Some time after the achievement of her revenge, Alexa’s ghost reappeared before those of Megan and Tiffany. They looked at her apparition with mixed feelings.

Do you feel satisfied, now that you’ve destroyed Boyd and Denise? Tiffany asked.

Yes, Alexa said. Completely. She grinned gloatingly.

Are you sure about that? Megan asked.

Why would you doubt me? Alexa said. Of course I’m sure.

It’s just that…here in Hell, we burn, melt, and suffer, Megan said. Satisfaction seems so far away, so unattainable, even after receiving revenge, as I got on my father.

Achieving revenge is a satisfaction all in itself, Alexa assured Megan. Even in this hopeless place.

I suppose so, Megan said, looking away from Alexa.

Why do you have doubts? Tiffany asked. Don’t you want to get revenge on Lynne and Herman for raping you?

Oh, yes, of course I do, Megan said. Every second that those two are still alive, I burn in a rage. Their every heartbeat is an insult to me.

So, go after them while you still have the opportunity, Tiffany said. Make them suffer, as we suffer.

They have no right not to suffer, Megan acknowledged with a scowl and a snarl. I hate that they’re happy.

Then get them, Alexa said. Ruin them. Why do you hesitate about your revenge? What’s stopping you, Hamlet?

Oh, I don’t know, Megan said, still not wanting to look at Alexa. How much of our burning and melting is just our sentence here in Hell for suicide, though; and how much of it do you think could be because of how much we’ve let our hate and anger turn us into murderous monsters? Aren’t we turning into the very bullies that we despise?

I don’t care if I’ve become a monster, or a demon deserving to be in Hell, Alexa said with a frown of hate. We’re in Hell and suffering anyway; it makes no difference if we get revenge or not as far as our fate’s concerned. But it makes a lot of difference if we suffer here and let our bullies get away with what they did to us, or if we make them pay.

I agree, Tiffany said. I groan in agony as each day passes and I don’t get revenge on Fay and George for what they did to me. We’ve followed Furioso’s advice about waiting to get revenge later, after cooling off after killing our parents. I’ve waited long enough: I will definitely get Fay and George.

We’ll suffer either way, Megan, Alexa said. But we can make them suffer, too, and we’ll show our strength, our power. Aren’t you tired of being weak? Make Lynne and Herman weak instead. Enjoy it. I enjoyed making Boyd and Denise weak.

But you killed their children and spouses, too, Megan said. You killed innocent children, and really violently. They never did you any harm.

Oh, who cares about them? Alexa said with so cold a face, it was as if her burning and melting had stopped and reversed, making her almost into an ice sculpture instead.

You don’t have to harm anyone other than Lynne and Herman, Megan, Tiffany said. Just hurt those two alone, if the idea of hurting innocent people bothers you. It makes no difference to me. We’re in Hell: having a moral conscience here is rather pointless, don’t you think?

I guess you’re right, Megan said. But I’m getting only Lynne and Herman. No one else.

Do what you like, Tiffany said.

Furioso appeared before the three spirits.

Are you ready to face Lynne and Herman, Megan? he asked her.

Megan looked over at Alexa again and winced.

Yes, I guess so, she said with a sigh.

Megan and Furioso disappeared, off to find the two targets of her revenge.

Tiffany now looked at Alexa’s apparition and winced.

You have no regrets over how you got even with Boyd and Denise, do you? she asked Alexa.

None at all, Alexa said with a rigid tone in her voice, though her face and body were anything but rigid.

In fact, her apparition showed her skin melting and dripping down to her feet, like the wax of an almost used-up candle.

Denise Charlton, 38, had gone through quite a transformation over the years. Had she, at the age of eighteen, seen what kind of person she’d become twenty years later, she’d have never believed her eyes.

Still, the transformation did occur. It occurred out of sheer necessity. There was simply no way she could have sustained herself by continuing with her juvenile delinquency. Her violent ways had to stop.

It had all started with her abusive drunk of a father, an ongoing problem she’d known as far back as she could remember. As a little girl, she’d had to endure seeing that piece of shit get pissed and beat her mom; little Denise would get plenty of hits from him herself.

