Held

by Bettes, Kimberly A

  Quietly, I retreated a few steps, then turned and quickly crept back around the house and up onto the front porch. I hoped he’d just go back to wherever he’d came from, though it seemed very unlikely that he had walked all the way through the field just to destroy my rocking chair. There had to be another reason for him to be here, but I couldn’t imagine what it could be.

  I crossed the porch, carefully avoiding broken pieces of my chair, opened the creaky screen door, and went inside. I loved the old screen doors on this house, even the creaky springs that screamed in protest each time the door was used. It was very country. After living my life in the city among the honking horns and blaring alarms and screaming sirens, a creaky spring was music to my ears. However, there were times when I longed for a stealthier door, one that wouldn’t give me away if, say, a crazy knife-wielding man ever showed up in the middle of the night to stalk around the house when I was home alone.

  Once inside, I shut and locked the door behind me, even thumbing the deadbolt into place. I made it about five steps away from the door when he knocked. Okay, knock wasn’t what he did. He pounded on the door as if he were angry; as if he was the one who’d just lost a beloved rocking chair.

  After nearly jumping out of my skin, I spun around, heart pounding furiously in my chest. I walked to the door, determined to throw it open and confront him. But when I got there, I had a feeling that if I did that, it would be the last thing I’d ever do. I don’t know where the feeling came from, but I didn’t want to ignore it.

  I hesitated with my hand on the door, unsure of what to do. Slowly, I leaned forward and put my ear against the wood. I heard nothing on the other side.

  The door was large, and there were four small panes of glass in a row across the top quarter of it. I inched my way up on to my tip toes and peeked out one of the little windows. What I saw made my pounding heart stand still and my breath catch in my lungs.

  It was a very large man. Only it wasn’t a man at all. His clothes were torn and dirty. Through a hole in the left sleeve of his black jacket, I thought I saw bone, but that was impossible. He wore a black, brimmed hat, also torn and dirty. His head was tilted down and cocked to the side, as if too were listening for sounds on the other side of the door, the only thing that stood between us.

  I stared at him, still not breathing. It was creepy, there was no doubt about it, but when he raised his head and looked at me, it was absolutely terrifying.

  In the second before the clouds covered the moon and submerged us into total darkness, I saw his face, a mangled mass of hanging flesh and protruding bones. And his eyes…He had no eyes. His eye sockets were dark, completely black. But he still seemed to be looking right at me. I must’ve seen him wrong. After all, I only saw his face for a second before the moon was hidden, and his back was to the moon, which cloaked his face in shadows. My imagination, paired with the wine and with psyching myself up into a horror movie frame of mind, must’ve made me see things that weren’t real.

  With thoughts of zombies on my mind, I turned and ran to the stairs, each step creaking underfoot. Mentally, I congratulated myself for not screaming. Take that, horror movies. Not all women were big bags of vocal chords, just looking for reasons to scream.

  I was three steps up when the moon brightened the world and he began pounding at the door again. I stopped and turned, unable to believe the nerve of this man. As I stared at the door, I could see the chain rattling with each pound of his fists. From my position on the stairs, I could see his hat through the windows at the top of the door. That is, until the clouds covered the moon again and everything grew dark.

  I’d be safe if I could get upstairs and hide. There, I could wait for Tim to come home. I could call the cops with the phone in the bedroom if it came to that. I hoped it wouldn’t, but it was starting to look like it just might. So I continued on up the stairs, thinking of where I could hide and what I should do to keep both myself and my sleeping daughter safe. As this plan formulated in my mind, I turned to continue up the stairs.

  When I heard the door explode open behind me, all thoughts of safety were gone. Also gone was the thought that I could hide and wait for Tim to come home. And gone was the pride of not screaming.

  I told myself I wasn’t going to look back. In every horror movie ever made, the fleeing potential victim risked a glance behind them which caused them to fall and inevitably be murdered. That wasn’t going to me. I was not going to look behind me.

