Chapter X
Blood
Laura saw the look in his eye and she darted to the kitchen. He followed her, almost giddy with the anticipation of more violence.
Sara wasn't sure what happened in the kitchen. Hell, she wasn't sure what was happening two feet away from her. She hurt all over, especially her head, back and arm, and only wanted to go to sleep. The screaming wouldn't let her though. She looked back up when she heard foot steps.
"GOD DAMNIT LAURA, PUT THE FUCKING PIG-STICKER DOWN!" Through the red haze of pain, Sara saw her mother with the big knife in her hand. That, in itself, was not unusual. She had often brandished the big black and silver knife during fights. Usually, though, it had been at Sara, never at her Dad. Sara had a scar on her upper arm where her Mother had "knicked" her once, that had been a few Thanksgivings ago, if she recalled correctly. Her father was backing up, stumbling over his own feet, trying to get away from the knife. Vaguely she recalled her father telling her, when he was in one of his good moods, to never bring brass knuckles to a knife fight.
He made one last, desperate grab for the knife, belting her mother hard in the chest as he went. That was a mistake. Laura let out a guttural scream and lunged at him. Sara watched helplessly as the knife went into her father's chest the first time, then again and again. He fell to the ground and his dingy white tank-top was suddenly crimson red. Laura fell to her knees and straddled him, stabbing him again and again. They were closer to Sara now. The blood spatter and cast off, words she wouldn't know or even understand until years later, covered everything - the floor, the walls, her mother - and hot red blood, her Daddy's blood, splashed on to her, covering her with sticky death.
Her Father lay there, his head lolled back and for a moment, his eyes and hers met. One of his arms, thick with muscle reached for her, as if begging for help. Sara started to scream and scooted back on the floor, her brown eyes wide and terrified.
She kept screaming even after Laura stopped stabbing, even after Tom stopped breathing. It took her mother to smack her and threaten her with the bloody knife that she'd just pulled out of her Father's chest to make her stop screaming.
"CLEAN THIS SHIT UP! I WANT ALL THIS CLEANED THE HELL UP!"
Sara nodded frantically, and looked around for a rag to clean up the huge pool of blood around her father's body.
Sara ran her hands through her hair. "I don't know who called the police. I guess someone heard me or something. There was this smell, iron and copper, in the air…and then the lights, blue, white and red. The detective who found me…I couldn't let go of his hand. The paramedics had to sedate me, because I started fighting. I thought they were going to hurt me. Daddy always said the Cops would kill me." She shuddered, and wrapped her arms around herself.
Author's Note: Obviously, that's based off of Nesting Dolls, though most is from my own slightly-off-center imagination. Any thoughts or reviews...or flying furniture coming my way? (I hope said furniture isn't on fire, I hate fire.)