Page 52 of Rot In Knotty Pieces

Everything in me freezes. All of us freeze.

One single bird grabs my mind and rips us open.

A little robin sits on a branch and looks at us. It’s got a startling blue colour on its head and back and a white belly. It’s not really here, I know that, but it looks real. So real. It tilts its head to the side.

It trills.

The silence is the quiet in the world before the bomb goes off. I explode. I shatter. My mind in fragments, tears asunder.

The man wakes me from my sleep. No, it’s not him that woke me, it’s the creak of the floorboards as he shifted his weight. A sound that shouldn’t be there, one that broke through my childish dreams. He’s standing in the bedroom door, staring at me with a monster on his face. It looks like a skull, but it’s the wrong shape. He’s dressed all in black. The night light in the hallway is on, but he’s between us and mummy and daddy, who are asleep in their room.

I scoot up in bed, my back hitting the white bed frame, the shock of the cold startling me out of sleep and fully into wakefulness. I don’t know why I know he’s a bad man, but I know.

When he flexes his hand, I scream. I don’t mean to or intend to, but I’m terrified, and the movement is so on purpose, so angry and dangerous that the sound just bursts out of me.

I throw myself off my bed and scramble across the shaggy rug on the floor. The familiar smells and safe room are strange and scary now. Nothing feels safe. I leap into the identical bed opposite mine. She is silent, sitting up, staring at the monster in our bedroom with huge eyes that look just like mine. I take her hand, squeezing too tight.

I can smell pee, and the bed gets wet and hot before it turns really cold. I do not take my eyes off the bad man or the way he’s turned and is watching us with his big black holes where his eyes should be.

“DADDY!” I scream. “Mummy! Help!”

Dad scrambles. I can hear the sounds he makes as he runs through the house. Mum is right behind him. They shout, calling out, but I can’t make out the words. The relief of knowing they are on their way is enough to take off the sharp edge of terror. Mummy and Daddy will save us. I know they will.

“Daddy will come,” I tell my twin, repeating it several times, just to make myself feel better.

He whirls, rushing out of our room, releasing us from his spell and disappears into the house. Maybe he’s left?

My sister is silent, diamond tears glittering on her cheeks. She looks like a ghost. She hasn’t said anything, nor has she moved. I turn and shake her, but she just makes a strangled gasping sound.

Mummy gets to our room and points to the closet. “Hide, girls.”

I grab my sister and pull her to the closet and shove her in, then I sit slightly in front and pull the door shut, but not all the way. Mum turns and hits him when he shoves her into the room. She crashes to the ground but bounces up, screaming at him. She attacks again. He pulls out a knife.

I’m scared now, really scared. Before, I knew our parents would win, but now I don’t know. He is so big, and Mum is small.

His knife flashes out, and she cries out, slamming into the wall, leaving a smear of blood on the white. She runs at him. He whips around, punching her in the face. She’s dazed, blood streaming from her nose. He grabs her hair and drags that knife across her neck.

I’m screaming.

I’m screaming for all of us. My sister still hasn’t made a sound.

There’s blood. So much blood. Mum falls to the floor. She doesn’t move. Her eyes are open and staring right at us, but she doesn’t blink, she doesn’t breathe. She doesn’t come to me when I scream for her. When I shriek.

There’s just nothingness where there was so much.

“Mummy,” my twin whispers.

I echo her call. All the screams in me silenced as fear grips my throat in a vice. I silently beg her to get up, even though I know she won’t. The monster is gone, he’s fighting with Daddy. I can hear Dad shouting.

For long minutes, all that exists is the body and the metallic scent of blood in the dark room that was filled with childhood dreams.

Then I hear a sound that sends chills through me. A sound that has me sobbing without knowing why. I hear a sound of a person, like they are gurgling liquid, like how we play with our milk and straws when we blow bubbles, but this time, it sounds deeper, louder. It sounds bad.

The house goes completely silent, and I press my hand to my mouth and muffle any sounds that might try to escape. The monster ate our parents.

The monster is coming back. I can see his dark form getting larger as he blocks out the night light, until he’s back in the entrance of the room, staring at the closet where we are hiding.

He takes forever to walk across the space, then he shoves open the door and stares at us. He’s got no eyes, but I can feel it. When he reaches down, he grabs my wrist, and then my sister’s, in a hold that is so strong I know I will never break it. He drags us out of the closet and through the blood around our mother.