  I looked behind me as I stepped off the stairs and onto the second floor. I just couldn’t help myself.

  The man burst through the open door, crunching the splinters of wood from the busted jamb beneath his feet. I ran into the first room on the left, a spare bedroom. I took a second to decide whether or not I should shut the door. I left it open. It would’ve been the only closed door in the hallway, which was as good as hanging a sign on the door that said I’M IN HERE, COME ON IN. Plus, every door in the house squeaked and was sure to give away my location. And if those reasons weren’t enough, I wanted to be able to keep track of this guy. I couldn’t do that as well through a closed door.

  I glanced around quickly, trying to decide between the closet and under the bed. The closet was small, and I would be trapped in there if he found me, so I opted for under the bed. It was an old bed, one of the metal framed ones that set high off the floor, so slipping under it was easy enough. The bed skirt was lace, which was perfect for watching the feet of an intruder.

  I settled in under the bed, concentrated on controlling my breathing, and turned my thoughts to Jenny. Second-guessing myself, I thought maybe I should’ve run to her room. But had I done that, I would’ve lured the guy right to her. This way, maybe I could keep him away from her. And if he did start into her room, I could attack him from behind. I silently prayed that this was the right decision, but I continued to argue with myself about it.

  Remaining perfectly still, I breathed as shallowly as possible and kicked myself in the ass when I realized that I still had no weapon. No knife, no gun, no bat, no golf club, no long fingernails, nothing. So now, my best hope was to choke him with a lace bed skirt. Nice.

  I listened to the sound of his heavy footsteps as he pounded up the stairs slowly, one step at a time. I also listened as he stopped suddenly at the top. I waited for him to begin searching for me, but he didn’t move.

  A minute ticked by, marked by the grandfather clock downstairs.

  Then another.

  He still hadn’t moved. This was creepier than if he ransacked the house one room at a time in search of me. There was a definite oddness in his patience.

  It didn’t take long for me to become uneasy. But this was okay, I told myself. The longer he stood at the top of the stairs, the more time that bought me. Maybe Tim would come home before this guy moved, and certainly before he found me. After all, how long did it take to drink three beers in a town where you didn’t know anyone?

  If I remained still and quiet, and he continued to just stand there listening or whatever the hell he was doing, then we should be fine.

  “Mommy,” Jenny called to me in a sleepy voice.

  Oh shit.

  His footsteps pounded down the hallway.

  From RAGE

  Chapter 1

  Face down on my bed, I buried my face in my pillow and waited for him to finish.

  “Tell Daddy you like it,” he said through grunts.

  I ignored him. He may be married to my mother, but he was not my daddy. My daddy was dead.

  “Say it, Brian,” he said behind me.

  I continued to ignore him, pushing my face further into the pillow, which smelled of stale tears from many previous nights just like this one.

  He lifted one hand off the bed, slapped the back of my head, and dropped his hand back to the mattress. I peeked up from the pillow and looked at those hands, one on each side of my head. His fingernails were bitten off far past the tips of his fingers. Faded blue tattoos spelled G-O-O-D across the fi
ngers of his left hand and E-V-I-L across those of his right. I doubted there’d ever been a time when his left hand had prevailed.

  I tried to stay relaxed. It hurt less that way. The pain was intense enough to make me want to cry. But there’s no way I’d let him see me. No way.

  As he sped up and I felt him tense, I knew it was almost over. But I also knew that the worst part was getting ready to happen. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly and tried to imagine I was somewhere else, though even in my mind I had nowhere else to go.

  He went at me harder now, grunting like a madman, slamming himself against me faster and faster. Then, he stiffened and held his position for a few seconds before collapsing on me, forcing the stench of cheap beer and cheaper cigarettes into my nose, even through the pillow.

