Dead of Night

by C T Rhames

  Dead of Night

  A Bloodborne Academy Book

  C.T. Rhames

  Copyright © 2019 by C.T. Rhames. All Right Reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Contents

  Chapter 1. Make This Chapter Awesome

  Chapter 2. Make This Chapter Awesome

  Chapter 3. Make This Chapter Awesome

  Chapter 4. Make This Chapter Awesome

  Chapter 5. Make This Chapter Awesome

  Chapter 6. Make This Chapter Awesome

  Chapter 7. Make This Chapter Awesome

  Chapter 8. Make This Chapter Awesome

  Chapter 9. Make This Chapter Awesome

  Chapter 10. Make This Chapter Awesome

  Chapter 11. Make This Chapter Awesome

  Chapter 12. Make This Chapter Awesome

  About The Author

  Other Books By Tom Corson-Knowles

  Chapter One

  “Come on, we can’t stay out all night,” Lily called, looking back at me. “I have a curfew, you know.”

  “I know.” I kicked at a rock on the sidewalk, but didn’t speed up. I was in no rush to get home, even though it was nearly 10pm.

  Lily slowed to wait for me and when I caught up, she linked her arm in mine. “Is it your dad?”

  “Stepdad,” I corrected her. “Yeah. He’s been drinking a lot more lately. It’s nothing serious, I just don’t really want to be there when he’s drunk.”

  “Why don’t you sleep over?” Lily suggested, always the best friend.

  I smiled at her. “Thanks, but I think your parents are ready to call the cops on me if I show up one more time to spend the night.”

  “Okay, but it’s always an option. Besides, my parents love you.”

  “No they don’t!” I laughed at her. It was common knowledge that Lily’s parents thought I was a bad influence and didn’t particularly like me hanging around their daughter. Too bad, since we’d been best friends since the day we met, the first day of sixth grade.

  “You sure you don’t want to sleep over?” Lily paused at the street that led to her house. Giving me one more chance to change my mind.

  “No, I’m good. I’ll see you Monday.”

  “Okay. Don’t forget, we’re going goth on Monday. Let me know if you want me to come do your hair.”

  “I will.” I smiled and watched my best friend head off down the street, swinging her bag in the streetlights. It was dark, but I knew she’d be fine. This area of town was pretty safe.

  It was past ten when I crept through the front door of my own house. It was silent and I breathed a sigh of relief, quietly shutting the door behind me and scurrying up the stairs to the room I shared with my little sister, Sara.

  Her tiny form was curled up in my bed, where she often ended up when she had a bad dream or if Steve scared her too badly. I slid the sleeping girl over to the other side of the bed and climbed in after her, not bothering to change into my pajamas. Still sleeping, Sara snuggled up against me, her little arms reaching out to hug me.

  I smiled and stroked my sister’s hair. She and Brett were the only good things to come from my mother’s marriage to Steve. I wouldn’t change that for the world.

  Thankful that everything was quiet, I drifted off to sleep, my fingers buried in Sara’s golden hair, her soft breath on my side.

  Saturday morning was nothing like the night before. I woke with a start to a crash in the kitchen downstairs. Sara clutched me tightly, her blue eyes wide as she looked up at me.

  “It’s okay,” I assured her.

  “He’s mad again,” she whispered, burying her face in my side. “I’m scared.”

  “It’s okay,” I repeated, even as a plate shattered in the kitchen.

  The bedroom door opened and Brett came running in, his face worried. He looked at Sara tucked up against me and climbed up onto the bed.

  I lifted the covers and Brett tucked himself up against my other side, shivering a little.

  “We’ll just wait a bit, okay?” I told the children. They both nodded.

  To pass the time, I quietly told them a story about two children who got lost in the woods and found a magnificent palace with a queen who was terribly sad because she desperately wanted children. The beautiful queen adopted the children and they had all the sweets and puppies they could possibly want.

