I always feel like somebody's watching me.
And I have no privacy.
I always feel like somebody's watching me.
Tell me is it just a dream?
Rockwell (Somebody's Watching Me, 1984)
Uppity little bitch, Lincoln thought and took a pull from the half empty bottle of whiskey. It was piss warm, burned his throat, and made his eyes water, but he didn't care. It was better than being sober. At least he thought; he hadn't been sober since the day he aborted Lacy's baby...a week ago? A week and a half? So long, at any rate, that he couldn't remember what sobriety was like beyond that it sucked.
Just like everything in his life.
He was currently sitting in his chair and glowering at the TV, his brows knitted heavily. On the screen, a girl that looked a lot like Lupa with black hair sat across from Steve Wilkos, tears standing in her eyes. The white text at the bottom read: My Abuse Story. Her parents died when she was little and her religious zealot grandparents raised her, punishing her for the tiniest infraction by beating her with a switch or locking her in a closet to pray for Christ's forgiveness. That's the gist he got, but he wasn't listening...he was watching, his chest tight with rage. You're a child molester, she said, get out of my room, pedophile. He took another drink and swallowed hard.
Lupa had always been a stuck-up little cunt. She thought she was too good for him, too good for her oh-so-terrible life. Wah-wah-wah, my legs, wah-wah-wah abyss. She was just like her fucking mother; Lucy had an idyllic childhood, yet she moped. Calamity, depression, woe unto me! Black hair, black clothes, no one understands me! That shit always annoyed him, but it was only when he was older than he realized just how insulting and self-centered it was. How did Mom and Dad put up with her without getting physical or kicking her out? Don't like your life, leave. Lupa was the same. She had food, shelter, and all the things she wanted (luckily the little slut was cheap, unlike her bitch sisters). Still...she dragged herself around like a Jew at Auschwitz or something. My life is so miserable...it's not worth living, let me cut myself.
She didn't think anyone knew, but Lacy did, and she told him about it once. It disturbed him greatly...because he was doing his level best here, and she didn't appreciate it. None of them did, but Lupa most. She wouldn't even fuck him. When he first brought the possibility up when she was ten, she looked at him with such disgust he shrank back. Only if you want to, he said quickly. That was the deal he made with all the others (except Loan, Lemy, and Liby), and none of them had ever said no. Liby, but he could understand - she was so fucking retarded she might as well be a baby. Lupa wasn't stupid - she was intelligent, very intelligent - like him. She knew what she was doing; she just thought she was better than him.
Humph. Little tramp. She was probably getting it from some boy at school. A vision of her and a faceless kid naked and sweaty in the janitor's closet, their bodies pressed together and her eyes hazed with lust, danced mockingly through his head, and he felt himself stir. Little Miss I-Hate-My-Daddy. Fuck her. Fuck all of them. He worked his motherfucking ass off to provide for these pieces of shit and how did they thank him? By ignoring him. The only one who'd spoken to him since last week was Leia; he'd taken to sleeping in her room every night because she was all he had now, the only one who paid him attention, the only one who still followed him. She was a good girl; in fact, she was the only one of his children still worthy of his love. Loan, Liena, Lyra, Liby, Lupa, Lacy, Lemy, Lizy, and Lulu didn't deserve him, they deserved their whore mothers. They were all just like them anyway, Lacy with her sports and Lyra with her music. You notice that? They looked like their mothers, they did the same things - how do you think that made him feel? Why didn't any of them do shit he liked?
Fuckers probably weren't even his. Leia was, but her siblings? No, you know what? They weren't, even if they were. They wanted to be like their moms so fucking much, they could have them. He was trash as far as they were concerned and always had been...fine, they were trash too, Loan shitting on herself and Lizy walking around with that creepy fucking eye. She was coming home today, and Lincoln was not looking forward to having her back. He wished they kept her, along with her skitzo fucking sister.
He was fuming now. He lifted the bottle to his lips, but froze when Lori spoke behind him. "Have you checked on Lacy lately?"