Now, when he attacked her, her trauma response wasn’t freeze, as was the case with her timid mother. She hated the way her mom was too afraid to fight back, so Denise was resolved never to deal with her dad in that way. Though the beatings she’d get were far worse than those her mother got, and though Denise always lost her fights with her old man, at least she made sure that bastard got a few dents on his own body, too.

Her fight response became her way of dealing with everybody. She was determined to let the whole world know she wasn’t going to take shit from anybody, and if anybody was stupid enough to give her shit about anything, she’d fuck him up good and proper.

Because of her attitude, she got into a lot of fights in the schoolyard…and no, she wasn’t afraid to fight boys, either. She’d fight with people at school, on the streets, and at any part-time job she ever-so-briefly had. She was a potential menace–Denise the Menace, everyone called her–to anyone who had the bad luck of crossing her path, and she was damned proud of that.

She started getting in trouble with the law, typically charged with assault and battery, at around the age of fifteen. Sometimes she’d get caught vandalizing–throwing rocks in windows, spray-painting rude words on buildings–or there was the occasional petty theft. But usually it was her and her gang of bad girls beating people up, out of sheer boredom.

Well, one night, months after the disappearance of Alexa, Megan, and Tiffany, Denise took her violent ways too far. That night, she and her gang assaulted a middle-aged woman and put her in the hospital. Denise was the ringleader, and the one who gave the woman the worst of the beatings, so she got the harshest punishment: five years imprisonment.

During her first year in prison, she stewed in a rage, angry at how unfair the world had always been to her. She got into plenty of fights with the other female convicts. But early into her second year, after a nasty fight that got her face bloodied and her ass in solitary confinement for a week, she found herself forced to rethink her life.

Though the preaching of the prison priest only made her roll her eyes, he did say one thing that made her reflect: “Anger is the enemy. Anger is a poison. If you don’t cure it, your hate will kill you one day.”

Indeed, she thought as she sat all alone in that room and sulked. Look at where my hatred and anger have led me. I have to stop fighting all the time. Maybe Mom was right to have been such a wimp.

She resolved, once she got out of solitary confinement, to make efforts to control her hostility to the world. Naturally, it was hard at first: she got into a few fights after getting out, but they were fewer, and she was pulling her punches for the first time.

After a few months, she was surprised with herself how rarely she was being even verbally abusive. The others in the prison were even more surprised, and after another year and a half of good behaviour on her part, she was considered for early release.

She had a parole hearing, and after making it clear how sincerely remorseful she was for not only having beaten up that woman, but also for all the hurt she’d needlessly caused others, she was released halfway through the fourth year of her sentence.

She found work–menial labour, but it was enough to get by. Her parole officer never had any complaints about her. She continued to be amazed at her transformation.

A few years later, she met a man, Jack Drew, a nice man, totally the opposite of her father. Jack was gentle, he never drank, and he managed to revive a belief in her mind that there actually are good people in the world. After two years of dating, they got married.

She was thirty when she gave birth to their son, Jameson. She lay in bed at the hospital, and when the nurse put the newborn baby in her arms, and her husband was standing by her, tears ran down her cheeks. She’d not only escaped the hell of hate and anger; she’d entered the world of love.

Notions of wanting to hurt people had become alien to her on this first gazing into her baby’s eyes. Now she felt only nurturing instincts, the drive to help, to give comfort, to remove hurt.

Again, she was amazed at how much she’d changed.

Years went by, and she was a dedicated mother. Taking care of little Jameson was a joy. Even when he was difficult, and outright annoying–which was not infrequent–her first instinct was almost always patience and kindness, rarely anger. He’d have to have been an extraordinary brat to make her as much as raise her voice.

So one morning, 38-year-old Denise was with her eight-year-old boy in the living room while Jack was at work. He was playing with his Star Wars action figures while she was watching TV.

He was imitating light sabre noises as he had Rey and Kylo Ren fighting. Really getting into it, he was also getting really loud.

“Keep it down, honey,” she said. “I can’t hear the TV over you.”

He kept at it at the same volume.

She sighed and said, “Fine.” She picked up the remote and turned up the volume. He made louder light sabre noises.

