Page 3 of Cook

Daddy hadn’t used it since I was a kid, and he forbade me from touching it.

High even then, he’d slurred, “Rabid animal on the land. That’s Daddy’s job, son.”

If I hated him using my given name, his calling me son tripped all the broken circuits, and the memory of it now... When I went looking for the dead animal, I couldn’t find it. Not even blood.

So, what the fuck had the bastard been doing then?

Didn’t matter. It was all about to end today.

Right now.

Daddy still yelled after me, and I stomped out of the shed. The rifle was a boulder of lead in my hands, but I moved like it was a feather. I had the fucking power now.

I stood behind the house, but Daddy wasn’t to be seen.

“Sorry, please! No!” screamed Mom from inside, and I ran for the kitchen.

Daddy was on her again, pummeling his fists into her.

Why couldn’t she just pass the fuck out? Each thud of his fist hit her skinny bones, breaking her more. I didn’t want to do it with her watching, but she could die before she lost consciousness.

I raised the rifle, no thoughts, and I didn’t even give warning.

Boom!

Pulling the trigger was easy, but staying on my feet after the reverberation was hard. I hadn’t thought the blow back would be so bad.

When I finally dragged my gaze up, I gasped. Daddy was dead, lying on the floor next to my cowering mother. My dead father would forever have that glassy look in his eyes from the meth, but he lost the rest of his head. His meaty brains added to the mess in the kitchen, bits of them covering the floor too, oozing from his missing skull.

I couldn’t find the bone in all the red blood.

Though he was definitely dead, I had a hard time letting the rifle go. What if the bastard somehow rose again like in those horror movies where the bad guy comes back for one more scare? And Daddy was such a shithead, I wouldn’t put it past his ass to come back as a zombie just to drive his fists into me or Mom. Even when Daddy would pass out from the drugs, he’d raise himself up and beat me again.

His death was the only way we’d ever be safe from his tainted soul.

“C’mon on, Mom.” I knelt beside her, and the blood soaked into my dark jeans. “We need to get you to the hospital.”

“Leave me, baby,” she cooed through breathless gasps. Her eyelids were swollen shut, and her jaw dangled open at an odd angle. He hadn’t actually broken it this time, but there was a good chance it had never healed.

What else had he broken? Me? Her?

I wouldn’t leave her behind. “You need a doctor.”

“You need to leave me, Morris,” she said. “My place is with him.”

She tried to crawl over to his prone body. How many times had she been beaten, or had he beaten me? She had never stopped Daddy, and she was too weak to stop him now.

So I had to.

“C’mon.” I dropped the rifle and gathered my battered mother up in my arms.

Her arm was definitely broken.

I stopped in the living room to rip apart a blanket and create a sling around her arm to shoulder before loading her into the passenger door of the truck. Then I went back to Daddy and picked his pockets for the keys. We didn’t have AC in the house, and he already seemed to be turning rancid. It was the Arizona heat, but Daddy was already rotting before he was dead.

Now, I had cracked him open like an egg, and everything spilled out.

You think I fucking cared?

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