Watching a Murder

Sweat dripped from my forehead as I awoke from another furious nightmare.  I pull my feet to the bottom of the bed and start to walk over to my mom and dad’s room. My quiet footsteps creep to the entrance of the door way and then I notice something unusual. My dad’s body is slumped over my mothers. Without him hearing my footsteps I creep over to the other side of the bed to see what was happening. My dad holds a knife over my mom’s motionless body. She was sleeping. He pulls the knife inches away from her chest.

            Then with a plunge he shoves the knife into her chest, opening a wound that would never heal. Tears fall from my eyes and onto my numb face. My mother screams violently as my dad grinned with excitement, he awoke her from her sleep. Two more times the knife goes down quickly into my mother’s bleeding chest. She screams in agony and pain. My eyes are kept on the wound in her chest. The blood wouldn’t stop pouring. I let out a wailing scream as I cry. Finally, he notices I’m there. I collapse to the floor as his heavy footsteps head toward my numb body. I pull my shaky hands up towards my face and wipe the tears off my cheeks. He holds the knife in one hand and on the other hand he pulls a finger up to his lips.

            My father steps out the room. He runs the water. I stand up again. My unsteady footsteps walk over to my mother’s side of the bed. I stand next to her motionless body, the blood was becoming stale now and the scent made my nose crinkle. I touch her hand. It feels like ice. Not minding the coldness of her motionless dead body, I leaned over to place a kiss on her cheek. Like a zombie I walk back over to the corner.

            I hear my dad’s voice. He has the phone. He dialed 911. He walks into the room again and hands me the phone.

“911 what’s your emergency?” I hear the operator say. I look at my dad confused.

“My mom’s been attacked,” I say shaky with my words. My dad pulls her body out the bed and onto the floor.

“What’s your address?” the woman says kindly. I quickly tell her my address. She tells me to stay on the phone but it soon disconnected. I look over to my dad and seen that he had pulled the phone cord. I begin to cry once again. My dad began to weep with me. It was a fake cry, I could tell it in his voice. The sirens came closer to the house. We sit in the corner, cuddled together, crying until someone had rushed into the house. I noticed my dad had changed clothes. He didn’t want anybody to know.

            The police men entered the house and saw us in the corner, my mom lying on the floor. I was weeping while my dad led on his fake crying. He stood up from the corner and walked over to the police man. They asked what happened, my dad told lies while I knew the truth. Someone had brought in a stretcher to pull my mom’s body on. They knew she was dead. I cried and hid my bruises. The one thing my mother didn’t know is that my dad used to hit me. I blocked out the world and acted as if nobody had existed. What would happen next?

            Now I stand in the same room as my mom once did before she was murdered by my father. I look into the corner where I used to lay and think about nothing. My dad isn’t home, should I escape now? Can I call the police? No, I have no choices. I’m locked in this one room, this room. I have no phone. I sit up from the bed and walk over to the dresser where I kept a diary. I open it. From the day my mom died I’ve had this diary. I write about my past. How I was beaten at every day. At sixteen you’d think I wouldn’t have a diary. But you need something to do when you’re locked up for seven years.

            Downstairs I can hear the front door being opened. Heavy, unsteady footsteps come through. He calls my name, the footsteps heading up the stairs. I quickly move my body from the bed and push the diary back into place in my shelf. I heard the lock being twisted away. The door opens. I’m doing what I would normally do. I sit on the floor and look out the window. It’s nailed shut so I can’t escape. He won’t let me go. He’s afraid that I’ll tell someone. I’ve had to hold the truth for seven years. Tomorrow, I plan my escape. I need a way out. He leaves every day to get drunk anyway.

            I stare into the window not paying attention to any motions he’s making. I can hear his slurred voice. He pulls on my shoulder instantly turning me around. I give him a furious look. I know what comes next. The bruises on my body show that. He starts to scream in my face, those angry words that come out of his mouth.

            “You’re just like your mother,” he says, “A dirty slut, that’s why I killed her” he said. I knew he was drunk, I knew that he had meant everything that came out of his mouth. “You disgust me,” he continues as he pulls his hand back and hits me in the face. I hold back the tears. He walks out the door, “Oh, wait this is for you,” he throws a half sandwich at me. I was lucky to get that. When he finally left the room and locked the door I went to get my diary once again. I wrote down about today how it was just like every other day. Then I let the tears flow from eyes. I cried until I was tired, the food I was to be for morning. I lay on the bed until I felt my body finally drifting into sleep.

            I awoke groggy. I slowly get off the bed and put my ear to the cold wooden floor. I was waiting to hear footsteps. It was silent. I decided to break the window. He didn’t put bars on it. I grabbed the chair next to the shelf and broke open the window. Warm air hit me. It must be June. I waited to hear my dad come up the stairs but nothing was to be heard. I had no other outfit so I just jumped toward the window. There was a tree I could hop onto. I climbed onto the tree and then down.

My eyes hit the light and it burned. I waited a couple of minutes for them to adjust then I ran. I didn’t know where to go. But I knew where I needed to be, the police station. I headed into that direction I had no watch, what time was it and when was he going to be home? Now I know I’m blocks away. I make sure my bruises can show so they know how vicious my dad is. My face needs no work, a couple of bruises under my eye show enough. I look around at the neighborhood I once knew like the back of my hand. People look at me as if I were crazy. My clothes were torn. There it was.

I enter the station as calmly as I can. I’m out of breath from running. Some runs over to me as I try to catch my breath.

“I…want…to report…a murder,” I say through my breath. The women looks at me crazy as if someone had been murdered, no lady this happened seven years ago. She walks me over to a sitting room. How long would it be until they actually captured him?

“So when did this murder happen?” she asks me. I look at her confused. Maybe no one recognizes me.

“Seven years ago…remember that night when you were to help me get to the ambulance?” I remember her now very vividly. She took my from my dad’s arms and helped me onto the edge of the ambulance to check for any wounds. Luckily I didn’t have any. Now she comes to sit across from me. “You guys were out to find an imposter criminal. The real one is my dad. Not only that but since the murder he’s been hurting me,” I say showing her the bruises, tears well up in her eyes.

“I remember how small you were an innocent nine year old. Do you think you can describe the murder to one of our investigators?” She asks through her tears. I nodded in agreement. She knows that if I can describe it, I was there on the scene of the crime. After she stops crying she gets up to leave the room. I can’t believe a criminal would have to sit down in a dull gray room with nothing but a table and two chairs. Within ten minutes of waiting around the officer came back with a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt. The investigator followed behind her. She told me to go to the bathroom and change. After that we would begin asking questions and describing that night. I did so.

“I remember that night like it was yesterday,” I began to say as I entered the room again. The investigator began to write down everything I said. “I awoke from a nightmare at that time I was only nine and still scared of monsters,” I giggled at the thought. “But when I went to go to my mother’s room there was something unusual about it. My dad was leaning over my mom. I went to get a closer look when something caught my sight in the corner of my eye. He had a knife. He had plunged it into my mother’s chest three times before noticing I was there,” I said knowing that tears were beginning to form in my eyes, I decided to cry. Now I’m wondering does my dad know I’m here. Is he looking for me as I speak?