A Better Life, page 15
He hadn’t lied back there. He believed his wife completely.
Though he wished he didn’t.
“Let’s go in,” she said quietly.
Jess opened the door.
She screamed.
Curt, hurtled from his fear and apprehension by desire to protect Jess, leapt forward, slamming his way into the kitchen. His broken arm screamed as it collided with the swinging door. Whatever was in there that had made Jess scream, he’d face it head on.
Curt stopped in his tracks the second he saw the horror in the kitchen.
Oh Jesus. Jesus, no.
Lisa lay sprawled on the floor, her face frozen in a horrified scream, her hands frozen in death’s snapshot, clawing at her chest.
From behind him, Jess moaned. “Oh, God.”
He could barely hear her.
He stared into the black mulched pits where his sister’s eyes had been…
Kind eyes. Strong.
In the abyss of her hollowed-out ocular sockets he saw madness, curled like a rattler, keen to strike out and bite into his mind as he stared helplessly into the depths.
“Lisa,” he uttered, tonelessly. “Lisa…”
Jess was inside now, too. She fell to her knees before the body of Curt’s older sister, the first-aid kit crashing to the floor by her side as she let it fall and reached for Lisa.
Time stood still.
He never cried. He was beyond that. All he’d been through, all he’d done to see his family survive and to give them a better life, it had come to this – his sister, dead and cold and already starting to smell – on a stranger’s kitchen floor.
“It was her, wasn’t it,” he stated.
Jess brushed Lisa’s eyelids softly, shutting them to the world, curtains closing on an empty stage. It took Jess a moment to speak. “We don’t know that, Curt. Pete…Pete may still be alive.”
“It was her.”
“Please, Curt. There has to be a reason for all this.”
“Where is she?”
As if in answer, a quiet weeping sang from the stairwell in the hall. He recognized it as the crying of a child.
Emily.
Curt spun on his heels, ignoring the dull throb of pain in his shattered arm, ignoring the deeper pain in his heart. All his attention was on that soft and quiet sobbing and the girl who sobbed.
He grabbed a table knife from the side of the sink and made for the hallway.
37
“Curt…don’t!” Jess screamed, as he swept the knife from the sink and made for the hall. Curt ignored her. He paced across the floor, stepping over his sister’s corpse along the way. Jess was pulling on his shirt, begging him, but she barely registered.
“I’ll kill her.”
“She’s just a child!”
He steeled himself and moved into the hallway.
She was sat at the foot of the stairs, her head on her knees, her shoulders hitching with the force of her grief. On hearing his approach, she looked up with red, wet, agonized eyes.
“I didn’t want to do it,” she said.
Jess was still pulling at him. He slowed, his attention fixed on the little girl. In his hand, the knife seemed to throb with a life of its own.
“Don’t do this,” Jess implored from his rear. “Curt. Please. There’s no coming back from this.”
Though he spoke to Jess, his eyes were on the girl. “She killed her, Jess. She’s a monster.”
The girl’s face burned red with shame.
“I’m sorry. I had to. I had to, once I saw…” Emily moaned.
“What are you!?” Curt screamed.
“I don’t know,” Emily answered, helplessly.
“She’s a kid, Curt!”
“She’s no damn kid.”
“Look at her!”
Curt gripped the knife. He took a step closer to the girl. “Why?” he demanded through gritted teeth. “Why did you kill my sister!? She never hurt anyone! She was kind. She was good!”
Emily shook her head. “She wasn’t good. She was bad! Not all the way, but she was bad! The things I saw in her heart. I couldn’t allow her to be with us. It wasn’t safe!”
The girl sniffed. She eyed the knife though she seemed unafraid. She wasn’t crying for herself. She was crying over what she’d done, Curt understood.
“You took me from my family. I never asked to be taken, but they don’t want me back. They hate me. I’ve nowhere to go. I only have you.”
Her words gave Curt pause. There was truth to them. Hadn’t he himself gripped the payphone every bit as tightly as he now gripped the knife, breathless with dread while it rang and rang and rang?
The girl was alone.
And that was on them.
Jess came to his side. “Give me the knife, Curt.”
The girl wiped her sleeve across her face. “She allowed bad things to happen to her son.”
“No…” Curt retorted, though the words felt hollow. “She would never have let Billy be hurt.”
“She did! And she would have allowed it to happen again! To me! She was bad!” the girl shouted, her voice cracking with sorrow.
“Curt…the knife…” Jess implored. “You can’t do this.”
“Lisa…she killed Lisa.”
“Look at her, Curt! She’s just a scared kid! She needs us. She needs our help!”
“She’s playing you, Jess, can’t you see that!? She knows what you’ve been through. This…girl…is inside your head.”
Jess held his arm tightly. “We’re responsible for all of this, not her! We caused all of it! Pete…and Lisa…everything! We did this!”
“We had to!”
“To save my life, is that why we did it?”
“You know it is.”
“And what’s my life worth, Curt? Is it worth kidnapping? Is it worth going against everything you know to be good and decent? Is it worth selling your soul for a few more years in this cold fucking world we live in? Worth terrifying a little child? Worth killing one?!”
