Claudia's Secret
Eleven True Steps to Horror
Cyn Shayf, 1997-2023
1.
Claudia's drinking vodka tonics in a small town bar when she hears that Elvis died. She sits on a bar stool next to Leonard. They'd just met, and grief pulls them together. Leonard, with his sad brown eyes and full lips that curl even when he's not smiling, says the King was his hero. She wants to comfort him, and they go to a run-down house where Leonard has a small room. The kitchen is a hot plate plugged into the socket on a wall that's lined with empty beer cans stacked into a pyramid, and the only furniture is a bare mattress on the floor. Even before they have sex, Leonard says he loves her. Claudia has never heard "I love you" before, and she believes him.
Leonard wants her to stay with him. He promises to take Claudia places she's never seen, and tells her of his plans to strike it big. She believes him, and doesn't wonder why he's not rich already. The fact is, Leonard doesn't work. He says he's in-between jobs while he spends her money. Leonard is twenty years older than Claudia, who just turned eighteen.
When he meets her family, they despise him. Still, only a few weeks later, Claudia is married to Leonard in her parents' living room. Walked in with father and all. Wearing the prettiest dress she'd designed and sewn herself.
After a small party, when Claudia was first in line at the Keg of beer, they leave in her powder blue 1966 Dodge Dart with a trunk full of gifts. She looks in the rearview mirror and sees her family wave and turn their backs. They go in the house and close the door. It is an image Claudia will not forget.
Down the road, Leonard finds a motel with a bar, with a sign that says The Waterfall House, and wants to stop. Then he uses money they'd gotten from her relatives to buy rounds of drinks for the whole crowd. Just so disgusting, she thinks.
Claudia is sick of listening to him brag about himself, so she goes to their honeymoon room to take a bath. Then, Leonard bursts in. He screams that she's a whore, just look how quick she'd spread her legs for him! And then he smashes her right in the jaw with his fist. Her clenched teeth break like glass.
Claudia spits out six front teeth and six bottom teeth, all broken root-line with nerves intact. She is stunned as she looks in the mirror, opening and closing her mouth, opening and closing her mouth. Opening to vomit blood in the sink.
And she wants to die. Claudia locks herself in the bathroom. Leonard pounds on the door and threatens her, but gives up after awhile.It is the first night of their marriage, and as he snores, Claudia thinks of leaving. She's really angry at him, but where would she go? Besides, she looks terrible, and during the long hours before dawn, her confidence wanes.
In the morning, a hungover Leonard apologizes and swears he'll never hit her again. He promises to take her to a dentist, and is so sincere that she believes him. He claims he will stop drinking, and pleads with her, saying that she's the only one who cares.
Claudia feels dizzily sorry for Leonard, and wonders if she can help him sober up. And, although he's frightened her, Claudia thinks she's more afraid of being alone.
Claudia and Leonard journey down the road to the next town, and the town after that. They travel out of state and go from bar to bar. He sells her to become the whore he believes she is. Claudia gets used to his mean streak. She feels numb, and stops trying to change him. And, when they go broke, Leonard pawns off their wedding gifts. One by one. Claudia learns to obey him, or else. They sleep in the car. And all the way south, she drives.
2.
At Daytona Beach the road turns into sand. Claudia is surprised to see cars drive out on the beach. She follows them to the far end of the shore, down to the fence with several NO TRESPASSING PRIVATE PROPERTY signs. Then, back up to a crop of giant wooden poles which hold up a pier that reaches out beyond the waves.
It's Biker Week in Daytona Beach. February, her birthday month. Claudia has a hard time not running towards any biker to spill her plight. Her heart thumps so loud, she is afraid Leonard can hear.
They u-turn and cruise back again, on the sand she's never seen before. Right now, Claudia feels carefree. She wants to be barefoot and race into the ocean with her arms held up, high over her head as she prepares to take a great dive, and then just go.
3.
Ahead of them, more distraction. A bright red convertible blares uncool disco pop music loaded with college kids looking perfectly tanned and beautiful. They keep turning their necks to gape at the despairing sight behind them..
Claudia and Leonard don't blend in on the crowded beach where tourists sunbathe, swim and play. She knows damn well people stare at them. Claudia wishes for a tape deck in the used Chevy she drives. Then she could play some really cool Janis Joplin, and Hendrix! She'd fucking blow everyone else away.
Back a few weeks, they were somewhere in the middle of Georgia when Leonard said the engine was shot in her Dodge. He pointed out noises from under the hood, but Claudia couldn't hear anything. He kept insisting, asking how she would know anyway, she's no mechanic, until Claudia believed him. Leonard spotted a rusted-out Chevy Impala with a FOR SALE sign at a roadside fruit stand, and he'd talked the owner into making a trade.
