Big Bad (Creature Feature collection) by Chandler Baker

Author:Chandler Baker [Baker, Chandler]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Original Stories
Published: 2023-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

June’s father yanks on a cord, and a ladder drops down from the ceiling.

“Go on,” he prompts her.

“What happened to your hands?” she asks. She can’t stop staring. They look like the meat Mommy picked up at the store for taco night. Blood drips in big, fat raindrops, straight onto the wood and rug. June sneaks a glance at Odie, who stands half-asleep beside her.

June laces her fingers through her sister’s.

“Up,” her father says. “We don’t have time for that.”

June doesn’t move. Her mother always grills her with trick questions. What if a delivery man asks her to take a package? She should say no. What if a man asks for help finding his dog? She says no. What if a grown-up, or even just an almost grown-up, offers to let her watch his iPad? The answer is no. What if a friend’s dad tells her that Mommy asked him to drive her somewhere? No. Never. She screams. She bites. She runs away.

“And you have to look out for Odie,” her mother often says. “She’s still little. She doesn’t know better.”

There is blood on her father’s face and in his hair. A cut on his nose. Freckles that were never there before. One eye is puffy, like he’s been stung by a bee. Her mother never told her what to do if her father was the one trying to take her.

“Up, I said!” Her father shakes the ladder so that it rattles. June flinches.

“I’ll go first,” she tells Odie. She climbs, step by step, Odie silently following.

The attic is “Off Limits,” so June has never seen it before. Her parents have warned her about nails and mousetraps and, like always, June has obeyed.

It smells weird, and there is pink stuff that looks like cotton candy sticking out of the walls. A rocking horse. Boxes. An old tricycle. She feels like she’s landed on the moon.

“Who was that man?” she asks her father once they’re all safely ensconced in the attic.

“What man?” Odie asks. She may not have been half-asleep after all, might have just been playing possum.

“A vagrant, probably,” their father answers. “Somebody looking for a handout.”

June doesn’t know what that means.

He gets out two sleeping bags and puts them on the floor, like they’re camping. June has camped only once, and that was for Girl Scouts. Odie wasn’t allowed to come.

He plugs in a night-light, which beams stars onto the ceiling above them. June wishes on one that Mommy would come back.

“How did he know Mommy?” she asks, sitting on the sleeping bag closer to the window.

“How did who know Mommy?” Odie asks.

“Nobody,” her father says. “Here, take these.” He hands them packs of Goldfish crackers, Oreos, and juice boxes, even though it’s the middle of the night and they already brushed their teeth.

“The man,” June whispers to Odie.

Their father walks back to the hole in the floor that used to be a hole in the ceiling when they were downstairs. He stops and listens. June gives Odie a Sister Look.

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