Let's Eat Daddy

LETS EAT

  DADDY

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  Published by Shaun Kenneth Morris

  Copyright 2012 Shaun Kennth Morris

 

  Chapter One

  A little girl and a country night

  The cloudless night added to the surrealism of the scenery. The little girl trudged. She had no destination in mind. Not much was going through her mind at all. Just the pain. It covered her now and kept her warm, not unlike the dried blood was doing to her skin. The days were hot out here, but could be kept at bay the shade. The cold of night was everywhere and overwhelming. All she could do was accept it, and trudge. Her feet hurt. They had been slashed to ribbons by the rocks and the baking floor. The warm tarmac of the road beat the hell out of the freezing sand that lay to either side. She trudged.

  The moon was bright and picturesque in the sky. She imagined it much closer than it was, huge and smiling. Maybe she could touch it? She reached a hand out for it. Nothing but cold air and colder sand touched her skin. A bright light in the distance. She fell to her knees and reached for it. Maybe the moon was coming for her.

  Pinging off the fucking walls. Take enough of these pills and you won’t ever sleep again. So, be careful. The words kept spinning round and round, turning over and over in Troy’s mind. Get the delivery there on time or lose the next run; endless deadlines and schedules. Nothing but work until Sunday. No work on Sunday though, heck no. That’s God’s day. Troy doesn’t work when God is laying back. Unknown heavy metal blasted from the speakers that surrounded Troy’s cell, covered in the ruins of a thousand fast food meals. The cab smelt like shit and unwanted sexual advances. That was Troy.

  The trucks lights illuminated 60 metres in front of it. The lights are only really designed for the driver to see the road. At his current speed, anything that appeared in those 60 metres would be reunited with its lost love ones before Troy would have a chance to hit the air brakes. Progress smashes through wildlife. She looked like a ghost. A ghost wouldn’t need to walk on the side of the road though and it had zipped past so fast that Troy wasn’t sure if it was real, or the pills. He erred on the side of caution, slowed the truck, pulled over and got down from the cab. He walked back towards the little girl.

  She looked like hell.

  Chapter Two

  Intriguing. I’m sure she’s fine, though.

  Organised chaos; surmise a restaurant in full swing. The sound of the fervent dinner preparation coming from the kitchen is released only through a small window for food, and the occasional swing of the door. The diners emit the low that that all diners universally share; the sound of many voices compacted into one continuous murmur, broken only by the clatter of utensils and the occasional jovial guffaw. The suited waiters breeze between the tables as ghosts, laden with trays and menus for the diners. Amongst them sit a couple, amiably chatting away over a glass of wine and the scraps of a delectable meal.

  ‘It was alright, my steak could have been more bloody though. I asked for rare, not a burnt piece of shit.’

  ‘My ex-husband used to eat meat rare too. He always asked for blue though – the chef would come out and congratulate him afterwards. It was something to do with his old hunting days…’

  Her tone was distant. She always sounded distant, as though her mind was rarely there. The rest of her was there though, and it looked gorgeous. Small mindedness aside, this woman was a catch. Long blonde hair and beautiful green eyes; she looked like a princess from a fairy tale. It was the only thing that kept the man there.

  The man sat there quietly and contemplated his next move over his wine. He was usually a spirits man, and had taken wine tonight hesitantly. It made him look classier than his usual straight Jimmy, but he was aching for a real drink. He decided to get straight to the real issue, and make a choice on how to proceed from there.

  ‘Your daughter… she was ok? After what happened? She must have seen what happened to her dad.’

  The mother looked around hesitantly. She obviously did not like talking about her daughter in public, and after hearing the full story, he could tell why. She shook it off though, and continued.

  ‘She’ll talk sometimes, but mostly it’s just silence. The blood was her dad’s, but she won’t explain how it got there. She’s seen so many psychologists, we just stopped going. They could never get a peep out of her. Let alone find out what happened that night. She’ll only say about five words a week to anyone.’

  Fucking weird. I bet the girls a total freak. Her dad probably tried to kill her or some shit like that. Still, though. She looks like a maiden in distress. Could probably use a man, and with a body like that, if it’s not me, it’ll be some other lucky fuck. This line if thought led the man to be frank, and as honest as possible about what he thought.

