Enter the Hound: The Origin of Inu

Chapter 18: New Year’s Resolution

 

            Festivities were in full-swing.  Screams of joy replaced the screams of fear that were usually heard in Skiffytown.  Even Scruffytown seemed like a happier place what with the lights in all the bar windows and the music drifting through windows and doorways.  Many superheroes were still out on patrol, yet they didn’t seem to mind missing out on the festivities in Skiffytown proper.

            In a dark alley of Scruffytown, however, was a figure huddled up in a corner trying to blend in with the shadows and trash heaps.  More of a bundle than a person, she had no fear of freezing to death, and yet she trembled violently.  Every now and then she jerked her head up as if she had just heard someone whisper close to her ear.  All the while, she muttered and sobbed, and rocked herself in the corner, humming bits and pieces of random songs to herself.

            “Killed her...No...No, it wasn’t me, I swear...yes, yes, it was...I did it...No...yesssss...I swear....yes, I did...couldn’t let that harlot get away with it, no...What was that?!...Oh God, why is this happening to me...”

 

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            Frostfire showed up at Inu’s apartment with a brown grocery bag in his hands.  Inu took the bag from him and placed it on the counter while Frostfire removed his coat and boots.

            “What’s all this?” she asked, peeking into bag.

            “Stopped at the liquor store for sake, but they were out.  Found a couple bottles of Riesling, though, and thought you might...

            “Ooh, I love Riesling.  Good choice.”

            “...like it, and I guess I was right.”

            Inu chuckled softly and leaned against the counter.  Looking up from his bent position, Frostfire realized two things: first, that Inu’s feet were bare; and second, that she had dressed up for him.  She was clad in dark jeans and a red V-neck sweater that hugged her curves very nicely without seeming too clingy or revealing.  She had on light make-up and small, simple cubic zirconia stud earrings.  Her usually flat pixie-cut was full and spiked in the back, making her ears less prominent and yet more interesting.  He suddenly wanted very badly to play with her ears.

            “I also grabbed some taco dip and tortilla chips,” he continued, aware that the hair that the back of his neck was beginning to frost over.

            “Aw, hon, you didn’t have to do that,” said Inu.

            “Well, I didn’t want to come over empty handed.”

            “No, I mean, I went and bought the same stuff earlier.  There’s a full container of taco dip in the fridge and an unopened bag of tortilla chips in the pantry.”

            Setting his boots aside, Frostfire laughed and pulled Inu to him.  “At least I know I got something we both like.”

            “And there will be plenty of leftovers,” Inu agreed, wrapping her arms around Frostfire’s neck and smiling.  Returning the smile, Frostfire leaned down and gently kissed Inu, his fingertips caressing the curve of her neck.

            “You’re not sorry we didn’t go to Skiffytown tonight, are you?” Inu asked.

            “Of course not,” Frostfire replied.  “I understand, and it’s fine.  We should stay here in case Nadine turns up.”  He kissed her forehead and ran his fingers through her hair.  “And you know, if we don’t hear from her by tomorrow, it might not be a bad idea to file a missing persons report.”

            “I was thinking the same thing,” said Inu.  “We should try calling her again though, and we should check with Austin, too, in case she showed up at the lock-in.

            “Of course,” Frostfire agreed.

            “I just hope she’s okay,” Inu sighed.

            “Of course she’s going to be okay.”

            Frostfire and Inu jerked toward the sound of the new voice and found one of her clones standing beside them.

            “Nadine’s a big girl, and she can handle herself,” said the clone.  “She may be a little loopy at times, but she’s not stupid.  She’ll be fine.”

            Frostfire cast a confused look at Inu, who blushed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

            “Um, do you mind?” said Inu.  “I’m kind of in the middle of something here.”

            The clone blinked then looked from Inu to Frostfire.  “Oh...right, sorry, Chief.  I’ll just let you get back to snogging our boyfriend.”  Giving a final salute, the clone vanished into thin air.

            Staring at the spot where the clone had been, Frostfire could do little but blink for a moment or two while Inu blushed three shades of red.

            “Did...did one of your clones just...?”

            “Yes.”

            “Does that happen often?”

            “Increasingly.”

            “...Want to open the wine and watch a movie?”

            “Yes, please.”

 

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            For the tenth time in the past forty-five minutes, Austin touched his fingers to his left jeans pocket thinking his phone had gone off, knowing it hadn’t, and wishing it would.

            “Dude, playing with it isn’t going to make it ring,” Jack said, laughing as Austin touched his pocket again.  He tossed Austin a beer and opened one of his own.  “Relax.  I’m sure she’s fine.”

            “She’s been missing since Christmas Eve,” Austin said, setting the unopened beer bottle down on the porch where it would eventually be forgotten.  He just didn’t feel like drinking tonight.  He had too much on his mind to really appreciate getting drunk: Nadine; the attendees; keeping certain Iota girls out of the party; Nadine; debating whether or not he should check in with Inu and Frostfire to see if they had heard anything from Nadine.  He couldn’t afford to get drunk on top of everything else.

            “Look, I care about Nadine, too, dude,” said Jack.  “I’m worried like you wouldn’t believe.  But am I freaking out about it?  No!  Because I know Nadine can handle herself.  Hell, I taught her everything she knows about self-defense.  She’s a smart girl.  She’ll be fine.”

            Austin gave Jack a wary glance.

            “Okay, so she’s a little loopy sometimes, I know,” Jack conceded.  “If it makes you feel better, file a missing persons report tomorrow.”

            Austin nodded.  “That’s actually not a bad idea, Jack.”

            “See, now there you go!” Jack replied.  “Now help me scare off these bone heads coming up the drive.”

