CHAPTER TWELVE
I stand there with my ear to the door and listen to Mom’s footsteps fade down the hallway. As I do I think about her parting words. Could it be true? Could the dead man in the kitchen alcove really be my father instead of Dad? If he is, why did he stay in his apartment all night instead of trying to find me? Because of his agoraphobia? And why on earth did Mom have an affair with him? Uncle Wayne was such a headcase. And he was broke. And unattractive. Unless . . . Could he have had a lot more going for him fourteen years ago?
I wait a full five minutes to make sure she doesn’t sneak back. As I do the feelings of revulsion I have towards the deceased in the alcove reach critical mass. I turn to my siblings.
“I want to get Uncle Wayne out of here. Do either of you want to help me?”
Neither one moves.
“There’s a little bit of food in the fridge, but I don’t want to do any eating until he’s out of here.”
Lynda sighs, stands up and makes her way over to the alcove entrance. Taylor stays put. “I’m sorry,” he says, staring at the still sleeping cat. “I can’t.”
It isn’t easy, but Lynda and I actually manage to drag Uncle Wayne out into the hallway. Of course, we stick our knives under our belts first, so they’ll be within reach in case we get attacked.
Once that awful chore is done, Lynda goes back to the couch, rubbing her neck. I go back to the alcove. I can’t bring myself to clean up the blood on the floor, so I just throw a lot of newspapers on it.
“Do you guys want to eat something, or just have some cranberry juice?”
“I don’t like cranberry juice,” Lynda says, a tactful way to say that she still wants the orange soda.
“Okay, I’ll get you something else to drink. Do you want to eat? There’s some – “
Lynda shakes her head.
“Taylor?”
“I don’t want any of his shit.”
I pour out three of the glasses of orange soda that Uncle Wayne filled and refill two of them with fresh soda and the third with water. Feeling like a waitress, I carry the three glasses back to the couch. “Thanks,” Lynda says, taking one of the sodas. I put the glass of water down on the coffee table next to the pile of jackets. “I brought you some water, just in case you get thirsty,” I tell Taylor as I sit down next to him. He ignores me.
I take a few sips of the warm soda, the first nourishment of any kind I’ve had since the cheeseburger and Coke I had at the diner. Despite its warmth I find it amazingly refreshing. The sugary taste brings on a memory: I’m eight years old, I’m home in bed with the flu, and Mom brings me some orange soda. And even though I feel really crappy – it’s only my second day of being sick and I still have a fever – the soda, and the fact that Mom brought it to me, makes me feel better.
That memory leads immediately to another, more recent one: that day two years ago when I went with Mom to visit Uncle Wayne. How she pleaded with me to go with her as a favor, and promised to increase my allowance if I did. How she didn’t seem at all happy about visiting him. How Uncle Wayne kept giving me this odd look while I was there, and how the visit ended with Mom giving him a thick sealed envelope. Even back then I knew the envelope contained money, and that she was giving it to him without Dad’s knowledge or consent. What I couldn’t figure out was why she was giving it to him.
“I believe Mom,” Lynda says suddenly. “She’s okay now. We should have let her in.”
“If she seems okay tomorrow I’ll think about it,” I say.
“Did she say she was coming back tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow morning. She’s gonna bring us some food.”
“Great.”
“I’m not staying here all night,” Taylor declares, still staring at Whitey.
“It’s too soon to risk going back outside,” I tell him. “Spending the rest of the night here won’t kill us.”
“You stay here if you want to. I’m going.” With that my brother stands up and puts on his jacket.
“Where? Where are you going?”
“Home.”
Shit.
“Taylor, it’s too soon. Trust me on this, okay?” I plead.
“If it’s too soon it’s too soon, but I’m going home.”
“What if you have to kill someone again?”
Taylor drains his glass of water, grabs his knife, and squeezes past me. “Excuse me.” He starts heading for the door. Even though he saved my life I’m seriously tempted to deck him. But what if my punch isn’t strong enough to knock him out? In his state of mind, how will he react?
“Okay!” I shout. “Just hold on a minute.” I turn to Lynda. “We have to stick together. Are you okay with going home?”
