by Michael Bray
He nodded, and as was his way didn’t push the point any further. Again, there was silence, the sounds of cutlery on plates our only company. I looked at my mother, and wondered if she knew or even suspected anything. My instinct said not, surely she couldn’t be so indifferent if she were privy to such a horrific secret, and besides, It was hardly something that my father would be keen to share with his wife.
‘How was your day honey?”
“Oh, not too bad. I tortured and killed a naked girl today.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Did anyone see you?”
“No danger of that, I have a little place across the river away from prying eyes. I might show it to you sometime.”
“That would be nice dear. Would you like more potatoes?”
I felt sick, then my mother said something that almost caused me to scream outright and run as fast and as far as I could.
“What happened to your arms?” She asked my father as she bit into another piece of chicken.
I glanced to the scratches on his forearms, then watched his face, hoping that it would betray the lie that I knew was coming.
“Barbed wire.” He said between mouthfuls of food.
My mother seemed satisfied, but I knew it wasn’t barbed wire. I knew that it was the desperate clawing of his most recent victim as she tried to escape had caused it. I was dismayed with the ease of his lie, and by the lack of guilt or emotion in his eyes. It raised another question, one that gave a completely new depth to my terror.
How long had my father been partaking in his secret hobby?
That night I barely slept. I kept imagining that he knew and that he had somehow seen me in his secret place and was just waiting to get me alone in the house to kill me. However, he didn’t come, and as the days passed, I was reassured that my presence in the shack had gone unnoticed. I started to watch him, to observe his patterns. When he would leave the house in the pickup truck, I would charge through the woods and across the river, and because it was the more direct route, I would always arrive first. I don’t know where, but at some point between leaving our house and arriving at the shack by the dirt road, he always switched vehicles and arrived at the shack in the transit van. I hardly ever ventured back inside the shack, and I didn’t have to. Even from outside I heard the screams and the sounds of torture from whoever his latest victim was. Often, he would come out bloody and breathless, the latex mask perched on top of his head as he smoked a quick cigarette between torture sessions.
I became desensitised, and soon the violence seemed no more real to me than the stuff I watched on TV. As strange as it seemed I got used to seeing the animalistic side of my father, and as winter came and went and a new year dawned, I stopped logging the events on paper, because I knew that I could no longer rely on the police to help me. I knew that I had to take care of it myself, and the only way to do that was to him as he did to others.
I had to kill my father.
It was mid-April by the time I was ready to proceed. I don’t know how many he killed in that shack during that time. If I had to guess, I’d say it was at least twenty, but that was conservative. I was thinking at least forty would be a more accurate number. As to my father himself, I had never seen such a sickening Jekyll and Hyde performance. He was his usual loving and caring self at home, but on those occasions when I was brave enough to venture to the window and look through the gaps in the boards, it was like watching a stranger. I felt sick as he danced and slithered around that hot, sweaty shack, and even though the faces would be different, it would always be a girl tied to the chair, naked and frightened and bloody from his torture, but no more. My preparations were done and I was ready.
It was a family dinner, much like the night when I first discovered his secret. I remember my father was in a good mood that day because he had sold off some shares that he had been sitting on for twenty years, and was looking at a good sum of money. He was grinning and talking to my mother, who was listening politely when I picked my moment to speak up.
“Hey dad, I found something in the woods today.” I said, somehow able to keep my voice conversational and calm.
“That’s good boy, lots of wildlife out there if you look hard enough.”
I paused and watched him as he continued to eat the stew that was in his bowl, wanting to deliver the killer blow as it were.
“Actually.” I said with a smile. “It was across the river.”
He paused and looked at me, his steaming spoon of potatoes and meat held still on the way to his mouth.
“I thought I told you not to cross the river. I made that clear.”
I could see the fury in his eyes and maybe, deep inside a flicker of fear.
“I’m sorry; it’s just that I was curious and crossed to take a look. Nobody saw me. I did find something odd though.”
He set his spoon down, and now it was as if it was just him and me, eyes locked, a battle of wills. My mother may as well have been a million miles away.
“What did you find?” He asked, eyes burning into mine.
“There’s an old shack out there.” I replied, watching him and trying to hold his gaze despite the knot in my stomach.
“I think there’s something going on in there. Something bad.”
I had never seen my father angry, not until then, but he set his spoon down and leaned across the table, pointing at me with a huge, calloused index finger.
“Now you listen and you listen good. I don’t want you in those woods anymore, do you understand?”
I opened my mouth to protest, and he cut me off, bringing a huge fist down on the table, which made both my mother and I flinch in our seats.
“I said no woods, end of discussion.”
“Henry, don’t you think...”
“No Mary, he has to obey the rules.” My father raged.
I could see he was tense, the veins sticking out of his neck, and bulging eyes told me he was close to losing control and I was looking at a beating or worse.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was such a big deal.” I said, trying to sound as downbeat as I could.
He relaxed and I thought that I had done enough to make him react. We finished the rest of our meal in silence and every time I looked up from my plate he was staring at me, and I wondered if he knew that I knew his secret. I waited to see if he would take the bait, and it didn’t take long. He finished eating and set his spoon down.
