by Alex Severin
She stared, unblinking, into the dark corners of the attic, keeping vigil over every inch for movement in the shadows until her eyes watered from the glittering dust in the air.
She had to stay awake up there. That was the reason for the rocking back and forth and singing to herself - these things helped her to fend off sleep, helped keep away those dark shapes that had taken her, hurt her, once before. And she tried not to look up into the rafters; if she did, she would feel again the ropes that had bound her hand and foot and made her look like Jesus. She shuddered as she remembered it, remembered how they had hurt her, told her she was bad, evil, told her there were demons inside her that they must cast out or else she would burn in hell.
Charlotte rose, then lay face down on the floor amongst the thick dust and desiccated carcasses of spiders and flies and the dried out cocoons of insects that were never born.
“Don't cry, daddy.”
Charlotte whispered through the floorboards into her mother and father's room below her. She had no fear of waking her mother - she slept soundly and Charlotte would often wish that she would fail to wake up some day. Things would be so much better if it were just her and her father.
She could see him clearly, lying there in his cold bed, weeping for her. The moonlight filtering through the slightly-open curtains made the tears on his cheeks glisten like liquid silver as they slid down his face.
The fact that she worried about him only served to make him feel more guilty; his guilt made his tears flow more freely and darkened the heat of shame on his cheeks.
But when Good Charlotte, was at her best, he knew that Bad Charlotte was not far behind her.
A chill ran up and down the length of his spine as he heard Charlotte begin cackling in the attic.
Please don't say it. Please don't say it again.
“Daddy! Why don't you come up here and fuck me, you old cunt?”
Charlotte's voice was cold and hard, and her words made his guts twist and turn inside him. The very thought of what she said every time made him feel ill.
William couldn't bear to hear her talk that way, hear her say those foul, nauseating words. Each time she said them was like a fist in his belly. The words never lost their impact and each time she uttered them was just as horrifying as the first. And what made it worse was the fact that he instinctively visualized those words. The vision in his head made him want to die, made him want to pluck his own eyes out and grind them into the dust on the attic floor.
He thought back to Charlotte's first outburst. He had been watching her play by the fire with a new doll, her blonde curls dancing around her cherubic face. Suddenly, she stopped chattering to the doll and the expression on her face changed.
The smile that spread across her tiny mouth was not a little girl smile.
“Fuck you, you old cocksucker,” Charlotte said to her father.
William almost fell out of his chair. His face paled at the dirt which had come from her mouth. He had no idea where she could have learned such words.
William did not mention this first episode to his wife. Instead, he chose to try to forget it, made himself believe that Charlotte was just repeating something she had overheard somewhere.
He lived in constant dread of hearing Charlotte saying anything of the like ever again. And he lived in greater fear of her ever uttering such words in front of her mother.
William knew exactly how Ruth would react, knew what she would think. She despised her own child and Charlotte was a burden to her, a cross to bear. To Ruth, Charlotte was nothing more than a punishment for her and her husband's Original Sin. Ruth would chastise the child, punish her for the slightest misdeed any time an opportunity arose.
And he also knew that Ruth would interpret Charlotte's affliction as the child being possessed of the Devil. She would say that Charlotte was an evil child, that she had demons and devils running through her veins. She would say their daughter was a profane, blasphemous creature.
And he was right - Ruth said all of those things, all of those things about her own flesh and blood, said all of those things about the child she gave birth to, when she learned of Charlotte's affliction.
~
William lay in the fading darkness, willing the sun to rise so he could get out of bed and away from the loathsome form of his wife and leave only his thoughts there beside her.
When he lay awake like that, alone in his lucidity, listening to his wife snore and mumble in her sleep, and to Charlotte whispering obscenities to him through the floorboards in the attic, a certain day would always, without fail, come back to haunt him.
~
The curtains were drawn and William knew instinctively that something wasn't right. The curtains were never drawn at that time of day. Even in the dead of winter when the days were short and the premature darkness invaded their home, Ruth would tell him that it was not proper to have the curtains closed at such an hour.
But that day, they were closed and the hair on the back of William's neck stood on end as he watched his silent house from the street. He dreaded stepping over the threshold.
Charlotte's muffled screams brought him back to his senses immediately, broke him free from the speculations that had stopped him in his tracks.
William ran at the front door at full speed, only to ricochet back off it. It was locked and Charlotte, his darling daughter, still screamed.
William ran to the window, hoping the curtains were open just the tiniest crack that would allow him a glimpse inside. They were tightly shut. He tore around to the back of the house. The blinds were closed. The back door was also locked and he had no key.
Charlotte's screams continued, they became louder and seemed to be coming from above him. Her cries rang inside his head like madness now, tormenting him from the inside, out.
Charlotte's screams were coming from the attic.
William threw himself against the back door; he screamed Charlotte's name, terrified sobs bursting from the lump in his throat as she pleaded for her daddy to help her.
He ignored the searing pain that engulfed his shoulder and kept throwing himself at the door. Finally, he heard the door-jamb around the lock crack loudly and felt the wood begin to give. He pounded himself against it and only stopped when the door flew open.
