by Capps, Bonny
I step forward, “Dad.”
“Promise me that you’ll get your sister away from that monster.” He murmurs as his heels protrude from the edge of the building.
“Dad.” I say, holding a hand up. “What in the fuck is going on?”
Tears rise in his eyes as he shakes his head, “You’re all going to hate me for the things that I’ve done. I need to end it. I can’t see your faces when you all find out about me. I just… I can’t.”
I lick my lips. “Please. I can’t find Jessy without you.”
“Yes you will. Your mother knows where she is. Here,” He says, his voice wavering as he tosses his phone onto the ground before him.
My breath hitches when I realize that there isn’t any stopping him.
“I love you son.” He says as he spreads his arms and falls backwards. I run towards him and slide to a stop when I get to the edge.
Gripping the edge of the building, I watch as the man that raised me falls to his death. His eyes never leave mine as he descends to the congested street. Once he hits the black car, the sound echoes throughout the street accompanied with the screams from bystanders.
I sit up and bury my face in my trembling hands. My chest heaves as I grab my father’s phone from beside me and look at the message.
I gasp as I leap to my feet and run towards the entrance of the building.
25
"They say it's the number of people I killed, I say it's the principle."
-Aileen Wuornos
My back presses into the leather seat of the car as my fingers curl over the edge. Amelia is driving recklessly as the rain pours from the sky.
I look towards her and watch as the rivulets of tears stream down her face.
“Amelia,” I murmur, “What did the message say?”
She doesn’t respond immediately, and I watch as her fingers tighten around the wheel.
I look out the window as my heart drums away beneath my ribs.
“Some sick copycat. That’s what this is. Some sick fucking copycat!” She croaks out.
The car slows down as it enters a broken metal gate, and my wide eyes travel to the giant boarded up home as we approach it.
When the car stops, she puts it in park. Leaning forward, her frightened eyes lock onto the large house.
“What is this place?”
Her eyes snap to mine, “Hell. That’s what this place is.”
I startle when I hear the roar of an engine approaching. Gabriel steps out of his car and stares up at the mansion. Amelia and I exit the car as the rain pounds over our heads.
“This is the place?” He asks, his eyes staying locked on the dilapidated giant before us.
“Yes.” Amelia whispers.
I look to each of them. I’m not sure what in the hell is going on.
“Where is your father?” Amelia asks, loosely crossing her arms over her chest.
He avoids her eyes as a troubled look sweeps over his face. “I don’t know.”
“Come on.” He murmurs, grabbing my hand, he pulls me behind him.
“What is this place, Gabriel?” I whisper as we step over the large vines that run throughout the property and creep up the sides of the home.
He looks back at me. “The house of horrors. That’s what they call it. This was Gabriel Thibault’s home. He was my father, and a killer.”
I hear a click behind me and turn. Amelia is holding her gun in front of her as she follows behind us, her eyes travelling frantically around the home. “A man bought it and made a museum out of it. But when he died, it closed down. That was about twenty years ago. It’s been vacant since.”
Gabriel releases my hand before grasping the boards and pulling them from the doorframe. Once he removes them, his foot smashes through the door.
I swallow hard when he looks over his shoulder and offers me his hand.
Placing my hand in his, I wince when a rat runs in front of me.
He gives me a tug and I follow behind him.
Upon entering, the stench hits my nose, causing bile to rise to my throat. “What is that?” I rasp.
“It smells like something’s dead.” Gabriel responds, “It wouldn’t be abnormal for a place this ran down to harbor dead animals.”
My eyes travel around the house of horrors, as he called it. Furniture is covered in clear tarp and the floor is caked with dirt.
“Wait.” Amelia whispers, “Do you hear that?”
We all stop in our tracks and listen as the melody drifts down the hallway.
I look towards her, “What is that?”
Her hand is visibly trembling as she continues to hold the gun in front of her. “The… the grand piano. I used to play it all the time.”
“I’m going to go check it out.” He says, releasing my hand.
“No!” I whisper.
His eyes meet mine as he cups my cheek. “It’s going to be okay. I promise. We get Jessy and then we get the hell out of here.”
I watch desperately as he reaches into his jeans and pulls out a gun, then he disappears down the hall.
I wrap my arms around my shoulders. I’m freezing, my entire body is soaked from the rain.
My eyes never leave the darkness of the hall, and I gasp when I hear a thud.
“Gabriel?” I say.
Nothing.
I take off running, but I stop when I hear Amelia. I turn and watch as she falls to the ground, the gun slipping from her fingers and sliding across the floor.
I walk towards it, and when it’s barely in my reach, two black boots land on the ground in front of it.
My eyes travel up his legs, to his stomach, to his chest – and then, all of the air is sucked from my lungs.
He’s wearing a hood, but I can see the color of his eyes and the scar across his face as the moonlight shines in from the window.
“Your eyes.” I whisper.
I see his lips curl up into a smile.
He raises his hand and curls his index finger, summoning me.
Tears streak my face as I approach him, and a sob escapes me when he takes a knife to the tank top that I’m wearing.