“Totally okay,” Lynda answers, sounding almost cheerful. “Why wouldn’t I be? It’s all over. Mom said so.” She gulps the last of her soda and puts the glass down on the coffee table.
Defeated, I sigh. “Right. Mom said so. Okay, we’ll go home. But I want you both to promise me something. If it turns out that Mom didn’t tell the truth and everyone’s still crazy out there, I want you to promise you’ll come back here with me. No arguments. Promise?”
“Promise,” Lynda says immediately, but Taylor just keeps edging towards the door.
“Taylor?”
He stops, turns and faces me. “I told you, I’m not spending the night here, no matter what. If things are still hot out there and we have to keep hiding out I’m going back to that church. You two can go wherever you want.”
“Okay, fine.” I squeeze Lynda’s shoulder. “If things are still crazy we’ll go back to the church.”
Lynda shrugs and reaches for her sweater. She puts it on without hesitating, as if its sleeves are still completely dry. I consider just carrying my sweatshirt but decide I’ll be warmer with it on.
Taylor stops at the door and looks through the peephole. “I don’t see anyone,” he says as we put on our jackets and grab our knives. When we’re all together he starts to pull back the top deadbolt.
“Hold it,” I say. “I’m the oldest. I’ll open it.”
Taylor steps aside. I unlock the locks, open the door, and step out into the hallway, leading with my knife. There’s no one there except my late uncle (daddy?) and the dead obese woman.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Taylor and Lynda step out into the hallway. I close the door behind them and take the lead again, making a point of not looking down at the corpses as I pass them. I don’t know whether or not Lynda and Taylor do.
The hallway is quiet – no screaming, no crying, nothing.
“It’s so quiet,” Lynda whispers. “It must be over.”
“Or maybe there are no more children left on this floor to kill,” I say coldly, immediately regretting the words.
Once again the stairs are psycho and corpse free. We make it down to the first floor without any problems. There are no problems in the lobby either, just a mystery: the corpse of the pimply teen boy is gone.
“I wonder who took him,” I think out loud.
“Probably his parents,” Lynda says. “They’re sane now so they came and took him home.”
As if to disprove her parental sanity theory someone outside on the street screams.
“It’s not over guys,” I say quickly. “Let’s go back upstairs.”
“No. Let’s see what’s going on.” Before I can stop him Taylor rushes past me and out the lobby doors. Lynda chases after him.
“Taylor! Lynda!” I shout. Shit! I know there’s more hell out there, but what can I do? I follow them outside.
Directly across the street a petite woman wearing a very thick fur coat but no shoes or socks wails and carries a bloodied, pajama-clad boy of about seven in her arms. The woman and boy both have the same color hair. Mother and son. She’s mourning him now. Proof that Mom was telling the truth?
“She’s sorry,” Lynda whispers.
?
??We’re all sorry,” I reply.
Taylor leads the way now, heading – I hope – back to our house. At the corner, sitting on the sidewalk crying, is a big, olive-skinned man wearing jeans and an overcoat. The man cradles yet another dead child in his arms, this one a curly-haired, olive-skinned girl of about ten wrapped in a blanket. Taylor walks right up to him.
“Your daughter?”
The man lifts his head just enough to nod.
“Why are you crying? Isn’t this what you wanted?”
A brief, unintelligible response. I can’t make out what it is. Neither can Taylor.
“What?”
“I said kill me.” The man sits up and glares at Taylor, tears streaming down his face. “Please.” He turns to Lynda, then me. “One of you kill me.”
Taylor shakes his head. “Kill yourself.”
Even after everything that’s happened tonight, saying something like that seems wrong to me. And yet admonishing Taylor for saying it somehow seems even more wrong. I keep silent. Not Lynda though.
“No, don’t do that,” she tells the man. “Don’t listen to him. There’s been enough killing.” When the man presses his cheek against his dead daughter’s, she adds “She wouldn’t want you to.”
Laughing, Taylor saunters across the street without bothering to check for oncoming traffic, just like Madison.
“I’m sorry,” the man sobs.
“We’re all sorry,” I say again. “Come on Lynda. Let’s go.”
We cross the street. “It’s over Caril,” my sister says as we follow our brother. “It’s definitely over.”
