HER AND I

She was asleep, dead to the world, her house in darkness, silence. The sirens and the chaos I left behind were a distant memory—the noise failing to break the wall of serenity that cloaked this quiet, secluded farmhouse. Animals rustled in the trees and emitted random vocalizations in the barn, but nothing disturbed the house itself or the occupants within.

The night was gradually turning into day by the time I slipped inside. There was no alarm, no security, and I had a key. It didn’t take a skilled cat burglar or a serendipitous thief to enter this particular residence. The house was pitch-black, darker than it had been outside, with no streetlights for miles and no moonlight breaking through the thick curtains. But for the stark red standby lights that littered every room like idle fireflies, there was no hint of light or life. I used a small flashlight to break the wall of black, directing the beam ahead of me. As soon as it fell upon the interior of the house, my jaw dropped.

The decor homey, comforting, welcoming. A short hallway, decorated with oak-paneled floors and vintage wallpaper, led into a large living room. An open fireplace stood as the room’s focal point, strewn with a string of twinkling lights, littered with framed pictures. A three-piece suite encroached around a large television and a small wooden coffee table.

I walked through the house taking everything in—the artwork, the detritus of family life. An archway at the back of the open-plan living room led into a large country kitchen, complete with Aga, breakfast table, and the leftovers of a large family meal. At the end of the kitchen was a partitioned door leading into a utility room and what was most likely a garage or storage room; on the other side a hallway, leading into a playroom and downstairs toilet. It was huge, a veritable country palace, but the more I took in, the more despair I felt. The joy and amazement gave way to anger and frustration; the comforting warmth to bitter, chilling cold.

A knife rack stared at me invitingly from the counter. I had come prepared, but the way that the light caught the glint of the blades, the way they gleamed and glistened, called to me. I took out the largest one and sniffed the handle, breathing in the scent of its owner, of a million cuts and dices—the scent of a hardworking mother preparing countless meals for her family.

I walked back into the living room, into the hallway, and to the bottom of the stairs, a winding, twisting staircase bordered by an antique banister and surrounded with more paintings, more pictures—images of a happy, loving family. The handle of the knife threatened to crack in my hand as I squeezed tight, leaving its mark on my skin.

—

The flashlight glinted off photographs and paintings, a spotlight crawling over each stair, each potential obstacle, but the bright white light diffused when the hallway light snapped on and the house came alive.

A tall, slovenly figure emerged into the sudden glare, a slow, staggering, groaning figure who shuffled on bare feet, hunched like a middle-aged zombie. His eyes were fixed on his own feet, barely focusing on the hallway around him, the stairs ahead of him, or the killer below. Bare feet slapped the wooden floor, soaking up the cold, making him more alert, more awake with each step.

He was at the top of the staircase when I backed away, his eyes never once focusing on me—too tired, too blurry, too docile. They wouldn’t have picked out the shadowy figure at the bottom of the staircase even if they had been focused.

His hand slapped the banister, gripped tightly, and then shouldered the burden of his entire weight as he leaned into the twisting, wooden railing and descended with the rapidity of a sloth. He yawned, he groaned, he mumbled to himself, and eventually, what seemed like an entire minute later, he made it to the bottom of the stairs.

Only then did I realize that my flashlight was still on, the beam pointing directly at his feet, wrapping him in a florescent halo, his tartan pajamas taking the spotlight. I froze; he did the same. He seemed to stall as if processing something, eyes down, back arched, neck almost horizontal.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I readied the knife, waiting to explode out of the darkness, to cut him down where he stood. The spotlight around his feet wobbled in my increasingly unsteady grip. He straightened his head, and for a split second he looked right at me, but his head continued to rise, until he tilted it back and unleashed a loud yawn that seemed to shake his entire body.

I turned off the flashlight and tucked myself behind the corner; he finished with a grumbled expletive and a high-pitched crescendo and then continued to shuffle his way to the kitchen, walking from the silvery light of the stairs into the graying darkness of the hallway and then the pitch-black of the kitchen. I followed close behind, my footsteps measured, careful and quiet, but unnecessarily so as he continued to grumble, shuffle, and groan his way to the kitchen.