  “I’m going to get a puppy for my birthday,” Brett told me with a grin. “It’s the only thing I want and I told Mommy.”

  “What kind of puppy?” Sara asked, popping her head up from my side. “I want a puppy, too! Maddy, can I have a puppy, too?”

  “I don’t know if anyone is getting a puppy, but we can all share one if we do,” I told them.

  “Uh uh, if I get a puppy on my birthday, it’s MY puppy,” Brett said grumpily.

  Sarah pouted. “I want a fluffy puppy. A white one.”

  “My puppy is going to be brown and black and not fluffy.”

  “Mine is going to be so cute with little cute eyes!”

  “Mine is going to have big eyes and a big nose so it can sniff you out when we play hide and seek.”

  They were getting louder as they argued and I quickly hushed them, but it was too late. The ruckus downstairs stopped abruptly.

  “Kids, get down here!” Steve’s slurred voice reached us.

  My little brother and sister fell silent, their eyes wide. They looked at me and I took a deep breath.

  “Okay, I guess it’s time for breakfast. Let’s get going.”

  We walked down the stairs, hand in hand. I felt a familiar knot twist in my stomach as we rounded the corner into the kitchen and dining room area.

  Mom sat at the table, silently crying and covering half of her face with her hand. There were smashed plates and gooey eggs on the floor. I stopped the kids from going into the kitchen with their bare feet and looked at my stepfather, who stood in the middle of it all. His eyes were droopy looking, a sure sign he’d been drinking all night. He was wavering slightly, hardly able to stand, but I knew that didn’t make him any less dangerous.

  “It’s breakfast time and your fucking mother can’t cook a fucking egg. You do it.” He glared at me and then crunched over the plates to sit at the table.

  “Brett and Sara, get over here. Your sister is going to cook you breakfast.”

  I lifted the kids and carried them to the table so they didn’t have to cut their feet. Then, trying to ignore the sniffling sounds coming from my mother, I went to the stove and carefully set about making Steve’s eggs.

  Half an hour later, he was passed out on the couch and the kids were in Brett’s room, doing a puzzle. I handed Mom an ice pack from the freezer for her black eye and started picking up the fragments of plates and dropping them into a trash bag.

  “Why do we stay with him?” I asked quietly, though there wasn’t much danger of Steve waking at this point.

  “Where would we go?” she whispered. “I have no money of my own and he would certainly follow us.”

  “There are shelters and stuff to help people like us,” I told her. I grabbed the broom and started sweeping up the smaller shards. “This is no way to live, Mom. You know that.”

  She looked up at me, the defeat plain in her eyes. “I can’t leave him. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

  “Think of Brett and Sara, then.” I finished the sweeping and dampened a paper towel, giving the floor one last
go-over to make sure there were no invisible shards to stick in tiny toes. “They don’t deserve to be scared every day of their lives, Mom.”

  “I know,” she whispered and burst into tears again.

  I hugged her narrow shoulders, wishing I could just drag her out of the house and away from this stupid situation. Steve had only gotten worse over the years. When he first started drinking, when I was 10, he’d only yelled a lot. Then he’d started punching walls and furniture. Then he’d started punching Mom. And me. I knew he’d hit the little ones, too, but they tended to be less in danger than my mother and myself, possibly because they were his flesh and blood.

  With the kitchen clean and my mother refusing to discuss leaving, I headed upstairs to try and get some homework done. The kids were coloring in Brett’s room and I could hear them arguing over what color a horse could be. Smiling, I sat down at the desk that sat between my bed and Sara’s and pulled out my math book.

  It didn’t take long for the coloring fight to escalate and I finally gave up on algebra and headed to Brett’s room. “Enough, you two! Come on, we have to get out of this stuffy place, yeah?”

  “Yeah!” they chorused.

  “Get dressed then and we’ll go to the park.”

  “Can we get ice cream?” Sara asked, running toward our room to shed her pajamas.

  “I don’t have any money for ice cream, but I’ll push you on the swing,” I promised.

