The voice came again, silent whispers in her soul. The water cannot take it away. The sssteam may hide your tearsss but your ssscarsss can only be erasssed by hisss dessstruction. Shower after the deed isss done and you can wash away hisss ssstain forever.
She raised her hand. With memories of harsh words, hard blows, and a life filled with sorrow, she brought the heavy, metal head crashing down against his skull. Brad’s body jerked and his eyes flew open as he cried out in pain. The wetness she felt splatter across her face and the salt she tasted on her lips did not stop her. Again and again, Cher’s arm lifted and fell. He had no time to fight.
She could not lift the weapon of his demise any longer. Her muscles shook and strained against the once pleasurable weight. She left the light off, afraid to look upon what remained. She walked away from the carnage as if floating in a fog. Not bothering to switch on the bathroom light, she stripped the matted nightgown from her body and placed it inside the trash can.
She stepped into the shower, the weapon somehow still in her hand. Water fell like scorching rain onto her tender flesh as she seared away decades of shame and loathing. She watched her past swirl down the drain in a watery red spiral before disappearing into the sewers. She scrubbed the remnants of her husband away and attempted to massage the soreness from her muscles with a single hand. After what seemed an eternity, Cher stepped from the healing waterfall and back into reality. She dressed in baggy old things. The clothes she wore did not matter, she only wished to cover her nudity. She had much work to do.
She gathered the small plastic bag from the bathroom trash and headed for her kitchen. She looked away from the butchery she had caused as she crossed back through the room, unwilling to admit he lay in a heap of marred and shredded flesh. Her step quickened and she moved as if Brad’s ghost might appear behind her at any moment. Cher’s fear of her husband still held her prisoner.
She heated the kettle, knowing a hot cup of tea would soothe her nerves. While the bag steeped in her cup, she used her favorite towel to dry the weapon. She took a moment to admire the shine of the black head, the flight flat side proudly displaying the Plumb® logo. He would have loved his Christmas gift. The original white and orange sticker still clung to the polished wooden handle. Cher could almost hear Brad’s voice. “My grandfather always said a man was only as good as his tools. That’s why he used Plumb®, American made and dependable.”
She smiled and tucked his surprise back into its box, added her blood-soaked clothing, and covered it in festive wrapping before completing the present with a bow. She placed the box beneath the Christmas tree, confident that the no one would discover her trickery. The pretty foil wrapped gift would remain under the boughs while everyone searched for answers. Her self-satisfaction grew with each sip of tea.
Cher rinsed her cup in the sink before starting the next task on her mental list. She fetched a pair of cheap latex gloves from a drawer and slipped them on. With a wicked smile, she ran through the house tipping over furniture, sending shelves of breakable trinkets crashing to the floor, and emptying the contents of drawers.
Remembering an important factor, she unlocked every door and window she passed, and left the patio door slightly ajar. Cher spun and twirled, dancing as she wrecked her carefully constructed home. Its neatness and organization were lies. The chaos she rendered was the ugly truth hidden behind the veneer.
She reached the bedroom once more and stepped quietly inside. The need for sight forced her to switch on the lamp, but she moved with stealth. The monster’s presence subdued her, even in death. She took Brad’s wallet from the nightstand by the bed, grabbed her purse from the other side of the room. With great urgency, she emptied her jewelry boxes and change jars into the seemingly bottomless bag. She plucked an expensive diamond necklace from around her neck and the wedding set from her left hand.
As an afterthought, she grabbed the laptop and added it to her collection, finally understanding the need for such a spacious handbag. Cher looked around the room, averting her eyes from the bloody mess that covered the bed and walls. Nothing of value remained. The room held no more than a dead body and bad memories scattered among a few personal things.
For good measure, she pulled clothes from the dressers, tore open a few boxes of papers and dumped her treasured keepsakes from their small shelf in the corner. Satisfied with her handiwork, she returned the room to darkness. Encompassed in the safety of shadows, Cher whispered. “Goodnight, dear heart. I hope you burn in hell.”
