I then realized it was her scream I had heard from outside. She tilted back her head, her skirt scrunched around her waist, her white button-up shirt drenched in red, and screamed—an agonized sound filled with despair and madness—a release of pure evil that continued until her lungs were empty and her breath was gone. Then her head snapped down, and she resumed her action. My eyes fell to her hands, a knife in each. These were knives I recognized: an Eversharp set that we had given her for Christmas the year before. They stabbed and twisted, repeated jerk actions, into my father’s chest, dotting the expanse of his shirt with open wounds, worthless wounds, given the fact that half of his neck was blown off. An unintelligible string of words poured from her mouth in an almost jolly cadence.

“Mom.” I didn’t recognize my voice when it spoke. It wasn’t me; it was that of an old woman, someone who had lost all vitality long ago. It was a dead voice. She froze, one knife in, one halfway out, and turned, her eyes searching until they found mine.

My mother was a beautiful woman—statuesque, with perfect china doll features that combined in absolute harmony on her face. I was not looking at my mother. This thing on my father, this thing—with my mother’s nose, eyes, and hair—had no soul. Its face was splattered with drops of blood, dark in their dried state. Its hair was a cocoon of curls, sticking out in every direction. A mouth hung open, its eyes pierced me with maddening clarity, tears pouring out of their edges, painting black mascara rivers down pale cheeks.

“Deanna? You. You weren’t invited to this party.” She stood, swinging her leg over my father, yanking the knife out of his chest. She frowned at me, a look I recognized as disappointed. “Get me a paper towel.”

I swayed, watching in a cloud of delirium as she turned to the table, reaching over Trent’s dead body to grab the silver platter that still held three cookies. I had just looked back at my father when she whirled around, swinging her arm out and smashing the platter with full force against the side of my head.

The pain dropped me to my knees, a reverberating sound filling my head and not shutting the f**k up, no matter what I did. The platter had hit my ear, and I felt my world blacken and tilt as my equilibrium tried to figure out what the f**k was going on. I grabbed the side of my head and moaned, just as my mother screamed again.

I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take the black spots in my vision, the piercing pain from my ear, the death and blood all around me, and my damned mother screaming—kneeling on the floor beside me, tears pouring from her eyes—the room echoing from her madness.

Then I heard her voice change, incoherent babbles replacing her screams. I turned and saw a knife in her hand, her eyes hungry on me. She growled, low and deep and opened her mouth to scream, lunging at me with the weapon raised high. React. I grabbed the closest knife, the floor practically decorated with every blade from our set, and swung it out, burying it in her chest.

It didn’t slide in easily. I had expected it to ease in, smooth and fluidly, but I caught a bone, or an organ, or something that stopped it short. I yanked, and stabbed again, harder, my body filled with the intense desire to end this all, stop her insanity. Her scream stopped short, and she looked at me with confusion. I moved, ignoring my ear, ignoring the spots in my vision that were gaining in size, and turned, facing her fully, consumed with the need to bury my knife where it counted, where she would gush and moan and cry and be in agony—some form of agony that was comparable to the madness I now existed in. I used both hands and jammed it into her stomach, into an area where there were no bones, nothing to stop the blade from sliding, sharp and fast, all the way into her body. She gasped, pain filling her eyes, the madness leaving them for a short quick second, and then she was Mom. Sitting there, on the kitchen floor, looking at her daughter, who had just stabbed her.

I sobbed, fully broken, staring into her eyes, too ashamed to meet them, but too desperate to look away, needing my mother now more than ever. Our eyes locked, twin brown irises; I reached forward, grabbing her tightly, sobbing into her neck. She slumped against my body, unresponsive to my touch. Then the only screams filling the room were my own.

snap

CHAPTER 35: Annie

Annie lay in bed and looked at the ceiling, plastic glow-in-the-dark stars glued to its surface. The stars didn’t glow anymore, but they still sat there—stuck on and forgotten about. The room was hot but her Momma didn’t believe in turning on the air conditioning ‘til at least June. There was a slight breeze from the open window, and she turned her body so that more of it hit her skin. The trailer creaked and settled, and after a few minutes, her eyes closed.

Two hours later, Ralph Michael Atkins walked silently down the side of the trailer, the dead ground quiet beneath his feet. He reached the open window and waited, still, listening to the sounds of the fields surrounding him. Then he bent; setting the stool on the ground, he climbed on to it, the additional height allowing him to lean his torso directly into the window. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the long silver flashlight he had stuck there. Leaning forward, he switched it on, moving the beam through the girl’s room, illuminating clothes, a plastic drawer set and the bed. He slowed the light’s movement, playing it over pale legs, over pink cloth, until it finally rested on a face, pale and slack with sleep, yellow hair framing it against the white sheets.

Something was bright, hurting her eyes. She squinted, moving a hand and the light disappeared, and then reappeared. Then it was gone, and she opened her eyes to darkness. Out of the darkness, she heard a voice.