You Can Never Spit It All Out

by Moore, Ralph Robert

  Wick's head pulled up out of the water, coughing, gasping.

  Daughter and father shuffled further out of the water, until they were on solid ground, rain falling on their backs.

  She twisted her face around. Snarling. "He raped me! And you tried to help him escape! You handcuffed me to my rapist!"

  Her father lay in the mud and grass, vomiting.

  Not feeling good. Not feeling good, at all. The route to the nearest road was more than a mile away, uphill through a dense forest. He didn't want his daughter to say anything cruel to him because he didn't want her to have to live with those being her final words to him.

  He worked himself up on his old elbows. Red flush high on both cheekbones. Eyes like two holes in the sand. "I did what I had to do." He grabbed some wet leaves. Put them on top of his head, like the laurel of a hero. Made a father's goofy expression.

  This time she didn't deliberately ignore him. She leaned sideways. Spat in his dead face.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ralph Robert Moore is a novelist, short story writer, and essayist whose fiction has been published in America, Canada, England, Ireland, India and Australia in a wide variety of genre and literary magazines and anthologies, including Black Static, Nightscript, Shadows & Tall Trees, Midnight Street, Sein und Werden, ChiZine, and others. His previous books include three novels, Father Figure, As Dead As Me, and Ghosters, and two short story collections, Remove the Eyes and I Smell Blood. His website SENTENCE at www.ralphrobertmoore.com features a broad sampling of his fiction, essays, autobiographical writings, videos, and photography. Moore lives with his wife Mary in Dallas, Texas.