I stomped my way up the stairs and grabbed my walkie from under my pillow.
“Leon?” I whispered.
“There you are. I was looking for you all day.”
“Yeah. I was busy,” I lied. “Can you meet me out back in like twenty minutes? I have something to tell you.”
“Yeah I’ll be there,” He said. I clicked off the walkie and walked to my dresser. Hidden underneath my underwear was a pack of matches, and at my feet, I grabbed my illicit purchase from my backpack.
Hiding the matches in my pocket and keeping my hands behind my back, I made my way downstairs.
“Annibel Marie,” my mothers shrill voice hollered my name. “That better be a ghost coming down the stairs. You’re grounded young lady.”
“I don’t fucking think so,” I calmly whispered back.
I could feel my mothers shock at my words, and I listened as she got up off the sofa and marched into the kitchen. As soon as she appeared in front of me I lifted my hand.
Bang
Blood sprayed everywhere, like a fountain of red juice. Splatters of brain coated the kitchen walls. It was a glorious and beautiful mess. I wanted to make a blood angel in it, but there was another person in the house.
“Annie? What have you done?”
“Hi Dad,” I smiled before pulling the trigger again.
For ten beautiful minutes, I surveyed the scene in front of me. The teapot hollered from the stove, begging to be taken off the heat, but I didn’t budge. I was transfixed.
I knew I needed to move though. Leon was set to meet me out back any minute, and I didn’t want him peeking in the windows and running off to tell his family. I stowed my gun under my jean hem in the back and pulled my shirt over it.
I tiptoed around the carcasses of my makers, and headed out the sliding glass door. Leon was already waiting. I put on my best sad face and ran to him, my body covered in blood.
“Annie? What the hell?” He screamed, grabbing me by the shoulders and yanking me off of him. “Is that blood?”
“Quick, Leon you have to come. Right now!” I shrieked at him.
Grabbing his shaking hand and running back towards my house, I could hear the hysterics coming from him but it only sounded like harmonious cacophony in my rage addled brain. His later screams added to the chorus creating a song that would never leave my head for as long as I lived.
I stopped just outside of the sliding glass door and let Leon go in first, following in directly behind him. Just like the pussy he was, as soon as he saw my parents, he turned around and vomited, unable to hide his horror. When he finally looked up at the cheshire cat smile planted on my face, only then did he know he was in trouble.
“Sit down, Leon?” My cool and collected voice whispering my command.
“You get the fuck away from me, you psycho?” Leon stammered, attempting to take a step towards the door.
I grabbed my gun and aimed it at his foot. Pulling the trigger, he went down like a sack of potatoes. I had only grazed him, but he screamed like a little girl.
“I said, sit the fuck down,” my gun pointed at his face.
Leon howled from the pain and I revelled in his screaming, silently thanking my deceased father for installing so much sound barrier insulation to drown out his wretched guitar playing from the complaining neighbors.
“Ok, ok” Leon cried out, putting his hands out and hobbling his way up onto a kitchen chair.
With my gun still aimed at his head, I walked backwards a few feet to my fathers notorious junk drawer. Rummaging inside, I found the object of need. A zip tie. That would do nicely.
I walked back to Leon and stood on his shot foot with my sneakers. “Put your hands behind your back.”
Like a smart boy, my old crush did what he was told. Quickly and efficiently I wrapped Leon’s hands around the zip tie and fastened it to the chair in which he sat.
“Why are you doing this?” He bellowed and I laughed. Even at fourteen I had seen enough movies to know that it was a silly question, but as I have stated before, Leon was a bit soft in the head.
The question was, should I answer him? Did he deserve to know why he was destined to die that day? A part of me wanted to scream and cry and tell him I had heard everything, but an even bigger part of me wanted him to die slowly, painfully, and without any reason why.
Once the youngest brother was securely fastened, I walked over to the sink and reached underneath for the bottle of gasoline my father kept for grilling. Shaking it, I smiled. A new bottle.
I popped it open and inhaled the familiar scent. Ignoring Leon’s pleas for release, I took the bottle over to my parents bodies. Blood continued to ooze out of them like a festering sore and I doused them in the foul smelling liquid. Keeping the nozzle down, I created a direct path to the chair in which Leon sat, carefully avoiding him or his chair.
I circled around, creating a pool of gas before tilting the container up with just enough in it for my departure.
I looked into the watery, redding eyes of the boy I had loved for almost a decade.
“No one will ever love you like I did, Leon. No one.”
I leaned over and kissed his lips, a single tear falling from my eye and landing on his cheek.
I turned the bottle upside down again over the pool at his feet and trailed it outside onto the porch. I reached in my back pocket and grabbed the matches.
“Goodbye