  We headed back downstairs once they were dressed and I left them by the front door. Going into the kitchen, I saw Mom still sitting at the table, holding the now melted ice pack against her face.

  “Mom? I’m taking the kids to the park.”

  “Okay.” She didn’t look up and I waited for a moment, expecting her to tell me to be careful or to watch them. She didn’t say a thing.

  I slipped past the living room where my stepfather was passed out and opened the front door. “Okay, let’s go have an adventure!”

  Chapter Two

  When we got home, the kids hung back while I opened the door and peeked in. Steve wasn’t on the couch, but Mom was making lunch, so I figured things must have calmed down. Ushering my little siblings inside, I sent them to wash up while I went into the kitchen to help Mom.

  She looked up and smiled wanly as I came in. “Did you have fun?”

  “Not particularly, but the kids did.”

  “Good.” We could hear Sara and Brett giggling in the bathroom and she sighed. “I can’t believe Brett turns six tomorrow.”

  “Did you get any gifts?” I asked quietly. I knew she didn’t always manage to get money from Steve.

  “I got that Paw Patrol station he wanted,” she said quietly. “We’ll have to make his cake, but I think that’s okay.”

  “I got him a Marshall jacket,” I assured her. “And we’ll make the cake awesome. We have that confetti cake mix, remember? He’ll love it. Just put a paw print on top.”

  “I think we can manage that.” She turned off the stove. “Steve went out, so maybe we can do the cake before he gets back?”

  “Sure.”

  After lunch, while the kids ran around in the backyard, pretending to play with imaginary dogs, Mom and I made the cake from the mix I’d tucked into the back of the cupboard months ago. While it baked, we sipped tea and wrapped the gifts we’d bought.

  “Will you do the breakfast tomorrow?” Mom asked hesitantly. “I just can’t get the eggs the way he likes them.”

  “I’ll make breakfast,” I told her. I taped down the last flap and flipped the squishy gift over.

  “I just want it to be a good birthday, you know?” She sighed. “I always mess it all up.”

  “No, you don’t. Mom, it’s not you.”

  “Don’t say that.” She looked nervous, as if Steve was secretly spying on us. “Is that cake done yet?”

  We let the cake cool in silence. Mom vacuumed the living room since Steve liked a clean carpet, but hated the sound of the vacuum cleaner. I washed dishes and made the icing. Red for Brett’s favorite Paw Patrol character, Marshall, and white for the paw print I was going to put on top.

  The cake turned out a little lopsided, but I slathered it in icing to even things out and then used a zipper bag with the corner cut out as an icing bag to pipe a big, white paw on the top of the cake.

  “That looks amazing. He’s going to love it,” Mom smiled when she came back in.

  “I hope so, because that darn paw was hard work.”

  “You’re so good to them.” Mom looked out the window at the two children playing.

  “They’re my brother and sister, am I supposed to hate them?”

  “Well, they’re only half siblings and there’s such a gap.”

  “They need me.” I shrugged. “I love them and I don’t mind helping out with them.”

  “Still, you take on far more than you should at fifteen.” She sighed and brushed her hair back, forgetting her black eye. “You’re supposed to be out dating, hanging out with friends and stuff. Not looking after a five and six year old.”

  “I don’t mind, Mom.”

  She looked at me and smiled, her eyes weary. “I know. And that’s what I love about you. Let’s get these things tucked away so a curious little boy doesn’t start eating his cake early.”

  I woke early the next morning, with Sara tucked up against my side as usual. The house was silent, but I knew it wouldn’t be for long. With a smile, I headed downstairs to get ready for Brett.

  First, I spread the dollar store tablecloth I’d bought over the table. I put the cake in the middle of the table and added some candles that we’d saved from the last birthday, mine.

  For the next half hour, I blew up balloons and tied them with string so they hung in garlands from the ceiling. The kitchen looked downright festive by the time Brett came barreling down the stairs.

