Love so strong it burned, and her lust consumed my soul more and more. Then we shared our love, as the two of us became three and I could only marvel in awe at my daughter who took on the likeness of her mother. Time went on forever with just the three of us. I worked the fields of our farm, as my wife tended to the household chores, and my daughter played.
My love used to sing with such a strong voice as she worked and would always hum and sway with her own music. A smile always graced her lips, laughter always light and airy. Such moments could play forever in my mind.
Until those moments were over and forever was not that long. Time stood still one day when I rose out of bed.
The bed was cold as I felt there wasn't a warm body for me to wrap my arms around. Upturned sheets revealed a long since vacant spot. Funny my wife always remade her side of the bed to keep the warmth in for me. As I slid my hand to her side searching for her, my skin brushed gently against something crusty and crumbled under my hand. Cracking open my eyes, the ceiling spun hazily in my vision.
The lilac sheets felt stiff and crumpled with a horrible crunching sound as I shoved them away. Seeing rusty brown and red covering the inside of the fabric, energy and fear shot through me like a lightning bolt flashing.
The loud, dull thud of my heart echoed through the room as it pounded against my chest in a fast-paced rhythm. Gulping shallow gasps of air, I felt sick as the decaying vile stench flooded my sense of smell. With a bolt, I jumped out of the bed, seeing the blood was only on my side. With a regretful glance down, I was covered, my clothes ruined from being soaked with blood. My hands shook from the shock. Fear consumed me, not for myself but for my wife, as she wasn't where she was supposed to be.
My feet sprang to life as I ran from the room, my head throbbing with the adrenaline rush. I barely was cognitive enough to realize I was still in the clothes I wore yesterday, even my boots, which I always took off before coming into the house.
I shouted for her, my desperate cries only answered with a malicious silence, as if it knew a secret I did not. There was no sign of her anywhere. The stove was cold, as the first thing she would do was to make breakfast. The truck, I had parked earlier, was still in front of the house.
I collapsed into a chair at our small dining room table and gasped sobbing breaths of air. My face burned and stiffened as tears soaked my face, leaving streaks in the blood that had dried on my cheeks. I peered at my hands, my fingers stained red. I couldn't remember what happened last night. Then my mind snapped to my daughter, and I bounded up the stairs rushing to her room.
The early morning sun cast its light through her bedroom window into the hallway as I swiftly approached. Once I got to the doorframe, I stared in horror at the bashed in the door. Wooden splinters littered the floor with the room was in complete disarray. The bed where my daughter slept destroyed, as the sheets and blankets lay in shreds. Stuffed animals tossed about, and other items upon her desk and nightstand swept onto the floor. The mirror on the desk cracked as if something slammed against it multiple times.
I stepped closer staring wide-eyed at my distorted reflection. There appeared to be blood in the center of each place it collided with something. A deep dread crept into my heart. I had a reputation for going into town for a few drinks, sometimes bad enough to black out and do brash things. I shook my head as I thought. I would never hurt my family.
I looked slowly around the room and noticed dirt from footprints on the floor. I followed them out of the room and down the hall to the back stairway. Every few steps, a droplet of blood accompanied the footsteps. The footprints lead me out into the back yard where I gazed upon my vast field not yet ready for the harvest season. I lost the footprints but found the signs of something small being dragged across the dirt. There was now a steady flow of blood on the ground that lead all the way to the barn.
My heart stopped as I ran up to the old structure. There were bloody footprints leading out of the barn as well as smaller footprints that looked like my wife's. I caught my breath as the wind howled, shuttering through the wooden boards and a small creak of something inside the barn swinging from side to side.
I couldn't hesitate any longer, and I forced the barn door open with all my strength and willpower hoping to see that my doubts were wrong. I stared into her eyes, and all my strength left. She dangled like a pendulum from the rope, swinging side to side, slowly, gently. With a distressed cry, I crumpled to the ground. I lost my love, my darling wife and unblinkingly I found myself looking on the ground where the words in blood spelled out: 'you did this to me.'
My sight lingered on the Y in you as it had a trail leading from around the corner. Weakly I stood, bile churning in my stomach, as I somehow knew I was going to hate what I would see next. Each footstep was heavy and loud as I approached the corner. I peeked around and gagged. I snapped my eyes shut and turned away, only one brief look was enough.
There wasn't anything left of her, just butchered minced meat and scraps of cloth stained red. Shattered bones, and matted red hair all drenched in blood with one lone wooden handle of an axe with two bloody handprints staining it.
My mind went fuzzy. I couldn't remember what happened next other than I was suddenly back inside the house with a shotgun in my hands.
She laughed, giggled and rushed into the barn. She found it quite entertaining to see me up in the air, and I quickly instructed her to grab the ladder and help me down. There was a hook suspending me by a harness I wore under my clothes giving the illusion I was hung by the neck. I hugged her tightly and rushed her to the car. She stared at the house and asked where daddy was and if he was coming too. I laughed and told her, daddy had gone far away, and we were too. I had already packed her favorite clothes and toys into the trunk.
The fool committed suicide that was his fault. As was his disillusion, that he truly loved me. He couldn't even remember my name, always called me his love, his wife. Every time I followed him out to the bar, he was able to remember that little slut's name as he let her kiss him with passion.
The staging was easy he would always black out by the end of the night, and never realized that I would be the one to pick him up. His little slut will be found with her neck wrung in the river in a week or so, what was staged to be his first victim of a mad killing spree. My part was easy. The devastated mother who found out her murderous husband ruined their life and hung herself over her dead daughter.
That was the hard part, staging her death. I undressed my lousy oaf of a man, put on his clothes and slaughtered a pig, first by bleeding it out into a bucket. Poor thing couldn't have died quietly before I bashed its head and chopped it up. I was smart enough to wear gloves, tore up some of my daughter's clothes and deviously disguised it as my daughter. I had an inside man ready to make sure they identified the body as my daughter and not a pig because plot holes are bad for setting up a murder scene. Anyway, I put the clothes back on my dead to the world husband and took a bath.
Once I was clean, I put on fresh clothes and woke my daughter. I told her to hide in the field, and I will find her. She sleepily complied and dashed out of the room. I smiled and returned to the axe and the bucket of blood. I poured most of the blood onto the bed around him and tucked him in gently.
With a turn of my heel, I merrily skipped down the hall and hacked away at the door to my daughter's bedroom. I chopped her bed up, making it look like she struggled against him before smashing the mirror with the hilt a few times. I began to sort swiftly through her stuff and packed it away into her duffel bag. I left a mess, but there was no time to clean it. I dribbled blood from what was left in the bucket as I walked back to the barn, dragging my daughter's duffel bag behind me. It was roughly her size, not like my husband would have realized anyway in that frenzy.
I giddily laughed as I took a lighter from my pocket and lit up a cigarette. Oh, the memories I had of this dreadful place, it made me realize I'm not the housewife, stay at home mom material. With a flick of the wrist, I sent the lighter flying onto the old wooden deck. I waited a moment or two until I saw the wood started to catch fire.
I smirked and drove off with my daughter, only about halfway down the road to see the smoke starting to loom into view of my rear-view mirror. Love is such a mystery. It does make people want to do crazy things like marrying an idiot. Then the lack of love makes people do even crazier things. I guess I'm one of them.