William ran through the house following the harrowing trail of Charlotte's screams. He raced up the rickety old stairs, right to the top of the house and stood, panting, outside the attic door.
He gripped the handle with a sweat-soaked palm. He tasted fear, bitter as bile in his throat, as beads of cold sweat began to creep down his back and make his skin crawl.
He turned the door-knob, slowly, blinking stinging sweat from his eyes. His breath caught in his throat as he edged the door open, terrified of what he was going to be confronted with, knowing he had to look, had to see, whatever it was that lay inside.
Noise filled his ears, his own heartbeat deafening him, throbbing painfully in his temples and behind his eyes.
Then the door was fully open.
He forced his eyes open, unwilling to see but knowing he had to - for Charlotte.
The scream in his throat changed to a gargle as it hit a lump of emotion. He choked it out, scarcely able to breathe as horror froze the air in his lungs, his whole being filled with rage and anguish.
William's legs shook violently and his knees threatened to give way beneath him as he saw the bloodied body of Charlotte tied to the attic's rafters.
She was bound, crucifixion-style with her arms outstretched and her feet together, her wrists tightly affixed to the roof frame. Her head hung against her chest now, her mouth dribbling spittle and blood on to her pale skin as her little body succumbed to the exhaustion caused by constant screaming and terror.
The group of people gathered around her turned to look at William; they regarded him with contempt, looked at him as if he were an intruder, scowled at his very presence.
“What the fuck are you doing?” William screa
med through vocal cords that sounded shredded and bleeding.
“Casting out the demons within this child,” said a tall, thin man, slightly Puritan in appearance with his black great coat and wide-brimmed hat.
“Demons? Demons! Are you people insane? What's wrong with you? My daughter is sick, not possessed!”
William shoved his way past them and slammed his shoulder into his wife so hard he knocked her off her feet. A cloud of dust engulfed her as her ample body connected with the floor.
William unbound Charlotte and gently carried her from the attic to her bedroom. He lay her down on the bed and brushed away strands of hair plastered to her face with blood, snot and sweat.
She moaned as she regained consciousness, her angel's face misshapen and swollen.
“I won't say it again, daddy, I promise,” she said in a tiny voice, as if she were afraid now to utter any word at all.
William forced a smile for his daughter whilst murderous thoughts toward the monsters in his attic filled his head. He wanted to kill them all - especially his wife - for what they had done to his Charlotte.
They may as well have killed her, he thought. He knew that there was little chance this experience would not change her forever. Not only had they brutalized her, abused her, they had stolen her. They had robbed him of his Good Charlotte. He was sure that he would never again look upon the radiant smile that helped to salve the sting caused by her outbursts.
And that same day, he knew that he would never be the same again either. He was changed.
William hated his wife.
William wanted her dead.
Each night as he lay in bed next to her, he would fantasize about killing her. William would dream about wrapping his bare hands around her throat and squeezing until her eyes bulged from their sockets and her black tongue protruded from her mouth. He longed to see the blood vessels in her eyes burst and the whites turn red. He wanted to watch, fascinated, enthralled, as her last strangled breath left her body and the life went out from her eyes.
Each time she moved in bed and her skin made contact with his was enough to make him feel physically sick. And the very thought of touching her, of having sex with her, of being inside her Judas womb, made him wretch and taste bile in the back of his throat.
As time went by, Ruth never softened toward Charlotte. And William's homicidal thoughts never abated.
~
William lay in the darkness once more, his wife deep in sleep, her drooling mouth muttering nonsense into the gloom.
He heard Charlotte shuffling in the attic, singing old nursery rhymes to herself, dancing in the dust, but all the time keeping watch for the monsters in the corner.
Charlotte stopped singing and William heard her breathing through the gaps in the floorboards, heavy, labored breathing. She was waiting for something. Something she had waited a long time for.
“Go on, daddy. You can do it. I won't tell, I promise.”
William's hatred for his own wife spilled down his cheeks in hot, salty rivers. He could not live with what she had done any longer. He could not spend another unending night lying next to the woman who, in his eyes, had killed his daughter, their daughter. He could no longer look at the woman who had defiled flesh of her flesh, spilled blood of her blood.
The Charlotte that remained after that day was half terrified child and half foul-mouthed bitch. Her mother's church friends and their brutal exorcism had made Charlotte's affliction worse. Afterward, her outbursts were more vile, more frequent. The rest of the time Charlotte was a cowering wreck afraid of her own shadow. Sometimes, William willed her to have an episode so he could seclude her in the attic; looking at the shell left behind by that day, seeing her constantly down-turned mouth, a mouth that was incapable of smiling, only twisted the knife, salted the wound.
William turned over in bed and stared into the face of his sleeping wife with hate burning in his irises.
...You don't deserve to draw breath, you evil cunt. How could you hate your own child? How could you do what you did to her? How could you let strangers hurt her? You're not fit to eat her shit. Why don't you just die in your sleep, you fat fucking bitch? I hate you. I fucking hate you. I'd like to watch you die of cancer. I like to watch it grow and eat you from the inside out. I'd like to see the flesh hanging from your bones. I'd love to see you dying a slow, painful death for what you did to my Charlotte...
