Brother Dearest, Page 2

  ***

  Hiding childishly under the covers on the floor in the last corner of the upper bedroom, Cindy heard the tinny faraway sound of a knock. Bones, she thought, reminded of a distant hollowness thumping against the front door. Moving on, the window across from the sofa. Farther away, the west window in dad's tiny study. The north window, the one she had looked out of...around the back of the house.

  Cindy covered her ears, held her breath. Then, nothing over the sigh of the wind, but the pulse of her heartbeat. She dropped the blanket from her body, padding to the door. Not a sound was to be heard not even the stray skitter of a mouse. How she rejoiced in that silence, listening with her ear cocked on the upper landing where she had dared draw near.

  Why it was almost laughable to be sure! It had only been a man with a lantern and a noise - the noise- was no longer silent. The stairwell was a pit of contained darkness, through it, three soft taps of varying sound reached her. It was a game he used to play, rapping with each knuckle, waiting for the rustle of bedclothes, for her to hide in the smallest corner.

  "My little rabbit." Whispered a hollow male voice down below. There was no lantern now. He had never come with the warmth of light, but with the coldness of winter. Cindy wanted to scream, her throat clogged with the throttle of it. The iciness was upon her, the frigid chill from the deepest of waters, the coldest of pits fluttering against her cheek.

  "Why won't you stay dead?" She cried, the spell breaking. Cindy dashed across the hall floor, heart pounding sickly in her chest. There, she had said it. Those forbidden words that had choked the screams in her throat, lulled her sickest dreams. I can't bear it, she'd once thought with a head full of undergraduate studies. She couldn't meet the eyes of the girls who'd met Tom that day and told her how lucky she was to have such a fine piece of ass for a brother. The girls were vulgar, their thoughts revolved around sex. But, Nipa?Nipa was different. Her first friend from a faraway, sun-soaked country where poverty lied like a blanket. Nipa with the solemn brown eyes, soft of cheek and gentle of care. She shouldn't have known, shouldn't have been dragged into the mess Cindy called life; but it was too late. Nipa knew everything there was to know, she was a physics major with a brother dead of malaria. Nipa would know how it felt to be suffocated, walled up alive on a desert land.

  Cindy's very soul shriveled to pieces when Miranda sent her the picture cheekily taken beneath the banner welcoming students. Tom kissed her as a lover. Nipa burnt the picture ceremonially, undertone Hindi curses in an ash tray left behind by Cindy's absent roommate. Nipa listened to her?,

  Thump. Thump. Thu-mp.

  'He used to knock with each knuckle before entering my room.'

  -mp.

  'He said I was his. His own little rabbit and he was the big, bad hunter.'

  She shuddered violently, the blanket falling heedlessly to her lap, puddling. Cindy was six with a teddy bear, thirteen in boxer shorts and a Carebear T-shirt. She was fifteen and Tom was slugging the boy who'd asked her out to a dance. Put the boy in the hospital and dad was boasting about it over morning coffee.

  "Tom? Big brother?"

  That was silly to call his name.

  Tom was dead and he couldn't harm her ever again.

  The door remained shut; rain lashed the windows of the shuttered cabin.

  Nothing stirred save for her breath.

  It was a tree branch, she thought, smiling crookedly. Wind rattled the small weather-beaten cabin, producing the same sharp thumps of someone's knuckles. Cindy smiled at herself, rising incautiously to her feet. Padding softly, she went to stand at the window, drawing the curtain back to the rain-slicked night. Condensation had formed on the glass, tracing a dripping heart pierced by cupid's arrow. Cindy gasped. Arms that had lost their substance encircled her body, robbing the life from her limbs and wildly beating heart. The stench of scorched asphalt mixed with that of rotted earth. It filled her nostrils. She nearly doubled over, gagging aloud, tears flooding her eyes.

  "Didn't I tell you once?," someone or something whispered in her ear. "I'd never leave you, not in this life?or the next."

  -finis

  AN: Found this in my doc box, had it kicking around in there since 2013. Figured I might as well polish it up and publish it. Thanks for reading.