Detached: Book 1 of the Fleischer Series

by Wendi Starusnak

  I really disliked the idea of this job. I couldn’t believe she expected me to be the one to clean his stuff out of the room. It felt like she was asking me to erase Eric from our lives completely. I wondered if she even had any pictures of him or any of us kids besides the few that hung on our living room wall. All I had seen in the few pictures I glanced at were strangers I had never met and never heard of.

  “I also want the cobwebs dusted from the ceiling and walls in there and the walls washed down. Dust anything that can be dusted. Wash the window and then sweep and mop the floor. That should all keep you busy for a while. Caroline, you’re going to do the same in your room. Then you two can come find me. It will probably be time for lunch or later by then.”

  First I went to bring our card table out next to the Produce Stand. It would be easier to arrange Eric’s clothes if the table was already in place for me.

  I had so many things on my mind. There was so much that I didn’t know which thing to focus my thoughts on first. There was the question of what Dad and Johnny were doing now and where they were. There was the fact that I had just found out that my parents were actually brother and sister. There was so much. A mother and her daughter had been kidnapped and murdered by my father with the help of Johnny and me. Then my father had murdered a police officer in our barn. Caroline had also told me that our father had killed her friend and her friend’s mother. Now there was this newest idea of going to the State Fair. There was also my newly found information that my only set of grandparents and my aunt had been murdered. I was beginning to get a headache and I didn’t think that I had made it even halfway through the long list of things that were haunting my mind at the moment.

  I dug the card table out of where it had been stored in the shed. It was full of dust, dirt, and bugs. I would have to go back into the house to grab a rag to scrub it down with. I hurried into the house, not wanting to spend too long on just setting the table up. Johnny’s room would take me long enough to clean. My mother had still called it, “the boys’ room”. I supposed maybe after I had Eric’s stuff cleaned out of there it would officially be just Johnny’s room.

  I entered the kitchen through the screen door. Caroline was there at the sink, filling a bucket with water. “Where’s Mom,” I asked, thinking that maybe I could replace the box if she was busy enough with something.

  “Didn’t you see her outside? She said she was going to gather vegetables for tonight’s dinner.” The bucket was now half full and Caroline turned off the faucet.

  “I can help you with that if you can wait a couple of minutes,” I said. I could have her keep watch again and do that coughing thing she did before if Mom happened to come back in.

  “Oh thank you Emily!” I explained that I needed her to do as she had done before for me. She began to refuse, but I told her if she did that I would get Mom to let me tell her a story before bed tonight. That was all it took to convince her.

  I got the box from its hiding place in my poor excuse for a room. I then delivered it safely without any problems to its original resting spot in Mom and Dad’s bedroom closet. Whew, now I would have at least one last thing to worry about.

  Mom came in from outside just as I was entering the kitchen again. I began to carry the bucket of soapy water to Caroline’s room as I had told her I would. Mom had asked why I was carrying it for her and I explained to her that it would be easier to carry the bucket for Caroline than to have to clean up all the spills she would be sure to make on the way if she had done it herself. She nodded in understanding.

  On the way back downstairs from Caroline’s room, my mind started to wander back to my list of worries. The current biggest worry I had was Johnny. With the way Dad had been, especially lately, he and Johnny could be almost anywhere doing just about anything imaginable and even something unimaginable was not out of the question. As much as I feared my father, I hoped for Johnny’s sake that they returned home soon.

  Mom was at the table when I walked into the kitchen again. She quickly stopped the drink she had been taking from her bottle and slipped it back into her apron pocket. I pretended not to notice. I really didn’t care anymore whether she drank or not.

  Remembering that I had originally gone into the house for a wash rag, I grabbed one from the stack under the kitchen sink. I thought about the fact that Mom and Dad were brother and sister as I grabbed a little pail to put soapy water in. Now that the box of pictures was back in its place I could bring up the subject with her. I began running the water into the pail and asked my mother as conversationally as I could, “Mom, how did you and Dad meet? I’ve never heard that story.”

  She chuckled and put down the knife that she had been peeling potatoes with (she seemed to do that a lot because of me). I searched her face for similarities that she and Dad might share that I hadn’t noticed before while she said, “That’s a long story Emily and best saved for when we don’t have so much work to get done. Now go about what you were doing. I have to grab the clothes and hang them out to dry before it decides to rain.”

  Of course she didn’t have time to explain right then how Dad and she met when she was born and that they had slept across the short hallway from each other for their whole childhood. I’d have to remember to check my parents out for shared family traits when they were both in front of me sometime. I couldn’t spot anything immediately that screamed related between the two to me in such a short period of time.

  It was quite a beautiful day outside, not too hot and not too cold. It was too bad that I didn’t have more work to do out here today. I took my time cleaning the card table even though just a quick wipe would have been good enough.