  He was sweaty and panting, his bitter breath hot on the back of my neck. He was dead weight on top of me, and I was afraid the moment I’d always feared was now becoming a reality. Had he passed out on me? Was I going to suffocate beneath him? Just when I thought I’d pass out from the lack of air, he pushed himself up off me and off my bed. I took a deep breath - more like a gasp - and was assaulted with more than just the smells of beer and cigarettes. His sweaty and foul body odor hung in the air and clung to my skin where his had touched mine. But more than that was the horrible smell of sex.

  I heard him zip his jeans and walk heavily from the room, staggering and bumping into things as he went.

  For a while, I lay there, crying silently into my pillow, not caring that the springs from the mattress poked into my flesh. It was nothing compared to the pain I was experiencing in other places.

  I didn’t feel sorry for myself. I just didn’t understand why this had to happen to me. Why didn’t bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people? I was tired of it. This had been going on for years and it was really wearing me down.

  When I was all cried out, I got off the bed slowly, my butt burning. I made my way to the bathroom as quietly as I could to avoid drawing his attention. I sat on the toilet to rid myself of his stuff, and then showered.

  I hated him. More than I’ve ever hated anybody. I don’t know why my mother stayed with him. I don’t know why she ever got with him in the first place.

  That wasn’t really true. I knew why. My mother was with him because she was terrified of being alone. In fact, as far as I knew, she’d never been alone. She had married my father and moved from her parents’ house into a house with him. Shortly after he died, she allowed Travis to move in with us. That’s when my life went to hell.

  After scrubbing away any traces of him, I slowly and quietly made my way across the hallway and back to my bedroom, being extra careful to not do anything to attract his attention. I quietly shut the door and crept to my bed.

  It hurt too much to sit on my butt, so I found a comfortable position on my side where no springs poked me and I finished my homework.

  I fell asleep that night, like so many before it, thinking of all the ways I could kill my step-father.

  Chapter 2

  Monday morning, I woke as usual. I got out of bed and threw on some clothes that my mom had bought for me at a yard sale. The jeans were too short, showing more than just a little of my ankle. The fabric was worn thin, even fraying in places. On the right knee, a hole had begun to form. The shirt, once black but now faded to gray, barely covered the top of my jeans. In fact, if I raised my arms, you could see my belly button. Most of my clothes fit me wrong, but I rarely got new clothes. In fact, I never got new-from-the-store clothes. I did occasionally get new-to-me clothes, bought at yard sales. Sometimes they would fit when I first got them, but I had to wear them for so long, they eventually didn’t fit at all. I had to keep wearing them, though. They were all I had.

  After stuffing my books into my worn backpack (another yard sale gem), I headed quietly to the kitchen. We didn’t have much to choose from for breakfast. Or any other meal for that matter. I settled for stale cereal. It might have not been so bad if we’d had milk, but we didn’t, so I washed it down with a glass of water and headed out the door.

  I walked to school as I always did. It wasn’t far, only a mile. I could’ve ridden the bus, but two of those buttholes rode the same bus and I didn’t want to be around them any more than I had to be.

  As I got closer to the school, my steps slowed. I dreaded going to school in the mornings just as much as I dreaded going home in the afternoons. I just didn’t know how many more times I could drag myself into that building.

  Maybe if it was just the bullies I could handle it. Or if it was just my failing grades it wouldn’t be so bad. But it was both. And sometimes, it was just too much to bear.

  As the other kids bustled loudly in the hallway around me, I put my books in my locker and hung my backpack on the hook inside.

  My first class was basic Algebra with Mrs. Schmitz. I hated it. I never understood what the teacher was talking about. Maybe it was because she was German and had a funny accent. Or maybe it was because she was dyslexic and wrote half the problems on the board backwards. Either way, I was flunking.

  Slowly, I walked into the room, books in hand. There were already a few students in their seats. I knew immediately I was the subject of their conversation. It was obvious in the way they looked at me and giggled.

  Stupid girls.

  I didn’t really care what they thought of me. I didn’t like any of them anyway. I only liked one girl, and she didn’t hang out with the gigglers.

  Walking to my seat, I pretended not to notice their eyes following me. Just like every other day of my life.