She skipped out of the room, a bird whose broken wing had healed. She stopped at the hallway closet and chose another box, more paper, and a big red bow. Moments later, another present rested beneath the tree, two lonely gifts between the elegantly decorated limbs.
She stripped off the latex gloves and shoved them in the bottom of the kitchen trash. She didn’t worry about them being found, women often wore gloves while cleaning the oven and other such things. She knew she had dawdled longer than she should. The time frame would require a story. Forensic science was the bane of criminal success.
Opening a kitchen drawer, she immediately spotted the item she needed. She had always hated the silver of the handle, the danger of the overly sharp blade, and the fact it did not match a single piece of her other cutlery. Now she was thankful for the oddness of its presence. The large bladed butcher knife did not belong in her home at all. One could see it was not something such a fine woman would allow in her kitchen.
Cher sat on the white tiled floor, bracing the handle between her knees. Her breath was ragged and her hands shook. Pain was irrelevant, but the final act in her deception loomed too quickly. Fear began to sink in and instinct took over. Flight or fight, she had to choose. Cher knew she had no other choice but finish what she had started. Locking her thoughts away, she slammed her arms and hands against the razor sharp blade. She was careful not to cut too deep or too shallow. Defense wounds were tricky to create.
Her hands were slick with blood when she lifted the knife. Cher held the handle clumsily in her left hand, whimpering with pain and exhaustion. She wanted to stop but the voice came and drove her to finish what she had started. As she listened to the hissing words, the knife slashed of its own accord. That’sss it, ussse the oposssite hand. Now, jab and ssslice. Almossst done. Then you can ressst.
Her face, arms, chest, and stomach wept blood. Pain seared through her nerve endings and Cher wanted to lie down and simply die. Her plan was so close to completion. She had no choice but deal the final blow. Gripping the wet handle with both hands, she sucked in a deep breath and slowly released it. Closing her eyes, she prepared to thrust the blade forward then remembered she had to see the target to avoid an ugly mishap.
Blood on her hands, blood on the blade, and blood all over her floor, Cher saw nothing else. The house seemed full of blood. The thrust of the knife came from pure need to end the destruction rather than desire to fulfil her plan. With every bit of strength she could muster, Cher drove the 8-inch steel blade into the right side of the chest.
Her mouth opened in a hideous scream filled with pain and regret. Her wildest imaginings had not prepared her for the hell she endured. She couldn’t breathe, each ragged attempt failed. Her vision blurred as the room spun, and consciousness threatened to abandon her. The phone on the wall seemed an endless distance away as she struggled to make her body follow her command.
Pulling herself with her left arm and using her legs to push, Cher dragged her body across the blood-drenched floor. Lack of oxygen muted her screams into moans of pain and grunts of exertion. The silver knife still protruded from her chest and made taking the four-foot procession excruciating. When she finally reached the wall, she rested.
Cher feared she would bleed out and die on the floor before she could call for help but, without a moment of stillness, she knew she would slip into the darkness that clouded her vision and offered a painless alternative deep within its abyss. She took short, shallow breaths though her body scream
ed for oxygen. Every rise and fall of her chest caused pain to erupt inside of her like a volcanic overflow of torture.
She closed her eyes, too tired to fight. The voice inside her head screamed. Wake up! We die if you sssleep!
Cher promised the unknown speaker she would only rest a minute longer, but it insisted she would die. Unable to argue, she opened her eyes and thought of how much she wanted to replace the old wooden baseboards with something more colorful to match the spring-themed curtains. She shifted and pain ripped through her chest cavity. A momentary lapse in reality caused her to forget the steel blade within her lung.
Fresh pain shook Cher the rest of the way conscious. Placing her left hand on the wall, she pulled her knees up and under her. Not using her right hand felt strange and the instinct to move it refreshed the deep ache. She sat hunched on the floor, trying to keep her breathing steady and shallow. With her head down, she saw the red stains that covered her clothing and the liquid that continued to pour out from around the knife.
