Sex and Murder Magazine

By Samantha Shu

A wisp of cloud covered the sun making the day appear, just for a moment, as if it were overcast in mist and shade. Then it was gone. A blaze of light reasserted the heat with a blast bursting through the window, making her squint.

Sharon looked at the baseball bat leaning in the corner of the room. This particular bat had been named. It was etched with dark marker, maybe a sharpie, not the sharp tipped ones used for fine detail, but the thick kind, the kind you could see even from a distance. It was named Jack. The J was crooked, like the writer had been working with his left hand. It had started slow, yet the rest of the letters flowed like somehow getting past the J had made everything right as rain. Her ass hurt. There was a stinging numbness. The kind you get when you’ve been lying in one spot far too long. She tilted her hips and tried to readjust. The stinging became stronger, only now it was accompanied by a throb and tiny needles wedging there way under her skin.

Yesterday Sharron gave up all hope. It wasn’t really a matter of being ready to die or making any kind of decision. It was just a matter of how things were. Sure, if there was a choice, she would swing her legs over the side of the too soft bed. Enjoy the feel of the solid wood floor beneath her bare feet, walk through the door and out into the hot, humid daylight. But that wasn’t on the menu. The lists of choices were small, smaller as every minute ticked by, the sound loud, tap, tick, tap. Yesterday, another day, by her count, that was three now. Three days. The first was the scariest. That was the day she fought. The process reminded her of grieving. Wasn’t it seven stages?

She remembered her mother telling her something like that. It was at her grandfather’s funeral. “It’s okay to be mad as hell honey, it’s part of the process.”

It seemed so silly at the time, she wasn’t mad, what was there to be mad at? She had been sad, just sad. Then, her sweet mother had started talking again, after the funeral. She talked and talked, it was what she did. Sharon was accustomed to the constant prattle of her mother’s voice. Over the years she learned to grab the jewels spattered in all the verbal soup and fish them out for later use. It’s okay to be mad. That was a doozey. What were the other stages? Denial, anger, She remembered that the bargaining had started around nightfall of the second day. Who was she bargaining with? Was it God? No. Sharron didn’t believe in God. Hadn’t believed in God since she found out about the other stupid lies she was told as a child. Why did parents do that? So much faith floating around all centered on the wrong shit.

Sharon turned her head away from the corner of the room and stared into the bright light screaming from the window. The warmth flowed over her cheeks for a moment, feeling wonderful, then quickly becoming too hot. She shifted pulling herself to the right, just enough to exit the searing heat ray. Jack sat in the corner quietly. What a stupid name for a bat. She thought suddenly, then wondered, is this mad? Is it anger they’re talking about or insanity? Was she insane now? The thought came on a wave of relief.

Insanity sounded so good. No more pain, no more bargaining, maybe even a side road from acceptance, even though that bitch had arrived on the scene already. She felt a tickle on her right nostril. The kind that started slow, but once you became aware, really aware it was there, it became all you were aware of. She tried to think of something else something funny, something, something, anything, but the damn tickle persisted. It grew until it was a feather dusting across her nose with dander from a big, hairy dog, dripping from its tip. Her eyes began to water. She flared her nostrils and moved her head from side to side, that only made the tickle grow stronger. Denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance? No, she was missing some, weren’t there seven? Was madness one?

A loud creek above her head startled her. The sound was eerie, a creek and pop of heavy weight on old wood. The kind of sound you would hear in a horror movie. A good, really authentic horror sound, not the kind produced in a room with thirty thousand soundboards and a technician trying to find the right key for aging timber. Her heart began its terror dance so suddenly that her breath caught. The muscles in her legs tensed along with the muscles riding the length of her spine. She arched on the bed thrashing in uncontrolled contortions. Somewhere in the world her mother was talking. The thought came out of nowhere and along with it the realization that the feather jammed in her nose had diapered. The creaking stopped. Her eyes bulging from there watery sockets starred up at the ceiling. Old cracked beams held the world above her from falling in. She wished the beams would snap, welcomed the idea that maybe the days would end suddenly with the instability of an old house situated on a fault line. She balked as her rational mind told her the beams were too thick and she had never been a lucky girl.

She laughed. The sound burst from her, even as tears streamed from the corners of her terrified eyes. Three days. The taste of copper lingered in her mouth. That was from the bargaining day. The laughter was causing the copper to fill her mouth again. She pushed the foaming liquid up with her swollen tongue and tilted her head to the side.

Warm spit spilled from the corner of her mouth and tickled her ear. Her eyes settled on Jack. Jack, with the golden sheen and the bold black moniker. Jack, leaning in the corner and watching like a freaky voyeur.

“Hijack.” Her voice didn’t sound like her any more, maybe, because her tongue and lips were swollen, maybe because her throat was dry. Or maybe, it was because she wasn’t herself anymore. “Hijack.” She laughed again, the irony not lost on her. “I am not a lucky girl”

More creeks and pops from overhead. She thought about her mother again. Her soft brown hair and eyes to match, so much love in those eyes. She pictured her mother smiling and waving goodbye. Had it only been three days ago? Three days, fear then anger or was it madness? Then acceptance…No…No…That was wrong! Why couldn’t she remember? The creaking grew louder and closer. She wanted to call out, to do something, but what?

Day two had been a day of planning, the kind where you know it’s all going to be okay. When it all lines up in your mind like dominoes. You place them perfectly, excited about the process of it all coming together. No one tells you that after you tip that first one, after you spend hours getting it all just right; they don’t always fall in line.

Sometimes, one silly domino bastard, slips out of place and nothing else goes as planned. That was day two. The copper taste in her mouth bloomed, punctuating the point.
The creak was at the door now and somehow the sun found another cloud. A large shadow filled the doorframe. Day one reasserted its ugly head and a scream tore from her. How had she survived that day? A glint of steel caught what was left of the light in the room and memories of day one washed over her. Her bladder felt suddenly full, as she became aware, it let go and washed her naked thighs with a fresh bath of piss.

The scream continued, she could hear it, had no control over the stopping of it. Her conscious mind was moving away, she felt her muscles bunching and cramping from neck to calf. The shadow was no longer a shadow. Now he was a man. A man that she knew, a man she trusted, once upon a time, or maybe, just three days ago. Her feet pulled up and the roped burned into her abraded ankles. Wrists twisting, she felt blood begin to drip down her arms, a gift from day two, the planning day. He stopped beside the bed, his mouth opening and closing like an old marionette, hinged at the jaw. She couldn’t hear what he said, her screams were too loud. He turned from her and moved to the corner of the room. She watched, somehow still screaming, he pivoted on his heels in dancer fashion holding Jack in one meaty paw. The screaming hitched. A warning in her damaged brain, telling her to stop. A warning that if this behavior continued, there would be consequences. Strands of hope laced with terror motivated, she opened her mouth wider and used the last bit of her will to push the scream from her tortured throat. In awed relief, she watched as Jack came arcing toward her, his name drawn in black bold marker and it occurred to her, somewhere in the world her mother was talking.