Detached: Book 1 of the Fleischer Series

by Wendi Starusnak

  “It’s just like a tattoo,” my father said to all of us as if we were all afraid for no reason whatsoever. “We’re all going to get a family branding. It will be great!” This was a man who had lost every single last marble there had ever been in his head. I was certain of that.

  My mother had made a face that said she was in pain as the hot brand met her bare bottom. I could hear her skin sizzle as the mark of the “F” was being burned into her pale flesh. Next was Johnny’s turn. He yelled out in pain only once as the one inch “F” was burned into his bare butt cheek. My turn would be right after his. I was terrified.

  I stepped closer to the grill, faced away from my father, and pulled my pants down just enough to show one of my butt cheeks. The swelling around butt hole was just starting to go back to normal again and I didn’t want anyone to happen to see any trace of what my father had done to me out in the barn the other night.

  The pain of being branded by my father was worse than I had been expecting. I screamed out. It felt like he had burned me all the way down to the bone and it seemed to last for longer than what he had taken to brand my mother and my older brother. When he finally removed the branding iron from my bottom it felt like some of my skin must have come off with it. Tears of pain were streaming down my cheeks. I wiped them away with the back of my hand, pulled my pants back up carefully over my permanently scarred butt and went back over to stand next to my brother.

  Now it was my poor little sister Caroline’s turn. I knew she would scream and cry and that I would probably cry for her. She pulled her pants down below her round bottom and whined a little bit to my father about being afraid of getting burned.

  My father yelled at her, “Everyone else did it without complaining. You’re the last one to go. Don’t be a big baby.” He had my mother hold Caroline still while he placed the burning hot iron on the cheek of her bottom.

  It was horrible. Caroline wailed out a scream like I had never heard from her before. Just as I had thought they would, angry, sympathetic tears flowed from my eyes. I swiped at them with my hand and looked to my right at Johnny. I could tell that he had his jaw clenched tightly shut. He was angry and trying hard not to show his emotions.

  I was furious myself. I couldn’t believe that our mother was allowing this. But she seemed just as excited as my father about the idea of us all being branded with the Fleischer “F”. Maybe she was a lot more messed up in the head than I had originally thought. She would have to be to not only allow such torture of her own flesh and blood, but to watch and participate as well.

  Being branded by our father was our “something a little special” that Dad had thought up for us to do as a family today. Hopefully our family fun was over with for the day. I didn’t think that I could handle any more of my father’s idea of fun today.

  My bottom was stinging and burning where the new “F” now sat. My father must have had the same thought just then because he told my mother to rub some aloe from her plant on each of our new brandings. I didn’t want her touching my butt, but I knew that it would help to make it feel better and I welcomed that idea.

  I was really beginning to get angry. Emily needed me so much, why didn’t she just let me help her? I knew she was wrestling with the idea of me and what I might mean in her mind. Soon there would be a time that she needed me and didn’t care what it might or might not mean for her sanity. I was trying to save her mind for her, not ruin it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Our family fun was not over as I had hoped that it would be after we had all gotten our butts branded. However, we would wait to continue our family bonding time much later on, after bedtime. We spent most of the rest of the day doing different chores as was usual, spent about an hour on school work, then we ate supper, and then headed our separate ways for bed.

  My journal got a full rundown of my branding experience. One thing that I realized and noted as I was remembering the events on paper was that my father did not get branded himself. He only branded the rest of us as if we were his property and might get stolen or try to run away from him. I wrote my first ever swear word that night, calling my father “one sick bastard” in my journal.

  I didn’t even have a chance to fall asleep. I heard the door to the cellar open and my father’s heavy footsteps coming down the stairs. Not tonight, please, I thought to myself as hard as I could, thinking that maybe if I thought it hard enough it might make it come true.

  I completely missed hearing the second set of footsteps as they followed my father’s down the stairs. I didn’t even realize he was there until I saw my older brother Johnny walk in behind our father. Good, I thought. Then he must not be down here for what I had been so afraid of only a moment ago.

  My father approached me where I lay on my bed. To my surprise he ordered me to take off my panties. Why did he bring Johnny with him then if he was just going to do the bad stuff to me? I didn’t understand and I really didn’t like it. The stuff that he did was horrible enough without having someone there that I cared about to see it. At least when Caroline was around in my old room she was sleeping, or I thought that she was and that made all the difference to me.

  I guess that I didn’t move quickly enough for Dad. He reached down and yanked my underwear down my legs and off from me before I had the chance to argue and do it myself. He told Johnny to take his long underwear off. What was going on? What was he going to make us do? I hated this… probably more than anything I had been through before this, I thought.

  Unfortunately, my questions were soon answered. My brother didn’t look at me and I couldn’t look at him either. Dad made me put Johnny’s thing in my mouth and move it in and out like he had forced me to do with him. Johnny tried to argue for the both of us but Dad backhanded him across the face. That settled that discussion.

