The Third Parent

by Elias Witherow

  Then the voice came, so soft and strange I felt goosebumps rise along my arms.

  “What are you dreaming about, Jack?”

  I breathed harder, heart sputtering like a man choking on a sip of water.

  “You haven’t forgotten about me have you?”

  I shuddered, the voice an echo across the space between my ears. I ran my tongue over my lips and took a deep breath.

  “You’re supposed to be gone.”

  And for the first time, the voice responded: “I never left, little Jack. You did.”

  I wanted to turn on a light, sit up, and call out to my parents, but I lay paralyzed in my bed. I spoke to the voice again.

  “Who…are you?”

  A wave of static carried my question away and I thought I had lost him. But then, faintly, the voice returned.

  “A friend, hopefully.”

  I pressed the headphones tight against my head, “What do you know about Tommy?”

  Silent, a crackle of static, and then, “I know that he scares me beyond anything I have ever encountered.”

  “But is he gone!? Is Tommy gone?!” I begged.

  The buzzing grew louder and in the distance, I thought I heard whistles or horns, like a tugboat calling woefully to the horizon.

  “Don’t leave me!” I cried, suddenly panicking.

  Barely audible through the static, the voice reached for me, “I’m so sorry, Jack.”

  And then a screeching whistle filled my head and I threw the headphones off of me and onto the floor. My heart was galloping and I could barely breathe. I sat up, gasping and trembling. Tears filled my eyes and I looked down at my shaking hands.

  “I don’t understand,” I croaked. “God help me…I just don’t understand.”

  Sleep eluded me that night and I watched through bleary eyes as the sun rose hours later. I didn’t talk to anyone that day about my nighttime conversation. Katie sensed something was wrong, but I refused to talk about it no matter how hard she pressed. I felt like it would bring the fear back to life. That it would dig up things I wanted to leave in the past. I wanted that chapter to be over. I wanted us to move on.

  But it didn’t.

  We were at the dinner table that evening about to eat when a knock came at the door. Immediately, the four of us exchanged terrified looks. Hot food steamed between us and I saw Mom bite her lip.

  “Everyone relax,” Dad said, his voice not quite steady, “I’m sure it’s just one of the neighbors. Just stay put while I get it, ok?”

  He stood and walked to the front door. My pulse was roaring and I saw Katie gripping the table.

  Taking a deep breath, Dad opened the door.

  And a hauntingly familiar voice greeted him, “Hello, Mike. Did you miss me?”

  I saw Dad freeze. Katie let out a whimper beside me and my mind reeled with terror. This couldn’t be happening. Not again.

  Tommy pushed into the house and closed the door behind him. A smile lit his eyes as he looked over my father at the three of us.

  “Good to see you all again,” he cooed.

  Dad took a step back, fear cracking his strained voice. “How…how the hell…”

  Tommy looked at him sideways, still smiling. “Surprised? Did you think you could cut me out of this family? Is that what you wanted?”

  “We…we watched you burn,” Dad whispered, his eyes bulging.

  Tommy placed a hand on his shoulder. “Yes…that wasn’t very nice was it? After everything I’ve taught you about love and acceptance…it worries me. Have you learned nothing these past few years? Have you even listened to what I’ve shared with you about family? About being a decent person?”

  Dad stepped away from him, raising his hands. “Look, Tommy, we didn’t have a choice…the things you did to us…”

  Tommy jabbed a finger at him, his voice growing hostile. “You always have a choice. It’s what separates the morality of the masses. There’s a great divide in this terrible world…and Mike…you chose the wrong side.”

  “T-tommy—” Dad sputtered.

  Without warning, Tommy lunged forward and grabbed him by the collar and said in a venomous hiss, “I warned you, Mike…I warned you.” He looked up from my father. “Jack, turn on the stove. We’re going to need it.”

  But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even respond. A ripple of shock had me in its grip and refused to let go. How could this possibly be? How could this happen again?

  “You…died…” I heard Katie whisper.

  Tommy locked eyes with her. “No…I just left for a little while. This community still doesn’t understand the position it’s in, even after all these years. I wanted you to feel hope,” his eyes narrowed, “and then I wanted to come back and take it away.”

