Dyl balanced the cigarette on her lip at a 40 degree angle, revved the chainsaw, and began to cut. The grinding chain shrieked and moaned as bits of frozen tissue shot away from the point of contact like tiny rockets. Her wiry arms shook under the machine’s raw power with each descent into the limb’s hardening flesh.
The chain struck earth, kicking up thick clots of clay and withered grass. She turned off the saw and let it drop to the icy ground with a heavy, resounding thud. She regarded her work with a practiced eye. The minuscule droplets of her breath intermingled with curling tendrils of smoke as she nudged the leg back into alignment with the rest of the body with the scuffed toe of her boot.
It looked like a life-size Ken doll, stiff and motionless with its removable parts. The only thing off was the face -- eyes closed, no grin. She knelt over the head and placed her gloved hands on either side of the victim’s face, using her thumbs to tug the pursed blue lips into a smile.
No go.
She sat back on her heels and studied the horizon. The sun’s feeble rays competed with the occasional 20-mile per hour gusts that rattled the blackened tree branches and sprayed snow off the roof of her old Victorian farmhouse.
She lived, literally, in the dead center of nowhere. The epicenter of nothingness. The nearest roads were unmarked strips of country gravel that kicked up dust and made speeds over 30mph a challenge. The surrounding horizon stretched on for what Dyl figured were hundreds of miles; one flat field after another. A few windbreaks here and there, but little else. She liked the isolation, the uninterrupted privacy. Her house was perched on the only hill in the area, and she would always be able to see if someone was coming.
But no one ever did, and that was just fine with her.
Dyl took one last pull on her cigarette, then placed it between her victim’s lips. A strong gust of wind sent the ash toppling over, blowing into a pair of cavernous nostrils and clinging to 2-day old stubble. Dyl wiped it away, then pushed the cigarette all the way into the mouth. She forced the lips shut, but the jaw hung slack. She’d have to do something about that. There was caulk in the garage.
