Mars Libby Blood

[Blood]

Mars Libby

Nina stood at her front door, gripping its frame so tightly her knuckles turned white. Her face illuminated by the circus-like police lights swarming her home accentuated her ghostlike appearance, her eyes holding a hollow thousand-yard gaze. The shifting red and blue, now silent, lit up her pale figure, stinging her eyes as she stared straight ahead. The ambulances had long ceased their incessant screams into the cold night air, and yet their wails still filled her mind. To Nina, what could have been minutes felt like hours as she stood there, knees locked, eyes glazed over. She was abruptly pulled out of her head by the gentle hand of a paramedic. She looked at the young man in the tinted light, making striking eye contact that seemed to make him slightly uncomfortable. Those eyes, the kind of dazzling blue that draws you in. Joey had those same eyes. She continued staring blankly at the man, he could have been no older than twenty; what business does a kid like him have in such a gruesome line of work? Nina’s absent-minded thoughts zipped in and out of her head like a bullet train. “Ma’am? Ma’am, I said would you like to get cleaned up now?” The man tilted his head to the side as if the problem was just out of his sightline. Now, this question caught her attention, as confusion often does. “What do you mean?” Nina hadn’t realized how hoarse her voice sounded. The man looked apologetically at her, a look of pity. He gestured with his left hand to her midsection. For the first time in what felt like ages, she focused on herself. She looked down and saw that the bottom of her white blouse, along with the

cuffs of her sleeves, were soaked with maroon blood. Her hands felt brittle as the crimson substance dried, creeping into the cracks of her skin, seeming to soak into her very essence. She chuckled, a haunting, dry laugh, one devoid of humor. “Well sir, I have no clue whose this is, I’m perfectly alright!” She laughed harder. Tears began streaming down her cheeks as her laughs turned to agonizing wails. Through her blurry vision she could see the young man’s expression, he looked almost frightened. She clutched her stomach and screamed “My goodness, I’ve ruined my blouse!” Her laughter devolved into hysteric cries as she doubled over and realized he was gone. Joey was gone. Her little boy. Her whole world. It stung like a bullet between the eyes. Her laughs slowly became weaker, she began to cough. An empty, hollow sound. She slumped to the ground and feebly attempted to wipe the dried blood on her hands on the rough doormat she sat on. The paramedic watched her with a knot in his own stomach as he watched Nina stare once again onto the lawn where you could see a small figure under a white sheet in the rear of an ambulance. A police officer walked up the steps and stopped next to the man. Over the sound of her own raspy breathing, she heard the officer say to the man, “We’re going to catch this guy. We have to.” The paramedic nodded at the police officer and walked apprehensively towards her. “Ma’am, please come with me.”