“I have to head out for a while.” He said it in a way that told both my mother and me that questioning why and where just wasn't an option. We sat in silence as he stood and left, and I chose that moment to make my own move, as I knew exactly where he would be heading.
“I’m going to go up to my room for a while.” I said to my mother, and she barely acknowledged me. I think she was troubled by the glimpse into the usually hidden side of my father’s personality, and I was grateful as I slinked away from the table.
I heard the pickup splutter into life. For a second, the room was bathed in the glow of headlights that brought back memories of that first day when I found his secret place, before the car rumbled away down the dirt track. He was heading to the shack and I had to make sure I was there first. I don’t know if my mother heard me slip out of the front door, and to be honest any potential punishment was the least of my worries. I had been building up to ending my father’s disgusting existence and knew I had to act whilst I still had the courage.
I ran to the woods, crashing through the underbrush and across the river. Even in the full dark, my passage was easy, as there was a good-sized moon to light the way. I arrived just a few moments before my father. He hadn’t bothered to switch trucks, and it was our Ford which skidded to a halt outside the shack.
My father was out of the car before it had fully come to a halt and stalked towards the door. I waited and watched; heart pounding and throat dry from fear. I was waiting for the sound, the one that would tell me that it was almost all over.
It came to me then, a short
sharp rapport like a gunshot as it drifted across the chill air to where I squat in the undergrowth. His scream came next, long and anguished, and I felt renewed, and pushed on by adrenaline, I charged for the open door.
I had set the bear trap just behind the curtain that led to the kitchen area.
I knew he would always go in there first because that’s where he kept the latex mask. The plan was simple. Set up the trap and wait for him to step in it, then once incapacitated, finish him as humanely as possible. The repercussions of what I was about to do had not dawned on me at the time, I just knew it needed to end and because I alone knew what he was, I had to be the one to do it.
I charged through the door and was first hit by the smell, like rancid meat and feces. The girl in the chair looked to have been dead for a long time. How he coped in that tiny, hot windowless space with that stench is beyond my comprehension, and to this day I can’t think of an adequate way to describe just how awful it was. The dead girl however wasn’t my concern, and I ran past her and swept aside the curtain towards my wounded father.
The split second that it took me to realise that he wasn’t in the trap seemed to last forever. I remember feeling a sharp pain in my face, and then I was bouncing off the wall and sliding into a sitting position on the filthy floor.
He came through the curtain and I knew then that all of my planning had been in vain, because he knew. He had known all along. The trap that I thought was sprung for him was in fact set for me.
He was naked apart from the green latex horror mask, his pot-belly shaking as he danced into the room. I could taste the blood in my mouth and when I blinked, I saw flashes of white, which only further aggravated the pain in my head. Did he recognised me as his son? I couldn’t say, all I could hear was his laughing beneath the mask as he skipped around the room and closed the door, the sound of the latch closing making me feel as if it was the final nail in what would soon be my coffin. I couldn’t understand how my plan had failed, as I was sure I had heard the bear trap go off. When he grabbed a length of cane that was leaning against the wall, he whipped it against the floor, and realisation hit me. It was similar enough to the sound the bear trap would make had it been sprung, and enough to bring me charging into his death room.
I could see his eyes glaring at me in the half-light, and although a thousand thoughts raced through my mind, I didn’t say anything. I simply watched him as he approached the girl from behind, and yanked her dead head up to look at me. Her milky eyes were open and glared accusingly, as my father manipulated her mouth and he spoke in a mock female voice.
“I told you not to cross the river and you went ahead and disobeyed my command.”
I was horrified and could only watch as he continued his bizarre ventriloquist act.
“What choice do I have now but to kill the inquisitive boy who couldn’t keep his nose out of daddy’s business.”
I realised then that this man wasn’t my father. He was an animal, a crazed beast. I also realised that I was about to die. He came towards me gibbering and dancing and singing and grabbed me by the shoulders, his strong hands digging into me as he yanked me to my feet. I’m not sure what happened next, maybe it was the anger and frustration at seeing the true face of the man I had called my father, but something in me ignited, and I screamed and brought my knee up as hard as I could into his groin. Crazy or not, he still felt pain, and he crumpled to the floor, groaning as he rolled around. I stumbled to my feet, my only thought was of escaping and calling the police now that I realised that I was completely out of my depth, but he grabbed my leg as I ran past, and I fell to the floor. He was recovering quickly, his eyes angry behind the mask, the same way they had been at dinner just an hour earlier. It already felt like a different lifetime.
I kicked out with my free foot and caught him in the face, but it barely seemed to register. He was up and so was I, and we faced off in that tiny, stinking room, a boy and his crazy, naked murderer of a father. He was laughing as we circled, round and round the stinking dead girl in the middle of the room. He feigned charging at me, laughing all the time. I had seen this before. He was toying with me the way he toyed with them. I heard myself pleading with him in my head, begging for forgiveness but I knew from my observations that to do that would only increase his excitement, and so I kept my mouth closed. He grabbed at me and I wasn’t ready. I tried to rear back but he got a good handful of my t-shirt and pulled me towards him. I squirmed and twisted, and was free of him again.
