When Darkness Loves Us

“No, Daddy!” Martha whimpered. “I don’t want to see.”

“You’re so all-fired curious about the barn, I want you to see.” He pulled her across the floor, dragging her feet in the blood; she fell and it got all over her favorite white-lace nightie. He pulled her to the corner where a shallow grave was dug in the dirt, beyond where the cows ate, and there was a baby calf, covered with blood, all crumpled up in the hole. Rats were already dodging in and out taking rips of flesh. She covered her eyes.

“Look at this monster, Martha.” He pulled her hands away from her eyes. “Look, damn you! It was born wrong. It was born with two heads. It was a horror, Martha, like you. A monster, like you! I had to kill it when it was born, like I should have killed you.” He grabbed her nose with hard, calloused fingers that pinched. “Look at this nose!”

“Look at this nose,” Leslie said, and he pinched it.

His hand hurt her wrist, she twisted to get away, she didn’t want to see the thing in the hole, she didn’t want the blood, she didn’t want any of it. He was hurting her wrist. Her knees collapsed and she sat down hard on the ground, her hand landed on something long and smooth, something that fit her tiny hand, and his face came close to hers, bright eyes and yellow teeth—“Horror! Horror!”—with a terrible stench, a smell of death, of blood, of whiskey, of awful, horrible, and she picked up the hammer and swung it at his head.

Leslie dodged the stool, but it caught Priscilla on the side of the head. Her eyes rolled back and she made a gurgling sound as she landed, twitched for a moment, and then was still.

“Jesus Christ! You killed her!” He stood there for a moment, flexing his hands nervously, then bounced up and down on his toes and ran out of the house.

“You little bitch. Like to kill me, eh? I’ll show you what for.” He picked her up and threw her in the grave on top of the mutilated body of the calf, rats squeaking and running, then coming back for a smell of the new meat. “Bury the two horrors together,” he said, pelting her with clods of dirt. “Bury the two horrors.” Then he stopped. He listened for a moment to her frantic whimpering, as she batted at the rats to keep them away from her face, her hands sinking in the still warm ooze of the broken little calf body. Harry put his face in his hands with a moan and ran out.

Martha scrambled out of the grave away from the rodents and that awful thing and whipped off her nightgown, throwing it back in the hole. There was sticky blood all over her, in her hair, on her hands, on her legs; it smelled sweet, tasted salty. She screamed breathlessly, the horses and cows making even more noise, as she ran to the hose and washed herself, frantically, dancing in the cleansing rain—it wouldn’t wash away fast enough—and when she was clean, she stood naked and cold in the barn, sobbing, then lay down quietly shivering in the mound of fresh, new hay.

Martha was shivering. She opened her eyes. She was lying naked on top of the bed, still damp from her shower. All the lights were on. She got up slowly to get a fresh nightie from the dresser and almost stepped on Priscilla’s lifeless form on the floor.

“Pris! Why you here?” She stooped to help the girl up, but Priscilla’s face was a strange blue-gray, and she was cold. A little trickle of blood leaked out one ear and from the side of a small cut at her temple. Martha ran for a washcloth. “S’just blood, Pris. Normal. Happens every time. Here. Clean you up.” She sat down with Priscilla’s head in her lap and scrubbed at the dried trails until they came clean.

Morning sunlight was coming through the shattered windows when Leon opened his eyes. His head boomed with the light, with his pulse. Shaky fingers sought out the lump like a golf ball on his forehead. Slowly his vision cleared and he remembered Leslie and Priscilla the night before. He raised his pounding head and looked around. The gun was under the coffee table; glass was everywhere. Where was Martha?

Slowly, carefully, he got to his feet, dizzy, every muscle aching, his head feeling like it would either explode or roll right off his shoulders. He stumbled to the bedroom.

He leaned at the doorjamb. Martha was sitting at the dressing table, her back to him. Priscilla’s legs stuck out from under the end of the bed.

“Martha?”

She seemed to be humming, putting on makeup. He walked around the edge of the bed.

“Martha?” God, was she all right? “Martha?”

Martha turned to face him, her slack mouth reddened with lipstick and fashioned into a warped smile.

“Leon!”