Chapter fifty-five:

 

 

The room is so dark, so I give myself a minute to let my eyes adjust. Carrie is right outside the door; I can hear her breathing amidst the snores of her parents. The room smells of tobacco and whiskey, with undertones of something else, something familiar.

I step closer to the bed. It’s right in the center, so I can’t miss it. I step to her mother’s side first, and I lift the blade and I tremble. Carrie’s hand touches my waist, and I feel electricity running through me. I turn and look at her. I can see her profile in the darkness. She shakes her head and tugs me to her father’s side.

My heart feels scared, but I’m also happy because she came into the room so I didn’t have to do this on my own. And I’m so grateful.

She pulls me and I get it. It’s him she wants dead first. Him that deserves it more. Her mother can go second. I nod and I raise the knife. I will go for the heart. I will plunge it right through his chest, through his ribs and to the soft bloody machine that beats within him, keeping this monster alive. I will slay the beast.

But then something happens.

Something unexpected.

He opens his eyes.

It takes a second for him to register that I am here, and another second for him to grab the knife as I plunge it toward his chest. It slices through his hands as he grips either side of the blade, and he screams as fingers and blood go tumbling away from him.

I drop the knife and he’s still screaming. Carrie’s mom is stirring, but not waking, because apparently she sleeps like the fucking dead. Perhaps it’s the alcohol. Perhaps it’s the needles on the bedside table. I have no clue, but the whole thing is fucked now.

Carrie picks up the knife. She stares at it for a split second while she comes to a decision, and then as her dad tries to stand she drags it across his throat. He tries to grab the knife, but the knife cuts off his fingers as he runs them along the blade, and he ends up grabbing only air. And then he is choking, and coughing on his own blood with his eyes wide and his fingerless, bloody hands grabbing at his neck.

Carrie stabs at his chest, plunging it through his stomach, and I hear the ‘umph’ as he gurgles on the blood. And then she is crying and stabbing over and over and I have to pull her off of him. I take her in my arms and I rock her on my knee. She cries against me, her tears soaking my T-shirt. A strange, strangled sound escapes her as she tries to hide her relief. But it’s all coming out now. The years of torment and abuse. The fear and dread. It’s all escaping from her and I hold her while she sheds her grief like a heavy woolen blanket.

When she is calm, I help her to stand. And I see that she has hurt herself, that blood is oozing from her hand.

“My room,” she says. “I have a first-aid kit.”

And I follow her through and I know why she has this first-aid kit. And I know that it’s because of her dad, and I feel angry all over again. She sits on her bed and the blood trails over the floor and her covers. It soaks into her mattress and I see it all over me too—a mix of her dad’s blood and hers.

Combined, entwined, together forever.

And that’s just the shittiest thing of all.

Even when he was dying, he still managed to hurt her.

Her mom slept through the entire thing, and I think that disgusts me more. How much has Carrie’s mom slept through over the years?

Purposefully?

Accidentally?

I sigh and reach for the bandages and I wrap Carrie’s hand, and more of her blood goes over my jeans and T-shirt, and I say sorry a thousand times for fucking this all up. I wanted to be the hero, I tell her.

I wanted to do this for you. I’m sorry, I say. Over and over.

“You still can be,” she says. “You can still be the hero.”

And now she has my attention. And now I’m not feeling sorry for myself anymore.

“How?” I ask. Because I’ll do anything to make it up to her. She shouldn’t have had to do that. And she shouldn’t have got hurt. That’s my fault.

“I want you to kill your dad, Ethan,” she says. “I want you to kill him next.”

“Okay,” I reply. Just like that. It’s so simple and I will do it, because he’s just as bad as her dad. “What about your mom?” I ask, listening as Carrie’s mom still snores on, oblivious to the massacre next to her.

“Leave her,” she says, and her face contorts into something ugly and bitter. “Leave her to rot next to his corpse.”

“Okay,” I say, and then we are standing and leaving her room, and going down the stairs, and leaving her house, and walking down the street to my house, where everything is dark and quiet, and we are going up my stairs, in the dark, and it is all so eerily similar to Carrie’s house. Like a fucked-up déjà vu.

My parents’ room isn’t so dark though. There is always a small lamp on in the corner. My dad doesn’t like the dark, but my mom does, so she sleeps with an eye mask on. It’s creepy, I always thought. Because the eye mask has eyes on it. Green, not like my mom’s brown. And they stare at me now as I move through the room toward my dad, with Carrie at my side.

I look down on his face. This handsome man that I always thought was so gentle and kind. So caring and loving. He built trains with me, and we used to walk through the woods. He taught me how to ride my bike and helped me with my algebra. How could a man, a father, a husband, do all of those things and yet be so sick inside?

How is that possible?

“Do it,” Carrie whispers, and I nod okay, because I can’t find my words anymore.

I have the same knife that Carrie just used on Mr. Brown. And I hold it high above my dad’s chest. A drop of Mr. Brown’s blood drips onto my dad’s chest, and I expect him to wake because the sound is like a gong in the almost silent room. But he doesn’t; he sleeps on.

Just like Carrie’s fucking mom. Who should die too, for what she’s stood by and let happen to her daughter.

I look over at my mom’s staring fake eyes and then I look back to my dad’s tired face and then I stab him through the heart. It’s as easy as that. His eyes open wide and he sees me as he fades away. The blood bubbles up around the knife, and it is surprisingly quiet and peaceful, as far as murder goes. It’s nothing like with Carrie’s dad, which was brutal and bloody, I think. And maybe that’s fitting. Maybe that’s right. He had a bloody, violent end as punishment for the things he did, whereas my dad had a bloody, silent end to go with his sneaking, ugly ways.

He’s dead, and so is Mr. Brown, and both our moms are still sleeping on as if nothing has happened. It’s all so fucked up.

Carrie and I go back outside, and we sit on the back porch steps and we stare up at the moon.

There is blood on my hands and blood on my jeans and blood on my soul.

I’ll go to hell for this, I’m sure, I’m certain, but Carrie says not. She says God would be pleased about what I did. Because I ended her suffering and I stopped them from hurting others.

I think she may be right.

“What now?” I say.

“We leave,” she says, her gaze avoiding mine. “I’ll go pack my things and you can pack yours. I’ll meet you back here in an hour and then we’ll leave this place forever. Okay?” And she smiles, and even with the blood of her father on her face, she is beautiful. The moonlight glows down on her, and her hair shines, and for the first time in so long, I see hope in her eyes.

“I love you, Carrie,” I say.

And I do. I love her so much.

“I know,” she says as she turns away from me and starts to walk back home.

And I wish she’d say it back, just this once.