When Claudia removed the rest of her stuff from the Dodge--a change of clothes, some 8-track music tapes, and a crocheted afghan her grandmother had made--she knew she'd left behind more than just a car. Claudia thinks Leonard pulled a swift one, because now he's got a car, and it is not hers.
She hates the Chevy, with its brittle fenders and floorboards so rotten the road shows through. There are more scrapes and dents on its body than she can count, and just lately, black exhaust has been billowing out behind them.
After a sloshed Leonard freaked out and punched in the rear window, he'd duct-taped on a scratchy piece of used plastic that still leaks torrents of rain. And the damn car stalls when she takes her foot off the gas, usually at traffic lights. Then, while Leonard foul-mouths her, the carburetor floods, and they're stuck on the street as people go around them, honking and waving The Finger until she can move again.
4.
Claudia drives back and forth, back and forth on the sand, until Leonard nods off. She craves a hotel room, where she could shower and get rid of the grime that public restroom wash-ups just don't clean. And, to sleep in a real bed! Claudia dreams of room service: she'd order everything on the menu.
Leonard never lets her eat much, and she's starving. Her body used to be solid, with a thick-set waist and heavy thighs. Now, she's deflated. Her skin is loose and hangs like wrinkled sacks. Her breasts droop with nipples that point down. Then there's the cuts and bruises.
Claudia's hair was beautiful before, gold and naturally curly, grown long and soft from many conditionings. Now frizzy and broken, her hair is an oily mouse brown that she drags into a rubber band and ignores. And her face, tinged grey with despair, is blemished with the fading imprint of Leonard's hand.
Sure, Claudia is ashamed of her body and what she's become, with her pale moonish skin that's shadowed by misuse. But, inside there is a core of intensity that does not waver. There, she stores the aspects of herself that make her a true beauty, her creative spirit and instinctive good nature. Claudia has held her head above water before, and even though this time she feels she's in too deep, has hope she will survive again.
Leonard, he sneers at Claudia and calls her ugly names, but she knows he wants her to look like shit. Because the worse she looks, the better he looks. Leonard wears his hair into a bad imitation of Elvis, with long sideburns and whiskers that stubble up before he sobers enough to hold the straight-edged razor. Then his hand shakes violently and he cuts his neck, only to stick little bits of toilet paper on until the blood dries.
Claudia wishes he'd grow a beard. Maybe it'd soften Leonard's tough looks. That same dingy t-shirt he wears is always accompanied with a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes rolled up in the left sleeve. Balloon shaped, his stomach bloats over greasy denims. At every bar they go in, Leonard wagers with the other drunks to hit him in his gut, as if being sucker-punched is the only battle he can win. Leonard sure prides his drinking, which Claudia thinks is hysterical. Being so full of alcohol keeps him from getting his pecker hard all the way, but then it's her fault for not turning him on.
5.
Leonard has to take a leak and yells at Claudia to slow down. He holds himself flaccid over the mouth-hole of an empty beer can and pisses. Then, overturning the can out the open window, he lets the stream spray along the side, chipped navy paint be damned. As the empty goes over his shoulder onto the ripped foam-exposed upholstery, it adds to a rattling pile which brings on a stench like nothing she's ever smelt before.
Signs warning NO OVERNIGHT PARKING ON BEACH TOW AWAY ZONE scare Claudia. What if they run out of gas? She tells Leonard they ought to leave, but he makes her stop and takes the wheel instead. He boasts of his NASCAR connections and how he ought to be in the Daytona 500 right now. Claudia moans and covers her eyes as Leonard speeds up and steers into the waves. Bald tires slide as he fishtails in and out of the water, in and out of the water. Leonard laughs crazily and holds Claudia's wrist so tight her hand goes dead.
Then he speeds past bikini-clad girls who, bent bottoms up, pack up as the sunset fades. Leonard leers and claims that Claudia could never look so hot in a million years. He swerves and flies up into a sand dune where, right at the very peak, the Chevy sputters and dies. It sinks to the axles, and Leonard is purple with rage. Even though he's the lousy driver, it's Claudia's fault, and he's in her face spitting his fury.
Leonard hustles her out of the car and demands she go into town and find some help to dig them out. As he punches her shoulder, Claudia pushes her door open, and the fine-grained white sand flows inside.
She walks downtown where huge motels, neon lit night clubs, and tourist shops selling t-shirts with imported sea shells vie for attention. A light rain begins and Claudia wishes she had a nice jacket. Instead, she takes a faded kerchief from her pocket to knot over her head, gypsy style.
She has no clue where the fuck Leonard thinks she will find help. What, does she have to go up to strange guys who have big trucks with her shirt off? Or submit to the Hell's Angels?
When she does ask a harmless looking man for help, he laughs and wants to know what he'll get in return, maybe a blow job? But he'd sure have to cover her ugly face. Claudia growls in her throat as she runs.
