Slumped with her back against the fence, Debbie scanned the yard for anything she might use as a weapon but the yard was bare. Then she noticed a garden shed. The door was unfastened and hung open a couple of inches. She cast a wary glance toward the house, checking again to make sure she wasn’t being observed, then got up and crept toward the storage building.
She tugged on the door and a horrible squeal came from the rusty hinges. She cringed, imagining the whole neighborhood heard it and was onto her plan. She stood frozen for a second but no one came. She pulled again, gaining a space just wide enough to squeeze her body through. Although there were no windows, enough light came in through the open door that she could see the interior quite well. It was obsessively neat inside with every single item stowed away on some type of hook, shelf, or rack. She understood this was a level of organization you only saw from a retired old man who had nothing else to do. There were hoes, rakes, and shovels, as well as pruning shears, hedge trimmers, and a curved saw for pruning trees. There was also an ax.
She immediately fixated on it. It was beautiful with its oiled hickory handle, its painted, rust-free head, and its mirror-polished edge. She recalled all the slasher films she’d seen over the years. Everyone was familiar with the devastation that could be done with an ax. She pulled it free of the two nails that cradled it against the wall. It felt empowering. It felt deadly. It felt right.
Finding the appropriate weapon still didn’t solve the issue of how she was going to get her mother alone. She stood there thinking about it, gushing sweat in the oppressive space as if she were in a sauna. She would give anything for a cold beer. Even a drink of water would be nice. Then it hit her. She knew how to do it.
She backed out of the building and returned to the fence, watching through the cracks as her mother dumped more trash into the yard. When her mother re-entered the house, Debbie saw her opportunity. She went next door and walked through the gate into her mother's yard.
When Dylan looked up and saw her there was hesitation in his eyes, as if he wasn't sure whether to hug her or run away. While that stung her a little she wasn’t surprised by it. It was inevitable that he’d turn on her just like everyone else in the world.
“Brainwashed little toad,” she muttered under her breath.
She raised a finger to her lips and made a shhhhhh sound. She quickly went to him, keeping an eye open for her mother. "Dylan, baby, they're getting ready to come around and hand out water. Everyone gets a gallon jug. They said anybody who wants water needs to go down to the corner and wait. They’ll be there in just a minute."
Dylan looked uncertain. "They’ll bring us water?"
Debbie nodded. “You run down to the corner at Main Street and I'll tell your granny. You wait on us down there. We’ll be down in a few minutes."
"I shouldn’t leave without telling Granny. She told me not to go outside the yard."
Debbie shook her head adamantly. "It's a surprise. You hush and do what Mommy told you, you little sissy."
The tone of her voice rose. There was that harsh, threatening edge that Dylan knew all too well. He was afraid not to do as she asked. He'd seen what that looked like. He knew how she could hit and hurt. He wanted none of that. Dylan stood up and hesitantly started walking the three blocks to Main Street. Every few steps, he turned around to seek reassurance. Debbie smiled, unaware that her wolfish grin terrified the child.
As soon as Dylan was out of sight, she ran to the neighbor’s yard and returned carrying her pack in her hand and shouldering the ax like a baseball bat. She dropped the pack by the steps, climbed the porch, and entered the house quietly. She sucked in a deep breath, channeled her rage, and prepared to swing as soon as she saw her mother.
The deep breath she took was a bad idea. Fighting nausea, she got a lungful of the fermented odor filling the house. It smelled like those porta potties at the county fair. She understood why. Again, there was no one to blame for it but Paul. Like everything else wrong in her life, it was someone else’s fault.
She heard a noise at the back of the house. There was the rattle of something plastic, then a thud, like someone filling a bucket. Having grown up in this house, having snuck out of it many times as a teenager, Debbie knew precisely where the floor creaked and where it was solid. She drew upon that old knowledge to creep soundlessly down the hallway toward the bathroom. She peered around the edge of the doorway and saw her mother digging at the toilet with a gardening trowel.