He tangles his fingers in my hair as he leans my head back and runs the knife over my cheek. “I’ve stayed hidden for long enough. First, I’m going to take you. I’ll try to be gentle.” A dark chuckle escapes him as he grasps my breast and squeezes, “But then, we’re going to all sit down and have dinner. I have loads to discuss.”
Turning me swiftly, he slams my chest against the wall before yanking my jeans over my hips. I cry out as he slams into me, and my body seizes up when he shoves his thumb into my mouth and presses down on my tongue.
“Dani, I’ve forgotten how fantastic that little pussy was.”
He wraps his fingers around my neck and squeezes as he continues to rape me.
26
"In my lifetime I have broken every law that was ever made by both man and God."
-Carl Panzram
I cough repeatedly as I come to. I blink my eyes rapidly as they try to adjust to the flickering light. At first, my mother is a blur, but with several more blinks, I can make her out. She’s slumped over in a chair. Rope is wrapped around her body, and when I try and move, I discover that I’m also tied down.
Other than my mother, everything else in the room is still pretty fuzzy. My neck feels as though it’s made of rubber as it tries to hold my head up.
I smell something cooking, and my eyes travel across the room where I see smoke rising from a pan. A large man stands before it as he flips what looks to be meat.
Beside him stands Dani. She’s completely nude, her hands are dangling at her sides and her head is bowed. I watch as her chest trembles with each silent sob. The tears that escape her eyes meet at the tip of her nose before dripping onto the top of her feet.
“Dani.” I croak, and she looks at me through her long eyelashes. The man looks over his shoulder, but the only thing that I can make out is the scar that runs across his cheek.
>
“Ah,” He says, placing the hood of his jacket over his head, “you’re finally awake. I was beginning to think that your eyes would never open. Dani, go fetch him some water.”
She nods slightly before walking slowly to the glass pitcher of water and pours me a glass. I tilt my head back as she presses the glass to my lips. Looking into her bloodshot eyes, I allow the water to cleanse my pallet before swallowing. My throat is so dry.
I choke and cough before she pulls the glass from my lips and runs her thumb over my cheek.
“W- what is going on?” My mother says as her head rolls from side to side.
The man whips around to face her. “Well, well, well. You really have aged quite beautifully, Amelia. I have to say, I thought you’d blow up after having a child. I stand corrected.”
Her eyes widen as he approaches her.
“What kind of sick joke is this? Who are you?”
He chuckles as his fingers graze the edge of the table. “You don’t know?”
She shakes her head slowly as a troubled look sweeps across her face.
“Maybe this will help.” He says, pulling the hood from over his head.
Her chest begins heaving as her nostrils flare. “No. It can’t be. You’re dead,”
“No, Amelia. I am very much alive.”
Turning towards me, I gasp when I see his face. “It’s nice to finally meet you, son.”
27
“Pulvis et umbra sumus. (We are but dust and shadow.)”
-Horace, The Odes of Horace
Whenever I look into the eyes of my son, I see much of myself. Even as he cowers in the chair, his shoulders hunched over as his wide, green eyes lock onto mine. He is mine, this I am sure.
“You’re the shadow man.” He whispers, and I nod.
“I am.”
I hear the wooden chair that Amelia is currently occupying scrape across the hard floor. “We killed you. This isn’t possible. I heard you in the bull. I saw Able put you inside of the bull’s belly. I heard your screams.”
My eyes land on her beautiful brown eyes. The ones that I have seen haunting my dreams for over two decades. She thinks that I’d deceived her all of those years ago? She believes that Able was her hero when he’d said he dumped me off somewhere, no-where to be found?
No. Able is just as bad, if not worse than I am, and it’s time that everyone knows the truth.
“I think it’s time to tell you all a little story.” I say, placing my hands on Amelia’s quivering shoulders.
“Twenty-five years ago, I lived here with my lovely son and wife…”
“Son of a bitch.” I whispered, looking over my computer screen.
I’d always been an only child. I only knew of the one affair that my father had with our maid, Roberta. I never knew that he had another family on the side who lived in California.
In a nice home, might I add. He was sure to pay well for discretion. He had an image to uphold, a psycho son to ignore and a wife to pretend to love, after all.
The Thibault men were handsome, powerful and always got what they wanted. Perhaps that’s why I became obsessed with the dominant lifestyle. Claiming, owning, fucking.
So, you understand that when I discovered my brother, with his lean build, blue eyes and tattooed body – I was rather surprised, to say the least. He certainly didn’t look like a Thibault, or act like one for that matter – but he did have that crazy in his eyes.
I figured it all out when I tried to find him. After what he’d done with my wife, I was determined to figure out where he was so that I could crush him like the deceitful little worm that he was – but surprise!
I discovered that I had a little, bastard brother who happened to fuck my wife!
What a small world we live in, right?
No.
It turns out that Able was completely fucking delusional. Not only did he make up some sad story about his daddy molesting him and believing it himself – he also went even further to seek me out, to come and work in my home. To fuck my wife.
He was jealous, I presume because I was raised by our father, and he was rejected. He wanted what I had, and I have to say, I almost felt sorry for him.