She sighed again, but before she could open her mouth to tell him to play quieter, a commercial came on. She decided to get a drink from the kitchen.

Before she got up, though, she looked over at Jameson. The sight of her cute little boy, so happy playing with his toys, disarmed her annoyance at his loudness. She got up and walked over to him.

“Look out!” she said playfully, her tickling fingers poised for attack. “The Emperor is going to zap you, Rey!”

She got her fingers on Jameson’s little belly and began tickling. He screamed and giggled, dropping his action figures.

“Stop!” he yelped. “Mom, stop!” He giggled and screamed some more.

She stopped, then gave him a big hug and a kiss on his chubby left cheek. “Want a Pepsi from the fridge?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, nodding with enthusiasm.

“What’s the magic word?”

“Please.”

“OK, one Pepsi, coming right up.” She got up and went over to the kitchen. He returned to his loud light sabre noises.

She stood by the fridge, and as she opened the door, she looked back, with a smile, into the living room at her boy.

“I love you,” she whispered, then reached into the fridge for a Pepsi, and she got an orange Fanta for herself.

Someone else was gazing at her boy, and at her, but this person was frowning, not smiling. This person was invisible to Denise and Jameson, but were they to have seen this person, they’d have seen disheveled hair, pale skin, red eyes, and a tattered black dress.

Twenty years later, Boyd McAulliffe, 38, had become a successful businessman, owning a cellphone app company headquartered in Toronto, but with branches all over Canada and the US. He married Sharon Willis when he was 27, when his company was struggling after two years of existence, but when she told him she believed in him and said never to give up. With her encouragement, he stuck to it and found the beginnings of success a couple of years after.

The couple had their first child, a girl named Tess, when he was 28. Every day of looking in his daughter’s baby blue eyes felt like looking at the entrance to heaven. She was number one in his life; neither himself, nor Sharon, nor his business, nor the rest of his family or friends, came even a distant second. Sharon was second, for sure…but still far behind his little angel, Tess.

With the massive amount of money he made from his business, Boyd bought a huge stretch of land near the Lake of the Woods and Rainy River area, home to white tailed deer that he liked to hunt in October, when he typically took time off work to go there with his family. Being out there in the fresh air, spending a month of quality time with his wife and daughter…this was when life was at its happiest for him.

He truly felt he’d had a fortunate life: a successful business, a beautiful, loving, and supportive wife, and an adorable daughter. On top of these blessings, he had a big stretch of land and plenty of time off every year to pursue his hobby and passion–deer hunting, a test of the marksmanship skill he was so proud of. How could his life have been any more perfect?

Well, there was that recurring dream he wished would go away.

Once every several months or so, he’d have a dream about that bitch Alexa he used to go after, the girl who mysteriously disappeared shortly after he and Denise Charlton had gotten her one particularly bad time back in high school. Nobody knew what had happened to Alexa. Had she run away from home? Did she commit suicide?

The principal gave him and Denise a really hard time for having bullied Alexa so much, especially since there had been fears that the bullying may have driven her to suicide. Boyd admitted to himself in hindsight that he and Denise had taken things a little too far a few times; after all, teenagers can be really immature assholes sometimes, including himself back then.

All the same, though, that was a long time ago. Why was he still dreaming about that girl? Surely his guilty conscience should have forgotten about her by now, two decades later.

But every two or three months, he’d see a vision of her in his sleep. He’d see her against a black background, with messy hair, pale skin, glowing red eyes surrounded in black rings for eyelids, and wearing a tattered black dress. Sometimes it looked as if tiny pieces of that ghostly white skin were flaking off. Sometimes her skin looked reddish-white, melting.

Worst of all was that frown on her face, a scowl that looked like she wanted to kill him. At last, these words would come out of her mouth, which made him wake up bathed in sweat.

I’m gonna get you.

He had this very dream again one night during his October vacation with Sharon and Tess on his property up in northern Ontario. The next morning, he brushed it off and forgot about it as usual, and after breakfast–delicious bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast made for them by Sharon–he found himself playing with his daughter in the living room of their log cabin.