It crossed her mind that this was one of those scenes where people in the movies had showdowns. There would be a confrontation. She would lay out all the reasons she was doing this, why her mother deserved it, and why she was a bad mother. She would explain how her mother had wrecked her life. In those movies, though, this confrontation was often where things went wrong. It was where the tables sometimes got turned and the attacker killed. Debbie didn’t want that.
She decided that this was perhaps the optimal situation. Her mother's back was to her and there would be no accusing looks. Not having to meet her mother’s eye, it was less likely she would have second thoughts and hesitate. It was also less likely that her mother would whip out a gun and shoot her dead. This was best. Life—especially her life—was not like the movies.
Before she could change her mind, she lashed out with the heavy ax, bringing it down at the base of her mother's skull. For some reason, Debbie expected there to be a grunt of pain before her mother dropped to the ground like a victim clubbed with a candlestick in an old noir film. It was not that clean. Not that merciful.
Her mother collapsed forward, her face landing in the vile toilet, her throat resting on the disgusting rim. Rather than slipping into a quiet and immediate death, her body seized and lurched from the non-lethal injury to her brain and spine. Blood gushed from the wound, running down the sides of the toilet and onto the floor. Debbie was horrified and raised the ax again, desperate to bring an end to the horror unfolding before her. She brought it down with all her might, aiming directly for the back of her mother's skull. The blade sank again, meeting less resistance this time.
There was a crunch, a scraping sound. Blood filled the wound around the ax, then overflowed to the floor. Debbie yanked the ax free and brain matter came with it, splattering the floor. Debbie winced with disgust and revulsion but it was over. Her mother was not moving. She was dead, finally dead, and Debbie felt nothing at all.
After a long moment of staring, processing what she’d done, Debbie gasped. It was a great involuntary sucking in of air, as if she was a drowned woman resuscitated and back from the dead. She assumed her mother was dead. She had to be. Debbie couldn’t make herself touch the body though. She couldn’t make herself check for a pulse. If she wasn’t dead now she would be soon. No one could live with that kind of…damage.
She knew she didn't have long until Dylan came back. When no relief trucks showed up, he would probably get scared and come running back like he was being chased by a monster. She had to get rid of the body, and the related mess, before he came flying back through the door.
She propped her ax in the corner and ducked to grab her mother by the ankles. She tugged hard but her mother’s chin snagged on the lip of the toilet bowl. Debbie dug in, pulled harder. Her mother’s head slid over the rim before dropping indelicately to the tile floor with a thump. Blood that had pooled in the deep cleft of the wound splattered red drops onto the baseboard, the floor, and the base of the toilet. Debbie found that sound to be the most disturbing aspect of it all, the thud of her mother’s face against the floor.
She backpedaled furiously, dragging her mother out of the bathroom and down the hall. Blood ran around the side of her mother’s neck and left an unmistakable trail. At the back door, Debbie hit the screen door latch with her elbow and lurched through it. The screen door closed too quickly, snagging her mother’s shirt. It took her a moment to wrestle it loose before dragging her mom down the steps. The smack of her mother's head against each step was a distinctiv
e and disturbing sound, like that of a bowling ball rolling off the porch, but she did not dwell on it. She had a job to do and no idea how much time she had to accomplish it.
Her legs cramped with the effort of pulling backwards using muscles she rarely used. She kept going through the gate in the chain link fence and down the alley to the other side of the neighbor’s wooden fence. She paused there, lightheaded and sucking air. Sparkly motes flickered at the periphery of her vision and she felt like she could pass out. Her mouth was dry, her heart pounding. She looked around desperately. She didn't know if anyone still lived in this house or not but she couldn’t leave her mother there in the yard. Anyone passing by would see her.
She dragged her to the outbuilding, the same place she found the ax, and wrestled the slippery body through the door. At one point, her mother’s arm fell across her leg. The arm was still warm. It occurred to her briefly that it would be the last warm touch she ever got from her mother.
“Shut that crap down,” she chastised herself, reining her emotions in. “She didn’t care about you. Once you had Dylan that was all she cared about anymore.”
