Page 5 of Loved to Death

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Thomas sucked air into his lungs. Disoriented, he raised a hand to touch his face. Something was covering his eyes. He jerked into a sitting position and shook his head. The sound of coins hitting the floor greeted him. He looked down at himself.Why am I in my Sunday best?

“Aaaah!”

The high-pitched scream to his right snapped his attention.

His mother, Elizabeth, was screaming at the top of her lungs and looking directly at him.

“Mother?” he croaked, his throat as dry as sandpaper.

She stood up so fast, she knocked her embroidered chair to the floor and continued to scream while backing away.

Thomas realized he had been lying on the table in the parlor and immediately got to his feet.

His father, William, came running in, only to stop short in the doorway.

“What’s going on?” Thomas asked, trying to remember how the hell he’d gotten to the parlor. The last thing he could remember was…the girl. He put a hand up to his neck. His fingers brushed against the ragged torn skin, but the wound itself wasn’t painful and when he took his hand away, there was no blood to be seen.

Thunk.

He turned toward the noise. His mother had fallen. He moved to check on her.

“Don’t touch her!” William bellowed, rushing to stand in front of his wife.

Thomas stopped mid-step.

His father had turned as white as a sheet. “Don’t touch her,” he repeated.

“Father, I—”

“No!” William’s entire body shook as he spoke. “My son is dead. He died last night. You’re…you’re a trick of the devil. Evil incarnate.”

Thomas shook his head. “I’m not evil! I’m your son.” He bent his head and touched his neck to show his father. “I’ve been injured. I need a doctor.”

Without taking his eyes off Thomas, William leaned down, gathered his wife in his arms, and backed away. “You’re not injured, you’re dead. And you’re not my son. You’re an unholy abomination.”

“Iamyour son!” Thomas yelled, panicking as the pieces started coming together in his head. “There was a girl. She bit me, and I lost a lot of blood. Then I-I must have been unconscious. Not dead!”

William had backed up to the wall, clutching his wife’s body. “The devil walks among us, wearing my dead son’s face.” He looked up at the ceiling and started to pray out loud, begging God to show mercy on them.

Thomas stepped toward his father to convince the man that he wasn’t the devil but stilled at the sound of a gun cocking.

His gaze darted to the doorway, where his brother stood holding a rifle to his shoulder pointed directly at Thomas’ chest.

“Samuel?” Thomas said, holding his hands up and backing away.

“I don’t know what witchcraft this is, but you leave this house and never return.” Samuel’s voice shook, but his hands were steady.

“Please, Samuel. It’s me, Thomas. I have nowhere else to go.”

“You can go back to hell where you came from,” Samuel said before pulling the trigger.

There was a deafening bang as the slug entered Thomas’ chest cavity, knocking him backward onto the wooden floor.

In the ensuing silence, Thomas sat up and touched the hole in his chest where the bullet had gone in. His eyebrows furrowed.Where is the blood? Where is the pain?There’d been pressure as the bullet went in, along with some unpleasant heat. He wasn’t numb, but it also hadn’t hurt.

He looked up at his brother, who just stood there staring back. Then Samuel turned the gun around, gripped the barrel, and held it like a club. He stepped toward Thomas with clear intent. Thomas scrambled to his feet and ran as fast as he could out of the house.

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