An Unwelcome Homecoming

by Darrell Maloney

  He had another idea to plant their corn in the yard behind them on the outside rows of their garden.

  “That way the smaller plants won’t be blocked by the corn’s shadows. They’ll get more sunlight.”

  Again, Amy took exception.

  “No, dummy. The sun moves across the sky and it’s constantly changing its angle. All the plants will get plenty of sunlight over the course of the day.”

  After awhile Robert just stopped looking for better ways of doing things. His initiative suffered. And when he did have an idea he didn’t share it with Amy. She was, after all, the ultimate “Miss Bossy Pants.” And he was certain she found fault with his ideas because she was jealous and didn’t come up with the idea herself first.

  He took a deep breath and plunged himself back into “Big Stinky” and pulled the door closed behind him.

  He climbed to the top of the step ladder and peered inside of it.

  Most of the muck was absorbed by the kitty litter. The disgusting solid stuff on top would take more time.

  The stench was still there, but was more subdued, less overpowering.

  He was on the right track.

  He took the scoop and dumped four more cups of litter into it.

  That seemed to cover the smell completely.

  The orange bucket still reeked, but he solved that problem by filling it completely to the top with kitty litter.

  The room smelled a thousand times better already.

  But he wasn’t finished yet.

  He opened the door so the stench in the air would dissipate.

  While he waited for that to happen he went and found the construction paper and markers that Amy used to make her darned signs.

  Amy was a sign maker extraordinaire, you see. She made signs for pretty much everything. Not a single room in the house was spared at least one of her signs.

  “Don’t let firewood get too low.”

  “If you drink the last bottle of boiled water, you must boil some more.”

  “When you wash up in the sink BE SURE to use rain water, not drinking water.”

  “Waste not, want not.”

  Robert decided to make his own sign. And while his spelling and penmanship skills weren’t as finely tuned as Amy’s, he was convinced he’d do a capable job.

  He stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth while he worked, just as his sister did.

  It took him half an hour, but he made four identical signs:

  PERCEEDURES FOR DESPOZING

  OF YOUR WASTE:

  CAREFLY POUR WASTE IN PIPE

  THEN PUT TWO SCOOPS OF LITTER IN PIPE.

  THAT’S ALL. EAZY, HUH?

  He found a roll of Scotch tape and taped one sign on each wall in “Big Stinky.”

  Actually, the signs didn’t go on the walls themselves, for each wall was lined with stacked cases of bottled water. He hung a sign on the bottled water on each side of the room.

  He made a point to hang one of them directly over one of Amy’s signs.

  As he walked out of the room a final time he noticed that “Big Stinky” wasn’t stinky any more.

  He’d done it. He solved one of the mysteries and he single-handedly fixed one of their major problems.

  He yawned.

  Being a superhero and saving the world was exhausting.

  He went back to his bed and went to sleep.

  Chapter 39

  Things were different when Robert got up.

  He awakened to a loud “Ahem!” and cracked open his eyes to see Amy standing over him. She had a scowl on her face and hands on her hips.

  Without giving him any time to speak she said, “Don’t you ever cover up one of my signs again, bucko!”

  She turned to storm out and hesitated.

  Then she wheeled around again and said, “And by the way, good job on the poop thing.”

  Then she smiled.

  Two things Amy almost never ever did: compliment Robert or smile at him.

  And he got both on the same day.

  Angela did even better.

  After Amy left his room a very shy Angela knocked on his doorjamb.

  “Robert? Are you up?”

  “Uh, huh. Come in.”

  She walked in and said, “I just wanted to thank you for getting rid of that bad smell. You figured out what those pipe thingies were for when none of the rest of us could.”

  He wasn’t sure why, exactly, but he suddenly felt embarrassed. He forgot what he was going to say, and it was all he could do to get out, “You’re welcome.”

  Then she did something he never would have expected. Not in a gazillion billion years.

  She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

  Then she flushed red too.

  She turned and left without another word.

  Robert felt obliged to say something. Nothing seemed appropriate except, “Thank you.”

  Then he felt stupid for saying it.

  Of all the movies he’d seen in his lifetime… in all the TV kisses he’d seen over the years, no guy ever once told the girl, “Thank you.”

  He felt like such a sap.

  And he felt something else, too.

  Something he’d never felt before.

  He felt all warm and fuzzy inside. And his heart was beating ninety miles an hour. He wondered if this was what girls meant when they said their heart was all aflutter.

  Was this what they mean when they talked about falling in love?

  He couldn’t help but notice how pretty Angie was. And how sweet she was.

  Could it be that he was falling for her?

  He lay back down on his bed and looked at the ceiling for a considerable amount of time.

  His world was changing in ways he couldn’t imagine.

  And he kinda sorta liked it.

  In another room in the basement, Kristy wasn’t having such a good time.

  When Angie left Robert’s room she walked past Kristy’s closed door and heard her weeping inside.