She staggered out the door, her back wrenched with spasms, her legs wobbling. She slammed the plywood door closed and fastened the latch. Her body trembling from adrenaline and exertion, she sagged against the building, her face resting on a forearm muddy with sweat and grit. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the blood coating her hands had left vivid crimson smears on the peeling white walls.
"Mommy?"
A child’s terrified voice. Dylan. He was back and he didn’t need to see the blood on the wall, and on her, coating her hands and forearms.
"Be right there, baby," she called, her voice quavering. She dropped to her knees and began scrubbing her hands furiously against the grass, desperate to remove the evidence of her crimes.
"Where are you, Mommy? I'm scared."
The voice was closer. Was he coming toward her voice?
"Stay there, baby. Don't move! If you come over here Mommy will be very mad."
She raised the tail of her filthy t-shirt and used it to wipe at the worst of the stains. She heard the crunching of gravel in the driveway next door. The little monster wasn’t listening to her. She stood, wobbled on unsteady legs, and hurried from the yard. She reached the end of the board fence at the same time Dylan appeared at the chain link fence, going as far as he could while still technically following her directions.
"Where were you, Mommy? I was scared. Where's Granny?" There was accusation in his voice, the suggestion that his fear was her fault. “I didn’t see any water man. I didn’t see anyone.”
Debbie was a bundle of nerves. She grabbed Dylan by the shoulders and gave him a tense hug. "Mommy is proud of you. You did a good job and were very brave.”
Dylan didn't smile, finding no comfort in her physical affection. Stress made the muscles of his face taut. "Where's Granny?"
Again, accusation in his voice, as if he knew. As if he sensed what she’d done.
"I don't know, baby," Debbie said. "She said something about going to visit one of her friends. One of those other old ladies from church. What I need you to do is sit down here in the yard while I take care of a couple of things in the house. Okay?"
Dylan nodded nervously. "Why did you tell me there would be water? I didn’t see anyone with water. I was scared."
Debbie dug her claws into his shoulders. She couldn’t stop herself. He flinched and she released her grip, turning it into an awkward pat on the back. "I don’t know. Maybe I heard them wrong. You just sit down and play with your car. You stay outside while Mommy figures out what’s going on."
He did as he was told, terrified and uncertain about the change in circumstance. Debbie went inside the house before he could change his mind and come up with some other question. He was always full of questions. Inside, she was immediately appalled at the glaring blood trail left by her mother. That was going to take a few minutes to get up.
She stuck her head back out the door and confirmed that Dylan was still where he was supposed to be. Though he hadn’t moved, she couldn’t resist issuing another warning. “You make sure you stay there and play with your car. Mommy will be right back. I don’t want you to get up and move from that spot or Mommy will be very mad."
His eyes met hers, his expression making it clear that he knew what that meant. His mother’s words, her tone of voice, meant he was in for a beating if he didn’t listen. Though his fear of the world in general was somewhat lessened by the awareness that his mother’s boyfriend, Paul, was dead, his mother was still a scary person. He didn’t want to provoke her. He went back to driving his car in the dirt, obviously hoping that his mother would go away and leave him alone. He wished it was just him and his granny again. Things were better then.
Debbie tried to scuff the blood trail away with her feet, like it was a splash of coffee on the kitchen floor, but there was way too much of it. She was afraid to leave it. Dylan would see it and he’d ask questions. She knew he wouldn’t shut up about that and his stupid granny. Always with the questions. Always wanting to know everything.
She saw a tote bag of her mother's clothing. It was the clean clothing Leslie had brought back from her stay at the Hardwicks’ home. Debbie dumped it out, took a blouse, and scrubbed furiously at the floor. It took a lot of effort and she resented having to do it. Why was her life so hard? She could tell pretty quickly that single blouse was not going to be enough. She wadded up several pieces of her mother's clothing and crawled from the door to the bathroom, mopping as she went.
