Judith witnessed within herself the loss of herself. Knew to flee from the bone saw. Knew which warm membranous tear drop of a room behind her consciousness to hide in. Which Procrustean bed to hide under. Which gelatinous corner protected what remained of herself. Just enough so her mind could escape her mindlessness. Survival instinct hurried her away from herself, like she was in a winter forest with many curled arm branches lifting her into finger layers of cocoon hugs. Saved something of herself from the vicious obliteration of her body. Found a warm place on the pack snow of where she was stranded. Like an igloo made by an unspeakable lover. Consoled her poor, ravaged frost destroyed feet. 

Judith could handle pain but this was way too much. Hid in another layer of herself in a section of being where the walls were fleshy and the humidity was a cascaded shower of thick gore. Cozy and warm. Eventually numb, like she had never known a physical sensation her whole life. Flesh igloo.

Was any of this real?

Could still watch the exterior through her popped and runny egg yolk eyes. When they grew back she would be able to witness in depth what was left of Michael. If she ever saw him again.

How and why? What for?

He had pressed her emerald city eyes back into her brain after he cut and ripped her jaw off. Judith knew her apertures would fill in again. Glow evil when they formed brand new. What languages would she be able to speak with her new jaw? Forever inhuman.

How did she know this? Or anything? Afterlives? Births? What does it matter? All's lost. Stranded in the pack snow of some other world. But was it? What other world?

Voices. A particular voice. Hatred.

It was Nigel who had commanded the bone saw man to do the brutality. The bone saw man didn't hesitate with any of the butchery after Judith's jaw hit the floor. She had heard a mixture of futile crying and nervous hysterical shivers from her man. And then after awhile, when he was ripping more of her apart, there was only a raspy, deep jovial giggle. And then another. And another. Became superfluous like a skipping record. Until she listened to what was no longer Michael. The voice had an unnaturally deep crackle which she recognized. Michael's voice from Chigurh park. A gangrenous leftover of a soul. The part that should have been amputated was the only part left.

Judith couldn't blame Michael. He tried. He died. He'd been eaten by malevolently obese murderers.

"Do you know why you've failed so miserably at this, Nigel? I mean, you of all idiots should know how to do this since I guided you once before when I made you what you are. You're an inartistic impotent cretin. You never ever remove the heart or the brain. Not ever. The drowning serum isn't necessary here. Let the tasty treats fester in their wrappings. Let the body and soul marinade in the flavours of the serums. The living night is dissipated in the brightness of death. Ok, who's next?"

"I made you into this, didn't I Mr bone saw man?"

"Incompetently. I'm not what I should be. You've made me into something less. Twenty seven times on your table and this is all that I am? I should be able to fly by now, but no. No, you are an unlearned wretch. But don't worry, Nigel. I'll teach you. And my payment will be your body on my table again."

Judith could feel nothing. The smaller voice was eating the larger voice of whatever she was now. It was over. Her man was dead and there was a monster in his place. She could let herself go by falling into the deep vast abyss of nothing. She had nothing. Her body was gone. She was a thought within a thought. But she still wanted to witness. Through it all, she was somehow still curious. Decided to watch her monster take over her physicality. Couldn't do anything about her transformation anyway. Her emotions were spent like Bob Coal's paycheque at the gambling table.

And then the questions poked at what was the surviving piece of Judith. Who was that woman in the mirror? The poor frozen thing trying to warm itself by the light of a dim fire in the company of so many bright green glowing eyes? And what creature made that horrible screaming roar? And how did she recognize a Terra look alike as Jane? She had a battle axe so Judith immediately liked her. Why did Terra have black hair and a red dress with white polka dots? Like a future memory of a previous memory.

Then Judith heard crying. Someone seemed to be standing over her and crying.

"I'll always be with you, my tasty treat. I'll always love you. I'm forever yours even when forever is imprisoned in the epilogue. I love you Judith Coal. I'll always be by your side."

Judith felt what was her head move like a sleep twitch.  She peered out of the grey eyeless holes of her skull and saw no one standing above her desecrated body. But there was a shadow on the wall. Was she in the cave of allegory? No. There was no cave. There never was. It was a piece of Michael who she had heard. The Michael who existed inside the last buried bit of Judith.

                                  ~~~~~~~

Nigel couldn't believe that it took the bone saw man only one sitting to turn Judith Coal into the project that David was giddily looking forward to. Nigel had tried and tried on so many Factory assholes and failed every single time. But Nigel learned and would continue to do so. Watching the real bone saw man work was incredible. To see him discard the pathetic boy and bloom into such a master of his craft, it was all that Nigel could dream about and live up to. But he still wanted to be the bone saw man. Nigel had patience. Nigel could wait. He'd learn and when the bone saw man eventually reverted back into Michael, well, it would be Nigel's turn again. It was bound to happen.

"Very lovely work, Mr bone saw man. Lovely, lovely, lovely."

"I want her sister next."

"You can't. David has said it's not time. The forest must grow first. Your forest, Mr bone saw man."