  For a long time the two had been all one another had. Kristy was there when Angela needed a shoulder to cry on, or someone to vent to, or someone to share her hopes and cares and worries.

  And like a good sister, Angela returned the favor.

  Without being invited, she walked into Kristy’s room and closed the door behind her.

  She found Kristy sitting on the edge of her head, beside herself.

  She sat down beside her and took her sister’s hand, then put her other arm around her and pulled her close.

  Kristy put her head on Angela’s shoulder and continued to sob.

  Angie knew that few things were as therapeutic as “leaky eyes.”

  That’s what her grandmother called them, so many years ago. One of the last things she told Angie when she was dying was, “Shed no tears for me, child, for I’ve led a fruitful and wonderful life. And I’m ready for whatever the next step in my journey might be. Be strong, and no leaky eyes. Understand?”

  “I understand. Can I still love you when you’re gone?”

  “Of course, child. I will love you, until the end of time.”

  That was it. That was the very last thing Angie’s grandmother ever said to her. Losing the woman, who was really the only stable role model she ever had, was difficult.

  But she’d always tried to be strong, just as grandmother wanted, and avoided having leaky eyes as much as possible.

  Chapter 40

  “I’m so afraid,” Kristy told her without elaborating further.

  “Don’t be, sis. If that son of a bitch comes here looking for you he won’t know what hit him. We’ll tear him to pieces.”

  “No. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’m not afraid of him. Despite what he did to me, I’m looking forward to seeing him again. I’ve seen him on the streets many times, and believe me, he’s not anyone to be in fear of.

  “The only reason he was able to get close to me was becaus
e I was careless and let my guard down. The only reason he was able to overpower me and… do the disgusting things he did to me was because he knocked me almost unconscious so I couldn’t fight back.

  “No, I’m not afraid of him. I will find him and I will kill him, but I’ll look him square in the eyes when I do. I won’t be a coward like he was and approach him from behind.”

  Angie was a bit shaken by the ferocity of her sister’s words.

  The whole concept of Kristy going out in search of vengeance; the idea she would kill her attacker, unnerved her. No doubt he deserved it. But so many things could go wrong with Kristy going out to enact her revenge.

  But that was a topic for another time.

  That had nothing to do with the crisis at hand.

  “So if you’re not afraid of him,” what is it you’re afraid of?”

  Kristy looked up, her normally pretty face streaked with tears, and said simply, “I’m late.”

  “You mean, late as in… late?”

  “Yes. It should have happened four days ago.”

  “So you think you might be pregnant?”

  “Oh, God, I hope not. I’ve been going over and over in my head about how I’m gonna finish healing and then I’m gonna go out and kill that mother…”

  “Kristy, you have to stop talking that way. Killing him won’t take back what he did to you. And he could turn the tables on you again. This time he might not let you live.”

  “No, it wouldn’t take back what he did to me. But if he did it to me he’s probably done it to others. If I leave him out there to wander the streets he could do it to someone else.”

  She turned to look at Angie to emphasize her next words.

  “Next time he could do it to you, or to Amy. And maybe it would be you who he didn’t let live.”

  She started sobbing again.

  “The thing is, I have to go after him. I have to make him pay. I have to get him off the streets to keep him from beating and raping others.

  “But what kind of monster would I be if I murdered the father of my baby?”

  Angie cringed at the word “baby,” as though it weren’t an innocent thing to be loved and cherished but rather the spawn of an evil man and therefore something evil itself.

  She didn’t know what to say, but she had an idea.

  “Wait here. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  Angie was a voracious reader. She’d always been, and had been praised by her teachers for being highly intelligent and a maker of excellent grades due largely to the habit.

  Dave and Sarah stocked the basement with hundreds of books, in the event they were locked away there for an extended period of time. They were all stacked neatly against a wall, their spines exposed so one could view all the titles and find what they were looking for.

  Angie had been looking for something new to read just a couple of days before and had seen a couple of books which might help the current situation.

  The problem was, they were on the bottom of one of the stacks and took several minutes to dig out.

  When she returned to Kristy she found her curled up in a fetal position and staring at the wall.

  “Here you go,” she said in as cheerful and confident a voice as she could muster. “These might help.

  “Take your pick. I’ll read through one and you read the other.”

  Chapter 41

  Kristy rolled over to see what in the world Angie was talking about.

  There she was, holding a book in each hand and offering them both.

  One was called

  WOMENS HEALTH:

  What to Expect and When to Worry

  The other was

  BASIC HUMAN ANATOMY –

  How the Body Works

  She sat up in bed again, took one of the books, and started to thumb through it.

  Angie sat on the edge of the bed and perused the other one.

  Kristy had a general health class in high school which touched on things such as pregnancy and menstrual cycles and those sorts of things. But it was of limited value in the current situation because it focused mostly on abstinence.