A wave of nausea came and went before she finally attempted to stand. Her time was short and she knew she must call for help before it was too late. With a final thrust, Cher stood unsteadily. She grabbed the phone from its wall mount and dialed 911 as she let her body slide to the floor. As the phone rang, her mind filled with idle thoughts about repainting after the night was through.
The nasally operator answered on the second ring. “Clay County 911. What’s your emergency?”
Cher opened her mouth to speak, but a strange gurgling was all that came forth. She began to cough in hard, wet barking sounds as blood filled her mouth and splattered onto her lips. Pain shredded her as if a thousand shards of glass filled her veins. In a final attempt to save herself Cher gasped, “Help me.”
Darkness set in, replacing the pain. Her rest was dreamless and without end. The outside world, the pain, the voice, death and mayhem ceased to exist. In the clarity of the moment, Cher knew the feeling of freedom. She was no longer slave or punching bag. She was just Cher, a woman who had chosen to live, lying in a pool of her own blood in sweet silence.
The sirens and voices sounded far away. Hands lifted her limbs and touched her wounds. The pain was gone, replaced by muted sensation. Through hooded eyes, she saw unfamiliar faces in a blur of activity before drifting back into sweet unconsciousness.
December 25, 2013
The past month had been a blur of police, hospitals, therapy, and medications. The strain had streaked her lovely brown hair with silver and her hands still shook from the anxiety of her ordeal. She wanted to be proud of her ruse and the fact that they had never questioned her word on the events of that night. Yet, shame clouded her pride.
The police were kind. They had comforted her as she wept through the horrible story of four intruders who had entered her home in the middle of the night. Cher claimed the men had worn masks and her fear made them larger than life.
She explained that she had not heard anyone come in because she often played classical music loudly through earphones as she read. The living room chair faced the fireplace, and away from the intruders. Her report went on to say that, Brad had gone to bed early. Cher had stayed up late, lost in the newly released Finding Sanity by TR Stoddard, and that was where the criminals had found her.
She claimed one of the robbers held her by knifepoint in the kitchen while others raided the house for valuables. The man who trained the weapon on her throat had taken her necklace and wedding rings. Her body shook as she told investigating officers of hearing Brad’s muffled screams and fighting against the man as she attempted to go to her husband’s aid.
A chubby policewoman informed her of Brad’s death. Cher wept, as a grieving widow should. Tears and lamentations flooded naturally from her lips. She clutched her wounded chest and begged God to look down upon her with mercy.
The hardest part for Cher had been facing his family. They visited her at the hospital many times, but Cher evaded their questions as she drifted in her drugged state. When she could no longer hide behind the morphine, she had to look into his mother’s eyes. Cher said the only thing she could. “I’m sorry, Mary. I’m so sorry.”
The woman had always been kind to Cher and beyond her grief, she understood the guilt her daughter-in-law felt. She had felt the same way when her husband had died the year before of a heart attack. Though the doctors had told her he had died almost instantly, Mary had always felt she could have done something to save his life.
The older woman hugged her daughter-in-law gently and tried to offer comfort. “Honey, it’s not your fault. Those monsters nearly killed you as well. You rest, don’t worry about a thing. He would have wanted it that way.”
Cher kept saying she was sorry and people kept saying it wasn’t her fault. Soon, her guilt started to ease away. By the time the doctors released her from the hospital, she felt justified. Deep inside, she believed that she had acted in self-defence. The man she had murdered had been killing her little by little every day.
On the morning of her release, Cher had not called a single soul. She had asked one of the orderlies for a ride home and he gladly obliged. The fifteen-minute ride had been rough on her fragile body. By the time she climbed from the back of the car and thanked the boy again, sweat made her clothes stick to her body and her stomach threated to evict that morning’s breakfast.
Cher sat on the floor beside her Christmas tree. The pain in her chest screamed and her wounds itched. Her dizziness slowly subsided but her nausea stayed. She focused on familiar things to help calm her nerves.
