Black Static #68 (March-April 2019) by 2019 Mar-Apr (Retail)

Author:2019 Mar-Apr (Retail)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: New Horror Fiction & Film
Publisher: TTA Press
Published: 2019-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

***

He chased me through the woods. He caught me, put me in a headlock.

He ground his knuckles on my scalp.

“Is she home?”

“No!”

“Yes she is!”

“No, no!”

“Is, is, is!”

He danced up and down, wrenching my head as if he meant to break it off, then let go suddenly, and I tumbled forward, landing on the dried leaves. They were hard, like wood shavings.

“You don’t even like her,” he said. “You told me!”

And I had, too. Naively, I’d expected him to understand: not liking your sister was just normal. It was commonplace. It wasn’t like not liking school, or Math – or Michael Purley. My sis was literally the single most annoying person I had ever met. She talked too much, she pestered me, and countless times I’d told her to get lost. But I didn’t want her hurt – and not by him, of all people.

He ran. I scurried in pursuit. The ground bounced under me. The grass blades jumped like springs.

Already he was at the gate, reaching over, feeling for the bolt, and sliding it.

He was in the yard. Our yard.

“Purley!” I shouted. He put his face against the kitchen window. “Purley,” I cried – then whining, pleading, “Michael” – but it did no good. I saw Pop’s sledgehammer, left there on the concrete, and I grabbed it, swinging it from side to side. It was a clumsy weapon, too big, too heavy, and I knew my efforts to look tough were laughable. Yet my mind moved quickly. I’ve heard how chess players can see the game for many moves ahead, and I, too, seemed to have that gift, though it brought little comfort. A whole web of actions spread before me. I could trace each course from start to finish. If I did this, then that would follow, plain and simple.

And in almost every case, I’d end up beaten, bloodied, bruised – or worse.

Of all these grim alternatives, just one stood out. It wasn’t what I’d have chosen – but then, choice was something I no longer had.

Still I hesitated.

I wanted him to leave the house.

And that, potentially, demolished the whole plan.

It would have been ideal, abandoning him there, obsessed, preoccupied – but I couldn’t do it.

I watched him try the kitchen door. He shook the handle viciously, then bent, and grabbed my mother’s concrete gnome from off the stoop.

He was going to smash the window, like he had the Eisens’.

“Wait! Stop!”

Was it my sister I was trying to save? Or something bigger – the sanctity of home, of family – of my whole life?

“Purley!”

I swore at him. I called him every name I knew.

I swung the hammer, gripping it in both hands.

I yelled, “Your dad’s—” and faltered.

I was in trouble, and I knew it. I was grasping at a live wire, and every instinct told me to back off, beg forgiveness – and pray he didn’t hurt me too much.

“Your dad, your dad—”

He didn’t have a dad.

“Your dad—”

He raised the gnome.

“Your dad’s in jail,” I said.

He didn’t turn.

“He’s a killer! He’s a rapist! He’ll never get out!”

He glanced back, a sly smile on his face.

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