"No," he said distastefully and took a long drink.
Lori sighed in disgust.
"She's twelve fucking years old," Lincoln spat, "she doesn't need Daddy checking on her every five fucking minutes."
Since the abortion, Lacy had hardly gotten out of bed, and every time he walked by her room he heard the sound of soft sobbing. She didn't eat, hadn't been to school in days (Lynn made up a story about an illness or something to appease them), and every time she saw him she shook like a frightened little chihuahua; that last one made him so mad that keeping from hitting her took Herculean effort. Oh, I'm so scared of Dad because he aborted my fucked up, retarded-and-physically-deformed piece of shit baby. Wow, what an asshole, right? He spared her the bullshit he had to deal with, and she didn't even thank him.
Yeah, none of these cunts (and that fag Lemy) appreciated him. He hated them all so fucking much he felt sick - literally sick.
With a snooty little huff, Lori went upstairs and left him alone. It was her fault when you got right down to it, her fault he was here, her fault their sisters were here, and her fault all these fucked up kids existed in the first place; he couldn't remember who kissed who first as they cuddled on the couch - maybe it was a mutual explosion of passion - but he was fucking eleven, a dumb shit kid. She was seventeen...practically an adult. She shouldn't have kissed him...she should have shut that shit down, but noooo, she spread her legs and let him finger her, her head thrown back and her teeth brushing her bottom lip. Faster, Linc...I'm close. Then she took him upstairs and raped him...fucked his goddamn cum right out of his balls and into her womb, where Loan festered for nine months before slithering out and 'tarding things up.
Did she do this on purpose? He bet she did. Hateful, spiteful bitch. Bobby broke up with her for Carol Pingrey and when she got home she looked around and said I'm going to make them as unhappy as I am.
Mission accomplished, Lori. Mission fucking accomplished.
He finished off the bottle and sat it on the end table just as the front door opened. He glanced over with hate filled eyes that narrowed to reptilian slits when he saw Lupa; she hobbled in after Leia, who smiled brightly. "Hi, Daddy!"
Lincoln's glare thawed just enough for him to smile back, albeit tightly. "Hi, honey."
The little girl came over and crawled into his lap, intentionally squeezing his crotch as she righted herself. "Oops," she drew with a sly grin, "sorry."
Lincoln forced a smile and kissed her forehead. "That's okay. It was an accident."
No, it wasn't. She'd been pestering him for sex ever since the day he aborted Lacy's baby, but he hadn't been in the mood, though he did go down on her the other night to shut her up. Presently she tilted her head to the side and met his lips with hers; he cupped her cheek in his hand and kissed her deeply
Lupa rolled her eyes and made her way up the stairs. In her room, she found Lacy lying in bed and staring up at the ceiling, her eyes vacant. "Hey," Lupa said, and it took a lot of effort to keep her voice even and casual, "how're you doing?"
She dropped onto the edge of her sister's bed and sat her crutches aside, then twisted around to face her. "Fine," Lacy said and sighed.
A frown touched Lupa's lips. That was a lie, she was not fine. She was better than she was, but she still wasn't what Lupa would call 'fine.' She was severely depressed - Lupa had a lot of experience with depression, so she recognized it for what it was even if aunt Lynn and Dad called it 'moping.' She could barely bring herself to get out of bed, slept far more than was healthy, and spent most of every night crying into her pillow.
She refused to talk to Lupa about what happened...all she'd gotten in the past week was, "I wanna forget it happened."
But she couldn't; it consumed her...ate her...nested in her heart like cancer.
The same way it did with Lupa.
She tried not to dwell on it, but she was weak, and she did; as she lay awake at night staring into the gloom and listening to her sister cry; as she sat at the tale and fought not to look at her disgusting filth of a father; when she passed young mothers on the street and was too slow to stop herself from thinking that could have been Lacy and her baby. Dwelling, she had learned, was destructive; if you constantly brood on something like...that...you'll drive yourself crazy. Still, just the knowledge of what he did...or what aunt Lynn did...it bothered her so goddamn much she could barely sleep. She always knew her family was dysfunctional, but this...this was a new low.
