A scream echoed through the house. Muffled, yet, penetrating, it didn’t stop. How could a woman hold such a sound? Wouldn’t she ever run out of breath?
John hid in his closet, headphones over his ears, hands pressing on his mouth, trying to keep his voice within his thin eight-year-old frame. Neither the shrieking in his head or the walls and clothing surrounding him blocked his mother’s screams from his hearing.
He longed for help or escape, but he knew there was neither for either of them. His father’s mansion stood high on a hill, and old trees ringed the slopes. A wall ten foot tall and three foot thick topped with electrified barbed wire contained the woodlands. Hungry dogs roamed the grounds.
The nearest neighbors, their scared and scarred servants lived five miles away.
There would never be a savior for them.
Sean struggled against the nightmares embedded in John Smith’s blood. His memories were so strong; they kept Sean paralyzed with fear. Waking briefly, he wiped sanguine sweat from his forehead. It glared like neon on his pale flesh. A stabbing pain raked across his back and dragged him back into his victim’s thoughts.
The belt buckle, the frame, and bar forming an H and the prong a trident struck John on his back, opening another wound in his flesh. He lay over the leather pommel horse in his father’s study, his hands gripping the wooden legs. At twelve, after years of practice, he no longer had to be strapped down. It was a victory over his father, as was his refusal to scream.
His father no longer beat them with extreme vigor. Age, he was now in his late seventies, and some disease ate at his muscles. His physical weakness didn’t rob him of his scary behavior, though.
John turned his head and looked at David. His ten-year-old brother, strapped to his bench, still screamed when struck by the metal symbol of their father’s beliefs.
Francis Dashwood fell back in his overstuffed leather chair and dropped the belt to the wooden floorboards.
“Get out,” he barked. He unbuttoned his trousers and reached inside, touching himself. “Tell your mother to come to me.”
John stood, some of the congealed blood split, making his wounds ooze.
He loosened the leather holding his brother down, dragged David’s arm around his neck, and hauled them both away from the devil that spawned them.
After dropping David off in his monklike room, lying on his stomach crying into his arms, he went in search of his mother.
She sat at her dressing table. The furniture, like the woman, was dressed in pink frills and abundant lace. She brushed her strawberry blonde hair in slow strokes.
“You didn’t scream,” she said. She watched John in the mirror.
He shook his head.
“He will be all the harder on me for it.”
John shrugged.
She smiled at him as she touched her breasts. She licked her parted lips, her eyes closing slightly.
John watched her. He grew hard. He would use this image when he touched himself tonight and listened to her scream.
“You better go,” he said. “He already had his hands in his pants when we left him.”
She rose slowly, her movements languid, sexy, enticing, musical.
Sean felt hard all over. (This was some fucked up shit.) He couldn’t break free from the images flowing through the blood he had consumed. Paralysis gripped his body keeping him tethered to the bed. John’s blood was strong, stronger than Sean’s ability to fight the horror of the boys’ lives. When he got free of these visions, he’d kill Doctor Death for chaining Sean to John’s consciousness.
He learned a lesson in the power of past experiences if only he could break free.
The crawl space on the other side of the wall to their father’s study had peepholes. John and David hid in the closeted area, watching their father and mother. Their parents knew the teenagers watched them. John was sure they performed for them.
John knew their family was unique. He watched and listened to other boys. He knew there were others like them, but not many. And so they had to keep their secrets.
They celebrated his seventeenth birthday last week. Early graduation from his private high school happened next week. He received a black sports car as a gift. He loved racing it along the snaking roads around the mountains.
David nudged his shoulder.
Their mother lay motionless on the floor, a plastic bag over her head. Their father stood over her, his flaccid, naked chicken flesh quivering. He cried over his wife, soft, pathetic whimpers. He collapsed. Oh, for gods’ sake.
“Come.” John pulled on David’s shirt, dragging him with him. David tried to stay in the closet. John slapped him. “Get your ass moving, or you’ll regret it.”
The boys entered the study without making a sound. David stood off to one side while John went to the big oaken desk and picked up the antique Marbles fish skinner knife.
Francis turned on his knees, big, wet doe eyes watching John. He saw the knife in his son’s hand and tried to stand.
“Don’t bother,” said John. “I’m going to cut your throat.”
“No.” Francis clasped his hands as if in prayer. “Please, no. Don’t kill me.” The beast of their nightmares cried, loud, racking sobs.
John fisted the sparse, white hair on his father’s head, exposing the old man’s neck. He sliced from ear to ear, the blood pulsing from the open wound, turning their mother’s frilly pink panties bright red.
* “During the day, memories could be held at bay, but at night, dreams became the devil’s own accomplices.” ― Sharon Kay Penman, The Reckoning
