Handle With Care

A Walk

It took every ounce of strength I had, to stand up and stagger away from my father's body, and further into the house. My father's head, I had placed back above his neck with shaking hands, my fingertips now covered in his blood.

"M-Mama?" I called, my hands now trembling at my sides. The iron stench of blood was all I could smell, for the sickly dark red liquid was practically everywhere, as if a painting job had gone haywire. It coated the walls and floorboards, showing evidence of fingerprints, claw marks, places where someone had slipped, or where a great struggle had taken effect.

The house was silent, no answer came from my mother's voice. My heart was overlapping beats, pounding and struggling against its bony cage in pure horrific panic. It was the only thing I heard. I wished it wasn't my own, and instead someone else's. Some form of life, of security in the fact that someone had to be alive in here, somewhere.

"Mama?!" I tried again, my voice having gone desperate once more. Where was she? Why wasn't she answering? Surely... she wasn't....

The skin on my feet crawled and squirmed as I stepped down the hall, along streaks of blood and chipped wood. The walls had holes in them, some misshapen from perhaps a body part, some that looked like a punch had missed it's desired target, and some like claw marks, the same as the blood.

Pictures and decorations were broken of their frames, glass littering the edges of the hall. I took care in where I stepped, but even if I were to step on a piece of glass, I was sure I wouldn't feel it. I couldn't feel anything right now, nothing, but fear.

I passed the living room. One look inside told me no one was there, but it was much worse than the hallway. The couch was on it's side, the coffee table split in half, and the tv was on the floor, its screen smashed in. The windows were broken, and the bookcases that held dvds were smashed, scattered around all the other fragments of the room. Blood coated nearly everything there, too.

I passed the kitchen. Empty of life, as well, but evident of a struggle equal to the living room. Plates, glasses, utensils, all smashed and covering the floor in dangerous shards. The table, too, was split and smashed, and the fridge, oddly enough, was only a few inches out of place. It didn't seem to fit the scene, with all the cupboards hanging off their hinges.

I began to grow more panicked. I picked up my pace down the hall, sparing a glance at the office room, empty of nothing but rubble, like the other rooms.

"Mama?!" I called again. Still, there was no answer. My heart felt like it was trying to force its way up my throat, seeing it could not escape through my ribs.

"Jami?!" I tried my little brother's name. He, too, did not answer. No... not him too... he was just a kid....

I broke into a run, not caring about pieces of glass or wood, or of slipping on the blood. I needed to see, I needed to make sure at least someone was here, at least someone was alive.

I reached my room. No one, but it looked just as bad as everywhere else, only less blood. I sprinted to my little brother's room. Empty, too, but there was more blood than in mine. His little hand and footprints was smeared on the floor and walls, claw marks following after, like they were chasing Jami's little prints.

"J-Jami..." I whispered, not wanting to believe that he could possibly be gone, also. There was still one room left, but a deep and gaping sense of dread told me that the room would hold horrors possibly worse than those by the front door.

I wasted no time. I rushed to my parents' room, my heart beating faster than I had ever felt it beat before. No running race, no hunting lesson, no game of tag could compare with how harshly my heart was beating right then.