First, they played a clapping game of “Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man.”

Together, they chanted, “Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man.
Bake a cake, bake a cake, as fast as you can
Pat it and prick it, mark it with T,
Put it in the oven for Tessa and me.”

Then they chanted “Mary Mack” to their hand claps; and after this one, he took her in his arms.

“Who’s the ticklish one?” he said as his fingers tickled her sides, getting high-pitched screams of laughter from her. “Who’s the ticklish one?”

“Oh!” she yelped. “No! Stop, Daddy, stop!” She continued screaming, giggling and struggling to get free of him until he finally relented.

Then he gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“I love you, sweetie,” he said.

“I love you, too, Daddy,” she said.

Sharon came in the living room with a tray of three mugs of hot chocolate. “Here you go,” she said as she put the tray on the coffee table.

“Yummy!” Tess said, picking up her mug.

“It’s not quite cold enough to drink this, but why not?” Sharon said. “It’s yummy!”

“Absolutely,” he said, picking up his mug for a sip. “This is gonna hit the spot, just before I go out there with my rifle.”

“I wanna go out with you, Daddy,” Tess said.

“No, sweetie,” he said. “I need absolute quiet when I’m hunting deer. Besides, I don’t like the idea of you being near my rifle when I’m using it.”

“Oh, but Daddy,” she whined with a pout.

“Your father’s right, dear,” her mom said.

“You are too dear to me to be anywhere near the deer I’m about to shoot at,” he said.

“OK,” Tess said, still pouting.

He gulped down the last of his hot chocolate.

“All right,” he said, standing. “Time to do some hunting. Thanks for the hot chocolate, honey.” He gave Sharon a hug and a kiss, then left the living room to get his rifle and get ready.

“Have fun,” Sharon said, then she and Tess drank their hot chocolate. When Sharon finished hers, she gave Tess a hug and a kiss on the forehead. Then she took the tray and her and Boyd’s empty mugs back to the kitchen. As she was walking out, she said, “When you’re finished yours, don’t forget to bring your cup back to the kitchen, honey.”

“OK, Mom,” Tess said, then drank another gulp. Why can’t I go with Daddy? she wondered. I like being with him. I wanna play some more. I’d be quiet. I’d stay clear of his rifle. It’s no fair!

Then she heard a faint whisper in her ear.

Why don’t you go out and surprise him, Tess?

“What?” she said. “Who said that?” She looked around the room for the invisible speaker. She saw her dad go out the door with his rifle.

I’m a spirit guide, the feminine voice said.

“A spirit guide?” Tess asked. “Where are you? Why can’t I see you? What does a spirit guide do?”

Well, you can’t see me because I’m a spirit, of course. I’m like a ghost except I’m one of the good ones. I’m here to guide you, to help you find ways to be closer to your father, to help your love grow stronger.

“OK, so how am I gonna do that?”

Well, just let me lead the way. Go on outside, but make sure your dad doesn’t see you, ’cause we want this to be a big surprise for him. It’ll be more fun that way.

“But he said he doesn’t want me to go, and Mom doesn’t want me to go, either. If I go, won’t they be mad?”

Not the way I’m gonna have you go. Your mom just went to bed for a nap, so she won’t hear you go outside. As for your dad…well…I’ll have a way of making him see you so you’ll be…a real dear…to him.

“OK,” Tess said, then finished her hot chocolate, took her cup to the kitchen as her mom wanted her to do, put on her jacket, and went outside.

Alexa’s ghost watched the girl run into the woods. As she watched, her lips curled up into a smile.

The ghosts of Alexa, Megan, and Tiffany grinned at having watched the destruction of their cruel parents. Furioso appeared before them.

“Have you enjoyed the first part of your revenge, girls?” he asked them with a smile of his own.

“Oh, yes, definitely,” Alexa said, still grinning. “It was so enjoyable punishing my mother and father with the same isolation and deprivation that they put me through in my time of need.”

“Same for me,” Megan said with a malevolent smirk. “It was fun revenge-raping my dad, stabbing his ass like that. He so deserved it. It was a long time coming to him.”

“And you, Tiffany?” Furioso asked.

