Dead End House by Bryan Smith

Author:Bryan Smith [Smith, Bryan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Grindhouse Press
Published: 2023-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

LEXIE FELT ONLY A SMALL flicker of apprehension when she saw her sister come into the room. It wasn’t that she no longer believed she had anything to fear from Trixie. Each of her sibling’s increasingly rare visits to the upstairs room resulted in some new level of pain and trauma inflicted on her body, and she had no reason to suspect there would be any deviation from the established trend this time.

She believed she was nearing the end of her ability to experience anything resembling an elevated level of terror. A numbness had infected her spirit, diminishing her natural human will to endure a little more with each passing day. She no longer fantasized about escape or rescue. Escape simply was not possible in her advanced state of physical deterioration, and she was sure she’d be long dead should the day ever come when the authorities decided to raid this place.

She also no longer feared the infliction of additional pain. Yes, as long as she remained alive, she would continue to react to it in the normal way. That came with being a helpless slave to sensation and human instinct. She could be made to cry and perhaps even scream again should the agony become especially intense. The fear of experiencing those sensations was absolutely gone, though. One could only endure so much pain over a prolonged period of time without becoming inured to it, at least to some degree. The sensation of physical misery would come and then it would fade again, just as it always did, and then the cycle would repeat, again and again seemingly without end, until the inevitable day arrived when her body could no longer tolerate the trauma and she died. It was coming no matter what, so why fear it?

Likewise, there was no trace of emotion in her sister’s blank expression as she kicked Lexie in the stomach, causing her to whimper and curl up in a tighter ball. The next kick was to the center of her face, and she yelped as she felt her lips split open again.

“Roll over on your back.”

Lexie looked up at her. “Why?”

Trixie held the handle of a lantern in one hand and a burlap sack in the other. She set these things on the floor and said, “Because if you don’t, I’ll put bleach in your eyes. In the one that still works, anyway. Do you want that?”

Lexie sniffled. “No.”

“I didn’t think so. Now roll the fuck over.”

Despite the harshness of her words, her sister’s face remained an unreadable mask. Any actual human emotion that might be occurring behind the mask was a mystery. She suspected Trixie had trained herself not to feel emotion at all, a coping mechanism she could understand even if she didn’t respect it. In truth, she didn’t actually know if the insight was accurate. It was possible Trixie enjoyed degrading and hurting her every bit as much as she outwardly showed whenever members of the Wilcox family were around.

Not that the distinction mattered much anymore.

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