WHO: Kimberly Corman and OTA WHAT: Coming back to life after...a messy death. WHERE: In the middle of the cemetery in Lawrence. WHEN: Late evening, Aug 31, 2011 RATING: Probably PG-13 to R for graphic violence (descriptions) and language
A blood-curdling scream pierced the silence in the Lawrence cemetery. The source of said scream was a woman in her late twenties who hadn't quite come to the realization that she was not currently still being eaten alive by the massive piece of machinery hidden out back of Goldstein's Hardware on North Way in White Plains, New York during the transition between summer and fall of 2008. Surely, this was Hell and she'd been damned to feel her body being shredded into bloody pulps and bone fragments for eternity because she was a freak and she would be paying for cheating Death twice before being found.
She could still hear the sickening sound of the way it had all started and ended — the gears grinding first against her beloved trench coat and then against her arm; Thomas's hands as he tried to pull her free. Her eyes shot open and the phantom pain of the blades ripping into her was still there making her ache and cutting her scream off abruptly with the shock of it.
But it was night. She couldn't smell the nasty, coppery stench of her own blood and the pain faded almost as quickly as it had occurred. It took a moment for her to realize that she'd shot up to her feet, shaking like a leaf as she tried to take in her surroundings. This was neither mid-afternoon nor was it the fiery pit she'd imagined Hell to be. It sure as shit wasn't the Pearly Gates she'd been raised to believe would greet her upon her demise if she was a good person and believed in God.
Kimberly Corman let out a huff of relief — though the feeling behind it was brief and fleeting — as she caught her breath and looked down at herself, still wearing the last outfit she'd ever worn in her life. It was unbloodied, in tact, and she looked the way she had just before she had seen Thomas for that first time in five years. It was like...it had never happened. Except, she could remember it...every agonizingly painful and terrifying second of it.
And then, she started to cry. Whether the tears were that of joy that she seemed to be getting a second chance (or third, or fourth, depending on how one wanted to look at it) or grief for the loss of Thomas or just had come from the fact that she was reliving her last moments silently in her head, Kimberly wasn't sure, but she couldn't stop the silent tears streaming down her cheeks as she lowered herself to sit on a nearby headstone.
What was happening? Where was she and how had she gotten here? Was this was Death was like? Some kind of morbid purgatory set in the most depressing place the person in question could think of? Before she could think too much on it, the sound of twigs snapping and footfalls caught her attention and she stood again, quickly, and sniffed, bracing herself for what she wasn't sure. For someone as traumatized as Kimmy was, anything and everything was a threat; a potential beginning to a deadly chain reaction of events. She'd cheated Death a few times now and had literally died now twice. Drowning and being sucked into a wood-chipper were both slow and horrible ways to die; Kimberly didn't want to keep dying over and over. It was scary and it was painful and depressing and she just...didn't think she could keep her shit together if it happened again.
"Who's there?" she snapped, trying her best to sound menacing when all that she really managed was to sound like an abused puppy trying to ward off a nasty owner. Please don't hurt me, the tone said, even when she'd have rathered it sound like Back the fuck up!.