Kayla, for the first time in her life, felt afraid of her own mother. The vodka and occasional pack of Camels aside, she had never been anything but a warm, tentative mother who was not afraid to tell stories of her own mistakes as a child, sometimes in jovial detail. Kayla was not used to this kind of tone, this kind of reaction from a mother who normally swept her up in a hug and tickled her to fits of laughter upon her return from school.
“Are you alright, Mommy? You look sad,”
“Kayla, just leave Mommy alone.”
“Yes, Mommy. Can I make a snack?”
“Kayla! Go do your fucking homework!”
Kayla dropped her backpack with her jaw. She was no longer afraid of her mother but now feared her. She had never been like this, never been mean to anyone.
“Go!” her mother screamed again.
Kayla grabbed her backpack and ran for the stairs. Up her feet bounded and down the hall to her bedroom. She closed the door and for another first in her life, Kayla twisted the small latch and locked her door. She walked slowly backwards, staring at the door as if it was about to burst open. Kayla knew some things about people who drank too much vodka: sometimes they got mean or silly. Her mother had never been either. Even after drinking a lot, she was more half asleep than anything, always a dreamy smile on her face as though she floated in a hot bathtub.
Kayla sat on her bed and cried, not loudly, just tears and the occasional sniffing. She pulled her schoolwork out and tried to make sense of the math but failed. Her father would be home soon, and he would make everything better with Mommy, stop that thing from screaming every few minutes, and help her do these fractions. Even with tear-filled eyes, she managed to finish writing sentences for her spelling words. Daddy would be proud she had finished this with no help.
When he did come home, he stormed through the front door like a tornado, yelling about something or another. Mommy began to scream back at him in a hateful, bitter voice. Then there was a crash, a screech from outside, and more screaming, but this time one side of the argument was coming up the stairs. Kayla did not know why, but she suddenly had an urge to hide. Whatever was coming up the stairs and yelling back down was not her father.
She quickly squirmed under her bed, not even considering the hairy beastie that should have been there, and peaked through the slats in the wood footboard. Fear had become a raging monster all its own, tearing at her insides, pounding on her heart. Then the doorknob turned slightly and stopped at the lock. Dread washed over her; she had left the door locked and whatever was on the other side was going to be very mad at her.
The door suddenly burst inward as the frame broke into large pieces and scattered throughout her room. There in the hall light was her father, more outline than detail, standing like some large predator, a gun in his hand.
“Kayla sweetie, where are you?” Her father’s voice was sickly sweet, almost as if he was mocking her.
“What the hell was that, Dennis?” her mother screamed from the bottom of the stairs.
“None of your business bitch!” he shot back down the hall. “Kayla? Come out, sweetie. Daddy wants to take you out for dinner.”
“You broke the fucking door down?” her mother screeched. “I keep this house clean for you so you can come home and tear it up, is that it?”
Daddy turned slowly, the edge of Mommy’s housecoat just out of sight around the ruined door jam, and fired his gun down the hall. The explosion was so loud it hid Kayla’s short scream. Then her mother screamed, “You shot me, you limp-dick waste-of-a-man!”
Daddy fired the gun again; this time, Kayla did not scream, but her mother howled in pain, or maybe rage. Her father suddenly fell backwards into the room, Kayla’s mother straddling him on top. She was sheeted in blood where the gun had made large holes in her flesh. Mommy began to hit him repeatedly with the kitchen cleaver, hacking into his head and chest as the gun fired again.
Mommy bucked upwards and landed straddling Daddy’s legs. Mommy swung the cleaver again, burying it deeply in Daddy’s chest. He fired the gun, catching her in the face and blowing most of Mommy across the remains of the doorframe and hallway walls beyond. This time, Kayla screamed loud enough for anyone to hear.
Daddy turned his head a bit and rolled his eyes at her. His face was slashed in many places, and blood was running into his eyes. When he found her gripping the wood of the footboard, he tried desperately to bring the revolver over his head and aim at her. Before he could, he seemed to simply fall asleep, his breath a gurgling refusal of the blood invading his lungs.
Kayla squirmed her way from under the bed and discovered her mother was almost completely without a head. Her father, though, still seemed to be fighting for breath, trying to draw in and around the blade of the cleaver in his chest. Kayla knew she had to find help, had to call someone, and right now.
She rushed from her room and toward her parents’, slipping and almost falling in the blood cooling on the carpet. She ran as fast as she could and grabbed the phone from its cradle. She dialed in 911 and listened to the phone ring over and again. She almost gave up when someone finally picked up the phone.
“911, what’s your emergency.”
In the background, Kayla could hear screaming, shouting, and the sounds of things being broken.
“Mommy hurt Daddy!” Kayla cried desperately.
“Is that so… Well, it was probably your fault, kid.”
Kayla sat there, suddenly unsure what had happened in her bedroom.
“No, I didn’t do anything! It was Mommy and Daddy! They fought and now Mommy is dead and Daddy is bleeding!”
The other side of the phone suddenly filled with snickers and giggling from more than one voice, and Kayla realized the sounds in the background had suddenly gone quiet. “It was your fault, Kayla. You drove them to it, didn’t you?”
“No,” She whined, trying hard not to cry. The principal always said to stay calm in an emergency and dial 9- 1-1 on the phone if something like this happened.
“Why should we come and help you when you’re the reason they hurt each other? Huh, kid?”
“Help me! Please!” she pleaded.
The snicker turned to laughter, the giggling to hysterics. Then a woman’s voice came on the line. “Kayla, do you want to help your daddy?”
Kayla began to sob as she spoke, “Yes, please!”
“Does your daddy or mommy have a gun?”
“Yes.”
“Alright, now listen carefully, Kayla…” The laughter had simmered down to snickering. “Go and get the gun, and what you want to do is give your daddy a lead injection; this will make him all better.”
“How? What’s an injection?”
“Well, Kayla, it’s like a shot you get at the doctor’s. Now go and get the gun, Kayla, put the end of it against your daddy’s ear, and pull on the trigger.”
“Huh?”
“Hurry, Kayla! There isn’t much time!” the voice demanded.
“You want me to shoot, Daddy?”
“It will make him all better, I promise. Don’t you believe me?”
Kayla could hear the barely contained laughter in the woman’s voice. “No! It will hurt him even worse.”
“Shoot him, you little slut!” the woman screamed, and those around her began to laugh louder than before.
Kayla slammed the phone down and started crying in earnest. She knew that a police station was just across the street from her school and she might be able to find some help there. Her father always said that if she needed help, she should find a police officer.
She ran down the steps, leapt through the open front door, and began to run towards school. She knew the way, she had ridden the bus five days a week for four years now, but it was a long distance. She knew only that she had to find help for her daddy, and fast.
As she went, she began to find more and more bodies on the street, the sidewalk, in the lawns of the upscale houses of her neighborhood, some even hanging from shattered windows either by the glass or by rope. Her