  Meanwhile my father did his own painful thing down in my private girl part. I didn’t bite Johnny like I had bit my father. I knew he hated this as much as I did so I was as gentle as I possibly could be while my father was shaking me with his rhythmic motion.

  My brother tried to pull away from my mouth and warned me to stop what I was doing. My father, busy doing what he was doing to my girl parts but not too busy to have seen the looks between Johnny and me, simply panted, “No, don’t you dare stop. It’s fine Johnny. It’s only human nature. Go ahead and do it.” Some tobacco stained saliva slid out from the corner of his mouth. It landed on my bed. I was grateful that it hadn’t landed on me instead.

  Not only did my father seem to think what was going on was fine, but he seemed to completely enjoy it and what was most likely about to happen. I knew it wasn’t Johnny’s fault and that he probably couldn’t help it. Johnny moaned and his stuff squirted down the back of my throat.

  Immediately after that my father did the same nasty thing down in my sore and swollen girl part. I gagged and then puked over the side of my bed. Hopefully this was the last thing that my father had planned out for us tonight. That was horrible and embarrassing enough for both me and Johnny.

  “Clean up your mess, you nasty slob,” he said to me while pointing at the vomit on the ground of the cellar next to my bed. “You go get some sleep Johnny. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow,” and then he spit his chewed up tobacco out onto the ground right next to my puke. He had some nerve calling me the nasty slob.

  While I cleaned up my mess and my father’s spit off the ground with my towel I wondered what my dear old dad had planned for the following day. Knowing him, it was nothing good. His craziness seemed to have taken on a whole new meaning and was reaching new heights since Eric’s death and I didn’t have any idea what limit there was to it now. There didn’t appear to be any sort of limit at all to what he would do for his own twisted sense of fun and pleasure. We kids had to get out of here and fast or make my father disappear somehow.

  Hmm, I would have to keep that in mind and consider that last option some more. Finally Emily was starting to think a little more along the lines tha
t I was thinking. The way I saw things, escaping or getting rid of the problem was not a choice, one of the two things was something that just had to be done.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  When I woke up the next morning I realized that I had completely forgotten about the box I had taken from my parents’ bedroom the day before. That was actually probably a good thing since I had just happened to put my journal away before my father had come downstairs with my brother. I would have gotten caught for sure going through that box of pictures.

  Now would be the perfect time to take at least a quick look through it. Unless there was something really important going on no one usually bothered with me in the morning until I showed my face upstairs. I was pretty sure it was still morning. It just seemed as if it must be to me.

  I got all dressed and ready for the day just in case I needed to head upstairs quickly for some reason. The whole time while I was getting ready I had the images of my unknown ghost visitors running through my mind. I was sure that I would recognize any one of them if I saw them in one of the photos in the box.

  After I was completely ready to run upstairs if need be I pulled out the mysterious box full of pictures I had never seen before in my life that I had caught my mother crying over. I decided to only take a handful of the photos out and leave the box hiding where I had it.

  I would have to look for a better hiding spot too if I was going to keep the box much longer. I would keep my eyes peeled and move it today when I had the chance. I wasn’t sure how often my mother took it out to look through it. I was pretty certain that my dad didn’t bother with such things, definitely not any more even if he once did.

  According to what Dad had said to Johnny last night, they should be busy for most of the day doing whatever it was that Dad had in mind. That was okay with me for the moment. I was feeling a little ashamed about what took place the night before and was nervous about the first time that I would have to look at Johnny again. Of course I knew that it was all my father’s fault, but that still didn’t erase my feelings of embarrassment about the whole thing.

  I climbed onto my bed and got as comfortable as I possibly could with a newly branded bottom, still slightly swollen butthole, and freshly bruised girl part. I started to rummage through the pile of old pictures on my bed. The first thing of interest that I came upon was not a photograph, however.

  There was an old newspaper clipping in along with the pictures. The headline on the article caught my eye: Man, Wife, And Young Daughter Murdered in Own Home in Dereves Overnight. I read the article as quickly as I could to find out any possible details.

  “Henry J. Fleischer- seventy-two, his wife fifty-three-year-old Emma C. Fleischer, and their eleven-year-old daughter Anne B. Fleischer were all stabbed to death in their home in the town of Dereves on Tuesday night.

  Their surviving son, eighteen-year-old John Fleischer, reportedly heard screams from his parents’ bedroom just after midnight and ran downstairs to find an intruder fleeing from the scene. He then found the bodies of both of his parents in their bed and his youngest sister on the floor next to their bed.

  Also surviving is Henry and Emma’s sixteen-year-old daughter Ruth Fleischer. Evidently the intruder didn’t realize that there was an attic in the home where the children had bedrooms, ultimately saving their lives.

