Splitting Image

Chapter 1: Gabriel Parker

Then

Two boys stood in front of their rusty red mail box in the brisk, early morning cold, on the dusty dirt road that curved around the front of their small clapboard house. They lived out in the country, in the middle of a lonely, isolated field, a small family of five. A mother, a father, and three boys, two of them twins. Unextraordinary in every way. They were there because their mother had sent them out to get the mail that morning. It was normal, simple, and routine- and yet in just a few hours it would set off a horrible chain of homicidal events.

Garret, what's that?" five year old Gabriel Parker asked, peering around his older brother's back to get a better look at the cardboard box he was holding. As soon as Garret had seen the box laying on the side of the road, his face lit up in a way that it rarely did. Garret scooped up the box and tried to hide it with his body. "Nothing. None of your business, alright?" Gabriel frowned, shielding his eyes from the blinding mid-morning sun. Clutched in his left hand was a black leather dog leash. After getting the mail, his mother had told him that it was his turn to walk the family mutt.

"That doesn’t look like a box of nothing." Garret spun around, scowling at his younger brother. At 10 years old, Garret was an unimpressive specimen. He was tall and gangly, with a mop of unruly black hair on top of his greasy head. His yellowed, square-shaped teeth stuck out in crazy directions, barely reigned in by the twisted mess of metal rods and rubber bands fastened to them. His skin was so pale and pasty it was nearly translucent, a byproduct of almost never going outside. Garret preferred to spend his days inside, reading comic books and bullying and tormenting his brothers Gabriel and Graham.

Garret pushed his face into Gabriel's and snarled, his teeth shining in the sun. "Look, you little shit," he said, "What’s in this box is for me, and me only. Not you, not Graham, not anybody. ME." Gabriel shrank back, his chocolate brown eyes wide. Comprehension dawned on his face. "It's those comics Mommy told you not to read, isn't it? You bought them anyway." Garret's favorite comic was the series Eros. It was an adult comic chock full of sex, violence, drugs, and cursing.

Their mother had expressly forbidden them in her house. She was a highly religious and pure person. But Garret always found a way to get his hands on them. When he couldn't bribe and pressure his friends into buying them for him, he would steal the money from their father or shoplift the books from the Comic Store in town. "You stole from Daddy again? You said you wouldn't...Garret, they told me to tell them...if you..."

Garret lunged forward, grabbing the leather dog leash out of Gabriel's hand. He tackled him to the ground and pushed his face into the dirt. Then he climbed on his back, wrapping the leash around his throat and twisting it around until it was knotted tightly under his chin and around his neck. Gabriel let out a choked scream and scrabbled at the leash, pulling at Garret's hands. His face turned crimson as he struggled for breath and writhed against Garret's hold like a hooked fish.

Garret held fast; he was suprisingly strong. He bent his head down and hissed into Gabriel's ear, spraying his cheek with spit. "You can't tell them!" Gabriel thrashed and shook his head, tearing his green turtle neck in his attempts to break free. A wild light appeared in Garret's eyes. He was terrified of the possibility of his youngest brother ratting him out. The last time he'd been caught with the Eros, his father had beaten him with an electrical cord until he couldn't scream anymore.

He shook Gabriel like a rag doll. "You can't!" He shrieked, his voice raising in panic as he remembered the horrible pain of the beating. Still Gabriel refused to consent. Garret decided to change tactics and use fear. That had always worked before.He tightened his hold on the leash."If you tell anyone about this, anyone at all, I will come into your room at night and chop you up with the woodax! Got it?!" Gabriel gurgled and started to convulse. His eyesight grew dimmer and dimmer from the lack of oxygen. Finally,Garret released the leash and rolled off of his back. Gabriel got to his hands and knees, gasping and coughing.