“Yes,” she said. “What a thrill, scaring my mom in that park, then smashing her skull in with that sledgehammer.”

“Good,” Furioso said.

“I’m hot with enthusiasm for when we get to Part Two of our revenge,” Megan said.

“Yeah, I’m a little too hot, actually,” Alexa said. “My skin is starting to feel a little like lava.”

“Mine, too,” Tiffany said, her smile changing into a wince of discomfort.

“Yeah, now that you mention it, this heat is starting to get to me,” Megan said.

“Are we melting?” Tiffany asked. “It feels that way…like we’re slowly disintegrating.”

“It’s part of the reality of being in Hell, girls,” Furioso said with a sigh. “In Hell, we burn. Abandon all hope, you who enter. There’s nothing we can do about it. You’ll have to accept it. Even I must; I’ve been burning for centuries. Still, there is hope of one kind–getting the next part of your satisfaction, which is surely coming.”

“Good,” Alexa said. “I can’t wait to get Boyd McAulliffe and Denise Charlton.”

“You will,” Furioso said. “But it will be best to wait for a fitting time to get your revenge on your school bullies.”

“Wait how long?” Megan asked with a scowl. “I want to get that rapist and his bitch girlfriend now!“

“Don’t get too hot with rage, girls,” Furioso said. “You’ll melt faster, and the heat will get unbearably painful. It’s best to cool off for a while, be satisfied with the revenge you’ve achieved for now, and get them at a time, and in a situation, that will be unbearably painful for them. Be patient. The right time will come, years later, when they are particularly vulnerable. You’ll thank me for this advice…I promise you.”

“Very well,” Tiffany said with a frown. “I’ll wait.”

“If it will result in a better revenge, OK,” Megan said.

“…and Alexa?” Furioso asked. “Will you wait with the others?”

She, contemplating a future Boyd, and a future Denise, with children they cherish and adore, nodded and grinned.

“Good,” Furioso said, also grinning. “You won’t regret this, I assure you.”

The three ghosts looked down at their reddening, melting skin, tiny black pieces of which were flaking off, like breaking pieces of igneous rock among infernally hot magma.

“You’re not coming in here, Mr. Fournier!” the madam said at the door of the brothel, blocking John’s entry. “You’re always hurting the girls. Every time you’ve been here, one of them complains of how you treat them. Slapping them around, grabbing them too hard, biting, scratching. You have no respect for women. Now, get out of here!”

“These girls are wayward and wanton,” he rationalized. “If they were good, they’d deserve respect.”

“If you were good, you’d deserve respect!”

“Maybe I should inform the police about your establishment,” he said. “Tell someone you aren’t paying off.”

“Maybe I should get Dan on you!” she shouted, then snapped her fingers to summon her new bouncer to the door, a tall, musclebound hulk of a fellow who approached with his fists already balled up.

“Fine,” John said with a sneer as he turned around to walk away. “This brothel is going to hell, anyway.”

“No, hell is going away from here,” Dan said. “And if hell comes back, hell won’t go away in one piece!” He and the madam watched John to make sure that he really left.

John turned the corner, came out of the dark alley, and continued down the street. He checked his watch: 11:33 pm. He looked up at the stars and the full moon. Almost two weeks had gone by without Megan returning home, or even as much as a word from her.

Whatever boy she’s with, he thought, if he’s hurt or killed her, it’s all her fault. I warned her about boys.

As he walked down the street, he thought about his marriage to Megan’s mother, and what a disaster that turned out to be. Of course, he blamed the failed marriage all on her.

The thought never crossed his mind that any of the fault could have been his.

Or that all of the fault could have been his.

Which it was, actually.

John had frequented whorehouses the whole time he’d been married to Patricia. He felt not even the slightest prick of conscience for it because he imagined the fault to be entirely the prostitutes’ for having tempted him.

He called them his ‘Eves.’

Patricia never told him that she saw him walk into a brothel one night after being suspicious of his frequent disappearances from home at night. She grew cold and distant, which didn’t affect him at all, for he was content to enjoy her cooking and cleaning, her being the good Catholic wife.