“We’ll see. Taylor wait up!”
“I’m glad we’re going home.”
Taylor stops and waits for us to catch up.
“Do you know what’s waiting for us at home?” I ask my sister.
“You mean Mom and Dad?”
“I mean . . . what they did. What they left there.”
“You mean Marky.”
“Yeah.”
“What about Marky?” Taylor asks casually, as if he overheard us talking about a neighbor instead of his dead brother. He’s really starting to spook me.
“I was telling Lynda that when we get home we’re still going to have to deal with Marky.”
“Of course.”
“Can you handle it?”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. Can you?”
“I handled Uncle Wayne, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” I acknowledge. “You sure did. Lynda?”
“I can handle it.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Taylor echoes. He starts off down the street again.
“Don’t worry Caril,” Lynda says reassuringly. “It’s gonna be okay.”
We pass seven more grieving parents on our way home, each one carrying a dead child. By the time we reach our two story brickfront house I’m convinced that the nightmare really is over, and yet unlike Taylor and Lynda, I can’t bring myself to climb the three steps of our front porch.
“Wait!” I implore Taylor as he reaches out to ring the doorbell.
“What?”
“I’m not ready yet.” And I’m not. Because this isn’t my home anymore. It’s not my siblings’ home either, even though they haven’t grasped that yet. The fact is, there’s no longer any such thing as a safe place where people always care, or – at the very least – never try to kill you. No. From now on every kid is homeless.
I lean against the porch, feeling sick to my stomach. “I just want to wait a while.”
Mom must have heard us talking, because the front door opens suddenly and there she is. “Oh thank God, it is you!” She cries, rushing out onto the porch and hugging Taylor. “Thank God!” Taylor doesn’t hug her back. His grip tightens on his knife, and for a moment I’m afraid he’s going to use it. But when Mom releases him he relaxes noticeably.
“You were right Mom,” Lynda says when Mom hugs her next. “It’s over. On the way here we saw a lot of parents. They were all crying. They’re all sorry now.”
“Yes. We’re all sorry.”
Mom lets go of Lynda and steps down off the porch, but makes no attempt to hug me. I guess she can tell that I’m not feeling well.
“Are you okay Caril?” she asks timidly.
“No. I feel kind of nauseous.”
Mom puts a hand on my shoulder and starts to move in closer.
“Don’t.”
She steps back. “Okay honey.” She looks over her shoulder at Taylor and Lynda, then back at me. “Do you all want to come in?”
“What about Marky, Mom?” I ask before my siblings can answer.
“We covered him up and closed the door to his room. You won’t have to see him.”
“I want to see him,” Taylor says angrily.
“Honey, that’s not a good idea. You should remember him the way he was, not . . . not the way he is now.”
“You mean, not the way he is now that Dad wasted him.”
Mom winces. I expect her to break down and start bawling, but somehow she manages to maintain her composure. “Yes,” she says calmly. “Exactly.”
There’s no point in delaying it any longer. “Let’s go inside,” I say.
Mom nods solemnly. She climbs the three steps and holds the door open.
“No. You first,” I tell her.
“Fine.”
Mom enters. I enter behind her, followed by Taylor and then Lynda.
Even though it’s not a home anymore it looks exactly the same as before. Same bare wood floors, same beige walls, same leather couch and armchairs, same bookcase, same watercolor paintings. This might sound crazy, but the sameness of it makes it feel foreign, especially when I see Dad sitting on the couch wearing the same clothes he chased us in. He doesn’t greet us. He just eyes us nervously and waits for one of us to speak first. I’m not up to the task. Neither are Taylor and Lynda. We all wait for Mom to break the ice, but of course she turns to me. She knows no reconciliation will occur until I start talking. Strange that it should all depend on me, Dad’s least favorite kid – the kid who isn’t really his kid. Was that why he never cared – because he sensed I wasn’t his? Or did he know it outright?
What the hell should I say to him?
Only one thing comes to mind.
“Hi.”
A single word that I hope will evoke a response. And it does – a non verbal one. He covers his face with his hands and hangs his head in abject shame. I should feel empowered sseeing him like that, but instead I feel anxious. With his eyes hidden I won’t be able to tell if his mood changes.