And all through it, Dad stayed drunk, his face a bloodless mask of hatred. He spoke only to Leia, and sometimes, Lupa caught him stealing furtive glances at her, a strange look in his eyes, a mixture of loathing...and hunger.
Maybe she didn't always show it, and maybe she didn't wear it on her sleeve, but she loved most of her siblings (Leia being really the only exception). She was closest to Lacy, since they were the same age and had always shared a room - in their childhood, they were playmates and constant companions, inseparable and happy despite the vast difference in their personalities, Lacy the athletic ball of energy, and Lupa reserved and meditative. Playing favorites with members of your family might be wrong, but Lacy was her favorite sibling far and away.
Yet...if her legs worked, she wouldn't hesitate to run away, to leave all of them behind and escape the tightening vise-of-dread that had become her life. She'd ask Lacy to come with her of course, but if she said no, she wouldn't hesitate to go without her.
But her legs didn't work; she was trapped on this sinking fucking ship, doomed to watch helplessly as the lapping waves crept higher and higher up the deck, getting closer, closer, closer until they washed over her…
...and she drowned.
Lupa never believed in God, but now...she thought maybe He did exist.
And hated her guts.
She took a deep breath and laid her hand on Lacy's shoulder. She wanted to say something to make her sister feel better - something to make herself feel better - but there was nothing, so instead, they sat together in dark silence, two lost souls damned to suffer eternal torment for sins that they themselves had not committed, for the sins of their mothers..and their father.
They were watching her. She could feel it.
It's amazing, isn't it, how once your mind is clear sky you can see the things that the medication haze prevents. Take the teacher, for example. She didn't notice it before but his eyes never left her, even when his back was turned. He sent her messages during class, messages only she could hear. You're stupid...ugly...worthless. He assigned a test, and she watched him closely as he sat behind his desk and fiddled with his phone - talking about her, no doubt. She's right here, Principal McBride, I have visual contact, she'll be leaving here in 2.5 klicks and will be heading to lunch. Over.
She couldn't help a sharp grin. They thought she didn't know; they thought she was still taking their poison and rotting her body out but they were wrong, she freed herself and now she was awake like an owl. She saw their little tricks...planting taunting things in the newspaper: Girl here, guitar there, terrible in one of the comic's speech bubbles. There was a body with her father's name on it and an obituary with aunt Lori and aunt Lynn. That's how they worked, they cut pieces of paper out and put it on a letter like a terrorist. You wouldn't notice it all if you were being pumped full of sleep agent but when the blinders fall off like that wrestler, you get it. They were talking to her, telling her that her music was awful and that she couldn't play. Before, it would worm its way into her subconscious and make her feel like shit, but now she saw right through it. It was so simple.
But of course it was, they wanted her to know...they wanted her on the run and constantly looking over her shoulder, because eventually that drives you crazy and when you're crazy they can take control of you. Oh, your daughter needs to stay. Then they keep you and use you for experiments. They take your memories away and give you back...then they repeat the whole process over again. They drove you to insanity then watched until you were ripe, then they came for you like the blade of a sytch through summer wheat. Oh, she's a danger to herself and others we have to anesthetize this bitch put her in a padded room with a straight jacket calm down Miss Loud and stop screaming. Well, what did the expect her to do when they abducted her and threw her into their fucking dungeon? Laugh? Some of the others laughed but not her, she didn't want to do this anymore, she didn't want the process to happen again and again and again. She wanted to be left alone! Why couldn't they leave her alone?
Stupid, worthless girl.
Ugly bitch.
Incest freak.
Her grip tightened around her pencil and she pressed the tip into the page so hard that it snapped.
Uncle-father and auntie-mother. Uncle-father and auntie-mother. Hahaha. Freak!
She glared at the teacher, but he pretended not to notice. I am not a freak.
Yes you are, you're a nasty incest girl. You have sex with your brother.
