grumbling with anger, going into the kitchen, doing heaven knew what.
Air filled his head a moment and he stopped to let the sudden dizziness pass. His eyes couldn’t quite focus, and he knew that he would probably have to get to the hospital after all.
Trisha first. He thought. I’ve got to get Trisha out of here. I’ve got to take her to the hospital.
He started up the stairs again, his mind becoming much foggier as he pulled himself up the steps.
He could hear Mother behind him, only a moment ago she had been in the kitchen; he wasn’t sure where she was.
Gotta get her out…
Another step, he was so close. He was almost to the top. He could make it out; he knew he could make it out. He had to get her out—he had to save her.
A hand locked down on his shoulder, slimy and meaty. He knew whose hand it was and shook it off.
Get off, Mother.
The hand locked down again, the brutal fingers slicing into his shoulder, and he pulled her off again, not without effort, and made it to the top of the stairs.
Thank heaven, oh, thank heaven.
Mother was behind him, he turned around quickly to find himself face to face with her, her eyes scanned him and her hair that was so neat was thrown around, as if she had just run her beefy fingers through it. Her mouth was curled in a wicked snarl—or, good heavens was that a smile—her entire face was screwed up tight to match the inferno in her eyes.
“I’m gonna kill you and your little tramp.”
He began to turn when she grabbed on to his arm. His free arm shot out in response and gripped her forearm, his own grip, slightly weakened, dug into the hamburger flesh of her arm.
“Get off me.”
He began to push away and saw the briefest of flashes, quick, like lightening, and suddenly felt very, very weak.
The grin on her face twisted tighter.
He looked down to see her other arm plunged forward, clenched in a fist, the knuckles suddenly speckled with shining dots. A small black rod protruded from her hand, and a metal sliver was extending from that.
He felt the blood before he saw it, a hot river pouring down his chest. Then he saw the crimson fountain form against the white of his T-shirt, forming a wicked grin as it pooled at the end of his shirt right at the waistband.
Then came the pain.
A gray pain drifted up into his head from the hole in his chest.
A hot poker was shoved in his stomach, and he could feel the coolness of the steel buried inside of him, wriggling against the flesh that was so warm, so very warm.
A scream emitted from the wound, and traveled slowly up his body and rattled in his brain, but he could find no way to articulate it, the pain was so exquisite, something that could not be expressed in a cry of any kind, but only by the ever poetic silence.
A tiny whimper escaped, for it was all that his clenched throat could manage, a faint echo of the cry that was demanded of his condition, but the only thing that he could produce.
Slowly, the terrible poker was taken from his body, and Mother’s grin darkened as she looked down at the knife.
“Now look what you’ve made me do…”
He couldn’t speak but he wanted to say something—anything, but all words had been strangled by his silent scream.
He pulled her arm off of him again, her grip having weakened with the glee of wielding the knife.
“It’s for your own good,” she whispered, looking down at the knife.
He felt his insides twist, ever so slightly, but ever so painfully, looking at the chef’s knife.
“She tried to escape, you know.” Mother told him, staring into him with her green eyes that had always been so welcoming before. “She was trying to take this knife, and she was going to kill me. It was left on the counter after I got it away from her. She broke a glass that day, you found part of it with your foot, I believe.”
Oh man oh man oh man.
The knife was plunged forward again and found its place lodged a half-inch away from his other wound.
This time a yell escaped, one of pure agony as the knife locked into place among the other organs and innards that were hidden beneath his fragile layer of skin, the cry echoed in the room and Mother’s face went to a neutral state of vacant expression.
Use it. Use it!
He tried to focus the pain, the gray-blue pain, and waited for the final moment, hiding it all away inside for when he needed it most.
“This is hurting me a lot more than it is hurting you.”
Fat chance, you monster…
She began to retract the knife, and he could hear in his head the scraping of the metal against the soft, warm flesh of his abdomen. He tried not to focus on it, he knew if he did he would pass out and it would all be over.
