Page 4 of Corpse Roads

HARLOW

HOLDING OUT FOR A HERO - NOTHING BUT THIEVES

“No funny business,” Mrs Michaels instructs.

Fighting off the shiver wracking my thin frame, I bite back a sob. She throws a scrap of bread across the stained concrete floor. Her lip is curled in a sneer beneath tangled grey hair and pronounced wrinkles.

I’m too weak and feverish to accept the gift, unable to even lift a finger. I should be kneeling in the prayer position, my hands clasped and head lowered.

“Take it or you won’t eat for another week.”

“I c-can’t,” I whisper, too dehydrated to cry.

“I said take it, devil child!”

Her foot connects with my ribs—once, twice, three times. I bite down hard on my tongue until blood floods my mouth. It silences my screams as the bones in my ribcage shatter spectacularly.

Mrs Michaels grabs me by the hair and drags my limp body across the cage. I can’t stop her. This latest bout of sickness has stolen any remaining strength I possessed. I’ve barely moved for days.

“Do you know why God has made you sick?”

For what I did to Laura.

“Answer the question, whore!”

I’m smashed into the bars face first. Agony melts my flesh like unholy flames, igniting every shredded nerve within me. Hellfire is raining down on my unworthy soul.

“Because you’re a filthy little bitch. You think I don’t see the way you look at your father? He’s saving your corrupted soul, yet all you can think about is spreading your fucking legs.”

If he heard her use that word, he’d take the belt to her. I’ve seen it happen. Only once. Pastor Michaels whipped his wife until the milky flesh of her behind was dripping red. She could barely walk for days.

“Say thank you for the food,” Mrs Michaels demands.

Swallowing hot, coppery blood, I let out a gargle. She drops me back down onto the floor with a final curse, then exits my cage. Lying on my back, I dip in and out of consciousness for what seems like forever.

The throaty growl of a car engine startles me awake sometime later. Terror and relief wash over me. My parents have left to find their next sinner, ready for punishment. Another girl.

They’re gone again.

If I die down here in their absence, no one would notice.

Feeling around blindly, my fingertips scrape against the hunk of stale bread. For the first few days of this latest torment, I was starving. Enough to dominate my every thought.

But now... the thought of eating repulses me. The fever hit yesterday and there’s nothing left in me to fight it off. I’m so tired of the constant cycle. Death is beckoning me.

“This is my punishment for what I did,” I state, addressing the adjoining cage.

The pile of bones doesn’t answer me, swimming in unidentifiable bodily matter and scraps of clothing. I don't know how long ago Laura was—her death, that is.

I’ve blocked it out of my memory, like so many other things. I still talk to her. She’s alive somewhere in this room, a spirit lingering in the place between here and the afterlife, like layered sheets of wallpaper.

Her ghost is my only source of comfort. As her skin turned black and peeled away from her bones, revealing organs that soon liquified, Pastor Michaels grew apocalyptically angry.

His last voyage out to stalk his prey was unsuccessful, and he cursed Laura’s remains for tempting him, just like the others. I still remember her wails of pain as he hurt her repeatedly in the weeks before her death.

He touched her. That always made Mrs Michaels mad. She would beat me afterwards to vent her hatred while Pastor Michaels’ victims watched and bled from between their legs, helpless.

After forcing the bread down, I lie back and try to sleep. It doesn’t come. Despite everything, I’m terrified of being alone here. What if they don’t come back?

---