"Fine. Bring me someone. Maybe this will work on ordinary people. I doubt it, but maybe I can make everyone a revenant, not just rare anomalies and lynchpins."

"Yes, of course Mr bone saw man. I know just the normal person you seek."

Nigel pointed to one of the viewing surgeons across the room. They all looked the same in their blue scrubs and dirty glasses holding mini Swiss Army knife computers. One was whispering on their contraption, talking to someone on the phone.

"You there, the one who looks like he's falling asleep standing up. We need you for a moment."

The man stirred and looked from colleague to colleague. Walked cautiously toward the two Leonard monsters. Without looking, the bone saw man grabbed the blue garbed surgeon by the throat. Slammed him down onto the empty autopsy table.

Nigel clamped the man's arms and legs and neck with a smile of wonder upon his recent surgically altered countenance. Patted the man's cheek and tore off the light blue mask.

"You should be grateful, young man. You could become more powerful than all of those stiffs who will be observing your entrails in the bone saw man's theatre."

Nigel began injecting him with serums.

  ~~~~~~~

David watched on his enormous wall screen which was broken up into many different views from many different drones. The carnage. The beautiful, screaming carnage of the poor district transfixed his eyes and ears. It wasn't his world's Poor district. Not yet. But it was a success. This poor district existed in a simulation that was slightly different from the first reality. People rode horses and bicycles as means of transportation and took great care of trees and flowers and animals. The place was like a giant green terraria. But it was disgusting with the horse shit piss concrete.

It was a world concerned with preservation and yet still very beholden to class structures and monetary bigotry. Cars existed, but they were limited. It had something to do with the gasses emitted causing harm to their atmosphere. Their government outlawed all of them, except for the cars that the government drove, naturally. And the elected officials were always the best payed.

Judith had walked into that poor district with glowing green eyes, holding the fireman axe that David had saved for her. He had no idea if it was the same axe from her childhood but it could've been. His eyebrow raised when Judith tore off all of her clothing and walked through the street dragging the axe behind her along with the pouch hanging from her shoulder.

The first person she came across was swiftly swung upon in a sideways arch and severely beheaded. Judith eagerly pulled out the beating heart and jelly juiced brain. Placed both offal very gingerly at her dirty bare feet. Scooped a small amount of bright green powder from her pouch and sprinkled a fair amount of the concoction upon the exposed organs. The imbedded micro plastic plants within the heart were the first to begin a reaction. The heart muscles spasmed and the flesh seemed to make blinking actions like it was covered in eyes. But it was the brain that began to show signs of plants first. It sprouted wooden branchy legs and crawled like a spider to the dead body where it began eating the skin and muscle of a thigh. Tiny roots began to grow out of the flesh of the heart and slither across the cement, following the brain. The ends of the twiggy roots had tiny mouths and also began latching and feeding upon the body. It didn't take long for the two plants to grow. They also multiplied. In half an hour the entire street was a moving, feeding hulk of blood soaked forest. Hollow tree trunks gushed blood from open knotty howling rage. People were pulled from their homes screaming while being eaten alive in mid air.

Judith swung her axe upon a hundred people. Men, women and children. She sprinkled powder on a hundred hearts and brains. There was no escape from her or what grew behind her steps. David's brilliant plan was being brilliantly executed.

The Leonards had dumped the micro plastic plant seeds into the district's air for weeks in the hope that this moment would come. This test. This proclamation. This eschatology. David thought finally, Birnam Wood had come to Dunsinane. Finally, the Judith had come.

David watched as his weapon mounted a white horse and began riding through the street with her sickly green glowing eyes and blood dripping axe in her gore crusted hand. David's Lady Godiva. The bag was empty and had been discarded blocks ago by this point in the annihilation. She was trotting and murdering people as they ran from her. People shot at her as much as they could. Bullets had no effect. Judith's ability to heal almost instantly as a revenant was unexpected.

David didn't like that Judith seemed invincible. He made a note to himself to have Michael alter the serums. David didn't want revenants that could heal so quickly. If one turned on him, it could be catastrophic.

David reminisced of a painting he once saw as a child. It depicted four riders on four horses. They were galloping but the last one had no need. It barley walked because it truly was the last one. The first three, with their white bow and red sword and black scale were not what held his imagination. When he first came across the scene of judgment, with armies dead at their hooves, it was the last horse and horseman who David stared at. That was Judith. A skeleton named Death. A leaden lunger green countenance ending everything that ever was.

Judith was poetry to David but he didn't want poetry like this for an army. He didn't want a revenant capable of thinking for itself like this. No, he needed them to be more robotic. David realized in this moment that he actually feared Judith. He thought that when this stage of the takeover was complete, Judith would be put away like a doll in a collection on a shelf. He would ask Michael to create a simulation that could keep Judith weak and always in pain, so there would be no chance of her thinking about anything else. Maybe not pain, though. Maybe something that would work better on that hardened woman. Maybe she should be forever numb, like she never existed.