2. Cal Walker
(Age 10)
A s I followed Cass up the stairs, my heart was beating so hard in my chest that I worried my mother would hear it.
Cass peeked through the crack in the door, holding her hand back to stop me from continuing forward as she did her best to assess whether or not my mother was close by. After a beat, she turned to me, putting her hands on my bony shoulders.
She had dirt smudged on her face and was wearing a filthy purple T-shirt with a stupid unicorn on it, but she still somehow looked fearless and brave.
“I’m going to go first. If she catches us, I’ll distract her. You run for the door and scream as loud as you can once you’re out there. Look for other people. The first person you see, get their attention, okay?”
Nibbling on the dry skin of my lip, I frowned.
I didn’t like that plan. Cassandra could seriously get hurt by the time I was able to come back with help.
“You come with me,” I argued, meeting her gaze. She gave me what I was sure she thought was a reassuring smile.
“I will if I can, but if she catches us, it’s more important that one of us makes it outside. You’re the fastest; it makes more sense if you run.”
How did she know I was the fastest? We have never had a chance to run around and play. Her legs were longer than mine.
“I don’t know…”
“Cal, we don’t have time for this. We need to get Naomi out of here.” Her eyes were burning again, and I knew there was no arguing with her. Finally, I gave her a firm nod.
“Okay,” I agreed, and the corner of her lip quirked up.
“Good.” She pulled me into a quick hug, and I threw my arms around her waist, drawing her close to me. We both smelled awful, but I didn’t care. I buried my face into her ugly purple shirt, so glad to be able to touch someone after days of no contact at all.
We broke apart, and I held my breath as she pushed open the door to the main floor.
It was quiet.
There was almost as much trash and clutter up here as there was in the basement, and we had to pick our way through the mess as we moved.
We didn’t even bother heading to the front door, as my mother had used the front foyer as a dumping ground for half-finished ‘furniture flipping projects’ that never seemed to get finished. She claimed it was a good way to earn extra cash, though I assume one would have to actually sell a piece to profit from it.
We would never be able to quietly move the heavy pieces out of the way. So, instead, we tip-toed toward the kitchen, hoping to go out the back door.
Neither of us spoke, but I so badly wanted to ask Cass where she thought our mother was. It was so quiet it almost sounded like the house was empty.
Was it really going to be this easy to escape?
My foot crunched on a styrofoam takeout container that was full of rotting food and roaches. I tried not to wince as we crept past the rickety kitchen table that was buried in ancient newspapers.
Cass was several feet ahead of me, and I almost squealed in excitement as her fingers closed around the brass knob of the back door.
This was real! This was happening… we were really going to go outside!
My whole body was humming with a strange sort of electricity, and I grinned as Cassandra’s fingers turned the knob, and the door cracked open, spilling golden light into the disgusting kitchen.
There was a rustle of movement behind me, like a rhino was stomping through the pile of garbage on the floor.
Before I knew what was happening, cold, nicotine-stained fingers wrapped around my neck.
“What the fuck do you think you little demons are doing!?” my mother screeched. I tried to run, but she spun me around, backhanding me across the face so hard I saw stars.
“What are you doing out of the basement?” Foul-smelling spittle splattered across my face, and I was met with her dark, bloodshot eyes. Her hair fell in inky strings around her gaunt face, and I felt my bones lock up in terror.
She always said that we were demons sent from the devil to punish her, but right in that moment, she looked like she was evil incarnate.
She wrapped her hands around my throat and squeezed so hard I choked.
“You’ve tested me for the last time, little devil boy! Were you planning to infect the world with your sins?”
I choked and wheezed as her fingers tightened even harder. She shook me as she squeezed, and black spots began to bleed across my vision.
“Mommy, please… stop. Don’t you love me?”
“Love you!? Who could ever love the devil?” She was squeezing my throat so hard I was worried she would snap my neck.
A strange feeling of euphoria began to spread through me as my vision finally completely succumbed to darkness.
I was floating in a sea of oblivion, wondering if I really was the devil and if I deserved to have been born in this hell in which I had been raised.