  “Why?” Katie breathed, her lips trembling.

  Tommy smiled, a sick display that turned my stomach. “Because when you break something it needs to know what it’s losing in the process.”

  “You monster…” Mom said softly from her chair. Her face was deathly pale and tears formed in her eyes. “Why won’t you just leave us alone?”

  Tommy, still holding my father in his grip, chuckled, “Because there are things I still need to teach you.” The smile suddenly dropped from his face and he turned back to my father. “But not tonight. Tonight we break.”

  Dad’s eyes filled with terror. “Please…I’m begging you…”

  Tommy ignored him. “Jack, the stove. NOW!”

  I jumped, scrambling off my chair. I looked to Mom, but her gaze was filled with the looming menace. Not knowing what else to do, hoping to stave off any impending punishment, I did what Tommy asked and turned on the stove. The four electric elements began to glow a brilliant orange, their spiraling shape filling my head with a never-ending pattern. Pain…suffering…torment…

  “What are you going to do to us?” Dad whispered.

  Tommy slowly turned to stare at him, “I’m going to teach you to do what you’re told.”

  “We’ll do whatever you w—” Dad started but never had the chance to finish.

  Tommy threw him like a rag doll across the room and into the kitchen where he slammed into the fridge with a heavy thud. Mom screamed, standing up, the familiar fear returning in an instant.

  I began to cry, backing into the corner of the kitchen, lost in myself. This was going to be bad. I knew this time it was going to be very, very bad.

  Dad gasped from the floor, clutching his side. Mom went to him, sobbing, hands running over his body. Tommy marched into the kitchen, his face a mask of rising rage. He circled the table and grabbed my mother by the back of the neck, hauling her to her feet.

  “You called me a monster,” he whispered into her ear. “Let me show you how that looks.” He slammed her face into the countertop. Blood exploded from my mom’s nose and she let out a shocked gasp. Tommy pulled her back up and her eyes rolled in her head. Without pause, Tommy opened the fridge door and stuck her head in.

  “MOM!” Katie screeched.

  Tommy didn’t even look at her as he slammed the door into Mom’s head. Once, twice, three times…each blow draining the strength and resilience from her. Blood began to run down the sides of the fridge and onto the floor. Tommy let her go and she collapsed in a heap, sucking in wet lungfuls of air.

  “You make me sick,” Tommy said dangerously, now circling my father. “What kind of example are you providing your children? What kind of people are you encouraging them to be?”

  Dad rolled onto his back, hands raised defensively as Tommy stood over him, “I’m sorry, please, I’ve learned my lesson. I realize my mistake!”

  “No, you haven’t,” Tommy growled. He planted a foot on my father’s knee and reached down, grabbing his foot, “But you will.” He pulled back and I heard Dad’s knee snap as Tommy inverted it in its socket.

  I slumped to the floor, tears pouring from my eyes as my father screamed like I had never heard him scream before. Mom was trying to get to her hands and knees, bloo
d running freely from her mouth, ears, and nose. My dad’s howls seemed to stir her from her dazed misery and she tried to crawl to him but went down.

  Tommy crouched over my father and snarled into his face. “Tonight you’re going to feel the consequences of what you’ve done. You’re going to feel it in ways you’ve never felt.”

  He stood then and swept his hand across the table, scattering food and dishware across the floor. Plates and glasses crashed loudly around me as I wept, shuddering, praying for it all to be over.

  And then he grabbed Katie by the throat.

  “NO!” I screamed, eyes going wide, “NO TOMMY PLEASE!”

  Tommy looked at me and I saw darkness in his eyes that I didn’t know existed.

  He picked Katie up with one hand and slammed her down on top of the table. My sister cried out in futile terror, clawing, scratching, pleading. “No, I’m sorry, we’ll be good, Tommy. WE’LL BE GOOD!”

  Somehow Dad managed to heave himself up, screaming, tears streaking from the corners of his eyes, his leg jutting away from his body at an unnatural angle. He grasped a chair for support, desperate to save his daughter.

  “Leave her alone! This wasn’t her fault, she has nothing to do with this!”

