InsaneJournal

Who: Jennifer Check
When: March 15, 2011 / Nighttime
Where: Lawrence, Kansas
What: Jennifer's bad week ends with a bullet to her stomach.
Rating: R

Jen had no idea why she was feeling so itchy. The itch had started on her left elbow, which had spread up and down her arm before it reached her back and chest. Her abdomen seemed to be hit the hardest and she had been forced to cut her nails so she wouldn't scratch herself bloody. Sure she would heal, but it would still be painful. It continued for the better part of the day, until she finally gloved her hands so she couldn't scratch herself. A day turned into a week and it was driving her absolutely nutty. Lotions, baths...nothing seemed to help. And the worst her itch got, the more hungry she seemed to get. Around dinnertime that day, she abruptly left the house without telling anyone and went out in search of something she could eat. Going into the butcher's shop and getting a cow carcass wasn't going to cut it today, but she couldn't risk the wrath of the farmers of Lawrence for a fresh meal, who had seemed to wise up to the fact that there was some kind of coyote or something killing their cows. Many of them had installed floodlights around their cow enclosures, which prevented Jen from doing her thing unless she wanted to be seen.

But tonight, she was going to risk it. There was some kind of hunger underneath the terrible itch she was experiencing and the pig entrails she had for an afternoon snack hadn't been able to sate it like it normally would. Mediocre sex with the rednecks of the town hadn't done it either. She needed more and the demon inside of her was whispering terrible things in her mind, urging her to do things she really didn't want to do. Jennifer liked living, she really did, and everything the demon was telling her to do was counterproductive to staying alive. The whispering had always been there, since the time Low Shoulder had killed her. It had been intense before Needy had killed her and just as intense when she had arrived in Kansas a few months ago. Up until she had made her wish, she hadn't had a moment of peace in her own mind. But after the wish, it had been quieted...until Asia.

When she had killed those men and then gone back to eat one of their dead corpses, so she wouldn't eat one of the other girls out of hunger and a lack of farm animals around, the whispering had started up again. It had been a quiet murmur that would brush the edge of her mind in the darkness of the night sometimes. She hadn't told any of her roommates because they would just think she was crazy, or worst, evil, but she really wasn't. Jen didn't think she was. But this past week, the whispering had gotten louder and louder, then the itching had started, followed by a need for human flesh that was almost unbearable. Which was how she found herself sitting outside of a farm in a sports car one of her many, many Kansas lovers had gifted her with. She just sat there in the dark, just outside of the floodlight sensors were the cows were kept. Her fingers were nervously tapping themselves against the steering wheel. The teenager was twitchy in a way she hadn't been since Young Miss Devil's Kettle, 2004, where she had thrown up on her mother backstage, before going out onto the stage and winning the crown. The last time she had tried this, she had almost gotten shot. She promised herself she would be smarter this time and after one last deep breath, she got out of the car.

And just like she promised herself, Jen was smarter this time. She located and then took out the floodlights one by one. Then she flew over to the cows to avoid making noises and found one away from the rest of the herd. Taking a look around, she took the gloves off her hands and unhinged her jaw, before attacking. The poor cow only managed to get out one terrible moo of fear, before Jen ripped its throat out, quick and as painless as she could manage. It hit the ground with a thud and Jen knelt down next to it, feeling a sadness for Mrs. Cow unlike any that she had felt for any of her human victims. She petted it once on the head, with a bloody hand that left streaks of red behind, before lowering her head and digging in to its still warm flesh and blood. She ate and ate until there was nothing but bones left to pick her teeth with.

Yet, she felt no satisfaction and she let out a scream of frustration as everything she was feeling seemed to get worst. That was her mistake and she didn't even hear the rapid footsteps approach her from behind or notice the flash of light quickly coming toward her. Jennifer felt sick to her stomach and she began to vomit out all that she had just eaten back out in a terrible spiny black fluid that seemed to be alive. And when she was done, she lifted a hand covered in dry cow blood to her mouth, making a mess of her mouth in her attempt to clean it. She stood on shaky legs as she cried loudly to herself, but she heard the farmer that presumably owned this farm, when a voice shouted at her, "You! Turn around slowly or I swear I'll shoot!" The light of a flashlight fell on her and in a sudden rush of anger and fear, she hissed loudly and quickly spun around to see who was confronting her. Her face face became demonic again, like it had when she had been eating, and in surprised fear, the farmer shot at her before she regained enough sense to run. Getting into her car and driving, adrenaline still pumping, she didn't stop for any red lights or stop signs. She drove like a speed demon and got back to the Zoo in record time. It wasn't until she got out of the car and the adrenaline had slowed, that she realized something important.

Jennifer had been shot. Slowly touching the gunshot wound to her stomach, the second important thing she realized was that she wasn't healing like she normally would be. Laughing somewhat hysterically, she pressed the heel of her palm to her stomach and staggered her way up to the front porch. She tried to get her key into the slot and open the door, but all she managed to do was drop the key and crumple to the ground. Reaching out with a leg, she kicked the door weakly a few times, before her strength left her. "Help," she moaned out in pain, before she squeezed her eyes shut and passed out.