  She remembered the teacher giving a lecture one day and saying, “You girls need to get in the habit of just saying no. Not sometimes, but every single time. All it takes is having unprotected sex just one time and you can get pregnant and/or catch a disease.”

  She remembered being angry at the teacher’s implication that preventing unwanted pregnancies was strictly the girl’s responsibility. But she talked it out with her friend Melissa, who pointed out, “Look, Kristy, your typical high school boy only cares about getting lucky. He doesn’t much care if you get pregnant because he knows he won’t be around to help raise the baby. Like it or not, it falls on you to prevent it because you’ll suffer the brunt of the consequences.”

  It was sound advice. But it didn’t work when Kristy was beaten over the head and forcibly raped, never having the opportunity to “just say no.”

  The one thing the health teacher said which kept repeating itself over and over in her mind were the words, “All it takes is having unprotected sex just one time…”

  Angie, reading aloud from her book, said, “Here’s something that’s interesting. It says a menstrual cycle can be disrupted or delayed when a woman is under severe physical or emotional stress. It’s especially possible if she suffers some type of physical injury.”

  “That’s interesting. Does it mention a concussion specifically?”

  “Not so far. But I’m looking.”

  Kristy found a passage in her own book which addressed inconsistent periods, and how they could fluctuate wildly, especially in younger women, due to a wide variety of circumstances.

  It was another hour before they decided they’d mined as much useful information as they could from the books and put them aside.

  They only stopped then because Kristy needed to use the bathroom.

  She was walking on her own now and getting stronger every day. But she still needed someone to walk with her, as occasional dizzy spells were affecting her stability. The last thing she needed at this point was to fall.

  No, actually the last thing she needed was to get pregnant.

  “Bottom line,” she said as they made their way to Big Stinky, “Is that I just won’t know until I know. And I’m gonna have to live with the possibility I’m pregnant until then.”

  She tried to wear a brave face, and would try to reduce her stress level in the coming days in the hopes it would bring on her period.

  But the truth was, Angie’s concern and help gave her something else to stress about.

  She’d been so laser-focused on the possibility of being pregnant the whole subject of sexually transmitted diseases never came to mind.

  What if she wasn’t pregnant but had an STD?

  The coming days weren’t going to be easy on her. Not by a long shot.

  Chapter 42

  Kristy was getting better by the day, and was itching to heal so she could get out again.

  They were all developing cabin fever from being locked in their basement dungeon, and they’d kicked around the idea of coming out of hiding and occupying the main part of the house.

  They decided to wait just a little bit longer, until Kristy was able to move up and down the stairs quickly.

  Angela told her, “If we’re up there and your attacker suddenly starts breaking down the door with an axe, we might not be able to get you back into the basement fast enough to seal it before he’s in the house.”

  Kristy came very close to saying, “If he tries to break down the door with an axe I’ll just shoot a few times through the door until he’s a dead rapist.”

  She would have too. She was already carrying a new holster and sidearm from Dave’s weapons stash.

  But she didn’t say the words because she’d promised Angie there would be no more talk of killing.

  “I can’t stop you from having those stupid thoughts, but please don’t share the
m with me,” she’d said. “It hurts my heart to think of you doing so violent and unnecessary.”

  So Kristy would continue to have her “violent and unnecessary thoughts.” She’d continue to make her plans. And when she was healed and back on her game, she’d go out looking for attacker.

  And she’d kill him dead.

  Even if she turned out to be pregnant, and even if he was the father of her unborn baby.

  She’d even talked to her abdomen one morning while standing in front of a mirror.

  With one hand on her belly she said, “I don’t know if you’re in there. If you are, you’re much better off without a daddy who would do that to somebody. Even with him gone, you’ll have plenty of people to love you and care for you. People who are good and decent. You don’t need a monster for a daddy.”

  Then she realized she was talking out loud and felt foolish.

  She made a mental note to herself not to talk any more to a baby she wasn’t even sure existed, as the others might think her mad.

  But she wouldn’t stop worrying each and every day until she knew for sure.

  A few days earlier, when she’d first told Angie she might be pregnant, she remembered a conversation she’d had with her good friend Melissa. They talked of irresponsible teenaged boys and how they too frequently left their girlfriends pregnant and alone.

  And it reminded Kristy that she’d made Melissa a promise not long before.

  “I promise you,” she told her friend as she stood over her fresh grave, “I will find whoever did this to you and I will avenge you and your mother’s deaths.”

  For a brief time it occurred to her that perhaps the same man who attacked her also raped and killed Melissa and her mom.

  Then she discounted the possibility as unsupported by the facts. Melissa’s home was locked from the inside. They were very safety conscious people. Whoever killed them was someone they trusted enough to let in, who pulled the locked door closed after he finished his dastardly deed.

  The smelly scumbag who’d raped Kristy was someone they’d never have let into their house.