Mrs. Baxter whirled off the bed, her hands up to shield her face.
"No more, Ronnie," she said. "No more. I ain't done nothin'." She backed into one corner of the room and sat down, as if her body was suddenly to heavy for her quivering legs.
"I know you ain't done nothing," Ronnie said, his brown eyes nearly glowing in the fever-pitch of his violence. "I work all damn day at the chicken plant an' come home, you ain't go no dishes washed. You ain't got no supper cooked. You a goddamn lazy whore." The belt came down again, this time landing on Mrs. Baxter's back while she hunched in the corner. When Ronnie ripped the belt back toward him, there was a thin line of blood along Mrs. Baxter's shoulder blades and a hint of blood on the buckle of the belt.
Mrs. Baxter screamed and arched her back away from the wall. I could see the ugly rip in her flesh, and turned my head away for a moment. Tim swayed beside me, mesmerized by the mirror. His mouth hung open and his eyes were blank. I didn't want to see any more, but I had to see what happened. I turned back to the mirror and was consumed once more.
Ronnie pulled the belt back for another swing and the buckle caught in the drapes. They came down with a crash, and Mrs. Baxter scooted back toward the bed. She was sobbing loudly now, her breath hitching in long, awful gasps. Mrs. Baxter made it halfway under the bed before Ronnie caught her. His callused brown hand caught her by one ankle, while the other hand flailed away with the belt. He began to beat her bare buttocks, bringing blood with every strike. The buckle caught the back of her thigh and ripped down her leg. The wailing was horrible, and she thrashed her feet wildly to free herself from the killing frenzy of her husband. One foot caught Ronnie in the groin, and he backed away, his howls joining those of Mrs. Baxter.
"I'll kill you for that," he said. His voice had dropped an octave, and a slow grin spread across his face. In all my years before or since, never have I seen murder written so plainly across another person's face.
Ronnie crawled toward her. Mrs. Baxter was mostly under the bed by this time, but he simply caught her by the foot and began to drag her into the open. Ronnie's hands were large, with thick yellow nails that seemed luminous in the dim room. The nails were long and almost pointed, and he dug them into Mrs. Baxter's skin as he pulled her from underneath the bed. There were bloody little half-moons where his hands touched her.
Finally, he tangled his fist in Mrs. Baxter's hair and pulled her to her feet. He slung her into the far wall next to the window, and the house shuddered on its foundation. Ronnie held Mrs. Baxter against the wall and began to punch her. Jerome's mother tried to ward off Ronnie's hands, but he was too strong for her.
"No," she said, over and over. I heard her front teeth shatter after one vicious punch, and I saw the fragments of bone hit the floor and scatter.
"Please," Mrs. Baxter said. "Please, somebody help me." For a moment, I thought she saw Tim and me, standing there in her room, two innocent tourists who had stumbled on an ugly scene of death. Her hand reached out toward us, pleading.
And then Jerome was in the doorway, and there was a rusted shovel in his hands. His mouth was open wide, his scream an unintelligible howl of rage. The shovel swung in a high arc, and the blade split Ronnie's skull the way a good cleaver can split an apple. Jerome's stepfather turned and staggered to his knees. The belt was still wrapped around his right hand. He howled in pain. Ronnie tried to struggle to his feet, and Jerome hit him again. Only this time I didn't see Jerome's face in the mirror. I saw mine. I brought the shovel down again and again, until there was blood and gore splattered across the floor, until my arms were heavy leaden weights attached to my shoulders. I could feel the handle of the shovel crack and splinter. Perhaps I held the shovel, but Jerome's strength swung it. I kept chopping away at Ronnie until he stopped moving. And then I hit him some more. Exhausted, my eyes cleared, and I saw Jerome again, dragging the shovel behind him into the hall. He left a smear of blood across the floor, a red badge that would mark him forever.
He came back in a few minutes and walked over to his mother's dresser. He fumbled around in it for a few minutes until he found what he was looking for. "Here," he said to his mother. "Put this on." It was a pink housedress; he held it out to his mother at arms' length and did not look at her. Ronnie's body lay unmoving on the floor. As I watched, a fly settled on it and buzzed serenely.
Then the mirror cleared, and I shook my head. Tim swayed beside me, still drunk with the vision we had shared. "What did you see?" I asked.
"I saw Jerome's mom and stepdad," Tim said. "And I saw Jerome kill him, but it wasn't really Jerome, you know?"
"I know," I said.
"He looked like. . . me."
"Me too," I said.
Tim's legs were weak, and he started to sit down on the bed, then changed his mind. "No way," he said. "I can't stay in here. We gotta get out."
"Yeah."
We left Hidden House the way we had found it. The other kids in the neighborhood finally got the nerve to go inside, several years later. I never asked them what they saw, and they never told me. But I know no one ever went in twice. Someone came by one night and threw rocks through all of the windows, so now the house doesn't watch anyone anymore. It sits in a bend of the road, its blind eyes staring straight ahead. Through the years, it has shifted forward on its foundation so that it almost leans into the road, a blind beggar reaching for scraps of food. Sometime last year, the roof of Hidden House caved in. I can no longer bear to look at it. It looks too much like Jerome's stepfather did as he lay dead on the floor of Mrs. Baxter's room.
END
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