Lyra seethed with rage; she couldn't deny that, she did have sex with Lemy. Apparently it was online now and they knew all about it. When she got home, she was going to tear her room apart and find their stupid fucking cameras, smash them against the floor, then step on them. How's this for a porn?
When the bell rang, Lyra gathered her things and hurried out into the hall, passing the teacher's desk with the fear of a little girl passing a giant spider hanging in a web. At her locker, she opened the door and started to shove her books in, but stopped. Being as casual as possible, she quickly rummaged through it in search of cameras or listening devices, but there were either none, or they were so well concealed that she didn't recognize them. She slammed the door and went to the cafeteria, fighting the urge to look over her shoulder and winning - for now.
We already know you're crazy and we're coming to take you away.
"I'm not crazy," she muttered aloud without realizing it. She fell in line behind a fat boy with red hair, and swept the room with her gaze. Nothing weird or crazy about looking around, right? Maybe she was trying to spot a friend or a crush, who knows?
She didn't see friends or crushes, though; she saw Vice Principal Nolan standing between the trashcans, his hands clasped behind his back and his face like stone; she saw Mrs. Marris, the history teacher, standing against the far wall, facing him. She stared straight ahead. Coach Peters was by the door leading to the gym, his hands on his hips.
They didn't look like it, but they were watching her.
The dragnet was closing.
An icy fist gripped her heart, and her chest constricted. The line moved, and she moved with it, certain that at any moment a hand would fall on her shoulder and that a firm voice would speak into her ear. You're coming with us, Miss. Her fists were balled, her shoulders were tense: She'd fight like hell. You're not doing this to me anymore! Leave me alone!
The hammer never dropped, though; she took her tray to an out-of-the-way table and did her best to look clueless. The mashed potatoes tasted funny, and she spit what was in her mouth into a napkin. The gravy covering the meat patty bubbled like acid. The corn...the corn smelled like the arsenic it was steeped in.
She pushed it away and scanned the faces of her classmates; they ate like pigs at a trough, completely unaware that they were shoveling poison into their mouths. Couldn't they smell it? Couldn't they see it?
Fifteen minutes later, the bell rang. She got up, grabbed her tray, and carried it over to one of the trash cans. Vice Principal Nolan was gone now, probably watching her on one of the TV screens he kept hidden in his office. Stupid, sleazy bastard. She should march right in there and wring his scrawny little neck.
Only she couldn't...because she was afraid. If she did that, they'd be allowed to keep her forever, and God only knows what they would do to her then. Her mind tried to spin horrible visions, but she shoved them aside and hurried to her next class, making sure to smile for the cameras. Just a normal, happy girl enjoying her youth.
Nothing more, nothing less.
As soon as she got home from school, Liena Loud made a B line toward the stairs, as she had done every day for over a week. She didn't notice her father in his chair until she was on the bottom step and his spoke, his voice thick and his words slurred. "Hi, Dad. How was your day?"
Liena laid her hand on the railing, paused, and frowned in confusion. Like...he was Dad, not her. He must be really drunk today.
Sudden fear raked icy nails across her heart. Lately, he had been getting drunk a lot, and when he got drunk, he was extra grumpy. Yesterday he yelled at her because 'your fucking trash heap of a bedroom smells like your mother's rotten pussy.' She remembered the way he stood in the doorway, his hand on the frame and his lips a hateful sneer, and she shuddered.
Now, he cracked open a can of beer and took a long drink, his head flopping back and swaying; some of the liquid dribbled down his chin and stained the front of his shirt. "I put up with everyone's fucking shit in this house and no one appreciates any of it. You're all a bunch of fucking ingrates just like your mothers."
Liena's stomach churned. "I-I appreciate you, Daddy," she said placately.
He chuckled harshly. "You hear that? Sounded like my daughter's voice but it's been so long since she's taken her head out of her dumb blonde ass and talked to me that I'm not too sure anymore."
