Page 1

A spit of lightning danced across the black expanse of the midnight sky, illuminating my view of the dilapidated garden that lay just below the kitchen window. Heavy raindrops slipped down the glass pane, blurring the street beyond. The small yard left much to be desired—not even the weeds seemed to be thriving. The thorn bushes and invasive horticulture had taken over everything and long since died. Bits of storm-thrown rubbish snagged on twiggy, thorny bushes, adding to the nastiness of it all.

Despite the normal swelter of late August, the chill riding on the gusting wind was enough to send a shiver down my spine. This was the kind of night you locked your doors early, and tucked yourself away from the cold, unforgiving night.

I was pulled from my storm-gazing trance as the tea kettle began a low whistle. As unnerving as the sound was, I allowed the kettle to remain on the stove a few moments longer. I liked my tea extra hot, which I hoped my companion in the next room wouldn’t mind. I knew loud noises could be uncomfortable for some people, especially when they were already feeling ill at ease.

I grabbed a large mug from the left-hand cupboard, though, admittedly, I’d looked in the one to the right first.

After all, I was still trying to orient myself to this unfamiliar kitchen.

I ripped open the small pouch and dropped the bag inside the mug, draping the string over the lip.

It was rather unfortunate, I thought, that an evening of this magnitude had finally come around, and there was only dollar-store green to be enjoyed.

“I guess it’s true what they say,”

I singsonged to the empty room. “There’s no accounting for taste.”

With an exaggerated sigh, I grabbed the handle of the mug in one hand and the steaming kettle in the other before heading back to the living room.

“Oh, dear… you’re still asleep.”

I walked over to the small coffee table in front of the recliner and deposited my mug before filling it with piping-hot water, making the thin tea bag float to the rim of the cup.

Barbara Cantrell had a peaceful look on her face, as if she were having a pleasant dream.

Her salt-and-pepper hair had started coming loose from the messy bun she always kept it in, and a few stray locks lay haphazardly across the side of her cheek.

A few other strands curled themselves delicately at her fringe, coming to rest across the age-worn skin on her forehead.

Each line on her face was like a ground-plan of the foundation of her life.

The light from the small lamp in the corner of the room flickered once, twice, but remained on.

I was happy, if not a little surprised the electricity was holding as the storm just outside seemed to only be intensifying.

The last thing I wanted to do was have this conversation in the dark.

My father had always taught me to have important talks face-to-face.

It showed respect and honor to look someone in the eye, difficult though it might be at times.

I shouldn't have been surprised she hadn’t woken up yet, given her advanced years.

Strenuous activity was harder to bounce back from the older we got.

I did wonder exactly how old she was, but it was hard to be sure.

She must be at least pushing 60, or even possibly well past it.

The years of self-neglect and unhealthy habits had a tendency to age the skin beyond its years. But, of course, it was never polite to ask a lady her age, no matter what the circumstances.

I took a few small steps, swinging my leg rather wide to get around the corner of the table.

Another crack of lightning split the sky above, illuminating the room well beyond the low-watt bulbs doing their damndest to keep the shadows at bay.

One Mississippi…

Two Mississippi…

Three…

The monstrous clap of thunder surged through the old house like a freight train.

“Lightning's close,”

I whispered before making my way across the room to the sleeping woman.

“Miss Barbara…”

I called softly, not wanting to startle her. “Miss Barbara…”

Hmm…

I picked the kettle up from the coffee table and held it high above the rumpled housedress covering her massive body.

I slowly began applying pressure to the thumb release on the handle and bent my wrist, allowing the scalding water to pour out of the spout and down onto her chest and stomach.

Within seconds, her eyes shot open, and she screamed around the sock I’d stuffed into her fat mouth as she writhed and flailed against the restraints binding her.

“There we are!”

I said cheerfully. “Good evening, sleepyhead. I was beginning to think I was going to have this party all by myself.”

She tried to scream again, tilting her head to the side. Tears began to stream down her sagging, lined cheeks as she gagged.

“Bet you weren’t expecting this today, were you?”

