What Doesn't Kill You by Ken Brosky

Author:Ken Brosky [Brosky, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Timber Ghost Press
Published: 2023-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

19

Dripping with It

“So now you’re going.”

Val laces up her boots. “Ma. We need to get Danny.”

“He’s safe at Melanie’s house!”

“I don’t trust her parents. And it’s pretty obvious the deputy abandoned us.” Val slips on her winter jacket. She’s put on a layer of long underwear to stave off the cold—no telling how long it’ll take her to trek the two hundred yards or so to Washington Street. She can cut through backyards to get there faster.

If she doesn’t chicken out first.

“You think I don’t want him here?” Ma crosses her arms. “Of course, I’d rather have him here. But you heard the sheriff.”

“Deputy.”

“Whoever he is! You heard him! He said we should stay here with the doors locked!”

“And who’s going to warn Melanie’s family?” Val asks. God, she should have left with Garrett. They could have checked on his parents together, then made their way to Melanie Gladstone’s house. Garrett is two years older than her, but she remembers him being a pretty decent guy whenever she hung out with him at church.

“It’s probably not anything more than a murder.”

“Holy shit, do you even hear yourself?” Val asks.

“I’m locking the door behind you. Don’t come back. Just stay there with them.”

“Fine.” She puts on her coat and slips on her pair of black cat mittens.

“You’d rather be in their family anyway.”

“I’m not doing this right now, Ma.”

“Do you even know how much it cost me to raise you alone?”

“Thousands of dollars?” Val asks, intentionally needling her.

“I could have been a district supervisor!”

“Then why didn’t you abort me!” Val screams back.

“Because I didn’t want to go to Hell! That’s why!”

“Great! Thank you! I really appreciate the sentiment!” Val opens the door and slams it shut behind her. Snow hits her face. She pulls up her black neck warmer so it covers her nose. Her snow pants, tucked into her boots, do a good job of keeping the snow out. Still, she stumbles in the two-foot drifts, and she’s underestimated just how dark it gets away from the comforting porchlight.

Instead of making her way to the road, she goes around the back of the house to the tool shed.

14. 33. 16. Val keeps her phone’s light on the lock; the fingers on her right hand grow numb with each turn of the dial. When she finally gets the lock open, she has to pull hard on the door to disperse the snow that’s piled in front of it.

She puts her cat mitten back on and steps inside, out of the blowing wind. It smells like gasoline. Val uses her phone’s light to locate the pair of snowshoes hanging from a hook next to a green hose. She clips the snowshoes to her boots, then turns off her phone’s light with the tip of her nose.

She’s about to leave when her hand bumps against something. She grabs it before it can fall from its hook. A handle. Heavy. Weighted. She holds it up.

A hand axe.

“Groovy.”

She steps outside. Light through the first-floor windows of Ma’s house spills out in perfect rectangles over the snowy ground.

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