The devil's tattoo

Tina Stone was a Preacher's daughter and a rebel since the age of 13. She got sick of being pressured to be little miss church princess and went from the path of Christ and to walking the line between heaven and hell. Whatever she could do to get her Daddy's goat, that's what she did.

If Daddy could see her now, his heart troubles would get a lot worse. She leaned over the counter in the tattoo shop smoking a cigarette. Her white T-shirt only came down above her bellybutton. Her tramp stamp of a large butterfly was in plain view for anyone to look at and her shorts came up well above her thighs.

"I think I want this one Corey." She said with with a devious grin. "My Dad will have a shitting fit."

The artist looked down to see she was pointing to the image of a naked man. Not just any man, but the Devil himself. This image however was not cartoon like where he had red skin and gigantic horns. This image painted him as a handsome man that would temp any woman, horns slightly coming from the top of his head and holding his signature pitchfork.

Tina could see Corey frowning.

"What is it?"

"I've only done this tattoo for three people."

"So?"

"They're all dead. One gunned down by the cops after he went on a shooting spree in the streets, one girl hanged herself, and another girl crashed head on with a brick wall and nobody knows what the hell happened."

"I never took you for the superstitious type."

"Usually I'm not, but that's kind of freaky to be coincidence."

"Well, I'm not afraid of a scary tattoo. I want it right here." She said pointing to her right wrist.

"It's your funeral." He said grabbing the ink and equipment.

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That night in her apartment Tina looked affectionately at her new piece of ink, but gritted her teeth as the burning in her arm became more and more intense. She wondered if her arm might be infected, but the redness around it was minimal. She contemplated going to the ER to be safe, but she didn't want to come off as a baby. If it got worse in the night, she would get medical attention.

Tina swallowed two Tylenol and laid her head on the pillow for a good night of rest. She was dead tired.

Her arm did not bother her in her sleeping hours, but she was plagued by a terrible nightmare. She walked through a dense fogginess, at least she assumed is was her as she only had a first person perspective.

She was terrified and her heart raced, though she had no idea why.Through the fogginess she could see familiar sights telling her she was walking the streets of Chicago. She was walking, but it was not by her own effort. Something was leading her.

Soon she found herself in a dark alley where an old man, probably close to eighty years old approached her. He carried a plastic grocery bag on his free arm. He must have been returning from a quick trip to the corner convenient store.

He looked at her in horror as if she had turned into some hideous creature. He took a step back as she lifted her right hand to see why he was afraid. Al long and shiny bladed Butcher's knife gleamed in what little life there was.

She tried to hold herself back, but it was no use. Before she knew it she had charged in on the old man and sank the blade into his stomach. He screamed, but it muffled in this place. Blood splattered and poured to the ground. He was dead by the time the blade sank in a third time, but her arm would not stop.

Ten, fifteen, twenty times she stabbed the old man until his entrails hung out like a gutted animal.

Tina sat up in bed with a startled scream. Her heart pounded and the sheets were soaked with sweat.

She laid her head back down on her pillow until her breathing slowed. She grabbed the remote from her night stand and turned on the television. Standing up to stretch she heard the male and female news anchors talking about the grisly events of the previous night.

"In a city as large as ours, horrific things happen every day and last night was no different. Adam Lucas said. Eighty-two year old Leslie Bankston was brutally murdered in an alley last night. Police say that he was stabbed at least a dozen times and there are no suspects so far. Bankston was a deacon at the baptist church two blocks from where he lived. No funeral arrangements have been made yet."

Tina almost puked where she stood as the face of the old man from her dream popped onto the screen. It was then that she noticed that she was naked. She had gone to bed in her pajamas. She looked over to her open bathroom door with a heavy feeling in her chest.

She tiptoed to the bathroom as if an attacker might be inside waiting for her. She screamed as she saw dried blood all around the inside of her shower and her before mentioned pajamas were blood soaked and lying crumpled beside the hamper.