Wants, Tightrope, Spilt Milk

Part Three #31: Murder

It took them ten or so minutes to gather the five weapons and all the ammunition they could find. They packed the bullets into a duffel bag and wrapped the rifles up in some sheets taken from Peterson’s cupboards, both being careful lest one of the weapons accidentally discharged. Though they knew they weren’t loaded, (for Kasper had checked the magazines and chambers) the raw power and danger inherent in each was enough to make them overly cautious. They maintained an air of silent solemnity as they packed away the weapons and carried them downstairs to leave in the hall. Peterson’s car was outside, a rather old and rusty affair that Kasper, who knew very little about cars, guessed came from the seventies. He had located the keys without much effort, finding them upon a small table next to the door where Peterson must have conveniently left them earlier.

Once the weapons had been collected near the door, ready for their exit, they turned to the dining room, Anna following Kasper with a sickening sense of apprehension. She noticed how he seemed to walk with a slight spring in his step that she suspected came from the fact that he now had the final piece of his puzzle. She wished she could match his excitement but the looming need to kill Peterson cast a shadow over her thoughts and feelings, consuming them in a manner similar to how one feels the hour before a major test, unable to think of anything else but equally unable to visualise how it will pan out.

Then she saw him.

Peterson was still tied to the chair, but it was hard to see exactly what he was sitting upon, such was the blood that covered him and everything nearby. She looked at his battered face, her eyes seeking out his but finding nothing other than unrecognisable welts, bloody masses and torn, open flesh. She looked away, her stomach churning, threatening sickness.

“He’s not in very good shape unfortunately,” Kasper said matter-of-factly, walking over to Peterson and grabbing what was left of his chin to turn his face up toward his own.

Anna turned to look at the form and as she did he snapped back to life, gasping for air in what was more of gurgling scream than a breath.

“He awakes!”

The jaw, its battered bones and teeth only visible as lighter shards of red against the darker, blackened mess of congealed blood, moved against Kasper’s grip and he let it go only for it to fall open another inch and twitch as Peterson writhed in pain.

Anna turned away, her hand over her mouth. She could hear Kasper talking to the half-dead man she had known in health, but her mind was consumed with sickness and the words simply swirled around in the nightmare that seemed to have grasped her.

There was a half scream behind her that she knew came from Peterson and a part of her wondered how on earth he was still able to scream, let alone live, for there was simply too much blood everywhere.

Suddenly, Kasper was at her side. He placed an arm around her and brought her head to his chest, holding her for a few moments before speaking.

“There’s not much more left in him Anna. At the end of the day I’m not a doctor ...,” he stopped and laughed at something before composing himself and carrying on, “but I think it’s pretty obvious.”

A silence passed between them as the implication of his words sank in.

“What ... how shall I  ...?”

Her voice was weak and childlike in its fear. He felt guilt again rise in his chest as he thought about what he was putting her through.

“It’s up to you,” he paused. “Perhaps something with ... with a ...,” he struggled to find the right words, wanting to tell her to take advantage of the situation, to get in some practice and wear down the obvious conscience he could see in her, the enemy of his plans.

“Can’t you ...?”

“No.”

Kasper’s answer took both of them a bit by surprise, Anna for the fact that he had denied her the easy option, and he for how he was able to articulate such a command, knowing full well what it was he was really saying.

She looked up at him and her eyes held the cries that she couldn’t speak.

“You have to do it Anna. For me and for yourself, for all those years that you’ve suffered at the hands of people like him.”

He saw the flash of terror in her eyes but also the emergence of something else, a fire that began to build the longer he looked at her. Perhaps he had found her weakness, the key he needed to turn.

She nodded and turned toward the mess that was once her abuser. She tried to look past the rising compassion and fear that beat inside her chest. She tried to think of Casper, of how much it would mean to him if she did as he asked. She thought about how much she loved him, how much she honestly truly and undeniably loved him, how much she would do for him if he were only to ask. This now, she told herself, is that moment. The one where I show him how much I love him and how devoted I am to him.

She looked back at Kasper and managed to pull her lips into a smile that she didn’t feel. He smiled back warmly and her resolve lifted. She tried to burn the image of his smile into her thoughts, into her blood like steel.

... for him it’s for him for him ... she repeated over and over to herself as she looked at the man before her, one eye now visible though the mess of his face, looking at her with a terror that put her own to shame. The jaw had stopped twitching as had the limbs and she felt that he knew what was coming. He knew she was to be his killer.

She stopped about a foot or so from him, his eye still upon her.

“You ...”

The words vanished from her thoughts and she tried only to think of all he had done to her, all he had put her, and perhaps others, through, and how close he had come to doing it all over again. She tried to build such thoughts up into an anger and was surprised by how quickly she felt her face begin to glow, her thoughts now following a path of their own, needing only the slightest prompting to paint Peterson as the evilest man she had ever encountered. She felt strength returning to her hands and it must have shown in her face for the eye turned away from her

She went over to the table that Kasper had adorned with the weapons, tools and implements that now lay covered in blood. Nausea swept over her as Kasper joked, “He doesn’t give up, does he?”

The words passed over her as the strength she had managed to conjure up threatened to be washed away.

Finally, she picked up a knife and turned to face what was left of Peterson.

His eye turned upon her again, almost swallowed in the swollen flesh of his battered, cut and disfigured face. Though the jaw remained still, the eye contained more words than he could have spoken. It sank beneath Anna’s skin and she froze, aware of Kasper talking but not hearing his words.

She stared deep into that single eye.

His expression changed.

His head turned.

And she stepped forward.

When it was over she fled the room, finding the bathroom only just in time to pull back the chipped and yellowed toilet seat and let the sick tear itself from her stomach. She gasped for air yet each time the oxygen seeped into her system it brought fresh images of the horror she had just dealt with hands that now smeared blood on the white porcelain of the toilet bowl. Kasper came beside her and held her hair away from the sick that came pouring forth again.

“The blood,” she managed between gasps, her stomach churning and twisting at every sight, sound and smell around her, the whole house now toxic to her senses.

Kasper had to almost drag her to her feet and over to the sink where he scrubbed the blood on her hands with what little soap Peterson had till her white flesh became raw from frantic scrubbing.

He took her hands away from the sink and she fell into his chest, her tears thick and terrifying for the power within them. He held her, and she held him, the quiet of the house now their only company.