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A Brother's Vengeance
"Where the fuck is he?" Tyler yelled, as he threw open the trailer door.
"Tyler, baby! What are you doing here?" His mother gasped.
"Where is that motherfucker?" Tyler repeated, scanning the kitchen/living room of the trailer.
The room smelled just as it had when he left for college two years ago. Like something, not necessarily food, had just been burning. It made sense. The things being cooked in this neighborhood are rarely eaten. Instead, they are smoked or injected. A quick glance confirmed it. Standing there in a faded, sea foam nightgown, he noticed how thin his mother was. Her skin clung desperately to the sinew beneath, threatening to burst any second.
He stormed past her into the narrow hallway, entering the first of two small bedrooms.
"Tyler, she’s sleeping! Come back here!" His mother said.
Keely already heard Tyler come in and was climbing up from the thin, worn mattress on the floor. He knelt to the ground and brushed her brown hair back to examine her.
"Tyler, she should be in bed, what is..."
"Shut up!" Tyler interrupted, causing Keely to shudder. He reached for her shoulders to steady her. "Shhh... It's okay, Key. Tell me what he did to you, I promise nobody's guna hurt you."
Feeling her brother search deep into her mind was too much. Her cheeks, round and plump, began to quiver. Her bottom lip was not far behind, and then the levy broke. As the flooding ensued, Tyler pulled his sister close and finally raised his eyes toward his mother, his face dripping with malice.
Tyler's fury, however, found no perch on which to land in her dark, sunken eyes. When was the last time she slept? Those eyes were sinister black holes, processing a distorted reality that left her brain incapable of empathy. Fumbling for a cigarette, his mother sighed, "What stories is she telling now? She's always got a new story."
"Key, I need you to go fill your backpack with clothes and your toothbrush, okay? I'm going to be back in a couple hours and we are going to go on an adventure, how does that sound?" Tyler said.
Keely nodded, as Tyler wiped tears from her face.
Tyler walked out of the room, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and threw it in his mother's face.
"Read it." He said.
She forced a laugh. "I don't have to read it, Tyler. She's a little liar, she wants attention."
"She mailed it to me from school when they were doing pen pal letters. How could you just sit there and do nothing... I can only imagine how many bruises you're hiding, but letting him touch your daughter..."
"THAT'S ENOUGH! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, I DIDN'T SAY YOU COULD COME BACK, GET THE FUCK OUT!" His mother screamed.
Tyler complied.
Tyler arrived at a dank, musty shack with a singular purpose that trumped every goal or belief he'd ever held in his heart: revenge. The place had a sign, and a bartender, but it was really just a hole for white trash, like his stepfather, to die slowly.
The wallowing drunks did not even take note of him, or the ax he held.
His stepfather, standing at the end of the room, saw him approaching. "Oh, look everybody, it's the college boy! Come to show us how much better'n us you are, college boy?"
Tyler's pace quickened, as did the length of his steps.
His stepfather choked on his laughter, seeing the urgency in the boy's face, and the ax in his hand.
His stepfather smashed his beer bottle against a table, holding the broken neck out. "Put it down and I won't open your gut, boy."
Tyler did not stop. He met the broken bottle directly, stabbing himself in the ribs, pushing his body forward with vengeful haste, never drawing his eyes away from his stepfather's face, which was aflame with shock. He thrust the ax handle to his stepfather's nose bridge, knocking him down.
"You like to touch little girls?" Tyler asked, standing over him.
"That little slut wanted it, just like you did when you were her age."
Then the ax came down, separating the claw from the beast. People were now scrambling from the bar.
His stepfather howled, crawling backward like a maimed insect, unsuccessfully trying to cover his hand-less wrist, but it spouted blood, free and forceful, like an unmanned fire hose.
Tyler followed. He stomped his boot down on his stepfather's remaining hand, and liberated that one as well.
He left the man wailing in a pool of blood.
On the way back to get his sister, Tyler tossed both hands into the woods. An offering to the creatures of the darkness, pieces of one of their own.
Robert Naftal's previous publications were as an Economist, prior to his current career working in Washington, DC. He began writing fiction roughly one year ago, focusing on humor and horror. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied Economics and performed stand up comedy regularly."
Email: Robert Naftal
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