He charged at me, but this time I was ready and avoided him, and made for the kitchen. He was right behind me and just as we reached the dividing curtain, I made my move, throwing aside the filthy covering and dropping to my knees.
He was going too fast to stop and clattered into me, his knees hit me painfully in the ribs, and he pitched forwards, and this time the sound of the trap going off was not only real, but also loud, echoing in the tiny room with a sharp ker-chuck as it closed on his face. His scream was raw and agonising, and much more convincing than the fake one that first drew me to the house.
I stood, holding a hand to my injured ribs and looked at him. The mask had come off as he fell and I looked at him. It’s funny, because for all my fear, as I stared at him, face down on the floor with blood pooling out around him and without the mask, I wasn’t scared anymore. I couldn’t decide for sure what it was that I felt at that moment. I wondered if it was fear, triumph, or relief. The truth is, that I felt nothing at all. He twitched, and his leg shook involuntarily but even seeing him in such obvious distress didn’t bother me. I put my foot under him and rolled him over onto his back, ignoring his groans as he took the rusty steel-toothed trap with him. I looked down on him then, and our eyes met. Blood was streaming down his face and I could see that one of his eyes had been pushed partially out of its socket by the force of the trap. He smiled at me then and I could hear him trying to speak. I ignored it though. Instead, I made good on my promise. I took the huge lump hammer from the table and stood above him. I think I even managed a smile. He weakly beckoned me close, and I obliged, letting him whisper in my ear whatever it was that he was so desperate to tell me.
Three words.
Three words can sometimes be all it takes to flick someone’s inner switch from sane to bat shit crazy. And I think I was halfway there anyway before he said it and gave me that stupid, crushed, bloody toothed grin. It only wavered when I flashed it right back at him, then I adjusted my grip on the hammer and went to work.
Why I put the mask on to do it I still don’t know.
Inside it felt sweaty and itchy, but somehow empowering. The first blow would have been enough I think to finish him, but I continued to rein blows on his face until it was barely recognisable pulp. I cried and screamed all the way though, and I honestly think that all of my emotions left me that day.
When it was done, I put the second phase of my original plan into place. I took the large can of gasoline from where I had hidden it in the bushes and poured it all around the cabin, then used the matches that I had taken from the kitchen drawer to ignite it. The place burned fierce and fast, and with it went my father and his legacy of terror. I watched it burn, and was shocked to find that I felt no emotion. All I could think about were those three words that were whispered by a dying murderer, a habitual liar and a psychopath, but three words that I believed nonetheless. I didn’t realise until I looked down that I still had the latex mask and hammer clutched in my hands. I walked back to the house, thinking over the enormity of what I had done, and for the first time wondering what may become of me. Still those three words reverberated around my head, as infectious and poisonous as the man who uttered them. The house loomed large, and I could see her silhouette in the window of the kitchen.
Three words.
I pulled on the mask, and took a firm hold of the lump hammer, ignoring the matted hair and skin that clung to its head.
Three words.
Enough to change a life.
I opened t
he door and went inside, those three words singing a crescendo in my brain.
Three words.
Your mother knows!
She never saw it coming, and I took no pleasure from it, but like him, she had to be taught a lesson, and wearing the mask made it easier. I wondered every day since then why I believed him without question. Could it have been the last sadistic play of a sick man? Or did he want to make sure that I understood that it wasn’t just him to blame?
Either way, I reacted, and after it was done, I sat on the floor cross-legged, exhausted and covered with the blood and viscera of my parents. The house seemed very large and quiet, and I knew that it wasn’t something that I could deal with on my own. I picked up the phone and called the police, and told them what I had done. Then I sat on the floor and waited for them to arrive. They were never able to prove my father’s guilt. I had inadvertently destroyed the evidence, and all they had were two murders committed by a twelve-year-old boy. They had circumstantial stuff of course. D.N.A from the transit van and from his clothes were enough to suggest that what I told them was true, but there was never quite enough to prove anything. A detective called Petrov and I talked a lot on those weeks after, but I could never bring myself to tell the story. It’s hard to explain, but I felt like a passenger riding along in my own body, and that somewhere in my head, the real me, was sitting there with his eyes squeezed closed and his fingers in his ears shouting lalalalalalalalala so that he wouldn’t have to face up to what he had done. I was passed from care home to care home, and then when that didn’t work, I was put into a mental health institute to see if they could repair whatever had broken in my mind. I accepted it. I have always been an honest man, and for every day I glance in the mirror and see the genetic mix of my parents in my own reflection, I feel equal amounts of anguish, pain, and vindication. Deep down I know I was right, and that I had to do what I did in order to stop a monster.
I started to have nightmares.
In my dreams, I am tied naked to a chair, and my parents are dancing around me wearing latex masks and gibbering and laughing. I don’t always wake up screaming anymore, but it still frightens me each and every time it happens. The institution that I have lived in for the best part of my life has become my home, and I like the routine. I like knowing when to eat, when to sleep, when to take my meds and when to shit.
