was just tired. Exhausted, really.
God, but it was funny what you could do to yourself if you let your mind wander. What she needed was a beer, maybe a slice of pizza, some Letterman, and a good night’s sleep. Lisa was usually watching TV now… some reality crap. Margaret didn’t approve, but she always let Lisa have a few concessions.
You gotta let ‘em go a little tribal sometimes, she always said.
Tara lit a cigarette even though she was supposed to be quitting. She stretched again, her neck and back popping like the joists of an ancient house.
“ All right,” she called out, becoming more concerned by the moment as her voice echoed through the house. “What gives, people? You two playing hide-and-go-seek or what?”
Shaking her head, she pulled off her cigarette and went into the kitchen, trying her best to ignore that dead, rustling feeling in the pit of belly. She rounded the corner and it was at that precise moment, as her feet skidded on something wet and slippery on the linoleum and she almost went down, that everything she held dear, everything she trusted, fell to pieces around her. A scream clawed up her throat and by the time it reached her lips, she was unable to open her mouth. Unable to do anything but stare in shock and listen to a white shrieking inside her skull.
There was blood all over the floor.
It was sprayed up onto the walls.
It looked as if an animal had been slaughtered in there… except it was no animal.
It was Margaret.
Or something that could have been Margaret.
What skin hadn’t been peeled away was the color of bleached flour, the blood that nourished it pooled in a sticky puddle on the floor, spattering the walls, spraying the counters in wild whorls. Margaret had been skinned and dismembered.
Her arms were hanging out of an open, bloody cupboard door like somebody had tried to shut it, but it swung back open on its own. Tara was only truly aware of the wedding ring on the left hand, shining with droplets of blood.
Margaret’s legs were folded on a chair.
Her torso was dumped by the stove.
Her head was placed in the drainboard in the sink.
And although that face was drenched with blood, the expression on it was shockingly clear. And if Tara would remember nothing else of that night, it would be the twisted, agonized look on that grimacing face.
The room spun, lost clarity, went this way and that.
Tara slumped to the floor.
She did not remember vomiting anymore than she remembered screaming, but she had done both. Congealed vomit was splattered down the front of her blouse. A glob of it was smeared over her Starlight name-tag. At that particular moment, everything had taken on the fuzzy tones of a dream. She knew or remembered very little. She was seeing her own life from a distance and it did not seem real. Like a movie. A movie about some woman who had left a good paying job in Denver to come back home to Shitsplat, Wisconsin to raise her kid sister after the death of her parents. She worked two jobs to make ends meet and had a boyfriend named Steve who was real sweet but she never had time to see him. Then one warm night, that woman named Tara had come home hearing the crickets singing and the moon was big and very yellow and she found another woman—whom she loved dearly—hacked to pieces like a joint of beef. Yes, it must have been the plot of some horror movie she had seen because things like that did not happen in the real, sane world and she wished the dream/movie would end, that she’d wake up dear God in heaven please let me wake up because this can’t be happening IT CAN’T FUCKING… BE… HAPPENING—
And then she did wake, snapped out of her fugue.
But it was still there… the dismembered body, the blood.
So much blood she could hear it dripping and it was in the air like a mist and on her lips with a sharp metallic taste like dirty copper. Tara sat there, shaking, her face wet with tears she could not recall crying. On the floor, on her hands
God, but it was funny what you could do to yourself if you let your mind wander. What she needed was a beer, maybe a slice of pizza, some Letterman, and a good night’s sleep. Lisa was usually watching TV now… some reality crap. Margaret didn’t approve, but she always let Lisa have a few concessions.
You gotta let ‘em go a little tribal sometimes, she always said.
Tara lit a cigarette even though she was supposed to be quitting. She stretched again, her neck and back popping like the joists of an ancient house.
“ All right,” she called out, becoming more concerned by the moment as her voice echoed through the house. “What gives, people? You two playing hide-and-go-seek or what?”
Shaking her head, she pulled off her cigarette and went into the kitchen, trying her best to ignore that dead, rustling feeling in the pit of belly. She rounded the corner and it was at that precise moment, as her feet skidded on something wet and slippery on the linoleum and she almost went down, that everything she held dear, everything she trusted, fell to pieces around her. A scream clawed up her throat and by the time it reached her lips, she was unable to open her mouth. Unable to do anything but stare in shock and listen to a white shrieking inside her skull.
There was blood all over the floor.
It was sprayed up onto the walls.
It looked as if an animal had been slaughtered in there… except it was no animal.
It was Margaret.
Or something that could have been Margaret.
What skin hadn’t been peeled away was the color of bleached flour, the blood that nourished it pooled in a sticky puddle on the floor, spattering the walls, spraying the counters in wild whorls. Margaret had been skinned and dismembered.
Her arms were hanging out of an open, bloody cupboard door like somebody had tried to shut it, but it swung back open on its own. Tara was only truly aware of the wedding ring on the left hand, shining with droplets of blood.
Margaret’s legs were folded on a chair.
Her torso was dumped by the stove.
Her head was placed in the drainboard in the sink.
And although that face was drenched with blood, the expression on it was shockingly clear. And if Tara would remember nothing else of that night, it would be the twisted, agonized look on that grimacing face.
The room spun, lost clarity, went this way and that.
Tara slumped to the floor.
She did not remember vomiting anymore than she remembered screaming, but she had done both. Congealed vomit was splattered down the front of her blouse. A glob of it was smeared over her Starlight name-tag. At that particular moment, everything had taken on the fuzzy tones of a dream. She knew or remembered very little. She was seeing her own life from a distance and it did not seem real. Like a movie. A movie about some woman who had left a good paying job in Denver to come back home to Shitsplat, Wisconsin to raise her kid sister after the death of her parents. She worked two jobs to make ends meet and had a boyfriend named Steve who was real sweet but she never had time to see him. Then one warm night, that woman named Tara had come home hearing the crickets singing and the moon was big and very yellow and she found another woman—whom she loved dearly—hacked to pieces like a joint of beef. Yes, it must have been the plot of some horror movie she had seen because things like that did not happen in the real, sane world and she wished the dream/movie would end, that she’d wake up dear God in heaven please let me wake up because this can’t be happening IT CAN’T FUCKING… BE… HAPPENING—
And then she did wake, snapped out of her fugue.
But it was still there… the dismembered body, the blood.
So much blood she could hear it dripping and it was in the air like a mist and on her lips with a sharp metallic taste like dirty copper. Tara sat there, shaking, her face wet with tears she could not recall crying. On the floor, on her hands
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