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Catherine Didn't
Die
By Scrappy LeMonte
The tunnel
dead-ended into a small chamber; he was there, pacing its length. Her
mouth went dry. He caught sight of her, and roared. He charged at her,
his hand raised to strike; she cried out, “VINCENT!”
He stopped, just
inches away from her. He lowered his arm, slowly. “Catherine,” he
whispered, but not the soft, gentle whisper of Vincent. It was a
sinister whisper, filled with contempt. He leaned close to her, and
inhaled deeply. “Catherine…” he repeated.
She was terrified.
He pulled back, just a bit, and began to circle her, slowly. “You are
scared to death…Catherine.” He chuckled. “Vincent won’t be running in to
save you this time, will he?”
“Who are you?” she
asked.
“I don’t know that
I have a name,” he said, considering. He took off his cloak, and tossed
it aside. He stopped in front of her, tipped his head to the side, and
looked her up and down. He pulled off his vest.
“I am very warm,”
he said. “Are you warm, Catherine?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Take off that
coat,” he snarled at her. He chuckled again. “Pardon me, my dear
Catherine, my manners are not as refined as Vincent’s, I’m afraid. But I
do so want you to be comfortable, and you just look so warm…”
Her clothes were
drenched with sweat. He raised his eyebrows at the condition of her
clothes as she tossed her coat aside. “My, my, Catherine…sweet, sweet,
Catherine, you are terrified. But you love Vincent so much, so very
much, you risked all to be with him.” He was mocking her, and he was
cruel. He sighed. “Ah, your love…your bond…your dream…I can hardly
speak, my throat tightens with emotion! ‘Things base and vile, folding
no quantity,/Love can transpose to form and dignity:/Love looks not with
the eyes, but with the mind;/And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted
blind--’”
“Enough,” she
murmured.
“Your love
overlooked his hideous appearance, his gruesome face that made babies
cry, that made women swoon-”
“Enough,” she
raised her voice.
“But you can’t
forget how he ripped people to shreds, Catherine, to
shreds with his claws--”
“Bastard!” she
yelled at him. “You bastard! That is enough!”
He took a half
step back. “Cathy—what’s wrong? Feeling a little guilty, maybe, about
putting yourself into dangerous situations, because, after all, you had
your own personal demon from hell that would come running--”
She spat in his
face.
He leaned into her
face, and she stepped back. He kept coming at her, until she was backed
up against a wall. “Did you ever stop to think about how that made him
feel, Cathy? Now, personally, it made me feel great. But Vincent, poor,
sensitive, Vincent, working so hard to deny his animal nature, and here
you had him, shredding these weak, helpless--”
“Murderers? Are
you talking about the murderers he took down? We’ll never know how many
people’s lives he saved from those killers.”
“Yes, Cathy, but
that doesn’t wash the blood stains out of his fur, does it? No, he has
to do that. You didn’t know that he can still smell the blood for days
after the stains are gone, did you? No.” He sighed. “Then there are his
feelings for you. Do you know how you make him feel, Cathy?”
“He loves me.”
“Yes, but do you
know how that makes him feel?”
She expected him
to grind his crotch into her pelvis, which would have been the perfect
crudity to illustrate his question. But he didn’t. He hesitated.
What is that?
She quizzed herself. What is that
look, is it a blink? Is it Vincent?
She knew she
couldn’t hesitate. She put her hands on his shoulders and whispered
softly, “Do you know how that makes me feel?” She wrapped her arms
around his neck and kissed him.
He yielded to her,
kissing her back, softly, sweetly; he wrapped his arms around her,
lifting her, holding her as tightly as she had longed for him to, for so
long.
Suddenly, he was
throwing her, she was flying, and then she was looking up at him from
the dirt floor.
“Slut!” he yelled
at her, and then he was on top of her. “You’re a whore, you’re trash
from the gutter!”
“No, I’m not!”
“Yes!”
“I’m not! And
you’re not either! Our love is beautiful, Vincent, our feelings are
natural, our desire for each other flows purely from our love, it’s not
dark or evil! ‘What made me love thee? let that persuade thee/ there's
something extraordinary in thee. I cannot: but I love thee; none but
thee; and thou deservest it.’”
He stared at her,
unable to speak. Finally, with a growl of frustration, he rolled off of
her. He resumed his pacing, but slower now.
“You say you love
Vincent; I say you love half of Vincent, and loving half is loving none.
Your love is for the Vincent of poetry and literature, of classical
music in the moonlight. But what of me? What of me, half of Vincent, the
hidden half, the angry, violent half, does the mantle of your love
envelope me as well? I think not.”
She nodded
slightly. “Do you think Vincent loves my hidden half? My dark half? My
shallowness, my greed, my envy? The measure of love is not whether we
love the faults of our beloved, but rather if we accept our beloved with
their faults, and help them grow to become better people.”
“So you accept
me?”
“Yes, you are part
of Vincent. But are you the hidden part, or are you the part he’s
outgrowing?”
“Bitch! He will
never outgrow me! He cannot outgrow himself! You pretend to know him;
you don’t know him! He doesn’t know himself! Here is Vincent!”
He crossed to the
end of the chamber and brushed the dirt off the wall. It was covered
with carvings of beings with the bodies of men, but the heads of lions.
They were portrayed as being engaged in activities, apparently within
the tunnels.
Catherine rose and
drew close to the wall.
“Oh, my God,” she
whispered.
“My people were
great, strong…proud…I am the last…alone” his words trailed off. He
turned away from her. His breathing became irregular. She put her hand
on his arm. He spun around, snarling at her. “Don’t touch me! Leave me!”
He moved to the far wall of the chamber, sank down to sit on the floor,
and hung his head.
In that moment,
she could feel his pain. She didn’t merely know he was in pain, she
actually felt it. It started as a cold, thin trickle running through her
heart, and grew into a powerful, freezing current that took her breath
away.
She had to go to
him. She crept up stealthily, one step at a time. He had turned his face
to the wall, and was leaning on it. She knelt down next to him, and put
her hand on his shoulder. A wave of nausea passed over her as the full
force of his emotions shot up through her arm: terror, shame, dread.
“No, Catherine,”
he whispered, “please.” She put her hand on his cheek, and turned him to
face her. Tears were running freely down his cheeks. They reached out
for each other, and held tight. Vincent began to sob, deep, chest
heaving, body shaking convulsions of pain.
Slowly, slowly,
his agony subsided; his breathing slowed. He bent his head down, and
looked into her eyes. “Vincent,” she whispered. Gently, he kissed her
lips.
He rose up,
retrieved his cloak, her coat, and shook them out. He spread them out on
the ground. He crossed back to her, and held out his hand. She took it,
and stood. They sank down slowly onto the garments, entwined in each
other’s arms.
The fire was
burning down. “It’s so quiet,” worried Mouse. “They’ve been in there for
such a long time.”
Father looked at
him, his brow furrowed. He looked down the tunnel, at the opening of the
chamber. “I’m going in,” he decided. Just then, he saw Catherine and
Vincent coming out, arm in arm. Vincent looked healthy! Perhaps a bit
weak, but healthy! His heart soared as he watched them walking down the
tunnel. They all began to cheer and celebrate: Vincent was well!
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