Famished - Meghan O'Flynn (learn to read books TXT) 📗
- Author: Meghan O'Flynn
- Performer: -
Book online «Famished - Meghan O'Flynn (learn to read books TXT) 📗». Author Meghan O'Flynn
Hey, Tim! Will you play with me at recess?
Hey, Tim, let’s swing together!
He took his hands off his head. It was suddenly quiet—too quiet. A chill ran through the puffy coat he wore. He grabbed the blanket his mother had left with him, climbed to his feet and cocked his head, listening.
Nothing but the wind.
“Mom?” he called softly. Maybe she was finished working and was waiting for him. His stomach grumbled. He was ready to go too.
He squinted into the blackness.
“Mom?” he called, a little louder. His heart beat faster as he took a few sneaky steps, knowing he wasn’t supposed to bother her while she was working. The wind whistled around him, bit at his numb hands, and froze the tip of his nose. The building loomed above him.
She wasn’t done, or she would have come to get him. They probably went in to get out of the cold, he thought, congratulating himself on solving the puzzle. He braced himself against the bitter wind and crept toward the old school to warm up while he waited. If he was quiet, they would never even know he was there.
He had strapped her down on an old cafeteria table. Though convenient this time, it wasn’t his favorite type of work surface; the metal grooves in the table collected the gore and made everything slippery. Not that she’d minded. Or even noticed.
He watched the cockroach wriggle inside the sheath of her stomach, its legs twitching as it fought to survive in her meager juices. Even after thirty minutes and twelve seconds, the bug still lived.
These fuckers will outlast us all. He touched it with the point of the scalpel, and the bug writhed away from him, perhaps alarmed.
Creak.
He turned around. A blanket dropped to the floor as the boy hiding behind it stared, open-mouthed, brown eyes wide.
“Momma?”
In two strides, he was upon the child, slicing through fascia and muscle along the front of the boy’s throat. The hole in the child’s neck gurgled, a last attempt to suck air through a severed windpipe. A waterfall of life spurted down the child’s jacket. Then the eyes closed, and the boy collapsed backward. A teardrop peeked from under one dead lid like a single cell trying to escape demise.
He removed the boy’s jacket, tossed it aside, and carried him to the table. The cockroach stuck in the woman’s body was still struggling, but slower, sluggish. Perhaps the boy’s stomach acid would be more robust, paralyzing the bug in moments if he were to place it directly into the child’s gut.
He glanced at his watch. No time. But there was always another boy, another day.
He arranged the child on top of the woman, snuggling his lower half among her disordered intestines as if she were trying to pull him into the gaping hole.
Back from whence you came.
He positioned the boy’s head on her chest, between the two abominable bluebird tattoos near the front of her shoulders. The birds appeared to be flying headlong into the child’s hair.
He dropped the bloody scalpel into a plastic bag, an inconvenience but a necessary one. The police would be getting closer now.
The wind howled through the silent building. He dipped a latexed finger into the gore that had settled in the metal grooves on the tabletop and scrawled bloody calligraphy along the bench.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
His work complete; he walked out, listening to the wind singing an eerie lullaby to the boy nestled peacefully in his mother’s final embrace.
I cut another slice of turkey for the women in the shelter dining room and grinned at the plates like a sappy idiot. Apparently, nothing made me giddy like a good night’s rest and a morning eating Dominic’s leftover turkey, mashed potatoes, and pie.
Pie made everything more awesome. And the way Dominic had woken me up wasn’t half-bad either.
I flushed and glanced at Ms. LaPorte, who was faring less well. She slumped and shuffled, head hung low, as she slopped potatoes on the plates like someone had sucked all the energy from her bones. Holidays did that to you. I didn’t usually make coffee this late in the afternoon, but there might not be a choice if I wanted her to make it through dinner.
“Are you okay?” I set the last plate down and laid my hand on her arm.
She turned to me, her eyes watery and bloodshot.
Oh shit.
“I knew she had some trouble, but that boy…that poor boy.” She wiped a tear with the back of her hand.
My chest, my throat, everything constricted. Another murder? “Ms. LaPorte? What happened?” Please let it be something else. Anything else.
Her eyes widened. “Hannah, have you not been watching the news?”
My mouth was too dry to speak. I’d been avoiding the news, avoiding all the sadness and the hurt out there.
“Do you remember Antoinette? Her little boy Tim?”
Ms. LaPorte grabbed my hands as realization sank into my stomach like a knife. I shook my head in disbelief.
“Hannah, I know you’ve been through a lot lately. If you don’t want to know—”
“Please…what happened?” My voice had gone shrill, and my heart was hammering so loudly I worried I might not be able to hear her. I gripped her hands to steady myself, but it didn’t stop the trembling in my legs.
She leaned close to me. “Someone came here this morning, looking for Tim after he missed a visit with his social worker. They were only here for a few minutes. And then we heard the sirens at the school across the street, and I looked out the window—” she choked back a sob. “It was just horrible. Those black bags…”
I shivered. Cold. I was so cold.
He’s a good kid.
Momma, can I have another hot dog?
I sucked air through my nose, my mouth, but there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room.
That poor kid.
I let go of Ms. LaPorte, grabbed the serving dishes from the counter, and retreated to the sink.
Ms. LaPorte followed me. “You look a little pale, dear. Maybe you should take off.” She blew her nose on a paper towel.
I shook my head. “No, I want to be here. To help you. I…just can’t believe it.”
“Me either, dear. And to think all these killings have something to do with girls from our shelter.”
“Did the police say that?” My voice was hoarse. My nerves vibrated.
Dominic will protect me.
“No, but they implied it. Told me to watch out here. Be careful leaving.”
This has nothing to do with me. Nothing at all. It’s just a terrible coincidence. But—
I couldn’t be here. But I had to be here. Maybe I’d take Dominic up on that private bodyguard thing.
“I think we need to shut our doors for a few weeks,” Ms. LaPorte said.
“You’re sure?” Thank goodness.
She held up a hand. “I know; they need us. But if someone is taking these women from here, like the police seem to think, I don’t want to put them in harm’s way. I already told Brandy she could stay with me for the time being.”
Relief. Guilt at the relief. I nodded, mute.
“Will you be okay, Hannah?”
“Yeah, I just need… I don’t know what I need.” A baseball bat. A place to hide. Something to whack a killer in the balls.
I need to call Dominic.
Comments (0)