“Aren’t you going to say ‘Hi’ back?” Taylor taunts.
Dad starts to cry. “I’m sorry. God I’m so sorry,” he sobs. My paranoia about his concealed eyes gives way to embarrassment, and then to anger, because I don’t know why I should give a damn about his tears.
I guess Taylor is embarrassed by the sight of him crying too, because he chooses this moment to turn and bolt up the stairs. I know where he’s heading. So does Mom. “Taylor don’t! Please!” she yells. But she doesn’t chase after him, Lynda and I do. When we get to Marky’s room we find him standing next to Marky’s bed with a blank expression on his face. He has already pulled the cover off the body and is holding one corner of it in his hand. The body is a horrible sight. Marky’s face is battered almost beyond recognition. What did Dad use on him? His fists? His feet? One of his golf clubs? Mom was right to tell us not to look.
I grab the sheet out of Taylor’s hand and cover my late older brother again. “Out!” I order my two surviving siblings. “Now!”
Lynda runs to the bathroom and starts retching. Taylor, looking shell shocked, staggers out into the hallway. I follow him and close the door behind us.
“Where am I going to sleep now?” Taylor asks, staring blankly at the closed door. “I can’t sleep in there anym
ore.”
“You can sleep with me and Lynda until everything gets straightened out.”
“Okay,” he says, and heads straight to my bedroom.
Finished with her heaving, Lynda exits the bathroom.
“Feel better?”
She nods. “I want to lie down.”
“Good idea.”
Taylor didn’t bother to turn on the lights, but enough light slips in from the hallway for me to see him curled up in a fetal position on my bed, still wearing his jacket and sneakers and still clutching his knife. I consider yanking his shoes off but I’m certain the damn will break and he’ll scream if I do, so I leave him be.
“You get some sleep too,” I tell Lynda. Lynda nods. She puts her knife on the night table between our beds, takes off her jacket and tosses it on the rocking chair in the corner. “Where are you gonna sleep?” she asks, pulling off her shoes.
“Don’t worry. I’ll find a place.”
Lynda lies down on her stomach and buries her face in her pillow. I turn off the lights.
“It’s gonna be okay Lynda.”
By the time I return to the living room Dad has regained his composure. He’s still hanging his head but he’s not sobbing anymore. Mom, teary-eyed now, sits next to him on the couch.
I sit down in one of the armchairs and place my knife on the small table next to it. “Taylor and Lynda are in my room sleeping,” I tell them. “Taylor’s really messed up. You can forget about him ever sleeping in his room again now that he’s seen Marky.”
Now Mom hangs her head. The sight of them both sitting there that way suddenly infuriates me.
“Look at me!” I shout.
They look up.
“Tell me what you were thinking! What was going on in your heads?”
Mom and Dad exchange pained looks.
“Well?”
Mom speaks first. “I hated you kids. All of you. For being young. For having your whole lives ahead of you. For using up so much of mine. All of a sudden it seemed like, just by being alive, you were destroying me, and the only way I could survive was by killing you. When it first came over me Marky was the only one nearby, so I attacked him. He knocked me down and . . . I’m sure Taylor and Lynda told you the rest.”
“And you?” I ask Dad.
“Same here,” he mutters. “All of a sudden I hated . . .” his voice trails off. He looks puzzled.
“All of a sudden you hated who?”
“I . . . I hated your brothers and sister. I wanted to kill them. But . . . but not you. I didn’t even think of you. I wonder why.”
So he doesn’t know!
Mom looks stricken. I don’t blame her. If Dad ever finds out the truth she’s dead. He would never forgive her for sleeping with Uncle Wayne and having his child. Who would?
“Maybe whatever drove everyone crazy tonight didn’t affect you as much,” I suggest.
“Yeah. Yeah, maybe.”
“That must be it,” Mom says.
Even though I know it won’t help matters any, and might even make things worse, I can’t help pointing out the obvious.
“Funny how I should be the only one you didn’t want to kill Dad. I’ve never been your favorite kid.”
Dad nods glumly. “I know. And . . . I want to thank you for looking after your brother and sister tonight. They never would have survived without you.”
