Page 74 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
My eyes widen as I see Shane approach behind him with another weapon.
Clocking my reaction, the familiar clown releases me and twists. The new shard in Shane’s hand digs through fabric and skin and embeds into his arm. He doesn’t scream, doesn’t flinch. He just smiles with near-perfect white teeth beyond those red lips, aside from the one missing.
They scuffle, and the violent thrashing moves around the foyer.
“Lancie,” Shane calls out in terror. “Hit this fucker with something!”
Ignoring him and the sociopathic tendencies of the clown feeling no pain—just like the last clown—adrenaline and the will to survive sends me up the stairs toward the scene of those who hadn’t.
Eerily, a broken record that stutters almost every word plays Billy Idol’s White Wedding from one of the adjoining hallways and greets me as I near the top.
A glance at the staircase behind me and the one in front of me proves the clown—Ambrose,because I know it’s him—hasn’t followed me to the second floor.
My fingers turn white as they grip the wooden gargoyle to stop myself from shaking. I lean down and look at the bookcase below.
He’s gone.
Shane is gone.
Turning back to the second floor, I peek around the banister and freeze, eyes fixed on the thick carpet where Dad took his last breath.
A flash of lightning takes me back in time, and I wait for the roaring thunder to follow and snap me out of the nightmare.
One, two, three, I count the seconds silently.
Dad lies before me, rolling from his back to his knees with a struggle. Blood runs to the carpet as he stumbles to his feet. A puddle of his blood forms around him, more dripping from his mouth.
His lean body falls to the ground, clutching his stomach and the wounds that are causing the deep red stains on his tattered bed shirt.
Bloody fingers move to me, and then he points to the wall between his room and the family bathroom. The words, “YOU FUCKING CLOWNS,” are painted in his blood, standing out against the cream paint.
Trying to avoid him, my eyes move anywhere else but stall on my mother and her red lips, red with her blood from the smile drawn upon her face. She sits lifelessly against the frame of her bedroom door.
I sink to the floor, the pain in my chest too much. “I’m sorry. I love you both. I’m so sorry for what happened to you.”
I close my eyes, and somehow, tears still leak from them.
“Do you remember, princess?” Dad’s whisper is in my head so deep that I can’t get it out before he says more. “Do you remember your brother gutting us and slitting our throats? Do you remember his plan to leave? To run away.”
My head shakes from side to side because I don’t remember anything about their deaths, but I do remember Ambrose asking me to leave. To run away with him.
That memory returns, hitting me with the weight of a truck.
A floorboard creaks in the distance, forcing my eyes, now raining tears again, to open, only to see my father and his pale skin and dilated pupils too close to my face.
The crack of thunder finally hits, and I jump backward, slipping off the top step and hitting each one, and then my head at the bottom.
Everything fades to black.
CHAPTER 18
Ambrose—age nine
Heavy feet stomp above us. The assault on the floorboards is still easy to hear over Dollie’s wailing.
“Shh, he’s coming.” My eyes are on the moldy ceiling, following each step he takes, not Dollie at the bucket. “Dollie, please be quiet.”
“I’m in pain,” she sobs.