Everyone is well dressed and attractive and out for good times. They sure aren't interested in shabby clothes and a worried air. They push by as if Claudia did not exist, and, watching her dirty bare feet, it sure feels that way. She walks slowly as possible back to the beach, knowing Leonard's mood is totally going to suck. Sad, she thinks, could be happier about now, as rain mists, insignificant in the wind.
6.
Back at the car, her door is wedged open just enough for Claudia to wriggle her way inside. Leonard is passed out, and even though she hates to do it, she nudges him so she has room on the seat. Whew, made it, she thinks, as she nods off into an uneasy, brief sleep.
Then Claudia is screaming as Leonard pulls her hair to wake her. He twists her shoulders and drags her face over to him. He threatens to kill her because she is alone and they are stuck in the sand dune that she made him drive into since she is such a slut. Claudia hears that dread zipper as her dried-out mouth is forced over his crotch. Leonard shouts that she'd better suck him off good this time, or else. As Claudia's lips crack and bleed in the salty air, it's like she swallows pissy sand when his rank semen spews out.
Sobbing, she feels the night will never end. After awhile, a blaring white light hits her eyes as a cop beams a flashlight in the car. The back seat lights up, and all the open containers shine. As he surveys the mess, the policeman yells for them to get out of the car. Now! Leonard, he starts in right away with some shit about collecting tin cans for cash, but he is pushed forward into the hood of the car and cuffed, as the light captures Claudia's wet, bloodied face.
Even though she knows ratting could really put her in the shit with Leonard, it is as if she explodes from all the welled-up emotion to this cop she has never met before. Her voice thickens as she sobs that she was a good girl and if it was up to her they'd be working people with respectable jobs and a home. Claudia can hear the handcuffs screeching as Leonard struggles under the cop's firm grip, which then picks him up by the scruff of the neck, and smashes his face into the old metal Chevy's hood.
"Unless you want to press charges against this creep, lady, I'll caution the both of you to get off the beach”, the policeman says. Claudia knows how battered she looks, but is scared beyond help. As they walk away, Leonard grabs her by the shoulder and grips so hard she wants to faint.
But, as she looks back, she sees the abandoned car. It looks absurd with it's chunky nose in the air and the back buried in the sand. Claudia thinks, look where your macho tricks got you now, Leo. And she feels a piece of herself break free with this one loose, yet very sane, thought.
With that, she thinks there may be life without Leonard after all. Hitting rock-bottom is not Claudia's idea of doing things alright and she stands away from him. Cowering made her short-sighted but now she thinks she may no longer be afraid. If Leonard took a hike, it wouldn't bother her at all. Claudia has swallowed so much hatred it feels like poison in her blood, and it's near impossible to keep from beating him up for a change. For once, she wants him to suffer the humiliation and shame.
7.
As she wanders the dark streets, Claudia just plain ignores Leonard. She walks with her back held firm and keeps pushing in front of Leonard. He knows she's pissed off, too, and acts nice like when they first met. He talks nervously as his whole body shakes for his first drink of the day. Instead of bullying Claudia to hustle money for him, Leonard goes through some garbage for half-empties. And even though he keeps telling her how much things will get better because he loves her so much, Claudia does not believe a word he says.
8.
When morning breaks, the white sand dune where the Chevy had hung up is empty except for some trash. Hardly an impression of a tow truck's wheels remain in the wet and Claudia knows she'll never see that car again. The beach is chilly at this time of day, and she wishes for her beloved grandmother's afghan. But that is gone, as is all the rest of her stuff.
Claudia looks at Leonard with disgust. He's just standing there like the dumbest asshole she's ever seen, trying to light a cigarette with the ocean air blowing in his face. She takes it from him, cups her hand around the match with her back to the wind, and inhales a few puffs before handing it back.
Leonard still has the tremors real bad. On a street bench, Claudia finds a discarded newspaper, and as luck has it, the want-ads are intact. She reads for awhile about the many positions she isn't able to apply for, dismay flinching her eyes as if Leonard's ashes lit into her there. But, then an ad boxed on the side of the page alerts her to a Plasma Center which will pay cash for blood.
The clinic is easy to spot with its impossibly long line of ragged, down-on-their-luck people waiting for the place to open. With a big sigh, they join the line. Leonard makes buddies with some guys who have back-pocket flasks and after that, it's all a party for him. Claudia approaches the door with relief, as she thinks that between the two of them, maybe there'll be enough cash to leave town.
After waiting a long time with a bunch of drunks, bikers, and chicks with children, all hard-core types, Claudia and Leonard are called to the desk. Leonard cusses at the noisy kids who've been playing all along, oblivious to the tensely fried air in the room.
Claudia is given a list with some questions: when she ate last, if she were pregnant or a substance abuser. While she is cleared for the program, she sees a rejected Leonard head for the door.