  While I cleaned the table my thoughts traveled off to all of my father’s most recent murder victims. The one that bothered me the most to think about was that of the adorable little toddler. I really hoped that she hadn’t suffered long. I knew that her flesh had been in the stew we had eaten for dinner and maybe some had even been mixed with our sausage. I tried to think of it as if now she would always be a part of me; like some of her spirit was in the stew that I had eaten and so now it would stay in me. I knew it was a strange thought, but that’s how I got past the idea of eating her body without throwing up each time I thought about it. Thankfully I found that people (well, toddlers at least) actually tasted pretty decent, almost like pork. Maybe I was as twisted as I thought my father was.

  The table was as clean as it could possibly be now. It was time to go get started cleaning up in the bedroom. Maybe I was stalling because I really didn’t want to clean Eric’s stuff out of the room. I wanted his things to stay as they were and for him to return to use it all again. I knew that was never going to happen because his dead body was buried in our backyard.

  I thought that my father had probably held in his craziness to a certain point but then after he had killed Eric he couldn’t do it any longer. That was my thinking anyhow.

  I gathered what used to be my little brother’s clothes together from the bottom two drawers of the dresser in Johnny’s room and carried them out to the table I had set up near the road. I laid them all out carefully: pants in one pile, shirts in another. Most of them had been Johnny’s before they were Eric’s. I taped the sign I had made while in the house the last time to front of the table. If it rained I would probably have to make a new one. I hoped if another little boy wore any of these clothes, he would do happier things in them than Eric had been able to.

  I worked a long time in that room to get everything that my mother had told me to do finished. The whole time I thought about Eric and Johnny too. Dad and Johnny weren’t back even by the time I had finished.

  My mother had been wrong about me finishing in time for lunch. It had to be well past noon and probably close to dinner time by the time I was finally done. My stomach was growling to let me know I was starving as I carried the bucket of filthy water back down the stairs. It didn’t help that I could smell something delicious that made my mouth water. I thought I c
ould smell cooked onions and potatoes and something else.

  “Are you finished up there yet,” Mom asked, sounding annoyed that it had taken me so long.

  “Yes, all done. I just have to dump this bucket now.” I carried the bucket towards the screen door so I could dump it outside in the grass.

  “Okay, then get back in here and clean yourself up before supper. We didn’t get half as much done today as I wanted. We’ll have to continue the rest of it tomorrow.”

  I dumped the bucket of almost black water out off to the side of the house where no one would be likely to step anytime soon. Then I went back in to wash up a bit. I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Who cares if the house is clean? No one else ever sees it anyhow and even if they do, Dad makes sure that they don’t live for long afterwards.”

  My plate was already fixed and sitting at my spot on the table. It looked delicious. We were having escalloped potatoes and ham and my mother always put a lot of ham in when she made it. Mom and Caroline were already seated and eating their own food. I joined them and didn’t waste any time starting in on my own plate. I loved the creaminess and the taste of the potatoes, ham, and onion all mixed together. I had helped Mom make this before so I knew what was in it.

  The three of us were all through eating and I had already started washing the dishes when Dad and Johnny arrived. They both looked exhausted. I didn’t feel bad for Dad at all. He brought whatever came to him completely on himself. Johnny, on the other hand, was just one more innocent victim of Dad.

  They sat down at the table while Mom made their plates for them. Johnny looked as if he could fall asleep right where he sat. I wondered what they had done during all the time that they were gone. Then I thought about it a little more and realized that I probably didn’t really want to know.

  Neither my father nor Johnny spoke while they ate. I had finished with the rest of the dishes and had to wait until they were finished to wash theirs as well. I sat back down at the table to wait patiently.

  Now I could take a couple of minutes to search for similarities in my parents’ looks. I scanned each of their faces, trying not to get caught looking at each of them for so long. The only thing that I could easily point out was that they both had blue eyes, but even those were different shades of blue.

  Well, maybe they weren’t actually brother and sister after all, I thought hopefully. Maybe one of them had been adopted or was a foster child or something. But the newspaper hadn’t said that. I would have to go through the box some other time to find the picture of my grandparents and see if that would answer any of my questions. I knew my parents would never tell me the truth.

  Finally, they were done with their plates. Johnny went upstairs to his room and Dad and Mom went out to the living room. I washed the last couple of dishes, dried, and put them away and then I went down to my own room in the cellar.

  My brain was exhausted. I needed an off switch for all of my thoughts. The voice I had heard the other night came back then. “I can help you if you’d just let me. Then you could rest.”

  I looked around. No one was down here with me. I looked over at Julie and saw that she was lying where I had left her, right on my pillow. I tried to cover my ears so that I wouldn’t be able to hear the voice. She spoke again anyways, “That won’t work and you know it. Let me help you Emily.”

