Home

Chapter 12: No Escape

Scotty woke in a very dark place. He couldn't tell where he was. There was darkness all around. He could see a vent system faintly about 30 feet in front of him, some shelves full of cleaning and maintenance supplies off to his left, and a ladder leaning against the wall on his right. From what he could tell, the walls were made of brick, and the floor was concrete. There were some metal poles stretching from the ceiling to the floor all around. He figured he was in some sort of basement.

Scotty tried to stand up, but something was holding him down. He looked down and realized that he was tied around the stomach to the chair he was sitting in. Attached to each leg of the chair were chains that were holding it in place so that Scotty could not move. While his body was tied to the front of the chair, his wrists were tied to the back. In addition to all of this, his mouth was duct-taped shut. He squirmed and wiggled, but he couldn't get free.

"Don't even try," said a familiar voice as his father stepped out of the darkness, smiling creepily. "You're not going to get free."

Something was different about him. Not only had he for some reason gotten into his purple work uniform, but he had his face covered in purple face paint. His creepy smile stretched from ear to ear.

"You kids. You kids kept crying and complaining, saying 'mommy! Mommy! We miss Mommy!', and you just wouldn't stop! I hate to break it to you, but 'Mommy' is long gone! She deserved it! She was a bitch! She just wouldn't stop demanding things from me! 'Could you grab this on your way home?' 'Would you mind doing that for me?'. It never ended! So, I ended it myself."

"Oh my god..." Scotty muttered, chewing through the duct tape. "You... she didn't die because of my birth, you killed her!"

"Yes, and she was oh so deserving of it!"

"How can you live with yourself after you did that?"

"Look, if it was someone important, I probably couldn't, but this is your mother we're talking about. She was worthless!"

"She was worthless to you! She was everything to Mary! The same would go for me, had you not killed her!"

Scott Sr.'s smile faded. He now looked more serious than ever, as if he was going to kill Scotty, too.

"How would you know? You didn't know anything about her."

"Oh, but I did. Mary told me everything about her. She was kind. She was caring. She always put others before herself, just like Mary!"

His father's serious face turned into a look of rage.

"She was a mean, demanding, selfish old hag! And your sister, oh, your sister. She was even worse. She was a child of the devil!"

"That's a big, fat lie and you know it!"

"I knew her way longer than you! She was even more selfish! She hardly care cared about anyone!"

"No, she hardly cared about you! She cared about me! She cared about Mom! She cared about her friends! She even cared about Mark!"

"That's a load of shit!"

"You just don't want to admit that I'm right! The only reason she didn't care about you was because you don't care about anyone but yourself! Even Mark was nice until you infected him! If Mom was still here, Mark and I would be the inseparable brothers all others always dreamed of being! Then, you ruined all of that!"

"How is any of that my fault?"

"You began treating him like he was better than me and Mary! Because of that, his gullible mind started to believe that he was better than everyone else! He would have been a fine young man had it not been for you!"

His father looked down, covering his face with shadow.

"I see," he murmured before slowly looking up with that huge smile on his face again. "That's how it is, is it?"

"Unfortunately, yes. It is."

"Then I guess I'll just have to kill you, too!" his father screamed, lunging at him with the knife he had used to kill the janitor earlier.

Scotty twisted his body as much as his chair would allow him to in such a way that the knife went through most of the rope instead of his body. He couldn't get out of the chair still, but he could definitely move more. So, he then slammed his head down onto his father's, knocking him down. This hurt Scotty a lot too, but he didn't care at this point. He wrenched his back up the side of the chair and eventually was able to get his arms up over the back of it. He Then carefully leaned over and grabbed the knife his father had used to accidentally cut the rope but had dropped during the fall. He was then finally able to cut through the rest of the rope, but not before his father was back on his feet. Overfilled with anger, Scotty pointed the knife at his father.

"Woah now," Scott Sr. started, "let's think about this. You should be a good boy and give the knife back to your father."

"Why would I do that? You're just going to kill me. So, I should just kill you first!"

"Buddy, I would never dream of killing you. Now, be the nice little boy you are and give the knife to Daddy."

"Never!" Scotty screamed, lunging at his father.

Since he was only seven, Scotty was not that strong. His father had caught his hand just before stealing the knife from him.

"You should have listened, Junior."

His father then started swinging the knife at Scotty like a madman. Since Scotty was used to this kind of behavior from Mark, he easily dodged each swing.

"Why won't you just die already?" Scotty's father screamed. "Why can't I hit you?"

"Because Mark treats me like this every day," Scotty replied, "And it's all your fault!"

"Well then," his father said as he stopped swinging the knife. "Since he couldn't complete the job, I guess I'll have to finish it for him!"

He spun and threw the knife at Scotty. Luckily, Scotty tucked and rolled between his father's legs, missing the airborne knife by an inch. Fortunately, his father was too dizzy from the spin to notice that he had done anything. So, Scotty ran up the set of stairs he had just spotted in the back of the room. What has gotten into him? He's acting like a psychopath! I have to get away from here.

When Scotty reached the main floor, he hid under a table and began to cry. Why is this happening to me? I'm only seven. I shouldn't be going through this. It's too much...