I’ve spent my whole life wanting to have some worth in his eyes. Now that I finally do I couldn’t care less. “Marky’s the one who saved them,” I say cruelly. “What are you going to do about his body? I know the police, medical examiners and funeral directors are gonna be overwhelmed for the next few weeks, maybe even the next few months, but it can’t stay up there.”
“I’ll take care of Marky’s remains,” Dad says.
“How?”
“Never mind. Leave it to – “
“How?”
“Burial. In the back yard. Or maybe the park. There’s no other option I can think of. If the police want to they can always . . . “
He doesn’t finish the sentence. I finish it for him.
“Dig him up.”
“Yeah.”
Suddenly I have to get away from these two people. I know they’re not morally responsible for what they did, that they were temporarily insane, but they still disgust me.
“I’m going to bed,” I say, rising to my feet.
“How can the three of you sleep in that one room?”
“Lynda and I will share a bed.”
“I’m going to sleep down here,” Dad says. “You can sleep with your mother if you want to.”
“I’d rather sleep in my room.”
“Whatever you want honey,” Mom says.
“I’ll see you in the morning.” I grab my knife and head for the stairs.
All the fear-induced adrenaline that kept me going tonight drains out of me as I brush my teeth in the bathroom. By the time I finish I feel like I can sleep for a thousand years. But it turns out that I’m not quite through with Mom yet. She appears in the bathroom doorway as I dry my hands.
“Thank you,” she says.
“What for?”
“You know what for. For not enlightening your father about why he didn’t want to kill you tonight.”
“You mean for not enlightening your husband about my real dad,” I counter. I hang the hand towel back on the rack.
“Don’t say that. Your father’s still your father. He’s the one who raised you.”
“Raised me to feel inferior. And you helped him. The fact that I am inferior makes the way you guys treated me even worse.”
“You’re not inferior Caril.”
“What makes you say that all of a sudden? Because I protected Taylor and Lynda tonight?”
“Yes!”
Another wave of revulsion washes over me. I want to retreat to my room but now that I’m alone with Mom I just have to hear the story.
“So what happened with you and Uncle . . . Daddy Wayne?”
Mom shrugs. “I found out that your father cheated on me with one of my friends. So I cheated on him to get back at him.”
“And never told him? What was the point of that?”
“I didn’t have to tell him. Just doing it was enough revenge for me. And I chose Wayne because he was the man your father looked down on the most. It would have killed your father to find out I’d been with Wayne.
“Not finding out he was my dad before I went to his apartment almost killed me.”
“I know. Sorry about that.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “God, how could you have slept with that . . . guy?”
“Wayne was very different fourteen years ago. He wasn’t a total head case yet. And he wasn’t all that bad-looking either.”
“That time I went with you to see him – you gave him money, right?”
“Yes.”
“He was blackmailing you?”
“Yes.”
“I knew it. I mean, I knew you were paying him, I just didn’t know what for.”
“Well now you know. Are you mad that I told you?”
“No. Not at all. It’s not like I’ve lost anything by finding out.” I mean that as a put down of Dad, but Mom doesn’t get it.
“We’ve all lost something tonight Caril,” she says solemnly.
No shit Sherlock. “See you in the morning Mom,” I say abruptly. I take my knife and beat it to my room. Without turning on the lights, I close the door and lock it. I give my eyes a few minutes to adjust to the dark, then pull the rocking chair over to the door. Dumping Lynda’s jacket on the floor, I place the back of the chair against the door and sit down. I know I’d be a lot more comfortable if I curled up on my bed with Lynda, but this is the only way I’ll be able to have enough peace of mind to go to sleep. After briefly contemplating the dangers of sleeping with an edged weapon in my hand, I drop my knife onto Lynda’s jacket and
close my eyes. I expect my mind to be instantly flooded with horrific images of tonight’s mayhem, but instead I see Marky’s handsome, scowling face.
“You should take that knife out of Taylor’s hand too,” he admonishes me. “If it’s dangerous for you to sleep with one it’s dangerous for him.”
“No, no,” I whisper. “If I do he’ll scream. I know he will.”
Marky shakes his head contemptuously.
And then I fall asleep.