  I sat down and began doodling in my notebook, paying no attention as the rest of the class filed in and took their seats. I barely paid attention when Mrs. Schmitz began talking about square roots. It wouldn’t have mattered if I gave her all my attention. I just didn’t get it. That was evident when she told us to pass our homework papers one person to the left to be graded.

  My paper went to Carly Hanson, the one girl in the whole school I actually liked. I’d had a crush on her since we were in third grade. That’s why it was so embarrassing when she handed back my paper. I’d missed twelve. That was out of a possible fifteen. Another F. But it softened the blow to see that she had written ‘sorry’ on the paper.

  I looked at her, and she smiled and shrugged. She was so pretty. Her dark hair was full of bouncy curls. They weren’t the kind that couldn’t be tamed, but the kind that you could run your fingers through without them getting tangled. I knew this because I’d watched Carly do it thousands of times over the years. When she smiled, cute little dimples formed in her cheeks. And she had the most amazing blue eyes I’d ever seen. Normally, I didn’t even notice people’s eyes, but there was something about hers that always caught my attention.

  I knew she’d never be with me, though. That’s why I’d never asked her out. And even if she would’ve gone out with me, I didn’t want to make her suffer the embarrassment and harassment she’d have to endure once people realized she was my girlfriend. I liked her too much to put her through that.

  We were assigned more homework that I wouldn’t understand, and were released by the bell.

  Keeping my head down, I returned to my locker and put my Algebra book in my backpack since I’d be taking it home with me. I grabbed my English Literature book and made my way down the hall through the crowd. I kept my head down as I walked, trying not to draw attention to myself. It almost worked.

  “Hey, Boozer,” said Dominic Hawkins. The sound of his voice made my skin crawl. He had been hassling me my whole life.

  I kept walking, pretending not to hear him.

  “I know you hear me, Boozer Loser,” Dominic said. He was closer now and I got the feeling that he was following me. That feeling was confirmed when he knocked the book from my hand.

  I watched as the book flew out in front of me and skidded across the floor, getting stepped on and kicked in the crowded hallway.

  Reluctantly, I
looked up into the faces of Dominic and his cronies. The four of them stood there, staring at me and smirking. Just like they always did.

  Dominic, the leader of the pack, towered over the other three. Puberty had hit him harder and earlier than the rest of us, sending him sprouting up like a weed and causing his face to explode with acne. He’d let his dark bangs grow long, and they hung over his bumpy forehead in a failed attempt to hide the massive amount of pimples that littered his skin.

  Dominic’s brother, Garrett, stood to his left, a year younger and a foot and a half shorter. I could tell he didn’t like Dominic much and didn’t want to hang around with him. But knowing Dominic, I assumed he told Garrett what to do and if he didn’t do it, he’d beat him up or tell their parents. He was that kind of bully.

  Garrett, having not yet reached puberty, didn’t have to hide his forehead behind his hair. He had pimple-free skin and a voice that didn’t sound like that of someone being tortured. It was even, unlike Dominic’s voice, which was scratchy and deeper now, and broke often.

  To Dominic’s right was his best friend, Taylor Reynolds. Taylor, who was a little taller than me, stood glaring, arms folded across his chest. He tried to look mean, but he didn’t need to try. He was mean. He always had been. And it showed on his face. His eyes were always squinty, as if he were constantly suspicious of everything and everyone. His squinty eyes made his brows furrow, which made him always look angry. It didn’t help him that his jaw always seemed to be clenched. Yeah, he looked every bit as mean as he was.

  Beside Taylor was Spencer Griffin. He was short and heavy and wore braces, which caused him to talk with a lisp. His face hadn’t seen acne yet, but it had seen an overabundance of freckles. Most people with red hair had a lot of freckles, and Spencer was no exception. The other three boys might’ve made fun of him if he didn’t do everything they said. If they said jump, he asked how high. He did whatever he could do to impress them and seem cool. I guess that was one way to avoid being bullied. If you can’t beat them, join them.