Mike Sheep’s family.
Mike’s wife Aria, and his sons Ben and Brian. It’s the family of the man I killed. I went to school with both of Mike Sheep’s sons. My hands start to shake the second I see them. Not from fear like someone might think, but rage. Rage that they’re here on my day.
On my family’s day after what that cunt Mike tried to do. I move closer to the tombstone’s edge. The cold ground beneath me fades away and so does the rough stone against my cheek when I tilt my head to listen better.
“Fuck you!” Brian yells. He’s a piece of shit. He stalks girls. Doesn’t know how to fucking take no for an answer. He did it to my friend Anne the year after we graduated.
“Me? Fuck you. This is your fault,” Ben snaps back. He works down at the docks on one of the fishing boats. He hits his wife.
“Fucking shut up. The both of you. He wouldn’t want this!” Their mother moans, hands covering her eyes. She’s a drunk, wasn’t always one but has definitely been making trouble down at the bars by the dock. I know Ben comes to get her after he’s off the boat. Josie told me so.
“She used to be pretty in high school. Was the prom queen. Can you believe it? She’s a lounge lizard now. I almost feel sorry for Ben having to come get her like that but he’s…well, you know.”
I did know. Everyone in town did.
The Sheep’s should be just as hated as me in town but they’re not. It’s fucking bullshit. Mike came to my family’s house. He destroyed our peace.He came after me.And somehow, it’s his family that’s pitied and treated kindly while I’m the fucking monster because I survived? Because I refused to let Mike take anymore from me than the world already had?
“He wouldn’t want this! Stop!” Aria blathers on when her sons lunge at each other. I’m not listening to what they’re saying. Time slows and the moon, the wind and the cold vanish. I’m not here anymore. I’m falling into a memory. I’m gone, back to that summer night when Mike came to steal the last shreds of normal I had left. Right back to being terrorized in my own home. Standing in the dining room I snuck into while a psycho in the next room screams my family’s name at the top of their lungs.
I should have gone to the door and ran. I knew that. I didn’t though because of what I heard.
“Fuck you, Martinez! Do you hear me? Fuck you, Martinez! You cocksucker!”
This isn’t just some break in.
This is personal.
He knows me.
I don’t know that man but he knows my family. I pick up a steak knife from the floor where this man scattered all the rest of my grandmother’s cutlery and china and head towards the parlour doors. The doors are open an inch, thrown open by the man in my home so hard they hit the walls and nearly shut again. I watch him through the gap in the doors. I adjust my grip on the knife. I wait for an opening and watch while the man laughs and smiles. He grabs the decanter of scotch from the sideboard I keep for company. His laugh is dirty, like a smoke stain on plaster walls. Oily, gritty, a disgusting stain. He turns his back to the doors, to me, and throws the stopper as hard as he can. It hits the wall and shatters with a pop.
The man laughs again and takes another swig of scotch. He saunters around the room like he owns it. He’s only a foot away now. He keeps drinking the scotch and it sloshes out of the bottle and onto the floor as he walks. He howls with laughter. The sound makes me flinch. I hate his laugh. It’s mean. Ugly. It bounces off the walls and floor and back to him.
To me.
“Martinez!” He screams into the night and takes another swig as he stumbles back towards the parlour doors. My hand tightens on the knife. “Martinez, you fucking cun-”
I don’t know if he means to call me screaming the way he is but he does all the same. I’m the only one here andthis is my home.
I shove through the doors and slam the knife into the side of his neck. The decanter hits the ground. It breaks and shatters. The man gasps and swings wild. I pull the knife out and jerk him around to face me on unsteady legs.
He puts a hand to his neck to stop the bleeding. Our eyes lock and he gapes like a fish that’s been pulled from the water. Gasps for air the way fish do, with a puckering and opening of his bloated lips. He does it again and all I see is a fish, fighting for air. The sound is sickening.
He gasps and points at me. “You.”
He knows me. I should know him too but I don’t see a man. I see a fish. A dying, gasping fish. My mother’s hands. My fathers face. Cut. Torn. Already dead. I never got to say goodbye.
“Me,” I growl back at him. I stab him again. Slash him across the throat and bring the knife down again. His knees buckle and he hits the floor. Lands in the puddle of scotch and broken glass. I go down with him, knees on either side of him and I keep bringing down the knife over and over again.
My hands hurt, my fingers cramp. When I get up from the floor there’s glass embedded in my bloody knees. I cut my feet on the way through the foyer and walk outside to sit down on the front steps. I see lights coming on across the street. I drop my head when I hear the sound of the iron gate opening. The neighbors are here.
“Maris?” Someone calls my name. “Maris….oh my god. What happened?”
I don’t answer them. They’ll call the police.
I’m still holding the knife when the red and blue lights of the first patrol car shows up.
Eight
