knee. The back of her thin, earth-child skirt is soaked through with oil, mud and water and hangs formless off her body. “Have to,” Ellie assures herself.
As soon as she rounds the dumpster, Ellie recoils and stumbles backward across the alley. Her back hits the opposing wall, hard, and she slides to the ground. Her eyes are fixed on the man lying across from her. His face has been torn clear from the skull, which has punctures that match the shape of the claw end of the hammer she was holding.
His name badge says, “Dr. Damon Smith,” and in finer print, “Family planning and health services.” He is still in his scrubs and his navy-colored windbreaker is zipped halfway up. Blood pooled at the bottom of his neck and stains his blue shirt, making it a deep purple-brown in the dim yellow light.
“No,” Ellie whispers and puts one bloody hand to her mouth. Her chest heaves under her shirt as she hyperventilates. Ellie looks away from the corpse lying in with the trash and away from the street. To her right she sees a chain-link fence and a hand-written sign on poster board. The sign soaked with water, sags into the links of the fence.
Ellie looks at the body again, then down at herself. She rolls forward on to her knees and crawls over to the body of the late Dr. Smith and tentatively pushes one foot and his leg turns stiffly. Looking at the doctor’s nearest hand, Ellie sees that the fingers are curled with rigor mortis and the skin is pale blue.
A roach makes its way out from under Dr. Smith’s hand and scurries up his arm. It stops on the front of his shirt. After a brief rest, the roach walks up to where the skin hangs loose from Dr. Smith’s skull and crawls underneath.
Shrieking, Ellie jumps up. One of her braids catches on the dumpster and her head jerks. Still reeling, she pulls hard and the hair rips free from her head, taking a bit of scalp. Ellie looks at the braid hanging from the dumpster then at the body one last time. Finally, she turns, sprints down the alley and out on to the street. Blood oozes from the fresh wound as she turns and disappears into the night without another sound.
The rain begins again, splashing down on the grinning skull revealed under the displaced skin and muscle. Red runs off Dr. Smith’s head. Rain washes across the sign at the back of the alley. The ink runs, but the print is still legible. “Abortion is murder,” the hand written phrase says.
Everything is dampened by the rain. Dr. Smith and the sign are cleansed. The hammer is rinsed clean and blood flows, thinned by water, to a drain in the middle of the alley. Even Ellie is renewed by the falling rain. It washes the crime scene little by little. Eventually all sins wash away.