Curt felt the tension drain from him as his wife spoke. A guilt, deep and profound, rose to the surface of his psyche. Jess, damn her, was right. Whatever else the girl may be, she was a girl first. Small, frail, timid, alone.
What had they become?
Perhaps Lisa was the price he and Jess had to pay, for the choices they’d made.
He closed his eyes.
Lisa…
In his mind, he saw them as children.
Lisa stands in the center of their shared bedroom. In her hand, she holds a portable sound system. A ‘ghetto-blaster’ as they both like to call it, trying to be as hip as they could manage. Music booms from the speakers so loud he can feel it vibrate beneath his skin. She dances on the spot, spinning with her arms out and her head flung back while Led Zeppelin howl like wild animals about a ‘gallows pole’, whatever that is.
“Come on, Curt! Dance with me!” she screams, way louder than necessary.
From downstairs, their mother yells angrily. “What’s all that infernal racket going on up there!? If I hav’ta come up there, I’m gonna shine both your asses good!”
They both laugh, knowing their mother as they do, knowing that ‘shining their asses’ is a torment they’ll never suffer at her kind hands.
“Ah, the hell with it!” he hears Mom grumble, receding back into their living room.
“Dance with me,” Lisa demands again.
Curt rises from the bed and stands by her side. She’s taller than him by at least a head. She takes his small hands in her own and smiles down at him with gleeful abandon. “Now this here is what we call Rock ‘n’ Roll music, baby brother, and it’s just about the greatest thing in the whole wide world!”
At fourteen years old she’s a very different creature from the one she’ll become. She’s thinner for one thing. Thin as a pole. And achingly beautiful, too. Untouched by the ravages of a life poorly lived. Unblemished by a future that awaits her.
Tears streamed down Curt’s face. Jess was saying something, but she was far away.
Before life had ran over her, in ways he both knew and did not know, his sister been his whole world - his hero, his protector, his friend. In the years when he’d lost her to alcohol, God only knew what she’d seen or done.
Well, not only God knew.
The girl knew, too.
And Lisa had died for it.
They dance in a circle, arms stretched out, Lisa grinning from ear to ear with a mischievous shine in her wide, happy eyes. “Do you like it!?” she shouts.
“I love it!” he shouts back. “I love you, as well.” He has no idea why he speaks those words. They just come out. Even so, it feels right to say them out loud.
She stops dancing. She takes one of his small hands and holds it to her heart. “And I love you, squirt. Even if you are a dweeb.”
Outraged, Curt protests. “I’m not a dweeb!”
“Are too!”
“Am not!”
Then she’s laughing, full-throated and giddy. It sounds like music. It sounds like…
Screaming.
Curt’s mind reeled as the memory was swept aside by the cruel present.
He saw Lisa as she was now in the room to his rear, crumpled up on the floor, her face contorted into a terrified scream that would only fade once the maggots hatched and had their fill. The dark, ragged pits where her eyes had been ripped out seemed to stare at him though the darkness of his mind, accusing him, demanding he do something. Anything.
“She’s not a girl,” Curt said, not to Jess, but to himself.
He gripped the knife in his good hand so tightly it hurt.
“This is for my sister, you fucking freak!”
Curt raised the knife.
38
Emily was on her feet in seconds and backing up the staircase. The tears had ceased. The regret that weighed on her young face replaced with fear, apprehension. She looked like a cornered animal.
Jess’ heart lurched in her chest.
If the girl struck out at Curt…
Speaking of Curt, he was following the girl slowly. The knife held out before him, pointing directly at her.
“Curt…stop!” She grabbed his arm again. He spun on her and pushed her backwards. She stumbled backwards into a wall. Behind her a painting shook from its hook and crashed to the floor. Jess was stunned. In all their years together, he’d never laid a hand on her with anything but love.
“She has to die, Jess.” He sounded like a stranger, his voice flat, emotionless, shorn of his natural warmth.
Emily backed up two more stairs, her eyes never leaving Curt as he slowly advanced.
“Leave me alone,” she begged. “I didn’t want to do it. I had to.”
“You killed her!”
“She wasn’t what you thought she was!” Emily’s hand clutched the bannister. Her whole body shook. Her emerald eyes flashed from Curt to Jess, Curt to Jess, Curt to Jess, never resting on either.
“Jess! Make him stop!” she screamed.
“Curt! Put the knife down!” She made for him again. This time, Curt turned with the knife in his hand. “Don’t come fucking near me, Jess. Please…don’t come near me.”
Jess froze.
Would he really hurt her? Was he that far gone? Had seeing his beloved sister, the mother of his nephew, beaten by Pete then torn asunder by Emily’s will, driven him to utter madness? There was no time to ponder it. He was advancing on Emily fast.
He filled the staircase, standing between Jess and the girl. “Emily…run!”
Emily didn’t run. She continued to back up slowly. Her attention now rested entirely on Curt. She moved slowly. Jess, horrified, saw the fear in the girl’s eyes diminish, transform into something else - a child’s natural instinct to survive, to strike out. It was close to taking her over, and when it did...
Curt would die.
And then, after that, his fate would be unspeakable.
