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listened in, as chaos broke out in the Black home. He heard his dad yell for his mom, but everything around him felt surreal. He now imagined Wayne collapsed dead in the floor near the toilet, with his dad holding his head in his lap. He was snapped out of his trance by his dad shouting for him to help carry Wayne to his room.
    After laying Wayne’s weakened body onto his bed, Kevin felt the full brunt of what he’d done. While his dad thought Wayne was coming down with the flu or something and just needed to sleep it off, Kevin knew the truth. He looked down at his older brother before exiting the room, and the humming planted a thought in his head, at least now I won’t have to worry about locking my door at night . You had it coming!
    It was different this time too—it was peaceful almost, satisfied.
    Emboldened by the thought of finally being able to live a normal childhood, Kevin smiled a bit at the knowledge of what he’d done. Sure, he still felt guilty, but at least he didn’t have to look over his shoulder every minute of the day and night. The added bonus of seeing Wayne in his current state was that it seemed to make the horrible humming sound in his ears happy, and for that Kevin was thankful.
    The chaos throughout the old farmhouse was worse the next morning when his mom went in to wake Wayne for school. Kevin heard the yelling, but he couldn’t force his legs to move in that direction. Heart pounding and sweat breaking out all over his body, Kevin felt plastered to his small bed. A few minutes elapsed before his mom burst through his door and frantically yelled, “Kevin, didn’t you hear me? I need you to go to the fields and get your father, now!” It was obvious that his mom was losing it, and Kevin knew the reason why before she even said it. He
    did his best to put on a look of concern.
    “Tell him to come immediately! It’s an emergency; Wayne’s not breathing!”
    Feigning surprise, Kevin said, “What?” “Just go get your dad, Kevin! And hurry!”
    Kevin ran out the door to look for his dad, and settled into a slow jog once he made it out of view from the farm. A myriad of emotions attacked him as he made his way through the tall fields of wheat.
    Guilt was ever present in his heart, but it was slowly being replaced with relief, and dread was also creeping in; he wondered what the future looked like without Wayne to help out on the ranch. He also dreaded the funeral, and having to look upon his brother’s dead body. Acceptance finally made its way into his mind, when he saw his dad’s old tractor plowing down the straw.
    It wasn’t long after Wayne died that their father decided to move to Michigan, of all places. Kevin understood the logic of moving to get away from the bad memories, but why all the way up to the land of cold and misery? He was accustomed to the heat in Taos, and the thought of moving so far away and living in a place where it snowed in feet and not in inches, didn’t sound very appealing to the soon-to-be nine-year-old.

CHAPTER 4

    Kevin still felt guilty for killing his brother—almost twenty-two years later—even though he didn’t think he had a choice at the time. He had to stop the humming and end the angst of being in the same room with Wayne, and at the time, he fully believed it was the only way.
    There were many sleepless nights for Kevin over the years, plenty of nightmares about killing Wayne, and the others of course. Living with the guilt of taking someone’s life is almost impossible to overcome, doublefold when it’s one of your own family members. In one of the many bad dreams he had afterwards, Kevin even allowed Wayne to smother him to death with that pillow. It was the only way he thought he’d be able to clear his conscience, to wash his hands and actually be clean for a change.
    For the first few years following Wayne’s demise, Kevin showered viciously in an attempt to clean himself of his sin; almost to the point of removing skin. He