Liena swallowed. Part of her wanted to flee and hide herself from his fury, but another part was afraid that if she did, he would get mad and come after her. For a long, indecisive moment she stayed where she was...then made a break for it, hurrying up the steps and hoping he didn't follow.
Whew, he didn't.
In her room, she shut the door and leaned against it. Her heart raced from the encounter, and her tummy felt sick. Only one thing could make her feel better. Her upside down smile became a right side up smile as she pushed away and went around the foot of her bed. Across the room, Loan was asleep, her left hand curled and resting against her chest, which meant Liena had to be really quiet; Loan was almost as grumpy as Dad when she got woken up from her naps.
Making sure to extra shhhh, she knelt next to her bed, pushed back the cover, and reached into the space between the floor and the box spring. Her fingers quested across the carpet, then brushed across something cardboardy. She threw her other hand into the mix and pulled it out, a green and black shoebox with a picture of sneakers on the side. She started to hum as she picked it up and sat on the bed; she had been looking forward to this moment all day...spending time with her little Lo Lo made life worth living.
Setting the box in her lap, she opened the lid. Logan lay nestled within, his super tiny body resting in the folds of a little blue blanket she found in the attic. He wore a white zip up onesie that was way big on him, a little white cap that came down to his cute button nose, and a pair of itty bitty white gloves because sometimes babies scratch their faces and she didn't want him to hurt himself. She reached into the box and carefully picked him up, being sure to cradle his head so it didn't fall off and roll away. "Hi, baby," she cooed as she brought him to her chest, "Mommy misseded you."
Logan didn't reply, because babies can't talk, but that was okay, she knew he was happy to see her. She squeezed him with a happy hum, and the chill of his squishy flesh seeped through her shirt, making her nipples hard and not in a sexy way. She kissed his cold forehead…
...and that's when she caught a whiff of his fetid odor: It was like yucky spoiled meat. "Lo Lol," she said disapprovingly and held him at arm's length. She pinched her brow in a stern expression. "I just gave you a tubby yesterday and now you're smelly baby again."
This would not do. She liked her babies to smell fresh and clean, not dirty and bad. "I guess we'll have to take another one."
She laid him in the box, replaced then cover, then got up and tucked it under her arm. She went to the door, opened it, and poked her head into the hallway. Left, right, nope, no one around.
You can say what you want about Liena Loud, but she was totes not stupid, she knew that if anyone found out about Lo Lo they would be mad, so she kept him a secret. She acted like he was alive, but he wasn't, and children shouldn't play with dead things, so if someone caught her with him, they'd take him. The prospect of losing her little boy made Liena want to cry; dead or not, she loved him and her life was already so much better because of him.
That didn't really matter right now, though, because the hallway was empty and no one saw her tip toe into the bathroom and close the door. She locked the handle, sat the shoebox on the closed toilet lid, then went into the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a pale pink plastic tub. She took it over to the bath, knelt, and fiddled with the handles until the water was juuuust right. She filled it, cut the water, then retrieved Logan from the box. "Stinky, smelly baby butt," she said as she undressed him and stripped off his diaper. His distended flesh was a splotchy patchwork of gray, purple, and blue, and yellow pus leaked from the corners of his eyes and from his nose. "Mommy's little balloon," she said and poked his bloated belly. She sat him in the tub and reached for the wash cloth hanging from the faucet. She squeezed a shot of body wash onto it and lathered it up.
She hummed as she started to wash him, beginning with the top of his head and working her way down over his chest and tummy. She scrunched her lips to the side at how baggy the skin on his arms was, like it was slipping away from the bone.
When she reached his feet, she took his big toe between her thumb and forefinger and smiled up at him. "This little piggy went to market."
Logan stared down at her in that cute closed-eyed way of his.
She pinched the second toe. "This little piggy stayed home."
He didn't giggle or squirm like a live baby, but Liena didn't mind. He was the strong, silent type.
"This little piggy had roast beef."
Now the fourth toe. "And this little piggy had none."