Damn, that's half the money for us, Claudia thinks, and wonders if there's a back door she can sneak out of afterwards. The inner room where people lie on cheap cots to have their blood removed is like a haven to her. During the time it takes for her bag of blood to fill, go through plasma removal, then have white cells returned into her vein, Claudia drifts in and out until a nurse sees her ultra-pale stare. She's given some orange juice to drink, and when Claudia is paid the twenty dollars, she is assisted out the front door.
A sober Leonard sees her come out. He reaches for the money and before she even realizes, takes it from her. Claudia follows him to the nearest package store where he buys a pint of whiskey and a reluctant sandwich for her. Claudia thinks she must really look weak now, as Leonard rarely ever buys food. Maybe he realizes what a shit he's been to her lately, but Claudia regrets the false sense of security his offering has made her feel.
She's still in Leonard's world, and thoughts of being strong enough to leave him begin to fade. As they crouch on a cement curb outside the store, Claudia watches as heat blares off the pavement in fuming waves.
9.
The highway she stands next to with her thumb out blasts wind hard enough that she feels like falling over every time a car or truck flies by. Many have slowed, but as soon as Leonard jumps out of the tall grass he hides in, the ride speeds off.
Finally, a trucker picks them both up and preaches to them all the way down to Orlando. They hit the city as darkness falls. Before the driver drops them off, he tries to make them accept his savior as their own. Claudia feels nervous and, laughing, leaps out of the truck without Leonard while the wheels still turn. Let him get his own savior: the devil himself.
They walk to an open-air 24 hour laundromat where she uses a quarter for a candy bar. That night, they sleep on hard plastic chairs to the pulse of strange clothes being washed.
After waking, they walk around the city, and Leonard panhandles some cash for alcohol. After cooling off on a park bench, he says they gotta keep moving to find a place to squat.
Claudia spots a deserted building with busted windows and signs that say WARNING CONDEMNED BUILDING KEEP OUT. She hopes he doesn't notice and tries to steer him onto another street, but it's like Leonard has radar. He brings her into the center chamber within many rooms which hold piles of dirty clothes, broken dishes, and several bare mattresses. Claudia flops onto one of them, knowing it's the filthiest thing she's ever seen in her life.
10.
Leonard takes off and promises to return with food. She is alone in the dim inner room where everything smells damp and millions of cockroaches roam. She sees water beetles the size of her palm. And spiders. The rats, she can hear them squeak. It scares her beyond fear, as Claudia lays in wait and wishes she had a plan. Maybe the rats will come for her and the whole nightmare will end as her blood is drained and her skin chewed off her very bones.
Then she hears Leonard. He's calling her! Claudia, Claaaudia, Cllaauuuddiaa, as she hears his stumbling feet echo closer and closer. Shit, she thinks. Why didn't I take off when I had the chance? She knows he's drunker than she's ever seen him. And Leonard wants her. He reaches for her, his breath smelling like death, and he tries kissing her but winds up I with a slobber instead. Claudia tells him to leave her alone. She screams NO over and over and HELP ME but no one comes.
11.
Claudia struggles but this only angers Leonard. He grabs her by the neck and strangles her. She faints just as he lets go, and the blood whooshes back into her brain. Strangle, faint, whoosh. And again. Over and over until she really feels dead.
Then Leonard gags Claudia with a rag stuffed in her mouth and screams that she's a fucking stupid whore. His dick is limp but he slaps her face and rips hair from her head until her snotty muffled screams make it harden. She tries to kick him in the balls. Leonard knocks her out again. When Claudia comes to, her wrists are tied.
Leonard has a long knife she's never seen before. It's a switchblade. All he does is push a button on the handle so the sharply honed steel whips straight out. He holds her legs down with his knees, holds her wide open, and slashes back and forth in her secret place. Slices her skin and as she bleeds. Leonard laughs. He screams that this time Claudia ain't gonna be fuckin dry. And he rapes her for an eternity.
When Leonard unties Claudia, he doesn't let go. He falls on top of her and pins her down. Then he snores. With the knife in his hand.
Claudia waits. She inches the blade out of his grasp. Very very slowly. Then, pulling him up by the roots of his hair, she slits right across his throat. Deep, so deep the skin flaps open. He jerks around, eyes popping, and holds the skin of his neck as if he could turn back time. But it's too late. Claudia watches as blood splutters out, red around his fingers and down his arms. Slit from ear to ear. She waits for death to take him and then pounds on his chest. Wiping it clean on him, she pockets the blade in her blue jean cut offs and screams, loud! So there, motherfucker! You got what you deserved.
Rain stings her raw scalp. Her vagina is so raw she is on fire. But Claudia forces herself to run. She runs away with her bloody hands. Now, she feels wild, wild as the rats. Claudia remembers the rats. They have food tonight. And it is not her.