  I was starting to freak out. Feeling scared and alone, I whispered with my ears still covered by my hands, “No! Please just leave me alone! I don’t want to be crazy!”

  The voice didn’t speak again that night. I fell asleep without even writing in my journal. Julie haunted my dreams. I woke twice screaming and dripping with sweat. I knew if I let her have her way that it would mean I had given up control of my mind. I couldn’t let that happen.

  Yes, she had always been the little voice in my head that spoke to me, but never as if she were a whole different person than me. I really had thought that maybe she was just my conscious. Now I knew different and it scared the crap out of me.

  I didn’t mean to scare Emily. I didn’t want her to be afraid of me and I didn’t want to cause her more upset or worry. I was sure that soon she would be ready for my help, but I guess she wasn’t quite there yet.

  I felt relieved that she put that stupid box of pictures back where she found it. At least now she wouldn’t get caught with it. Plus, I didn’t think that she needed to be adding more worries to herself right now with everything else that she had to think and worry about.

  The idea of her father suggesting they go to the State Fair was just scary. Of course he wouldn’t do something like that without having something horrible in mind to do while they were there. I couldn’t think of what he might possibly want to go there for with the whole family, but I was sure that it was something especially rotten and evil. Hopefully they wouldn’t end up going after all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  No more was said the next day about the possibility of us going to the State Fair. Maybe Caroline had just gotten overly excited about a wish that my mother had accidentally said out loud. Or maybe Dad had changed his mind about taking all of us. Whatever the case might be, I was fine with it.

  According to what my mother had said yesterday, we would be busy cleaning house all day long again today. That was fine with me too. I had already finished washing the breakfast dishes and had started cleaning in the bathroom. Mom wanted me to paint the trim in the bathroom green. I didn’t think it was a good color choice, but it wasn’t my decision to make. It didn’t really matter much what color the trim was anyways. Mom was teaching Caroline how to do her own wash and while the clothes were washing Caroline was working on dusting the living room. Mom was washing all the windows in the house while Caroline dusted. Dad and Johnny were both working outdoors.

  While I scrubbed the forever stained porcelain tub I thought. I thought about my murdered grandparents. What had they been like? Did my grandfather do the same terrible things to his children (two of them being my mother and father most likely) that Dad did to us? Why were they killed? And were they actually my father’s very first victims along with my aunt? Why was she killed? My head was beginning to hurt and the tub was as clean as it was going to get.

  I moved on to cleaning the nasty toilet. It would never look clean no matter how much I scrubbed. Who was the other couple I had seen in my nightmare? Were they relatives of ours as well? Maybe they were no one and my imagination had made them up. I should have kept the box of pictures longer until I had found pictures of my grandparents and of the other couple I had seen. But I had been too afraid of being caught with the box in with my stuff.

  When I was done cleaning and painting the trim in the bathroom my mother took the paintbrush from me so she could soak it in turpentine to get clean. Then she really shocked me and told me to start carrying my stuff back up to my old bedroom, the one I had shared with Caroline. I was confused, happy, excited, scared, and disappointed all at the same time.

  The first thing that I thought of was the journals I had started to keep since moving into the cellar. I could not bring them upstairs with me because they would surely be discovered and read. What would I do with them? Would they be safe if I left them right where they were hidden in the wall behind the loose brick? Leaving them where they were already well hidden would probably be my safest choice considering there really were no others. I wouldn’t get very many chances, if any at all, to write any more in my newest journal or to stash money away.

  The second thing on my mind was the question of why my parents suddenly wanted to allow me to move out of the cellar and back to my old bedroom upstairs. They had moved me down there to separate my sister and me in the first place. I had thought at the time that it was to separate us anyhow. My parents had not wanted me influencing my sister to act out the way that I had been doing. They also wanted to punish me for supposedly lying about the things I said my father had been doing to us kids. That’s what I had been led to believe. Plus with my sister and
I being in separate parts of the house it was easier for my father to pay either one of us a private visit.

  It suddenly dawned on me that maybe there was more to all of this house cleaning and room switching than I realized. Maybe my parents were expecting a visit from someone and trying to make a good first impression. Or maybe they didn’t know when the next person would come snooping around and my father didn’t think it would be a good idea to have to kill him or her.

  It would be a good thing to be back upstairs in the bedroom that I had shared with my little sister. We would be able to talk again the way that we used to and I would be able to comfort her when she needed it. Just sleeping in the same room with her again would be a huge comfort to me. Maybe I would also now be able to stop imagining that my doll was talking to me. I hoped so. I was really beginning to scare myself with that.

  I realized as I was lugging my nightstand up the stairs that I had returned my mother’s box of pictures just in time. Thank God for small favors. I’m not sure what might have happened if I had been caught with that but I know that it wouldn’t have been good. At least I didn’t have to worry about that.