William shook, quaked with greater rage than he'd ever felt before. He felt it in every muscle in his body, as his guts knotted and his neck stiffened, felt his lower abdomen contract and spasm as he became nothing more than his own anger.
...How can I even lie here beside that? Just die. Just fucking die so I don't have to dirty my hands on you. I hope you burn in the Hell you're always preaching about. I hope your fucking God tells you what a rancid piece of meat you are before he shuts the gates on you...
William's hands became shaking fists. He knew that this was the time. He knew this anger he felt would not be contained. It was now or never.
William straddled the slumbering bulk of his wife and stretched out his eager hands, wrapped them around her thick throat and squeezed.
“I hate you, you fucking bitch,” he whispered into her open mouth as he tightened his grip, breathing his vehemence into her. He struggled to keep her down as she began to thrash wildly and almost threw him off. But her strength was no match for his hatred. William held firm, immersed in his murderous act, possessed by the need to watch her die. He could feel her pulse hammering in the palms of his hands as her body pumped adrenaline furiously through her. As he tightened his grip, he felt it slow down and he watched as her tongue darkened and protruded from her cruel mouth. He watched, fascinated, as the blood vessels in her eyes burst and made the whites turn pink. It made him smile - he'd longed to see that forever. He relished the fear which glinted in her eyes an dilated her pupils. And finally, he put his ear down to her gaping mouth and listened intently as the last gasp of breath crawled from her lungs.
And then she was dead.
William felt liberated. He had been emancipated. He would never have to listen to her acidic words eating their way through Charlotte ever again. He would never have to endure another scolding from her. He would never again have to lie in his bed next to her and use all the willpower he possessed to keep himself from killing her. He would no longer have to endure the hatred that grew in him, day-by-day, like a malignant tumor that weaved itself into the very fiber of his being. William wished he had done it years ago. He didn't care what the consequences would be. He knew what he had done was the right thing. He knew this was the only time in his life he had ever done the right thing.
William climbed the stairs to the attic and opened the door.
“It's cold up here, Charlotte; you'll catch a chill,” William buttoned up her cardigan and smiled at her. “Everything's going to be alright now, sweetheart.”
Love for her shone from his eyes as he reached out and touched the fine lines on her face and ran his fingers through her graying hair.
“Everything's going to be alright.”
BONUS STORY 3 - This is a story I wrote for the anthology Hell Hath No Fury which was released by for about 5 minutes. It was then released by another micro publisher for about 3 ｽ minutes after the first one imploded. Then it imploded. Then my head exploded. Gah.
LITTLE PRICK
Little prick...him and his dick.
He makes my lip curl into a sneer and angry blood course through my veins, beat out a steady rhythm on the back of my eyes.
He lay next to me in our marital bed after we 'made love' repeating "I love you" over and over. The way he says it makes me want to cut his tongue out and feed it to him. He always says it with an edge of mirth in his voice that makes me want to slit his throat wide open so I can hear his lungs purge themselves of his last gasp.
It took him a whole minute to shoot his load - in and out a couple of dozen times; my tired, bored pussy drier than the
Sahara, the pussy he couldn't get wet if he poured a bucket of water over it.
I fucking loathe him. His flesh connecting with mine in any manner makes my skin crawl, makes my gut tighten.
I hate the cruel straight line he calls a mouth. I have always found it at odds with his elegant speech, the words he uses, his impeccable pronunciation. It just does not seem right that such eloquence should come from that hateful gash in his face.
I hate the tiny little chip in the corner of his front tooth. Every time I see it, I get the urge to take a hammer and smash the rest of his teeth out. I sometimes fantasize about doing that. When I think about it, an excited spasm takes a hold of my cunt and won't let go. My juices flow freely when I imagine kissing his burst lips, feeling the warmth of his fresh blood and fragments of his smashed teeth spilling into my mouth. I have been on the verge of orgasm when I think about restraining him, binding him hand and foot, and carving my name into his weak flesh with a scalpel blade. I visualize flaying him with a cut throat razor and throwing the bloody strips of skin from his body at the wall, watching it wet-slide down to the floor and leave beautiful scarlet streaks like a bloody Victorian parlour. Then I would think about making him eat some of it, forcing his rotten meat in to his own mouth, making him chew it with the remnants of his broken teeth.
He would probably taste like chicken.
Or weasel.
I don't even remember how it felt to love him. I know that I did, but I have no recollection of it. To even consider having such a feeling for him is utterly foreign to me. I have no idea what I ever found to love about him. Perhaps it was something as superficial as the books he read, perhaps it was his mind that I loved. Maybe it was just the way he talks. It must have been something but what, I don't know.
The thing that hurts me the most, the thing that just shreds my gut into bloody ribbons, isn't all the whores he's fucked, not even the barely-legal, new and improved versions of me he dallied with. No, the thing that makes me want to smash his face so hard it comes out the back of his head is the fact that, through it all, he always said "I love you," every day, without fail. That's the thing that rams the blade in up to the hilt. Why do men do that shit? What's the point?