            Looking up, Austin saw three muscular guys approaching the Tau house.  He knew these guys from football and had played with them during the season, but they were suspended from the team when their grades dropped too low.  Academic probation was probably too good for them, but hey!  Why not give the morons a little hope, right?

            “I dunno,” Austin said.  “Might be fun to let them in, you know?  See if they can drink themselves smart.”

            “And as much as I would love to test that theory,” said Jack, “you and I both know that these guys are too stupid to drink.  Their little brains would drown after the first shot, and we can’t have their corpses on our conscience.”

            “Or on our floor, for that matter,” Austin agreed.  “Alright then, let’s get it over with.”

 

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            The coffee table was pushed up against the entertainment center.  On it sat a container of taco dip, an open bag of tortilla chips, an empty bottle of Riesling, and two full glasses of wine.  The credits of “From Hell” scrolled over the screen, stopping only when Frostfire and Inu stopped talking long enough to realize the movie was over.

            “Wow...that went fast....” said Inu.  Frostfire chuckled and set the remote behind him on the couch.  He and Inu were comfortably situated on the floor--Frostfire with his back to the couch and Inu between his legs with her back against his chest--and wrapped in dark blue, micro-plush blanket.

            “That’s what happens when we don’t pay attention to the movie,” he said.

            Inu extracted herself from Frostfire’s arms to take the switch DVDs and take the wine bottle back to the kitchen.

            “What are we watching this time?” Frostfire asked, standing to stretch his legs.

            “‘Love Actually’,” Inu replied.  “Technically a Christmas movie, and it sounds like a chick flick, but it’s funny.”

            “I’ve seen it,” said Frostfire.  “Not bad for a romantic comedy.  Probably helps that it’s a British film.”

            Inu laughed.  “Yeah, I always feel a little smarter watching those.  Like when I went to see ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy...”

            “Oh, now that was a great movie...”

            “I know!  There was, like, maybe one other guy in the whole theater who got any of the jokes.”

            “Whole theater was completely silent when I went except for this girl a few seats down from me.  She wasn’t laughing nearly as hard I was, though, and I thought she was going to slap me after awhile.”

            “That was you?!”  Inu’s eyes went wide and her jaw dropped in an open smile.  “Oh my God, Cori...”

            Frostfire laughed and scratched the back of head.  “Um, yeah...sorry....”

            “No, I mean....”  Inu made her way back to the living--a whole five feet away--and stood in front of Frostfire beside the couch.  “I’m...just a little surprised, I guess.”

            Frostfire picked the blanket up off the floor and wrapped it around Inu’s shoulders.  “Don’t think about it too much, hon,” he said, his voice smooth and gentle as he used the blanket to pull Inu into his arms.  “Just think of it as a sign that we belong together.”

            Inu smile up at Frostfire.  “I think I can live with that.”

 

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            At the stroke of midnight, cheers and music erupted all through Skiffytown proper.  Couples kissed, friends and strangers toasted each other, and drunks linked arms and sang “Auld Lang Syne” horribly off key.  It was a perfectly grand way to ring in the new year, and everyone hoped that 2005 would be better than 2004.

            A similar eruption occurred at the Tau party; things were considerably quieter in Inu’s apartment, but far from silent.  While Austin and Jack ran off the rabble and helped to keep their fraternity brothers from drinking themselves comatose, Inu and Frostfire made love on her livingroom floor, “Love Actually” playing on the television and providing an interesting if not appropriate sound track.

            In Scruffytown, every drunk in every bar belted out “Auld Land Syne.”  Unlike the drunks of Skiffytown proper, however, those in Scruffytown held little or no hope of things improving.  The song sung in Skiffytown was a joyous prayer; in Scruffy town it was a funeral march.

            The bundled figure in the alley heard it all, or seemed to.  Her eyes were hidden under her hood, but her mouth, which was just visible above the thick layers of her cocoon of rags and blankets, was drawn in a sneer or disgust.  Her trembling ceased as she listened to the drunken dirge, her muttered gibberish silenced, and her movements stilled.  Something about the singing seemed to both calm and enrage her simultaneously.

            “How can they sing?” she spat.  “How can they sing when they have nothing to sing for?  They don’t even take joy in the act.  They’re singing their deaths in there, and they know it.  And they deserve--“

            Her words cut off as thought suddenly occurred to her.  She knew a song for this...oh yes...she knew a song.

            “They deserve it,” she whispered, the thought rolling over in her mind.  “They all deserve it.”

            “There’s a hole in the world like a great black pit...”

            She had the soundtrack from the original stage production in 1979.  She knew this song like the back of her hand.

            “And it’s filled with people who are filled with shit...”

She smiled, singing softly under her breath.

            “And the vermin of the world inhabit it...”

            The blankets and clothing bundled around her fell apart and scattered on the ground as she rose from the ground.

            “But not for long...”

            Stepping away from the broken bundle, the woman looked down and spat on the remains of her cocoon.  Then she turned and walked out of the alley, a new purpose in heart.

            “They all deserve to die...tell you why, Mrs. Lovett, tell you why...because in all of the whole human race, Mrs. Lovett, there are two kinds of men and only two...there’s the one they put in his proper place, and the one with his foot in the other one’s face.  Look at me, Mrs. Lovett, look at you...”

            She paused in her singing when she reached the street, turning her head back to glare down the alley she had just left.  “Nadine is dead.  I leave her memory here to rot.  Only Aria remains now.”

            Snapping her head forward again, she continued onward through the streets of Scruffytown, still singing her song.  No one would die tonight, no...but they deserved it...yes...they did...

            “Now we all deserve to die...”