Frank, where are you, bro?

Margo had been waiting for her brother an hour and a half now and she was starting to get worried. She didn't live in the best neighborhood and Frank was definitely not the toughest guy out there, someone could easily take him. But she had been the one to ask him to come; she had not seen him in about a month, ever since their mom had kicked him out of the house for smoking weed at home. Margo never liked her mother very much, she and her friends called her "The Witch", and, yes, some of that was probably because Mare was still a hormone-raging teenager, but some of it was also factual. Mare blamed her mother for all her family problems; her mother was good at tearing people apart from each other.

She kept looking out the window, waiting to see her brother below. He would have to climb up by a ladder to their second story apartment window in Margo's room. He would have to be quiet, because- even though they hadn't been anything but for the past hour- the "witch" was home with her new boyfriend.

Oh, brother; not you Frank. Just please come quick, I can't take this for much longer; I am losing my mind here.

She laid on her bed, listening to her music, Puke, by Eminem, full blast. Then, as she turned up the volume on her Ipod, just like that, so did her mother. There was banging of all sorts, it sounded like they had taken their passions off the bed and on to the floor. It sounded painful, and Mago had no idea what they could possibly be doing. There were muffled grunts, borderline screams. They got a second wind I guess. Mare tried to humor herself, but she couldn't, she just cried.

Then there was a scream; well, not so much a scream as a short burst of noise, like a high-pitched grunt. And then a small thump as something hit the floor. After that, nothing.

Damn, I don't know much about this, but I don't know what kind of sex move that is. At least it appears they've tuckered themselves out. Whatever, Mare, you shouldn't even be hearing it, let alone thinking about it, concentrate on something else, you have to.

Then she heard fast movement in the hallway outside her room, so she took the headphones out of her ear and sat up. Only a few seconds later, she heard the front door open and close.

What? Did he run away already? Asshole, no one deserves that. This is just turning out to be a great night, Mom is gonna come in here because she will need to be cheered up and then what will happen if Frank comes knocking on the window; she'll probably kick me out too! That's what'll happen. I better just go to her, make sure she is alright, and I'll leave my window open, so Frank can come in quietly. If he ever shows.

She did just that, even wrote her brother a note, saying what was going on. When the window was open, and she was mentally prepared to go talk to her mom, she opened her bedroom door.

As she stepped into the narrow hallway, she gave a yelp as her foot slipped and went up into the air and she went to the ground. She felt her knee pop out of its joint as she hit the floor. She got up, with a sigh, pretty much used to the whole knee thing. Before high school she had been a gymnast, and a damned good one. Unfortunately, she had gotten into an accident one day during a show, hurting her knee badly. The surgery she had to get went well, except to this day her knee still sometimes fell out of its joint at the most unhelpful of times. Sometimes she would just be walking and fall to the ground because of it.

She put her leg out straight while still on the floor and slapped the knee back into place; it always did the trick. She got up, brushing it off and started to head down the hallway to her mothers. She wasn't even surprised that her mom hadn't heard, or hadn't cared when they heard a scream and had come out to investigate.

Maybe, she isn't here. Maybe they both left to go to some bar and get even more wasted. In which case, I have nothing to worry about, she won't be in there. I shouldn't even bother checking. But, it will be helpful to know if Mom's here or not for when Frank comes.

It was only after a few steps that Margo noticed her foot was wet, but not just wet, slimy. She looked down and behind her, at her footprints and saw the blood. Only it didn't register with her as blood, she didn't know what she thought it was, but it couldn't be blood.

No way, it can't be, it just can't be. But it doesn't seem like it could be anything else, does it? Well there is an explanation whether it's blood or not, might as well figure out what it is sooner rather than later. Rape.

The last word had just seemed to come out of nowhere, like from some sort of Miriam and Webster's Jack-in-the-box that, once all wound up, springs words on you in jumbled messes. But the word was the thing that got her on her feet and running towards her mom's room.

"Mom! Are you ok? Answer me, mother!" she yelled down the hallway with no response. She could not believe she had been so naïve; rape, right in her own house, and she had just stayed on her bed, ignoring it. Her heart had never fallen so low before in her life.

When she got to her mother's doorway she did not hesitate, did not try to compose herself, or prepare herself, she just ran in. This time, though, when she tripped, it wasn't on blood, or her mother.

"Jim?" Margo gasped as she looked behind her to see the body of her mom's boyfriend, completely nude, and completely shredded. She knew there was no question as to whether he was alive. She sat paralyzed; not thinking, not moving, not seeing, not even breathing. Nothing was registering with her, yet she knew something inexplicably horrible had come down on her family, as voracious as a mother bear. Someone, or something had killed Jim, and probably…then she felt the blood dripping onto her hair.

"NO!" she yelled before she had even fully glimpsed her mother's head, ever so tenderly hanging on by a thread to what remained of her neck. "NO NO NO NO NO NO NOOOO!"

Margo simply ran, right out of the room, with no intent of stopping until she got to the front room and saw him, or her, or it. Whoever it was had on a costume, that, although, she didn't know the origin of, she was sure her friend Lenny would. Once he- it must be a he, she thought- came out from behind the curtains she stopped, frozen in mid-step, and stared; as dumbfounded as a deer in headlights.

Rape. Murder. Butchered. Dead. RUN.

There was that Jack-in-the-box acting up on her again, except this time she didn't find the nerve to run, this time she was terrified. She knew now what it meant to be paralyzed with fear, and she knew why all those people in horror movies always got killed when it seemed so easy, to her, to survive.

She saw him jump for her before he did and even with the warning she still didn't think she would be able to avoid it. But just before his knife could plunge into her, she did move, almost involuntarily, out of the way. It was surprisingly calm, for the circumstances. Then she ran.

She got out her apartment door, down the stairs and into the street, in a matter of 10 seconds flat. The street seemed conveniently, for the killer in her house, deserted. She turned around so she could cover her back, but there was no one. She waited a minute and then noticed that she was crying, and gagging. Part of her was happy that she could still do that. She needed to call her brother.