She simply decided she’d had enough, had the good luck of receiving the advances of a charming and much better man, and ran off with him. If only she’d cared enough for Megan to take her along; the thing was, her daughter looked too much like John, and seeing Megan’s face every day would have reminded Patricia of John’s betrayal.

Now, even if John had known the real reason of her running off with another man, he’d have judged her the same way. She was a slut for not being an angel. It was as simple as that to him.

He took a few more steps, then a teenage girl came around the corner…a familiar one.

“Megan?” he said with a start. “Where have you been? And why are you…dressed like that? It must be the influence of the latest boy who used you and dumped you, isn’t it? You been doing drugs? It sure looks it; you look terrible. C’mon, let’s go home.”

“Yes, Daddy,” she said in an almost whispered echo, the voice of a spectre. She had the same look as the other two teen ghosts: the tattered black dress, the black rings around glowing red eyes, the messy hair, the pale skin, and the frown.

He took her by the hand and they started for home. He felt flesh, but it was corpse-cold. “This is what you get for wandering around at night in winter without a coat,” he said. “Don’t worry, though. When we get home, I’ll warm you good enough.”

“Whatever you say, Daddy,” she said.

“Hey, you’ve grown compliant,” he said, almost smiling. “This boy you were with must have messed you up so badly, you’ve finally seen the error of your ways. I’ll be gentler with you this time.”

They got home and immediately went upstairs to his bedroom. When they got naked, he was shocked to see how pale all of her skin was.

“That boy must have been feeding you drugs for you to be looking so pale and sickly,” he said.

“There was no boy, Daddy,” she said. “And I didn’t do any drugs, either.”

“Don’t you lie to me, girl,” he said, trying to control his anger. “Just get on the bed. I promised to be gentler this time. Don’t make me change my mind.”

She got on the bed on her back, and he got on top of her. Again, when he touched and entered her, all he felt was coldness.

“How could you…be this cold?” he grunted as he went in and out. “This feels like…necro…philia.”

Still, he managed to like it for its kinkiness. If he could be degenerate enough to commit incest with his daughter, raping her without any guilt feelings, he was degenerate enough to enjoy sex with a corpse.

He looked in those red embers that were her eyes.

“Are you wearing…some kind of…contact lenses?” he asked. “You look so…ungh!…Satanic.”

Her legs were spread open and lifted back so her tailbone was up, not pushed into the mattress. Out of her tailbone slithered…a tail.

A devil’s tail with a sharp arrow tip.

She looked up at him with those fiery red eyes and grinned. This was the first time she’d ever smiled while he was on top of her. He himself was surprised to see that.

He was so pleasantly surprised, in fact, that he never noticed the emergence or movement of that tail.

He was amazed at how hard he was. Normally, he needed to be rough with her, to exercise his sense of dominance, to get and maintain an erection. Yes, he was just that pathetic.

But there was something about her this time that was making it easy for him to get it up and keep it up. Was it her more than usual submissiveness? Was it her corpse-like kinkiness?…

…or was she helping him get hot, with her new supernatural powers, to distract him from what she was planning to do to him?

Indeed, as he was moving faster and faster, getting more and more excited, that tail of hers was rising between his legs, the arrow tip pointing at his ass. As he pumped back and forth, his buttocks would conveniently open and close, exposing his vulnerable anus.

Approaching orgasm, he panted, “After this, we’ll rest…then, I’ll go…for anal.”

“Ooh!” she purred between sighs. “I like that.”

“Really?” he moaned, his eyes wide open with delight.

That tail was aiming for his asshole, waiting for an opening of his crack and timing when to enter to the rhythm of his thrusts.

“Oh, yeah,” she sighed, looking in his eyes and smiling lewdly. “I’d love anal with you, Daddy.”

He was just about to come. “Wow…you never…wanted…”

Suddenly, he felt a stabbing deep in his ass.

“AAAHHH!!!” he screamed in pain. That tail cut into his rectum, intestines, and up into his stomach. He fell on her.

She shoved him off. She removed her bloody, faecal tail.

“It’s all your fault this happened,” she hissed in his ear as his consciousness and life faded away. “You shouldn’t have let yourself get mixed up with whores.”