Suddenly, the pressure on my neck disappeared, and I sucked in a life-saving breath. A hot, thick liquid splattered across my face. Some got in my mouth.
It tasted like metal.
Blinking away the darkness, I found myself lying on the disgusting kitchen floor, covered in a sticky, red substance.
Cass was standing behind my mother, who was also on the ground. Though she was in worse shape than me. She was twitching violently and making a strange gurgling sound as she clawed at her throat.
Blood was shooting from her neck in thick, periodic spurts, and it took me a moment to realize that it was because her throat had been slit.
My wide eyes fell to Cassandra’s hand, which was clutching a bloody kitchen knife. Her face was nearly paper white, and her lips were a firm line… but her eyes… They were burning with that same angry fire.
She didn’t look sorry.
She looked relieved.
“Cass…” I croaked, and she seemed to snap out of the trance she had been caught in. She dropped the knife and rushed to me, concern flooding every line of her face.
“Cal… are you okay?” she asked, and I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure if that was true. My ears were ringing, and everything felt like it was moving in slow motion.
I was soaked in our mother’s blood when Cass barely had a drop on her. She must have attacked our mother from behind when she had been strangling me.
“Naomi,” I rasped, my voice still not working properly. Cassandra’s eyes fell to my neck, which was already so sore that I was afraid to touch it.
“I’ll go get her. You stay here, I’ll only be a minute.” She breathed, and I nodded again. Cass ran back to our mother’s corpse and ripped the black cord from her neck. Sure enough, there was a key on it.
Cass grinned at it triumphantly and fled back to the basement to free our baby sister.
While she was gone, I forced myself to get gingerly to my feet. Creeping forward, I looked down at the gruesome sight of my dead mother. Her eyes were wide and unseeing, and her mouth was hanging open. It was full of blood, and bile rose up the back of my throat at the sight of it.
I forced myself to look away, more because the thought of puking with my neck so bruised was not appealing at all. My gaze snagged on the knife Cass had used to kill our mother, and I picked it up, examining it curiously.
The sticky red substance was already congealing on the unforgiving steel of the blade, and I caught sight of my reflection in the parts of the knife that weren’t coated in my mother’s blood.
I didn’t feel bad that my mom was dead.
I didn’t feel anything.
I was numb.
I found myself wondering what my sister had felt when she had dragged the blade across my mother’s throat.
Had it felt good?
Did she like it?
My fingers quivered on the handle, and my mouth watered.
I imagined it would have felt good.
Suddenly, I heard muffled voices coming from outside the front door. My head jerked up at the sound. I strained my ears, trying to hear the words.
“Thank goodness you’re here, officers. I’ve called in what feels like a hundred times. There’s always screaming coming from this house. I swear there are kids in there. No one ever does more than knock!”
Still clutching the knife, I stepped to the side enough that I could peer down the hallway to the front door.
There were silhouettes of people behind the window that my mother had covered with contact paper.
There was a loud knock on the door, followed by a gruff, “Please relax, ma’am, and let us do our job!”
“Hey!” I called out, though my voice was still damaged from the trauma my mother had inflicted mere moments before. “Help!” I coughed, taking a step forward. I wasn’t sure they would see or hear me. Outside of the contact paper, there were so many wardrobes and armchairs between me and the door.
“Didn’t you hear that! Someone called for help in there!” The woman sounded panicked, and suddenly, the banging on the door got louder.
“Open the door, or we’re coming in!” one of the officers yelled.
“Help!” I tried crying out again as I struggled to push one of the half-painted dressers out of the way.
The door rattled now with the force of the blows the man on the other side was inflicting.
“Cal? What’s happening?” I whipped around to see Cassandra stepping out onto the main floor, a tiny, whimpering Naomi cradled against her shoulder.
“Help came,” I coughed, just as the front door blew open to expose two uniformed officers and a very concerned lady I had never seen before.
She must be the ‘nosey’ neighbor our mother had always complained about.
The big, burly men barreled into the house, shoving the bulky furniture out of their way like it was nothing.
Cass came up to stand next to me, balancing Naomi in one arm, and she reached out to grab my hand.
She didn’t notice that I was clutching the bloody knife she had used to kill our mother… but the police did.