She felt like such a sideshow. “No. Those were already there. Brian never left a mark on me.”
Vivian seemed confused as if they must be talking about two different Brians.
“You can stay with us as long as you need to,” Michael said. He met Vivian’s eyes in the mirror, and they seemed to share some sort of understanding.
Mina looked out the back window as the large house was swallowed by the trees lining the road. And then they were driving down an old road in the middle of the woods, as if it had never existed at all.
“W-why are you helping me?” Were they helping her? Neither gave off the vibe Brian did. And neither seemed to have a personal interest in her. They were far too into each other to bring in a third. At least she hoped they were.
Mina wasn’t sure how well they’d take rejection if they wanted her to play with them. The idea revolted her now. She couldn’t do this shit again. Brian was the last one. Never again, no matter how good the offer sounded, it would always lead to this same pain. She should have chosen solitude from the beginning.
In his own way, Brian had been worse than Jason. Not just because he’d hurt someone else in front of her, but because she’d started to develop deeper caring for him, even when she knew she shouldn’t. With Jason and those before him it had been the opposite. What started as an infatuation quickly turned to fear and loathing. With Brian, what started out as fear and loathing turned into fear and… something she didn’t want to put a name to.
Mina looked back as the woods got smaller and smaller behind them. She touched her bare throat and tried not to miss the monster she’d just escaped.
Brian hid behind the broken TV. The dog whimpered nearby.
“Shut up!” he hissed. That stupid dog was going to get him found and beaten even worse for hiding from her.
“Where are you, you worthless little shit?” His stepmother’s speech slurred as she moved nearer. She smelled of whiskey. The switch grazed over peeling wallpaper, then screeched against the glass of old picture frames. He cringed as the thick hickory switch slammed against a chair a few feet away. Dust flew up everywhere, and he started to cough.
“There you are. The good book says that if you spare the rod, you spoil the child. This is for your own good.”
He fought and struggled against her, but she was strong for a woman, even drunk. Maybe she got stronger, drunk. Or less inhibited. The dog barked and snarled as she dragged Brian down the hallway. She kicked the dog, and he cried and whimpered and ran away. So much for canine protective urges. So much for man or boy’s best friend.
Brian flinched as the switch came down over and over until it tore through his shirt, until it made him bleed, until the switch broke in half in the bitch’s hand.
He tried to fight back, tried to get away, but she pressed him against the stairs. A cigarette dangled from her lips. It had dangled from her foul mouth since she’d started the beating. She took a long, slow drag, then twisted it out on his shoulder.
He howled as the cigarette sizzled on his skin and tried yet again to escape her. How could he be this weak? How could he let some woman do this to him? Finally, she threw him down on the ground, and he scrambled away.
“I’m going to lock you up again tonight!” she screamed after him. “Maybe the devil will come take you home. Maybe I’ll leave you there for good until he does.”
She’d already been starving him, keeping the food locked up and doling out just enough to keep him going. It was part of why he couldn’t fight her. He was slowly getting taller, and with that would come more strength if she didn’t find a way to balance it out. Starvation was only logical.
Brian ran to his room, thumbing through his mother’s old records until he found the one he needed. He sat in the center of the bed, his knees drawn to his chest. The tears rolled down his cheeks as Chopin’s soothing piano solos played.
The door opened, banging against the wall. She went straight for the record, scratching it as she ripped it from the turntable. “This same shit. Over and over and over. Don’t you get sick of this stupid music? I should have taken it a long time ago.”
He jumped off the bed to stop her. “No! You can’t. Please, you can’t take her from me! That’s all I have left.”
The photos of his mother had long been destroyed. He couldn’t remember what she looked like. All he remembered was the smell of cookie dough and these records—this music.
“Please!” he screamed as his stepmother left the room. “Don’t take her from me!”
She shoved him back and took the records outside to burn in a big trash can.
Brian bolted up in bed. He could still feel the heat of the flames from when he’d stood helpless watching what felt like his mother burning away. His hand shook as he turned on the bedside lamp, afraid he was still back there. But it was just him, alone in his room at the house.
Sleep had been much harder until he’d grown up and found the music again. It was a comfort to know that in nearly two hundred years, no fire had ever destroyed that music. It had survived. Like he had.
He’d grown bigger and stronger, ran away, gotten a job. It was only years later that he worked up the courage to face his stepmother again. By that point she seemed so small and helpless.
Hers was the first life he’d taken. After he’d finished, he’d cut her into pieces, burying them in different states. It was possibly foolish to have so much evidence scattered in so many places, but he’d convinced himself if he didn’t separate the pieces, they’d only reassemble and come after him again.
After that, he’d slept soundly for a few months. But then the itch had started, and no amount of scratching would make it go away.
He wondered if he’d cried out or screamed in his sleep tonight. Instinctively, he wanted to reach out for Mina for comfort and to make sure she was okay… as if his stepmother could have stepped out of his dream and into hers to cause more carnage there. But he could see she wasn’t here. Why hadn’t he fought to keep her? Why had he let them take her? Michael couldn’t have done a goddamn thing about it if he’d ordered her downstairs until they left.
And now the dreams were back.
He took a quick shower and put on a T-shirt and some sweatpants and tennis shoes. The house was quiet as he ascended into the main entryway. The lights were out except for the guide lights set low into the wall. He went out to the pool as if he might find Mina waiting for him to bring her back inside.
The collar and security bracelet were still on the ground where they’d fallen after he’d thrown them. He bent to pick up the collar and inspected it under the pool light. It was undamaged, which surprised him given how hard he’d thrown it. He went back inside and placed the collar in a box in his room. He couldn’t destroy it. It was the only thing he had left of her.
When the collar was safely tucked away, he went back upstairs to the gym, put a Chopin CD in the sound system, and got on the treadmill. He didn’t give a shit if he woke the whole house. If someone came in, they’d take one look at him, turn around, and walk back out. If they didn’t, they’d wish to God they had because there was nothing he wanted more right now than to hurt someone.
When the dreams came, the only thing he wanted to do was run. Run from her, run from himself, run from everything, run from the monster that chased him, even when he was that monster. He didn’t know who or what he ran from this time. But he was afraid nothing would stop his stepmother now.