  “It’s my birthday! I’m six!” he said gleefully. He stopped dead in the doorway. “Did you do this, Maddy?”

  “Happy birthday, buddy!” I grabbed him and squeezed him tight, kissing his dark curls and spinning around with him. Brett squealed with delight.

  “Happy birthday, Brett!” Sara had come down the stairs while we were admiring my handiwork. “Whoa!” she stared at all the balloons and the cake.

  “Look what Maddy did for my birthday!” Brett grinned. “Thank you, Maddy.”

  “You’re welcome. Now let’s keep it down while we wait for Mom and Dad to get up, okay?”

  “We’re already up,” Mom said groggily from the hallway. She came in, closely followed by Steve, who smiled at his son and scooped him up in his arms.

  “You’re almost a man, Brett,” he boomed. “Happy birthday!”

  “Did you get me a present, Daddy?” Brett asked, obviously relieved that his father seemed happy.

  “I did. It’s in the garage.” Steve put the little boy down and Brett shot off toward the garage.

  I heard a shriek of delight and Brett came running back into the kitchen, a black Labrador puppy bounding at his heels. “My puppy! I got my puppy! Thank you, Daddy!”

  Brett threw his arms around Steve, who grinned and patted his head. “Happy birthday. Every six year old boy should have his own dog.”

  “What are we supposed to do with a dog?” Mom groaned, as the puppy started chewing on her slipper.

  Steve’s face turned stormy and in an instant the kitchen went from being a cheery place to being a prison. My throat dried up. Sara and Brett, playing with the puppy, didn’t notice for a moment, but then the silence alerted them. They fell silent, crouched on the floor, eyes upturned, waiting for the anger.

  “I work my ass off to provide for this family, Deb.” Steve stepped toward her menacingly.

  “I know, I know, I’m sorry. I just . . . I wasn’t expecting a dog.” Her face had gone pale.

  “Oh, so I’m supposed to tell you everything now? I don’t recall you telling me what you bought him with my money.” Steve grabbed the package off the table and t
hrew it at her. It hit Mom in the temple and she staggered back.

  It seemed to happen in slow motion. I saw Steve grab the knife I’d put out for cutting the cake. A big knife. He stepped toward Mom and Sara chose that moment to leap up and scream, “NO, Daddy!”

  Steve automatically shoved his daughter out of the way. With the knife hand. I stood there, frozen in place as the blade plunged into her tiny chest.

  She didn’t scream. I think she was gone too fast. Her eyes widened and blood gushed out her mouth and then Steve was yelling, but I couldn’t hear anything over the rush of blood in my own head. Sara fell and I couldn’t see her behind the table.

  Mom was screaming. Brett was yelling Sara’s name. And I just stood there, frozen. Watching as Steve stared down at his dead daughter, then the rage and confusion that filled his face as he looked up at Mom.

  “Look what you made me do!” he shrieked. Mom threw herself to the floor to pick Sara up, that tiny, bloodstained head lolling in her arms.

  “Call 911!” She looked at me, but didn’t seem to see me. Then Steve was on her, the knife slashing up and down through the air. Blood sprayed.

  I finally broke from my trance and ran around the table to grab Brett. He was standing there, shaking and sobbing, snot running down his face, along with the tears and droplets of blood. I wasn’t even sure whose blood it was at this point.

  “Brett.” I choked his name out and grabbed his arm. Pulled him toward the door. We had to get out.

  Brett’s brown eyes locked on mine and he started to turn to follow me, but that’s when everything sped up again.

  Steve lunged at me and the knife stabbed into my back, glancing off my shoulder blade. White hot pain blazed through me and I gasped at how intense it was, stumbling and falling to the floor. I was still grabbing Brett’s arm and he fell with me, sobbing, “Maddy, Maddy!”

  Before I could recover from the fall, Steve was stabbing his tiny son. Brett’s eyes were still on mine and I saw the life leave them, as blood trickled from his little mouth, onto the linoleum of the kitchen floor.