Someone, either her family or his, had cleaned away the broken things and blood. The house was once tidy and well arranged. More than the spotlessness, something greater had taken place. With the death of her husband, the last of the demons fled. Gone were the vestiges of sadness and shadows that once hovered in the corners of her home.
Once she caught her breath, Cher placed a log inside the fireplace and lit the kindling. She watched flames creep up the wood and lick at its bark. The fire crackled and its heat warmed her cheeks as she turned back to the tree. Kneeling beside it, she admired the way reflected flames danced on the gold bulbs dangling from the green boughs.
Slowly, Cher began to open the presents beneath her Christmas tree. Her old life was gone and it was time to start again. She removed her purse from the first box and pulled out the laptop, money and jewelry. Leaving her blood soaked nightgown and his wallet within, she set the purse gently inside the hearth.
The fire blazed and the plastic edging of the bag hissed. Cher watched the remnants of her old life burn away. Moving on to the next box, she smiled as she remembered when she had purchased the item inside. She had still been trying to do things that would earn her husband’s love and had searched for the antique tool for weeks.
As she lifted the hammer from its box, the irony did not escape her. She had believed the gift would finally bring them together. Instead it had freed her from his curse. Cher held the weapon in her hand a little longer, remembering the weight of it as she swung it with wild abandon. The voice did not come. She had not heard it since that night. Yet, as the fire glinted off the metal claws, she felt something stir and a new tradition was born.
The Monster’s Latest Date
by John Grey
He thought he might
yield to a smile,
because a bright, upturned mouth
was a doorway to a memory,
the tongue, a magic carpet,
fluttering shyly behind white teeth,
primed to take him back to when
there were good people.
He told himself
if the lips curl upward
and the blood rises in the cheeks,
he will return to a time
before the hand came down,
swatted his head
like an insect.
If she shows even the slightest
inclination toward happiness,
he will bla
nket himself in her features,
suffocate the years of pain,
crawl up in the lap of her beaming,
press himself against such
a silent, joyful, pleasurable breast.
If she says the world's a blissful place,
he will believe along with her.
He will let the wounded heart dictate.
His throbbing head need never know.
Mouse and Katt
by John Tucker
“Christ on the cross,” Elijah Kattschmidt muttered from the safety of his 1924 Ford Runabout. “Now I know what that Dorothy girl felt like in the middle of that damn tornado.”
The rain that forced him to pull to the side of State Road 93 had evolved from a steady drizzle to the monsoon that kept him from seeing past the hood of the gray Model-T.
“Lord, if you're gonna send a foul wind to take me to Heaven, Oz, or even Kansas, at least let me get out so I don’t have to see my baby smashed into a hundred smithereens.”
He rubbed the leather console with an affectionate hand, as if calming the flighty vehicle from the elements like a spooked pet – or a frightened child. Elijah swept off his brown felt bowler with a weathered hand and rubbed his matted salt-and-pepper hair in helpless frustration. He exhaled and continued his lamentations to no one in particular. “At this rate, the only way I’m gonna get to Boise is by floating the tarnation there.”
He stared past his metallic prison and glanced at the cornfield on his left. Tall, proud stalks whipped back and forth in a rhythmic unison, battered but not broken by the brutal winds and chilly rain. Elijah stretched out his lanky six-foot-frame, put his hat over his eyes and sought a short nap to alleviate the boredom of his forced confinement.
Bock, bock, bock!
The dulled noise wrested Elijah from his risqué dream about the statuesque redhead in the Ziegfield Follies film. He removed his hat and turned his drowsy attention to the passenger window. Another volley of soft, almost timid knocks made him rub his eyes and focus. He made out the wet, pallid face of a child beside his car. He straightened up, reached out, and pulled the handle to open the door. Bundled in a soaked blanket, the green-eyed girl fought to control her shivers as she addressed him in a soft, reedy voice.
Broken Mirrors, Fractured Minds Page 9
