James Hackett

Cauchemar they called him and a nightmare he truly was. His very appearance was dreamlike; seemingly if you looked at him too closely he would float away into nothingness. Barely 5 ft tall and with a slim reed-like frame he was easy to miss in a crowd.

He always looked sickly and walked with pronounced limp and a slight drag. He was someone whose image you didn’t want to keep in your mind, he represented the sickly and despondent that were abandoned as the century turned from 18^th into 19^th. Many people died and many names were never remembered. Le Cauchemar may have had a name but even he had forgotten it by now. He was special though, by the time he stumbled upon the Frenchman and his associates he already was a vicious murderer who enjoyed what he did with a passion that he lacked the resources to quench or maintain. With all this potential he was exactly what they needed and they cuckolded him into their embraces with a gift.

They gave him the ability to draw out the worst nightmares from a mind and use the fear embedded within to freeze the body attached.

Imagine being trapped by the fear that your worst nightmare induces while being slowly tortured. Sometimes he didn’t let them die, he let the shell he created live, if you can call what they had in their remaining years a life.

Tonight Layla had to face him. Andrew was not pleased but he didn’t try to stop her, especially since he had his own demons now to work out. Slipping away through the back of her house she tilted onto her back tires and slid carelessly to the very edge of the riverbed. The continuous rain kept the river level high and dangerous. She balanced on the edge for a moment looking at the river. She was about to test a new trick she built into her chair, if it didn’t work she would have a cold, wet slap of failure on her immediate future.

With a slight grunt she pushed her chair forward and hit the button on the inside of her left wheel.

Hovering just over the river she allowed herself a small smile before settling her face back to its grim determined façade.

That minor pleasure over she let her mind remember the enemy she was about to meet. Following the river out to the sea and then making a beeline for one of the islands off the North West coast of Trinidad, she didn’t notice the stunning scenery the moon opened up before her. She could only hear the screams of mothers and their children; she could only see broken men unable to die and yet not actually living and thankfully she could feel the century full of anger bubble within her veins taking over her mind and emotions as the sea water sprayed her face.

It felt like a minute but it was at least thirty before Layla felt the pull of evil drawing her off the sea and onto the rocky shore. She let her chair hover over and up along the shoreline until she came upon the flat expanse where Cauchemar and his cohorts awaited her.

Looking around she saw the forest behind and no other presence could she sense beyond those directly in front of her.

So this was the supposed new femme. The wheelchair somehow added to her, it was not a weakness. How very interesting. Cauchemar sized Layla up and tried to pull her fears out, gauging how best he could torment and prod her into making an initial slip up that he would greedily take advantage of.

“Your grandmother was nothing, not even a real femme de mort, her death was minor.”

Layla was so mad she was seeing everything in a purple haze and for once her favourite colour did nothing to soothe.

Cauchemar stood there taunting her and it was working, too bad for him.

Saying nothing to him she merely readied her body while her mind seethed with anger.

“And if she was nothing you are less than that. Suicidal Layla whose parents thought they could protect her with their lie…laughable really, maybe when we are finally through with you we could go take care of them. It is about time we wipe out all of you, end this insignificant bloodline.”

Still saying nothing Layla moved in closer, her hands clenching and unclenching, her breathing deep and her eyes intense.

Le Petit Cauchemar had selected his most gruesome and fearless soldiers to get rid of Layla, he was not about to underestimate her anymore.

He stood there waiting for what he was sure was going to be a quick end for nothing more than an irritating thorn in his side.

Well he was right about one thing, the waiting would be short.

Layla was no longer there. La Femme de Mort emerged and she was angry and hungry for the revenge she was trained to wreak.

There was no beauty or grace in the way she fought, this was no ballerina performance of death as she had performed before in her fights, this was a heartless forage of death and decimation. She was an artist of blood tonight, in her soul the pain of all those this creature had tortured all the days he had lived.

Cauchemar stared in shocking disbelief. With each kill one thing became clearer and clearer. She was no fake, she was indeed La Femme de Mort and with every disintegrating body he began to feel something alien within his shriveled void of a soul. Fear. For a century this nightmare killed and maimed, delighting in sharing out mental demise with a glee that was uncontainable. Never once had it crossed his mind that his just desserts would be returned unto him. But as he watched La Femme do her work in his mind this once never thought of possibility was taking form as his highly likely reality.

She didn’t seem to ever tire. Her arms moving and breaking bones, bending limbs in ways they were not built to withstand. Every part of her was destructive. Weapons drawn on her were thrust back through their owners’ torso, turning bodies into fleshy storage shelves. One outstretched hand crushed a larynx while her head crunched into the wayward skull of a man whose knee she had punched completely out of alignment. She even used her wheelchair to trap any body parts unlucky enough to come in contact with it, swiftly twisting attached necks and brushing her deadly lips to the barely breathing remains. These were trained sadistic killers and they were at her mercy, try as they might she gave not an inch to any of them.

And in the midst of it all her face, her still beautiful face never flinched but seemed frozen in a silent and persistent mask of cold calculated destruction. She felt pain but instead of letting it rule her, she wielded it to gain control and to create on the canvas she was born to paint on.

La Femme held the last of the killers by the hair twisting his neck around and forcing his lips to brush hers. She dusted his remains from her hands and looked fiercely into the eyes of the one who caused nightmares. As she looked she saw the change in him as he evolved from the nightmare everyone feared to face, to a desperate little scrap of a being facing his own worst nightmare come true.

Still she remained silent as she stalked her now helpless prey.