Cleo

Her mother had always had some hatred stored up inside her for Cleo. The two had never gotten along. Cleo never knew what it was like to have a good relationship with her mother, and knew only the cold, distant shoulder that she gave her. She insisted that there was something wrong with her, that having Cleo as a daughter was not good enough. Elizabeth was raised like a princess. Cleo was barely raised at all; most of the time her mother shoved her down instead of raising her up. She took her to doctor after doctor until she found one that diagnosed her with Bipolar Disorder. She shoved the pills down her throat every day and night, hoping that one day these pills would "cure" her daughter. When one pill wasn't good enough, she used two. Then three. Then four. Then two, then three times a day. Finally, when her father refused to increase her perscription any more, her mother turned to a god they all knew she didn't believe in. Maybe Cleo was a killer, maybe she was crazy, but her mother had only thought of herself and never cared for what was really wrong with Cleo.

Chilliwack was starting to get farther away. Cleo opened her backpack and dug out her wallet. She had some money, not enough the get a room anywhere. When they had gotten into the city, person after person got off the bus, aware of their destination. Cleo had no idea where she was or what she was going to do. She looked up and saw a grocery store open late at one of the bus stops. She jumped up with her bag and got off. No one saw her when she got off. She made sure there was nothing on her face one more time and walked inside.

The door chimed as she walked in. The cashier glanced over her newspaper and went back to reading upon seeing that the new customer was not brandishing a gun. Cleo walked slowly past the woman, listening as she chewed and chewed and popped her gum. She crept down one aisle and the next, trying to figure out a plan. She needed food; the emptiness in her stomach told her so. Passing the more-than-questionable fresh food section, she came face to face with the wall of brightly coloured boxes, all in red and yellow. She plucked a few boxes off the shelves - anything heavily-processed would be her best bet. The calories would keep her going and they wouldn't spoil; but most importantly, they were damn good.

Watching to see if the cashier would suddenly decide to use both of her hands to ring her purchases in, Cleo kept looking at the little screen displaying the cost of it all. Pulling the money out of her wallet and handing it to the cashier, she was given a small pile of change and put it in her wallet. With food now in her backpack, she headed outside again, taking one last look toward the cashier who was back in her paper. No one saw her.

No one saw her as she made her way down the sidewalk in the cold air. Her feet squished as she walked through a pile of snow turned slush on the concrete and she pulled her hood over her head. She imagined every eye on her as she made her way down the road that she didn't know, trying to find a place to sit down and eat. A soggy, wooden bench was the best she could find. It was tucked against a building and had no cover over it. She tried to open a box and eat as discretely as she could. Halfway through the box, she licked the salt off of her fingers, dissatisfied with the taste. She had no idea where she was going to sleep. She looked down at the old boards underneath her and started to cry. For every reason and none, tears fell down her cheeks and she could not stop them.

A discarded piece of cardboard was the best she could find. A small overhang on the roof above her blocked the rain, and the slight incline in the ground made the water roll away from her. The sounds of the city surrounded her. They filled her ears. They pounded inside her head. They fell in neat little lines down her face as she lay her head on her bag and they put her to sleep as the cold air blew by her in the dark.

She was suddenly woken some time in the night by her body being shifted around. Her eyes whipped open just in time to see a dirty man with a tangled beard soaked to the bone trying to remove Cleo's coat. He quickly reached into his coat pocket and drew out a knife. In sudden alertness, Cleo jumped up and away from the man's thrust. He turned to face her, blade in hand, when he glanced at her bag. It was closer to him than it was to her and she knew he was about to dive for it and run. She also knew that she was between him and the street. With quick dexterity, she lunged at him, grabbed his arm, thrust his blade downward and tackled him. They rolled into a puddle and water sprayed off of them as they tumbled around, vying for control of the knife. A grimy hand around the dripping blade came over her neck. She pushed at his arm, keeping it a few inches from her throat, matching strength with the desperate old man. Suddenly he started to shake; his hand dropped the blade harmlessly to the side and he fell backwards, pulling his hand from the grip of Cleo's teeth. The two single drops of blood were washed away, leaving the man, wet, shocked, and dead in the alleyway as Cleo grabbed her bag, fixed her coat and ran.

Her chest pulsed with her sobs as she took cover under a canopy, pulling her wet hair out of her eyes. A shaking hand dug into her bag, searching for some sort of comfort. Finding none, she inched down the wall until she lay there, soaking wet, a block away from the dead body she knew was lying in a puddle in a dark, smelly alleyway that she had put there. It was a full day and a half until he was found. The police never went looking for a killer. The police didn't care if there was a killer. The police never knew Cleo nor saw her as she traveled around the city, sleeping only when she could open her eyes no longer and waking up, frightened of an attack in the middle of the night. A few days later, she found herself under a bridge. On a far wall, distant from the few bodies hovering over a small fire, she pulled back her hood, reached into a deep puddle and brought two handfuls of dirty water onto her face. She tried to wash the dirt off her face, waiting for the water to settle so she could use it as a mirror. The water dripped from her chin, making ripples over the reflection of her face in the dim light. It was fine. She knew she didn't really want to see her face anyway.

She was soaked to the bone. Her jacket was torn in two places on her back and arm from sleeping on the ground and her hair was a mess. She was shivering, her teeth tapping each other occasionally. She looked longingly at the small fire. She pulled her hood back on and crept as close as she dared go. She squatted down and tried to feel any warmth. She walked a few metres closer and sat with her back facing the people sitting there. She took off her bag and placed it in front of her, knowing it was almost empty. She had already eaten most of her food and had almost no money left to buy more. She covered her mouth with her hands and breathed deep breaths into them. She tucked her arms between her chest and legs, trying to protect them from the cold. The two people at the fire whispered to eachother. Then one turned in her direction and yelled at her to leave them alone. When she ignored them, the other yelled "This is our fire! You can't have any of our fire!" Turning her head in their direction, she heard "So you just go and leave us alone." She sat for a moment longer. "Did you hear me? Get the fuck outta here!" One man charged at her, getting his arm around her neck before she sunk her teeth into his arm, making his release her and fall to the ground. She put her bag on before the woman screamed "Deaf-ass little freak" at her. She was thin and had no shirt. Her ribs stuck out from under her thin army jacket and her breasts hung down. She tried to hit Cleo, but Cleo landed a punch first. Her head snapped back and hit the ground, hard. Her frail frame shattered on the ground, and she attracted every dog around as she screamed. Cleo grabbed her throat with her jaw to shut her up, and she soon fell still beneath her. She adjusted the woman's second-hand army jacket, covering her bare chest before grabbing one end of a flaming stick and running away with it.

Her mind was fuzzy. Wherever she seemed to go, trouble seemed to follow her. She was back in some dark alleyway when she felt herself being watched. Her empty stomach growling and her jacket soaked to the core, she turned a corner and felt something large and round under her foot. It turned out to be somebody's arm. The somebody who belonged to the arm grabbed her ankle, bringing her to the ground. With bloody palms, she turned around and bit him. After he was done shaking on the ground, Cleo heard footsteps behind her. Scared that there would be another attacker waiting to kill her, she looked into the unbroken darkness, her eyes burning for light. She felt the needle go into her before she could react. With every heartbeat she got weaker and weaker, and eventually fell into a new somebody's arms, glad that she was not forced to kill again.