She pinched the fifth and final toe. She leaned in and crinkled her nose like a cute pig. "And this little piggy cried wee wee wee all the way home!" She laughed and kissed Logan's forehead. "Come on, let's get you dressed and fed." She stood, grabbed a towel from over the rod, and picked him up. She turned away from the tub…
...and that's when disaster struck. The tape binding Logan's neck to his body, weakened by the water, came loose, and his head fell, hitting the tiled floor with a wet, sickening crack. Liena's heart burst into her throat and she hurriedly stooped down to pick it up. "Oh, Lo Lo, I'm so sorry, are you okay, baby?"
She held it up to the light and studied it, her stomach knotting. Great, now there's a dent. Good job, stupid Liena. This is, like, why you shouldn't have a real baby. She sighed. She was right; she'd make a terrible Mommy to a living baby.
"I'm sorry, Lo Lo," she said and laid his body in the box, followed by his head, "I won't drop you ever again, I promise." She closed the lid, picked the box up, and went to the door. She unlocked it, opened it, and jumped back with a tiny eek of surprise. Lyra fell back a step, her eyes going wide and her hand flying to her chest.
Liena laughed nervously, her arm tightening protectively around the back. "Y-You scared me. I wasn't...wasn't expecting you to be there."
Lyra's gaze darted from Liena to the box and back again. She looked just as scared as Liena herself. "What's in there?" she asked, a note of worry in her voice.
Liena's heart slammed. "Uh...n-nothing. Just bath stuff." She smiled as widely as she could. "Uh, salts, beads." She was inching along the doorframe, and now the wall. "Those kinds of things."
"Oh," Lyra said, not sounding convinced.
"It's nothing weird, I promise." She crept closer to her bedroom door. "Just bath stuff." When she was near enough, she ducked in and slammed the door behind her.
Boy, that was close.
She patted the box. "It's okay, Lo Lo, aunt Lyra is, like, not the wiser." Even so, maybe it would be a good idea to be a little more careful. Like only taking tubbies when everyone was asleep.
You gotta be smarter than that, Lie, your baby boy is on the line here.
She nodded determinedly, then went over to her bed and sat. Now where's that duct tape?
In the hall, Lyra stared at her sister's closed door, her stomach rolling with nerves.
She's up to something.
Lyra swallowed. No, she -
She's making bombs. She's going to blow you up.
The first voice was male, and the second was female. There were others, and sometimes they talked over each other in a tangled confusion of taunts, threats, and banal observations, and all Lyra could do was press her hands to her ears and scream to drown them out. The man and the woman were the only ones present now, though. She called him George and her Kayla: George sounded like an older man and Kayla sounded like a snotty teenage girl who spent hours primping in the mirror just to get her hair and make-up smeared sucking the football team off in the locker room. She liked neither, but Kayla was the worst...just the sound of her voice made Lyra want to jam a knitting needle into her ear.
Liena's not doing that. She's sweet and kind and -
Uh, yes she is, Kayla said, she's going to kill you and put it under your pillow.
Dead incest freak, George said, put the bomb here!
Pressing the tips of her fingers to her forehead, Lyra went into the bathroom and closed the door. She lifted the commode lid, sat, and did her business, wincing as the monsters in her mind shouted warnings of impending doom. She slipped her hands into her hair, and pushing as if to squeeze them out, she took a deep breath. "Please stop," she croaked, "just stop."
Useless incest bitch.
She's peeing now.
Use your mind to kill her.
No, they'll know it was you.
When she was done, Lyra wiped, flushed, and went back to her room. She climbed into bed, threw the covers over her head, and grabbed her earphones: Loud music made them go away. She put on an old Rob Zombie CD her mother gave her; she turned the volume as far as it would go and curled into a ball.
It was useless.
They had eyes everywhere and she couldn't find them no matter how hard she shredded the room apart. She was safe here, though, with her music and her eyes closed. She looked like a girl who had a hard day, a normal, average, everyday girl and not like a girl who knew their dark secrets and tricks of the street. They would have no clue that she was alive and sound.
No clue at all.
She hoped.