I stood back up. “You know, you gave me quite a scare. I thought that, maybe, I’d given you too much tranquilizer. Given your advanced years and…”

I paused, raking my eyes down her bulbous figure. “How do I put this delicately? Unhealthy lifestyle—I thought maybe I’d already killed you!”

I shrugged my shoulders and chuckled. “And what fun would that be?”

She began to sob again as she choked on the gag, trying to turn her head away from me. “Yeah, sorry about that. I had some trouble stuffing that big ol’ dry sock into the mouthpiece of yours, so I pissed on it while you were napping.”

She started to thrash around again, pulling against her restraints, the plastic tarp wrinkling under her. She was far too large to roll herself over without the use of her hands or feet, and just slammed the side of her body in the legs of the table.

“Hey, take it easy! My tea is up there; you’re making a mess!”

I stood up and gave her a disappointed look. “Stop flailing around, or you’ll get the hot water again!”

I giggled at my statement and shrugged, holding my arms out to the sides. “Who am I, Buffalo Bill?”

Miss Barbara made a guttural moan and her body went limp, all but her abdomen heaving up and down as her lungs tried desperately to inflate under the weight of her massive chest. I ignored her tantrum and took a sip of tea.

“Yuck! Do you actually drink this garbage?”

I asked, holding the mug away from my face as I examined the cup's contents. “That sock in your mouth probably tastes better than this shit.”

I flung the ‘tea’ at her, mug and all. It wasn’t a great shot on my part, honestly. The mug bounced off her shoulder, splashing her with boiling tea as she screamed behind the gag once more.

Another burst of energy from the heavens lit the room up again. “We’ve gotta move our little party along, Babs, I don’t want the lights going out before I’ve finished with you. It wouldn’t be wholly satisfying… don’t you agree?”

Barbara let her head flop to the side, graying hair sticking to the side of her face.

“Not speaking to me now? That’s fine. I don’t mind doing all the talking.”

I squatted down, letting my ass come to rest on the edge of the small coffee table before folding my hands together in my lap.

“You know, I wasn’t going to kill you until Alex turned 18 and left, but it seems like you took it upon yourself to speed up that timeline. A little over-eager, are we?”

“I guess it’s for the best, really. He’s in much better care with the Millers.”

I tilted my head. “I guess I should be thanking you for getting him away from Tom.”

Barbara’s face was scrunched up like she was trying to put the dots together. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head. I’m well aware you lack the brain power to figure it out. So, I’ll break it down for you. You are a vile, horrendous, snatch of a woman, and you deserve to have your death drawn out for days-s-s.”

I clicked my tongue and shook my head in disappointment. “Unfortunately, I just simply don’t have time for that.”

I looked down at her again, “As it is, I’m going to have to chop you up to get you out of here. There’s just so…”

I paused, gesturing towards her with my hand. “So much of you.”

“I can’t really say much. I’ve just started my fitness journey recently.”

I stood up straight and put my hands on my hips to present myself to her. “I’m down 14 pounds, though,”

I preened. “I’ve seen the way Alex looks at that stupid fuck every time he takes his shirt off, which by the way is a lot.”

I rolled my eyes, “Maybe, one day, I’ll get to kill him too. I know Alex is in love with him. I can see it in the way he looks at him.”

I bit my bottom lip as a surge of anger rolled down my spine. Flashes of Tom penetrating Alex in the woods behind this very house, memories I wish I didn’t have. Alex always looked broken—defeated, even!—after that stupid fuck was finished having his way with him.

“Alex deserves tenderness and sensuality. Candles and massages… not to be used like a goddamned Fleshlight with his beautiful face pushed into the mud!”

My emotions overtook me momentarily. “And you, you fucking fat pig, treating him like a discarded piece of trash you had been burdened with!”

I finished with a swift kick to the side of Barbara's ribs.

Her body contorted, and she began to heave as her body instinctively tried to double over, her restraints and excess weight prohibiting her from doing so.

I ran a frustrated hand through my hair.

“I apologize for losing my temper, but it just makes me physically ill to look at you.

I saw you slap Alex across the face.

How fucking dare you? That’s the sweetest boy God ever put on this earth. Then you come along, thinking you’re worthy of walking on the planet at the same time as him. And to strike him…”

I kicked her again just to hear her scream. Once she had devolved into sobs and incoherent pleas for her life, I glanced up at the clock hanging on the wall. 11:28 PM.