After his little disappearing act, I found him, and armed with the information that I had – I made him my little puppet.
See, it seems that the authorities had caught wind of my lucrative business, and they were closing in on me.
So, one fateful day, we cooked up a plan. A way for me to ensure that my one and only son was raised to be a true Thibault. I have to say, I wasn’t happy when my son’s name was changed, but I knew that it made sense. I knew that he wouldn’t need that name to make me proud.
I also needed my sweet Amelia to live on. So I gave her what she craved. Deliverance. Freedom from captivity.
I worked out a way for me to escape the bull by sawing another compartment into the other side prior to my staged execution. Unfortunately, the latch caught and I’ve got several burns that have scarred me for eternity, but I survived. It was basically a magic act.
I changed my identity, but I always watched. I was always there to make sure that my son’s darkest fantasies came to life.
Several years went by where I was on my own. I grew out a beard, changed my name and wore blue contacts. I was unrecognizable to the rest of the world. To most, I would look like a pathetic bum on the side of the street – nobody knew that I was sitting on millions of dollars. Nobody knew that I was Gabriel Thibault, because I became Antonio LeBlanc.
When I saw Tara, I knew that she would do. She was weak. Her brown eyes though, they reminded me of my sweet Amelia.
When she became pregnant, I was glad. When I found out that it was a girl, I was apprehensive, but when that girl grew to be such a beautiful, ripe little peach – I couldn’t help myself. She was all mine. Absolute perfection.
Tara named her Danika.
I killed Tara when Danika was only a baby. She became my Dani girl. My little blue eyed Dani girl.
I smile wickedly as I look towards Gabriel. “And when my son and his dearest step-daddy – my brother - decided to set up shop in Manhattan, I made sure that she followed, just as I made sure that she would fall into your web.” Pausing, I look towards Dani.
“I’m so glad that you two got to meet. Finally.”
28
“Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”
― Mineko Iwasaki
“No.” I whisper as my father’s truth hits me like a ton of bricks.
“Yeah, you were on that site, in the chatroom, “Where the Lonely Ones Roam”.
No. I wasn’t. I’d thought it was odd when Gabriel said that.
And the fashion school… my father knew how I loved making clothes. To me, it has always been an art form.
Now... Now I know that it wasn’t destiny. It was all a set up. And my mother? She never left, he killed her.
Gabriel is my brother? It can’t be true. It can’t.
A sly smile spreads across my father’s face as he massages Amelia’s shoulders. She looks like she’s checked out completely.
“I… I need to see my husband.” She says shakily, and my father laughs.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, he jumped off of a building hours ago. Why do you think that is, Amelia? Why do you think that he’d end such a successful life?”
Her eyebrows pinch together as her bottom lip trembles, “He wouldn’t do that. He loved me – he loved us.”
He laughs. “Do you know what he loved more? Money. And I gave him a lot of it.” Pausing, he leans closer to her ear, “How do you think he started his business? Or how about that quaint little house that he bought you, how do you suppose that he could afford that? It was all for show. He got a life of success and a family as a result of what he did for me.”
Her chest vibrates as she cries. My heart hurts for every soul that has ever come across my father. He is pure evil.
His eyes snap up to Gabriel. “And you, my dear son, I must ask – what was it like fucking your sister? I feel that this is a conversation that we can have seeing as we’ve both had her.”
Gabriel squeezes his eyes shut as he shakes his head, “Why? Why are you doing this to us?”
My father smiles fondly, “Because I wanted to see you all, my estranged wife, my handsome son, and my beautiful daughter. What a happy little family we are.”
“Where is my daughter?” Amelia grits out.
He places a hand over her hair before patting her head. “Yes, little Jessy. She looked so much like you, Amelia.”
“Looked?” Gabriel rasps.
My father walks away from Amelia and begins flipping the meat once more. My eyes land on the black tarp in the middle of the table. It’s raised slightly in the middle and my stomach coils when I see a red stream leak from the outline.
“Dani.” My father says without looking back at me. “Be a dear and uncover the centerpiece. I’m dying for everyone to see it.”
My eyes lock onto Gabriel’s momentarily before he looks down at his lap.
I exhale shakily as I approach the table. Pinching the edge of the tarp I close my eyes as I slowly pull it towards me.
“Oh my God!” Amelia exclaims, and my eyes snap open. I stumble backwards when I see Jessy’s lifeless body. She’s so pale… and cold. Her dark eyelashes lie against her creamy cheeks. Her hands are folded over her stomach and below them, there’s a large wound exposing her entrails.
My hand flies over my mouth as I grab at my upset stomach. It threatens to give way at any given time.
“Dinner looks done.” My father says as he turns to face us, a wide grin on his face.
“What have you done?” Gabriel growls, narrowing his eyes at my father… our father.
He simply laughs in response, “What have I done? I’ve prepared dinner. I’m quite the chef, I’m sure Amelia would agree.”
“You’re a fucking monster!” Amelia exclaims as she fights against her restraints. “You’ll pay for this – for everything that you’ve done!”