  ‘Poor little lamb, that sounds like such a terrible experience. You sound like you really could use some help. I would love to meet her sometime.’ Bullshit sympathies; couldn’t care less. It’s enough though, it always is.

  ‘Some help? Yeah. You should meet her.’ The mother put on her mischievous grin, the one she hadn’t used since she was a teenager.

  ‘You know what a third date means?’ She asked.

  The man asked for the cheque

  Chapter Three

  Can’t see how this is going to go wrong

  This house was a home. He felt a stranger here, in the corridor, amongst the family pictures that adorned the walls; a mirror in the walkway. Who puts a mirror near the entrance? Bad ju-ju that one. The mother introduced him to the freak, her daughter.

  ‘This is John, the one I told you about John, this is Elizabeth.’ The mother says.

  ‘You have lovely cheeks.’ The little girl squeaked out. She was so cute; unfairly so. It was impossible not to look into those painted dolls eyes and fall hopelessly in love. If John had the means of feeling or understanding such a complicated emotion he surely would have. Look at her there. She was wearing a lovely blue dress that danced around her knees. Blonde pig-tails and green eyes like her mother. To top off this barrage of cuteness, she dragged around a little plush lamb on a leash. He bounced along her behind her begrudgingly. Being dragged around by the neck tends to give one a sour perspective, and the lamb certainly looked worse for wear as a result. It also smealt terrible, looking as though it had never been washed in its short life.

  John opened his mouth to say something, but she had already bounded off by this point. He turned to the mother.

  “Was she scared of me, Gale? I didn’t mean too,’ John said.

  “No, no, it’s fine, she usually doesn’t even greet people. She just stares. She’s right though.’ Gale leaned in for a kiss ‘You certainly do have lovely cheeks.’

  He leaned in for the kiss too. Something felt wrong, but he wasn’t about to start asking questions, He had already started to hate the little girl. If it wasn’t for her, this woman would be all his. A stupid thing to think of a child, she couldn’t control being born. But still, she was here.

  John began to appear at the house more and more. It had taken six months of trust building even to get into the house for the first time, but once in, Gale became a lot more trusting. He began to move from one category of person to the next at an alarming rate. The following six months turned from ‘possible boyfriend’ to ‘involved lover’ to the final ‘Well, you’re going to be here for a while.’ Throughout this entire process, the relationship with the child had not changed a fraction. If Gale was distant with her mind, the little girl had taken it into an art form. Every time John would come around, she would disappear into her room; only to appear for food or water. She was fine by herself. John never asked questions, nor asked about the girl. They were both fine with ignoring each
other’s existence.

  John never went out to the shed. This was the last semblances of the ex-husbands existence, his hunting shed. Even when John moved into the family home, he wouldn’t go out there. He tried one time to put his lawn mower in the shed and out of the rain, but Elizabeth shrieked so loudly he thought he would lose an ear drum. He never tried to go out there again. That was Elizabeth’s other hiding spot. When she wasn’t in her room or at school, she would be in there.

  Doing god knows what.

  Chapter Four

  In which there are no surprises.

  John was a mean drunk. Terribly mean. The truce of the calming wine had long since been forgotten, and now it was back on the hard spirits again. Unemployment and helplessness will do that to a man, beat him down in ways physical pain never could. This man, unfortunately, chose to take it out on his loved ones. By his loved ones I mean the people who lived in close proximity. Gale.

  It was Tuesday night, the night it first happened. Gale was asleep when he stumbled in. Up until this point he would just stumble into the house and rummage amongst the kitchen shelves, swearing under his breath before passing out on the couch. She wouldn’t sleep with him when he was like this. He hadn’t slept in bed in weeks. He intended to that night.

  The door wouldn’t open. She bolted it. Why? John just wanted to sleep tonight, that’s all. She was always disrespecting him like this. He felt the fury bubble. Felt the whiskey flowing. Tonight, he would be the man, she the woman, that was all there was to it. He lifted his boot back and let rip into the door.