  Tommy’s eyes blazed. “I know it wasn’t. It’s your fault.”

  Dad jerked forward in an attempt to bat Tommy’s grip from my sister, but Tommy knocked his hands aside and pushed him back to the floor.

  “Just remember,” Tommy snarled down at my parents, “that this is your doing.”

  He bent down and scooped up a knife that had clattered to the floor. Its blade gleamed as he retrieved it and I felt a tornado of horror and sickness overwhelm me.

  Holding Katie by the throat, Tommy began to cut her leg off at the thigh.

  Darkness danced in my vision as Katie’s screams cracked through my skull like blows from a hammer. Blood spewed from the incision as Tommy viciously parted her flesh like it was warm butter. Red pooled around the table in puddles as Katie howled, thrashing with a pain I couldn’t imagine.

  Her cries stirred my parents and they desperately tried to stand and stop this nightmare. Mom managed to get one hand on the table, but Tommy kicked her back to the floor before severing the bone.

  Her leg dropped wetly to the floor. The sound it made as it splashed into her own blood brought bile to the back of my throat. My eyes were bloodshot and blurry and I felt dizziness course through me. Snot bubbled from my nose and spittle leaked from my quivering lips as I stared at the piece of my sister that didn’t belong to her anymore.

  And then Tommy began to saw off the other leg.

  “NO!” My father screamed, pounding the floor, tears of horror pouring out of him, “DEAR GOD, NOT MY BABY GIRL! PLEASE, TOMMY!”

  Tommy’s face was a mask of hatred and fury as he continued to travel the blade through Katie’s gushing flesh.

  My sister roared with agony, her voice a piercing, pathetic thing, “DADDY, MAKE HIM STOP! PLEASE, DADDYYYY PLEASSEEE!” And then she was lost again in the pain, her body jerking with violent spasms.

  Thump.

  Her other leg dropped to the floor, and her two stumps sent blood like a waterfall over the table and onto the soaked linoleum.

  “Stop this,” I whispered, going mad, “p-please…” I covered my ears as my sister continued to writhe. I felt like I was trapped in a snow globe slowly filling with blood, the puddles around the table growing towards me.

  Dad was trying to stand again, his voice a vengeful mourn. “How could you!? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS!?”

  Tommy stepped back and observed his work, finally releasing Katie. Her eyes rolled wildly in her head and it reminded me of a crazed beast. Spittle and foam formed around her mouth. She twisted away, trying to escape the searing pain. With a wet thud, she fell to the floor, surrounded by red stains of her own making.

  I pulled my knees up to my chest, weeping as I watched my sister try to stand, her stumps squishing and sliding in the mess of gore. Screaming, she went down and reached for Mom.

  “Help me! MOMMY, HELP ME! WHERE ARE MY LEGS!?”

  Mom crawled under the table, the cloud of pain leaving her as her motherly instinct kicked back in. She almost made it to Katie before Tommy kicked the table over her, a leg striking her across the mouth.

  “We aren’t quite finished,” Tommy snarled. He stepped through the blood and hauled Katie up by the hair like she was a piñata waiting for more punishment. She twirled and spun helplessly as Tommy marched her over to the stove.

  “Despite how it looks,” he said, now gripping her under her arms, her severed stumps churning the air, “I don’t want you to die.”

  He lowered her bleeding wounds onto the red-hot elements, the flesh sizzling like grilled meat. I saw smoke rise from Katie as she arched her back and let out a bellowing squeal. Tommy held her in place, staring straight into her eyes, as her thighs cauterized.

  A sickly smell filled the kitchen and I felt my stomach buckle beneath its foul vapors. Both my parents were screaming. The world shook and I trembled beneath a hammer of horrific disbelief.

  When Tommy finally lifted Katie back up, I saw blackened strands of flesh stick to the stove and pull away. What remained of her legs looked like pieces of bloody coal, the flow of blood now an ashy residue. Mercifully, Katie’s head slumped as she passed out from the pain.

  He held her like a toddler, his composure changing. He rubbed her back gently and whispered in her ear, “Shhh…that’s good. Go to sleep now; it’s all over now. Tommy’s done…we’re all done.”