When she reached the bathroom door she was soaked in sweat from the stifling house. She imagined the smell seeping into her and ruining her forever with its lingering odor, like a smoke-stained garment. It had to be over a hundred degrees in there. The smell was getting to her. Crawling inside the bloated and sunbaked carcass of a deer on the highway could be no worse. She slumped back against the wall and stared at the pile of bloody clothes. She noticed one blouse in particular, recognizing it as her mother’s favorite, and felt a twinge of guilt. She’d seen her mother in it hundreds of times and could picture her wearing it. There was no use feeling bad about it at this point. Her mother wasn't going to need it again. Her mother wouldn't need anything in this house again.
She got a garbage bag from the kitchen and shoved the pile of clothes in it, managing to bloody herself to the elbows in the process. She threw a quick glance out the door and made sure Dylan was where he was supposed to be. She tapped on the window and gave him a cursory wave, making sure he saw her. As far as she was concerned, he was kind of a sissy kid. If he didn’t get constant reassurance he started whining and became all needy.
She went to the bathroom, the scene of the crime, to see what she needed to do there. She’d forgotten how bad she and Paul left it. They’d even taken to using the bathtub as a toilet in the end. She’d been too distracted to notice it when she was in there killing her mother. She fully absorbed it, finding it to be perhaps the vilest thing she'd ever seen in her life. The disgusting toilet was still clogged with the waste her mother hadn’t removed yet. A nasty bucket and a garden trowel lay on the floor.
There was more blood than she remembered. Brilliant puddles bloomed on the floor and the toilet bowl was covered in blood. Red dots covered the walls, splashed by the force of an ax impacting a skull. Debbie frowned at the amount of work that would be required to fix this. Camouflaging the scene would not be as easy as simply pulling a throw rug over a stain on the floor. She would probably need to burn the house down.
She reached inside and twisted the latch on the privacy lock, then slammed the door shut. She would deal with this another time, or perhaps not at all. Right now, she needed a drink and one of her pills.
14
On their earlier trip into Damascus, Muncie and Asbury had spotted a large building they assumed had to be the county courthouse. They made a beeline for it after reaching town. Asbury continued to give Muncie a
hard time over the delay bandaging the girl’s foot, reminding him that they were not bringing home any strays. With each jab, Asbury gave his own joke a hearty laugh, as if he was the funniest human remaining on the planet.
Muncie clearly didn’t think so. He didn't know if it was the tight quarters or the stress of the situation, but Asbury was tap dancing on his last nerve. It was one thing to work with a jerk in your daily life. After all, that was only one part of your day. You went home after work and hopefully had an opportunity to forget about said jerk until the next day.
Unfortunately, Muncie was starting to feel like he and Asbury were an old married couple. They rode together in the cramped cab of a pickup, pulling a camper behind them that they both lived in. When they weren't driving or sleeping in the camper, they were usually performing some assignment together. It was too much. Muncie was tired of it. Instead of simply making smart comments back or ignoring Asbury, Muncie dreamed of grabbing the man by the throat and punching him in the face until his head flew off into the weeds.
Muncie had hoped relief from Asbury’s humor was at hand when they finally reached the edge of town. "I hope you can keep that mouth shut now. I’d like to do this in stealth mode and avoid any unnecessary hassle,” he warned.
Asbury looked at him offended, feeling like he’d been accused of being unprofessional. "Don't you worry about me. You’re the one who can’t keep your head in the mission, feeling like you have to stop and put a Band-Aid on every injured kid along the way."
Pissed, the men glowered at each other before continuing on in tense silence. The large building they’d spotted earlier rose higher than everything else in town, distinctive with its stone bell tower. They moved toward it, using main streets, but staying low-key. They kept to the sidewalks, walking close against buildings. They didn’t talk or do anything else that might draw attention to them.
Even though they weren't carrying rifles, they didn't look like hikers. Their clothing was wrong and they didn't have the long stride that hikers developed on the trail. Their packs were wrong, more tactical than trail. They looked like men who were up to something, which was exactly what they were.
Blood Bought: Book Four in The Locker Nine Series Page 14