He tried to focus himself, focus on the pain, he had to use it, use what it gave him for that single, split-second.
The blade squealed against his bones.
She finished pulling out the knife.
Now!
He used all of the pent-up agony to fuel one final burst and pushed backwards for all he was worth, thrusting his arm against Mother’s sternum with the heel of his hand.
Tom could see the surprise register deep down in her eyes, those green oceans of deceit and evil. It was then that she slowly began to wobble, ever so slightly—then not so slightly.
Once more…oh for crying out loud….
He shoved again, this time he thrust harder, just a little lower, catching her just above her stomach, blasting the wind right out of her.
She began to fall backwards, her mouth opened in shock and the knife fell from her grasp as she began to swiftly and violently roll backwards down the stairs.
It was a lot like watching a car wreck in slow motion, watching her arms trying to grasp the rail as her overwhelming girth pulled her backwards and built momentum, the crashing sound she made turned his stomach even more and he realized as he was watching that he was sliding down the wall until he was seated on his rump—watching the wreck.
When she landed it was with a wet thumping noise, like a heartbeat, the wall behind her shook, and rattled the photographs. His father stared back at him with his head cocked in the crooked frame.
For a moment he sat there, unsure of what to do next. Mother didn’t move. She was completely still, he couldn’t even see if she was breathing. For a moment that scared him, but he realized that he had no other choice.
“Ahh!” He cried and reached for the twin fountains of blood on his body, the blood was soaking the shirt and dripping onto the floor, grouping up on the edges and dripping down. It looked like a perverted rain shower.
He looked at the hallway around him, and saw Mother’s room.
Trisha.
Another look down the stairs confirmed that Mother had not moved. The knife was on the ground, two steps below him, spotted with blood—his blood.
Tom turned towards Mothers room, and realized that he couldn’t stand. He had to crawl if he was going to get anywhere.
Painfully he leaned over until he fell onto his chest and belly, and began to carefully pull himself along with his arm, each one screaming at him to stop, begging with him, pleading with him to just make it stop, oh please make it stop.
Blood smeared in streams behind him, leaving sickly pink and crimson marks on the white carpet. He wished he could have ignored it, but he couldn’t.
The room was open, which was blessing number one.
His shoulders tried to lock up but he ignored them. He had to keep moving. He did his best to keep his legs moving, providing some forward momentum, but they were so weak…so very weak.
Blood, so much blood.
The pain rattled in his head, as if someone were shaking him. His eyes felt buried under a layer of sand. His vision was blurring and he wasn’t sure if he was actually moving or just thinking that he was.
His arms screamed.
B
lood.
—Like your father!
Please oh please stop.
Trisha…got to get her out. Got to get her out.
His legs were like jelly.
The pain.
—This is hurting me…
Oh my head my aching head oh my head my aching head…
—…a lot more than it’s hurting you.
He had to get to Trisha, the carpet pulled at his clothes, sucking up his blood hungrily like a beast, tasting him like a…
Dragon?
…beast.
The pain.
Blood.
Oh my aching head.
He looked up. The closet was in front of him already, he didn’t know how he got there, but it didn’t matter. He was there. That was all that mattered, he was in Mother’s room, and he had made it to the closet.
A weak arm reached up, he grabbed the doorknob, slowly, with all that he had left, and he twisted it and pulled the door open. It was all he could do not to weep when he finally had it all the way open. He saw the light was off, but it was clear what was there, she was just as he had last seen her.
Trisha, oh, my love, he thought he said.
She looked down at him with tears, of joy, sadness or both he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t think. It was impossible to think anymore.
The pain.
He pulled himself up to his knees by leaning against the doorframe. His aching body settled into an agonizing pile as blood poured from inside of him. He felt a cool tingle on the back of his neck that was slowly spreading down his entire spine. That same slithering chill, only different, this was a numb chill—it felt good.
Trisha looked at him with her dirty, bloody face. She still looked beautiful. Like an angel.
Blood.
He tried a smile, and felt the goofiness of it on his face in his condition. He couldn’t help it