“Well, as much fun as our little chat has been, it’s about time to get rolling here,”

I announced briskly as I picked my hand-axe up by the handle from behind the sofa, “I gotta get you disassembled and up to the pig farm before daylight, and it’s a bit of a drive.”

I tapped a finger against my chin. “I sure hope the tarp in my truck bed is big enough. You couldn’t have eaten a salad just, like… once?”

Barbara thrashed again as I approached her, the axe blade glistening in the pale light.

“I'm gonna start with your feet… do you think I’ll get them both off before you lose consciousness?”

The old woman began to kick her legs back and forth, trying to scream around the piss-soaked sock in her mouth. “Oh, what fun,”

I exclaimed exuberantly. “A moving target!”

***

I wound my way down the two-lane county road, rain tapping lightly on the windshield.

The storm had finally broken, and all that remained was a light sprinkling as the outer bands moved westward.

I shifted in the driver’s seat, trying to alleviate some of the tension on my sore muscles.

Miss Barbara had to have weighed a cool 350 pounds, every one of which I felt as I was hacking her up piece by piece.

I arched my back and rolled my shoulders.

I needed to start lifting more weights.

I’d only just recently started trying to get into shape.

Genetics and poor eating habits inherited from my parents had kept me overweight since puberty.

My mom was out of the picture by then, and my father had his head so far up his company's asshole that I was basically just left to do whatever I wanted.

Mom called every three or four months, and I only saw my dad about three times a week, despite sharing a home with him.

Food became a comfort. A lifeline, if you will.

I never cared much about my appearance growing up.

Most people were absolute fuck-wits and didn’t hold my attention long enough to make me self-conscious about the clothes I was wearing, or my pudgy belly.

Honestly, the general public bored me to tears.

Going about their meaningless lives with more main character energy than a fucking Avengers movie, when in reality, they’d ultimately add nothing more to the world than their carbon footprint.

Except for Alex.

I passed the small turn-off for Culken Creek, despite my previous plans for the evening. I had intended to stop there on the way back from McNally's Farm to rinse the remnants of the old woman off my body, but with the constant barrage of rain I’d fought as I jammed pieces of Miss Barbara through the slats in the pig pens, I figured there was nothing left on me to find.

I’d already stripped naked in the field where I’d left the car and stuffed the clothes I’d been wearing into a plastic grocery bag.

I had braced myself against the side of my truck and scrubbed myself down as the rainwater washed over me.

That was one thing I’d always appreciated about a good rainstorm: everything was so clean afterwards.

I reached over, tapped a couple of buttons on my phone screen, and turned the volume knob on the stereo.

The Taylor Swift playlist Alex had created started to play on the surrounding speakers

Now that Alex had escaped Barbara's, he seemed to be doing well.

The Millers were a nice older couple, giving Alex the privacy and peace of mind he needed to start branching out and learning to discover the kinds of things that he liked.

I'd been watching him listen to a lot of music lately.

Alex liked to prop his phone up against the history text on his nightstand and let his YouTube playlist go as he studied.

If I was lucky enough to get the third parking spot down on the left from the Miller’s driveway, I could angle the binoculars just right and be able to see what was playing on his phone screen through his window.

It took me a few weeks, but I was finally able to find his username and see the full lists of the songs he listened to.

When I was watching him in the evenings, I liked to queue it up and try to match up the songs so we were listening to the same track at the same time.

I can tell you that Taylor Swift would not have been my first, second, or even fifteenth choice, but, if Alex enjoyed listening to her songs so much, there had to be something there.

I was growing to like her, or, at least, some of her songs more than others.

I wasn’t heavy into pop music, but, I had to admit, the woman was a poet.

A soft chime interrupted the track, announcing an automated reminder from my calendar.

I glanced over at the small screen affixed to its charging mount in the center of the dash.

DAD’S 76TH BIRTHDAY

“Happy Birthday, Pops,”

I said aloud, before letting the soft melody take over my thoughts as I made my way back home, memories of the past floating in and out of my mind.