Grudge Punk by John McNee

Author:John McNee [McNee, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Horror, Mystery & Detective, Hard-Boiled, Crime
ISBN: 9780615752587
Google: qs0alwEACAAJ
Amazon: 0615752586
Publisher: Bizarro Press
Published: 2013-01-10T11:00:00+00:00

A Real Piece of Work

Alesa's mother's body began to rot three weeks before she died. In her final days, the old woman – once so loving and so beloved – was reduced to a moaning mound of suppurating wax, skin and bone. Poor Alesa, who along with her girth and lumpy, unpleasant features had inherited her mother's sense of compassion, was left alone to care for her as best she could.

She mopped her brow with white vinegar, lanced her boils twice a day and did her best to ensure their small house south of the Norrland Dam stayed warm, all round the clock. She did everything the local healer had advised, even reading to her for a couple of hours each night, as a way of putting her to sleep. The stench from her mother's body was worst in the evenings, but Alesa endured it in the hopes she was offering some comfort. The only book in the house was the Savior's Bible – of which there were several thousand copies – and Alesa worried her mother might find the content upsetting. However, the healer assured her that her mother was far beyond comprehending the meaning of the words. It was the soothing sound of her daughter's voice that mattered.

When her mother entered the final stage of the disease – a place beyond comfort, where even breathing caused her immeasurable pain – Alesa went back to the healer and begged for a sprig of Locust's Kiss. This she mashed into a paste with sour milk and rubbed on her mother's lips. In just a few moments the old woman was finally at peace. Alesa then placed coins over her eyes and wrapped her in bedsheets, before dragging her out to the walled dirt yard at the rear of the house. She dug a hole with a shovel borrowed from a neighbor, then rolled the body in and covered it with mud. She made offerings of silk, tin, bread and tobacco for the Widow, Warrior, Traveler and Guardian, then fashioned a cross from a pair of sticks. This was the Savior's symbol and she planted it in the ground a few inches from where her mother's head was buried. When all this was done, Alesa knelt at her mother's graveside, said a brief prayer and began to weep.

It was at this moment her father, absent from the family home for the last two months, chose to make his return.

“Hush child.” His cold hand gripped her shoulder like a hawk's talon. Even on her knees, turned away from him, she could smell the liquor on his clothes and breath. “You mustn't be afraid,” he slurred. “Trust in the Savior and all will be well. Now come inside and pack your things.”

***

Alesa had no say in the matter. Though she was almost seventeen and had single-handedly nursed her mother through the final stages of a bitter, brutal disease, she was, in the thick-veined eyes of her father, a mere child, ignorant of the ways of the world.

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