Emily was atop the staircase now, stood on the upper landing and moving to the left, eyes set on her advancing would-be killer.
“I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t make me do it,” she implored.
Curt moved forward, undaunted.
Did he not understand the danger he was in?
“Don’t make me hurt you!” Emily warned, her eyes frantic.
The girl was holding back. Jess knew that at any moment she could stop him. She was trying her best. Her very best.
“Fuck you,” Curt’s voice trembled. He loomed over Emily, bathing her in shadow. His limp arm hung, dripping fresh blood onto the carpet, his wounds open anew during the short scuffle with Jess.
He didn’t seem to notice it. Not one bit.
“I’m sorry,” he said, through bitter tears.
Then he raised the knife above Emily.
Jess hurled herself at him. She clung to his back like a wild animal, clawing at his cheeks, raking his flesh, drawing fresh blood, desperately trying to weaken him, shake him from his madness. If she could get her hands on the knife. If Emily could explain her plight. If he had time to think with a sane, rational mind.
“I said stay away from me!” Curt roared. He twisted his hips, his good elbow smashing into Jess’ face, mashing her lips. Pain throttled her senses. She tasted blood in the back of her throat. She held on tight. Curt bucked with surprising strength. In his madness, he’d found a terrible verve, fueled by rage and by grief. Jess toppled from his back, landed on her feet and steeled herself to attack again.
I won’t let him kill a child. I won’t.
With a guttural growl, she attacked.
Curt slugged her, hard.
She stumbled backwards, her world spinning. Stars shimmered before her eyes. Somewhere off in the distance, she heard Emily screaming. “Jess…no!”
She heard Curt, too. “Jess!”
The floor seemed to disappear from beneath her feet, then she was falling.
Jess tumbled down the stairs, screaming.
39
It was over in seconds.
One moment, his wife was stood there before him, and the next…
Curt never even had time to hate himself for striking her.
Jess lay at the foot of the stairs, her body crumpled in a fetal curl. She wasn’t moving.
“Jesus! Jess!” he screamed, immediately forgetting about the girl as the red mist lifted from his fevered mind.
As quick as he could, he made for the stairs.
He was half-way down when, from behind him, Emily spoke.
“You shouldn’t have done that. She was my friend.”
Curt froze in place as she spoke the words.
He never turned around.
He never had the chance.
40
Emily’s soft sobbing dragged Jess from the darkness. She came to, crumpled at the foot of the staircase, her head pounding. A sharp pain shot up and down her left leg like trapped electricity searching for a conduit. Looking down with blurred vision she saw her ankle had swollen to the size of an apple.
Sprained. Perhaps broken.
All of this she thought with perception that was adrift on a fog-ridden sea, a drunkards’ assembling of a narrative.
The fog dispersed quickly though, urged on by the soft sobbing that filled her ears.
Reality hit.
It hit hard and fast.
Curt!
He hit me.
Then…
Falling.
The stairs. I must’ve fallen down the stairs.
She shook her head, hoping to clear it. It only made the pain intensify. Wincing, she turned her head on a neck that felt as badly sprained as her ankle, towards the staircase.
Emily…
The girl was fine. She stood atop the stairs on the landing, and when she saw Jess moving and their eyes met briefly, Jess saw terrible shock on Emily’s face.
“I thought he’d killed you!” Emily cried. “I can’t take it back. I don’t know how!”
Jess had no strength left to answer. Nor the will.
Her attention was focused on Curt, stood between the two, perched almost exactly in the middle of the stairs, half-up, half-down. He seemed rooted to the spot. The knife he’d wielded had dropped from his limp hand and had tumbled down the steps, landing by Jess. He was staring at her, though he said nothing. His eyes brimmed with terror and pain. They seemed to bulge from their sockets. He was shaking too, almost imperceptibly. His whole body seemed charged by an intense muscular cramping that his frozen form would not allow him to express.
Despite his condition, he was horribly aware.
Jess understood that if he could, Curt would be screaming.
“Curt?” she asked, horrified. “Are you alright?”
She saw the first of them.
It wriggled from his limp half-open lips and fell to his feet where it rested like a remnant pulled from a nightmare, a tiny shard of a horror unknown.
It was a maggot.
“Oh god, Curt…”
He opened his lips wide to say something or perhaps to finally free his scream and in the black chasm of his mouth she saw with horror that Curt’s teeth had eroded terribly. They jutted, black and decaying, from moldering gums. His tongue was a festering black slab of rotting meat. Maggots writhed on its putrid surface, some dug into the moist meat, feeding in a frenzy, feasting on the liquifying flesh. They piled up around the sallow skin of his rotting gums; a living, squirming nest of corpse-eaters. As Jess watched, more fell from the stinking rotten hollow of his mouth, dribbling like white drool over his cracked and putrefying lips.
“Curt!” Jess screamed, or tried to. She managed only a weak and unbelieving whine. Curt’s eyes, lost and afraid, seemed to implore her, beg for an answer as his mouth worked silently, forming unspoken words around the feeding larvae that housed inside him.
This…this was his terror.
His personal nightmare.
The thing they’d discussed on a hundred nights and more.
Death.
Decay.
Rot.