  Investigators are still working hard and looking for any leads to find the murderer. Please contact the town of Dereves Sheriff’s Department at 555-238-9874 if you have any information you think might be helpful in this tragic incident.”

  Oh my dear God! Mom and Dad weren’t husband and wife… they were brother and sister! Also, I would have bet almost anything that their parents’ murder was not committed by some strange intruder. This must have been why we never heard anything about our other family members or about Mom and Dad’s childhood. And this was the house they both grew up in… Johnny’s and Caroline’s bedrooms were Mom and Dad’s when they were younger.

  My head was spinning. There was too much for my mind to figure out going on here. I heard someone open the cellar door. I scrambled to put the pictures and article back in the hidden box, not even wanting them on my bed any longer.

  I would return the box today as soon as I had the chance. I didn’t need to see any of the pictures, not anytime soon. The one ghost couple in my nightmare must have been my grandparents and the little girl I was guessing must have been my aunt. I still didn’t know who the other ghost couple was, but that question would have to stay a mystery for the time being. I wasn’t ready to find out any more family history right now.

  I wondered why my father would kill his littlest sister and not my mother. If he were going to keep one sister alive, why not let both live? I left my room and headed for the stairs. My mother was almost to the bottom with a basket full of dirty clothes in her arms.

  “Good morning Emily. Breakfast is still on the stove for you. Go eat so you can help me get this house in shape today.”

  I moved out of her way so that she could get over to the washing machine and then I walked up the stairs and into the kitchen. I had so many new questions that I couldn’t ask anyone. I wondered if I should keep what I found out to myself or tell my brother about it. I decided it would be best to keep it to myself for now.

  I didn’t know what to think. That article told a couple of very big, deep, dark secrets. Emily’s guesses about what had really happened were probably all too true too. I wondered if Emily’s grandfather had been the same sort of monster that her father was or if he had been just a nice, normal guy who happened to have an evil son.

  Also, to kill his little sister was terrible… unless he hadn’t been the one to do that. It really could have been anyone in the house: Emily’s grandfather, grandmother, mother, or her father. Maybe that was what had set Emily’s father off in the first place. Maybe he had heard sounds from downstairs and found his little sister murdered by one of his parents… who knew. I wondered if those questions would ever be answered. Either way, it didn’t excuse the type of monster that her father was now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Breakfast was the usual eggs and toast. There was sausage this morning as well. Caroline was still sitting at the table with her plate and chewing, though hers was just about gone already with only what I guessed to be one bite of egg and two bites of toast left.

  “Morning. Where’s Dad and Johnny,” I asked as I placed two eggs on my plate with the flipper.

  “I don’t know. They were already gone when I got up. But Mommy said we might go to the State Fair this week Emily!” She was super excited, jumping up from the table as soon as the last bite went into her mouth. She hugged me tightly while she was still chewing. Then she brought her plate over to the sink, where three other plates already sat dirty with egg yolk, toast crumbs, and sausage grease.

  I really wanted to feel excited too, but I couldn’t. We had never been to The Fair but I had heard other people talking about it from time to time. There were rides, games, food, and I was told everything about the whole place almost exploded with fun. In other words, it didn’t sound like something that my father would plan on purpose without having an evil plan of his own in mind.

  Maybe I would wake up to find that my whole life had just been one long, crazy nightmare. That’s what it seemed like. The things that had happened seemed so crazy and farfetched that I had a hard time believing a lot of it myself. If I found it all too nuts to be true, no one else would ever believe me even if I did come up with the courage to tell them.

  Breaking through my thoughts I heard Caroline. She sounded as if she would just jump right out of her skin with excitement, “Emily, didn’t you hear me? The State Fair… we might go I said!” She was standing right next to my chair as if to make sure that I could actually hear her this time around.

  “I heard you. I’m just not sure if I would want to go or not,” I said matter of factually.

  “What?! How could you not want…,” Mom came back up from th
e cellar and into the kitchen just then, which made Caroline stop talking for the time being.

  I wanted so badly to begin asking my mother all kinds of questions right then. But I knew that I should at least wait until I had put the box of photographs and at least one newspaper clipping safely back where I had taken it from before doing such a thing. So instead of asking her something like, “How did you and Dad meet,” I asked, “What do you want me to work on cleaning first?”

  “Well, we are going to have every inch of this house thoroughly cleaned by the time we are all done. Hmm, let’s have you start upstairs in the boys’ room. I want you to strip the beds and bring the bedding down cellar to be washed. Eric’s clothes and things need to be cleaned out of there too,” she paused after she said that last bit, cleared her throat, and then continued on, “There’s no point in keeping that stuff any longer. We can set up a table next to the Produce Stand to sell some of it. Maybe label it $0.01 each or $0.25 a bag. May as well get what money we can out of the stuff.”