SACRIFICIAL LAMB © 2002 M.D. KOFFIN THIS DRAFT IS FOR PREVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY. DO NOT COPY OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS MATERIAL WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S EXPRESSED PERMISSION. sacrificial lamb lead me to the slaughter blood from tiny hands taints the holy water Her fingernails were chewed down to ragged tips and that wasn't like her. She hadn't bit her nails since, well, in a long time. Her hands shook uncontrollably, alternately crunching up the greeting card she held, and then smoothing it out deliberately, disbelievingly. She unfolded the crumpled card for the thirtieth time and stared at the pastel illustration on the cover while unconsciously biting a fingertip in the corner of her mouth. The cover depicted an angelically smiling baby, cute as a cupie-doll with wide innocent eyes, rosy cheeks, and a perfectly curled lock of hair. "Congratulations on Your New Bundle of Joy!" a quilted pink ribbon read across the top. The inside was blank, unsigned, and came without a return address on the envelope. She knew who it was from, but the cancelled postage stamp read her own zip code. Your father used to dream of killing you, a voice whispered in her mind, you and your sisters. No, I didn't know my father. You did, that insidious voice insisted, and you do. After all, you are your father's daughter. Or is it like a riddle? The man is the girls father, but the girl is not the daughter of the man, who is she? She is...the daughter of...the... No, she repeated. Maybe an axe, an axe while you were sleeping and would feel nothing but the microsecond rush of air on your cleaved brain. Maybe a machine gun when you were at the dinner table, that way he could get all his girls at once while you were eating and happy and unsuspecting. Run to daddy's arms, little girl, when he comes home late. He scoops you up and you cover his face with kisses. "Daddy, you smell like..." Death. He laughs as he hugs you. "No, it's just..." A sweet surprise for you. An axe or bullets or something worse. He was like an old tomcat that wanted to slaughter his blind and weak offspring. While you were dreaming smurphy my little pony dreams, he dreamt of a thousand and one ways to murder. But that's not true, couldn't be, because she never dreamt of sugar and spice and everything nice. She dreamt of running and falling and lurking things. For the second time she threw the card in the trash and then immediately fished it out again. She reexamined the inside and the outside, not knowing what she was looking for. She traced her finger over faint indentations on the back from the address being written on the envelope while the card was inside. It had been addressed to her office, so maybe that meant...? No, of course not. He knew where she lived, just like he knew where she worked. He was probably watching her right now. The lightest tap on her open office door made her jump out of her skin. She intentionally skewed some papers on her desk over the card as she turned around. She barely controlled the childish impulse to hide her hands behind her back. "You don't look well." Patrick Lynch, the Creative Director of L.R. Productions observed when she turned her feverish eyes on him. "Don't feel well." Susan replied. Wait, that wasn't her name anymore, now she went by Isabelle. She always liked Isabelle. "I've been feeling kind of queasy, maybe I've caught that bug going around." She was feeling sick, but it wasn't the flu, it was a morning related sick. Her eyes trailed to the windows of her office, searching the street six floors down for someone who shouldn't be there, who shouldn't be within miles of here. "...in the mix, they wan...re ahead of schedu...nter line up, ano..." The clock seemed to be ticking away minutes rather than seconds. She felt a trickle of sweat race down her back. "What was that about the Klein project again?" She had to guess, missing any sense at all in what her boss was trying to tell her. She pulled over a pad and pencil, thinking to write down something important, but her pencil hung suspended as she wondered what a rubbing of the back of the card would reveal. "Isabelle." Pat's tone was firm. "Go home. Curl up in bed with your favorite DVD's and a gallon of apple juice." She hated apple juice, but nodded anyway. She didn't have to feign the obligatory reluctance to leave work. The sender of joyful tidings was out there somewhere. She did have to leave sometime and it was probably better to go now, in the light, among the early bustle of people. When she managed to pull her eyes from the street again, her boss had already left her office. "Thanks, Pat." She mumbled to the memory of his presence as she dialed for a taxi company. SACRIFICIAL LAMB © 2002 M.D. KOFFIN THIS DRAFT IS FOR PREVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY. DO NOT COPY OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS MATERIAL WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S EXPRESSED PERMISSION.