  Make up covers everything, all sins, reproaches; thankfully. She stopped bolting the door after that Tuesday, and stopped going out with the girls. Gale became quiet and shaky. Never meeting the eyes of anyone she talked to, always ‘Fine’. Elizabeth kept out of enmity by simply never being present. She was always watching though. Occasionally, after a particularly violent night of spousal abuse, John and Gale could hear the scraping of shoes and the soft wool on wood sound of the lamb as Elizabeth scurried away from the fights. She was lucky. John’s hate for her had turned into a burning passion.

  He approached her room quietly, silently. He didn’t know what he was going to do to her, but she would talk. The silence was creepy, she would so say something if he made her. The hallway was spinning. Half a bottle of bourbon will do that. He lurched into a wall and made a crash as a photo fell down, the cute smile Elizabeth wore smashed to the timber floor. The letters on her door read ‘Elizabeth’s room’ in a variety of fonts and covers. He opened the door. Something large and heavy fell onto his head. It became all black.

  Chapter Five

  Elizabeth

  Before his eyes opened, there was only pain. A throbbing in his head made worse but his current spatial position, namely, upside down. The blood was in his head. His mouth opened and released a long moan. His moan was answered by a sharp slap to the side of the head. His eyes flickered open. If there was only pain before, now it was pain and horror. The situation wasn’t logical, didn’t make sense. It took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to bright light above his feet, and another few to process where he was.

  A shed, the metal walls. The shed in the backyard. Hunters tools on the walls, knives of every kind and large benches for cleaning carcasses, metal hooks running along the bar in the middle to hang up the newly dead. He was currently hanging from one of the hooks, unaware of how well his position fit.

  She was in front.

  She still looked like a little girl from afar, still wearing that lovely blue dress. It was her face, her eyes that gave away what she really was; remorseless and cold. You can’t fake that. John made to say something, opened his mouth. She jumped forward and in one clear move, ripped his cheek off with her mouth. His scream was muffled as she stuffed a rag into the gaping bloody chasm that was once his mouth.

  ‘The dead can’t talk, and I can hardly talk to the dead, can I?’ She said as she stepped back from the thrashing and violent cadaver. When he slowed down, she began to slowly chew the hunk of meat from his face. He watched, unable to scream or call for help. The helplessness of unemployment fails in comparison to real helplessness. The little girl began to hum a lovely little tune to herself as she prepared something on the table that John couldn’t see. Her little voice was wonderful and light, filled with laughter as the simple tune filled the silence.

  Hanging there, corpse in the air

  Nothing but gore, medium rare

  A slash of my knife, taking your life

  Me and lamb

  We’ll feast for a week

  Don’t be scared, you’re nearly dead

  Her song ended in an evil laugh reserved for super-villains and the recently insane. She skipped over to her lamb, slumped against the wall.

  ‘Do you want the heart?’ she asked. The lamb sat in a reserved silence. Answering the question would remove the dignity from it. Obviously.’ She giggled ‘One to match daddy’s in your belly.’ The reason for the smell that emanated from the lamb became crystal clear to John, he began to struggle again. The little girl kicked a large metal bucket underneath his fresh carcass.

  ‘You had your fun. I don’t like mummy. She wasn’t Daddy. Without him, she’s not really here anymore. But now? You shouldn’t have come for me. You would still be alive.’ Elizabeth moved over to the table she was at before, and pulled a humungous meat cleaver from the table. It was comical in her hands, she looked like she could barely lift it. Unfortunately for John, she handled it with ease and approached him again.

  ‘You did it at just the right time though; all the cats are gone from the neighbourhood now. Dogs too. And we were running out of meat.’ Some muffles sounds come from beneath the rag, Elizabeth moved to pull the gag from his mouth, but decided against it.

  ‘Nah. Corpses don’t talk.’

  She pulled his hair back, revealing the neck and cleaved at it. It took a few hits from the cleaver to fully separate his shoulders from his head. Blood spurted as she hammered away at his neck. The spinal cord posed more of a problem than she had realised. Blood pissed from the now decapitated cadaver into the metal bucket.

  ‘This going to take a while.’ Elizabeth said to lamb, as she snapped a plastic cover over her face and lowered John to the floor with the pulley system.

  ‘I was right though, these cheeks are to die for.’

  Lamb remained silent.

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