  “You demon!” Mom screamed from the floor, arms shaking as she tried to right herself. “How could you!? How could you!?”

  Tommy just rocked Katie’s motionless body, his voice calm, the fury leaving his face. “Hush, now…let the girl rest. She’s earned it, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Dad snarled, his eyes red and disbelieving. “Somehow I’m going to kill you.”

  Tommy stared down at him, some of the sharpness returning, “Mike…please don’t tell me this lesson has been for nothing.”

  Dad just glared at him, drool and blood leaking from his mouth.

  Tommy smiled.“If I even think that you’re plotting something, either of you, it’ll be Jack on the table next. And I won’t be so gentle next time.”

  He looked over at me huddled in the corner and winked. I shrank deeper into myself, my mind splintering and drifting up into the cosmos. I wasn’t here…this wasn’t happening…I would wake up soon, I knew I would. Katie’s mangled body horrified me, a repulsion I felt the deepest shame for. Fresh tears found my eyes and I covered my face in shaken grief.

  Tommy turned away from us all. “I’m going to put her to bed and look after her wounds. She’s on thin ice right now.”

  As he reached the stairs he looked back. “Clean up the mess,” his eyes darkened, “and think of a convincing story about what happened. It better be good.”

  We watched him take my sister upstairs, humming a soft lullaby as he went.

  “Jack.”

  I couldn’t move. I was a million miles above the kitchen, looking down on the grisly scene with paralyzing repulsion. I thought someone had said my name, but everything felt fuzzy, muffled, and out of sync.

  “Jack!” Dad called again, pulling his body across the floor, blood seeping into his clothes. “JACK!”

  I snapped my head up, not sure where I was, what was going on, or who this man calling my name was.

  “Jack, talk to me, are you ok!?” Dad called, inching closer. His leg trailed behind him and I thought he looked like a bird with a broken wing.

  “Honey, are you hurt!?” Mom asked, looking just as dazed as I felt.

  Slowly, I shook my head.

  There was just so much blood.

  “You’re going to have to help me, Jack,” Dad was saying, worming closer. His shirt was soaked, a human mop absorbing the evidence of my sister’s torture.

  �
�D-dad?” I finally croaked.

  “Yes, son,” he croaked, “yes, son, I’m here.”

  “What…what are we going to do…?”

  Dad started to cry suddenly. “We…we’re going to do what he says…we’re going to listen…oh God…oh my God…” His body shook. “Oh my God, what have I done…?”

  Katie died the following morning.

  Chapter 5 —1999

  Tommy intended to break us that night. And he did. He broke us so completely that I have a hard time remembering anything that happened that last year. I shrank into myself and spent my days in my head. I was hollow. Time was just a concept I didn’t understand anymore. Depression and despair were just words I associated with my state of mind. I was learning to always expect the worst. I was learning how to hate life. Each day was a lesson in devastation. Each sunset was a page turned in a book that seemed endless.

  My sister was dead.

  Her absence shook the very foundation of my psyche. Her brutal death uprooted the last shadow of comfort I had been afforded. Her empty bed was now a sarcophagus, her barren sheets a shroud that draped longingly to the floor.

  My parents ceased to speak after that dreadful night. Only when prompted by Tommy would they openly converse and that was after much prodding. They didn’t look at each other, didn’t look at me, didn’t even seem to be alive. They shuffled about the house and tended to their individual lives like robots on a track. My father tried a couple times to console me during that winter, but we just ended up sitting on my bed in silence, struggling to find the words.

  Of course, they covered up Katie’s death. Tommy wouldn’t have it any other way. Coming up with a believable story though…that was a challenge. My parents just wanted to bury her and be done with the grief, but Tommy wouldn’t allow it. He knew a child couldn’t just go missing without someone showing up to ask questions. My mind was so poisoned with resentment that I wondered if anyone actually would have inquired if we hadn’t conjured a plan.

  The mental destruction my parents went through arranging the fake car accident is something I can only speculate about. I can’t fathom such a horror. My father took Katie’s dead body, including her severed legs, and placed them in our van. He drove out a little ways into the country and smashed it into a telephone pole. Then he set the car on fire. After it burned a little, he called 911.