He snapped on the light, an instinctive, accurate punch, as if casually swatting a fly. Zombie kept his head down, eyes low, avoiding the bright, burning light, and made his way to the fridge. He paused again in front of the fridge, one hand on the door, the other lofted in the air like a composer preparing for a dramatic climax.

His Adam’s apple bobbed enticingly as he swallowed the air hungrily and more grumbling noises escaped his mouth.

Zombie didn’t react when I placed my left hand on his chin; barely flinched as I quickly dragged him back until his head rested on my shoulder. But he did react when he felt the steel tip of the blade on his throat.

The reaction was sudden, instant, explosive. He threw himself forward, breaking out of my grasp with ease. A couple staggered steps to the side, a quick maneuver, a turn, and then our gazes met, his eyes wide with horror, mine wide with surprise.

There was a split second in which we just stared, a moment in which a million thoughts must have run through his head. He raised his hand, pointed it at me accusingly, and then he opened his mouth to voice his anger.

His words caught in his throat. He coughed, his entire body seemingly in spasm, and brought a hand to his mouth. When he pulled it away and looked at it, he saw that it was covered in blood, the same crimson substance that now covered his chin. His eyes, still wide, still worried, slowly followed his hand as he reached for his throat, expecting, hoping, to find a small wound, but instead encountering the hilt of a large kitchen knife.

Death often came quickly and with little fanfare, but there was always an element of surprise, a realization that it was really happening, and it wasn’t a dream or a joke. The mind had a funny way of ignoring what it couldn’t face. As Zombie dropped to his knees and desperately clawed at the handle of the knife, the realization now sinking in, I wondered whether they genuinely were surprised and oblivious, or if the brain just went walkabouts—deprived of oxygen, of life, of rational thought—to save it from itself.

Zombie eventually pulled the knife out and there was a sense of relief on his face. In that split second, it was like he believed he had done what he needed to do, as if removing the offending weapon had saved his life. But the blood quickly gushed out of the open wound, painting his hands and the floor in a sticky crimson, and then the realization set in. He stared in horror at the blood in his hands, his face twisted, his glassy eyes—once tired and caught between dreams and reality—now stuck in the reality of his demise.

Zombie’s hands fell limp, the blood splashing onto the floor, and his face followed, meeting the hardwood with audible force, loud enough to cause concern, heavy enough to crack his skull. I waited, watched, and then reached for the knife, which rested by his side. Just as my fingers gripped the handle, moist with his blood, he sprang back to life. His upper body arched back, his feet began to kick, his throat emitted a high-pitched, strangled whine.

Zombie began to convulse—his dying throes, his desperation, I wasn’t sure which, but every twist, turn, and kick brought with it more chaos. The toes of his naked feet slammed repeatedly into the floor, bending, twisting, breaking under the impact; his arms swiped at my legs, scooping the pooling blood and spraying it around.

I stumbled and dropped the knife as he slid closer to me, like a dying dolphin desperate to lash out at its murderer. A bottle of wine fell from the wine rack near his legs, breaking on the hardwood floor; a cupboard repeatedly banged open and closed, open and closed; his fist slammed against the fridge, a pounding, ominous beat.

My boot made rough contact with the top of his head, skimming his forehead and nearly causing me to lose my balance as my standing foot struggled to gain traction on the blood-soaked floor. His face fell against the floor again, his body no longer arched, but he continued to struggle, to wail, to fight. I kicked again, this time making a cleaner contact, breaking his nose, the appendage crushed under leather and laces. His whole body felt the force of the impact, skidding on the blood-soaked floor, slamming against the counter.

I stepped forward and kicked again, and again, and again, breaking his jaw, his teeth, and leaving his face a bloodied, beaten, pulp. His body continued to fight, to struggle, but it faded with each effort and then disappeared completely.

I stared and waited, almost expecting him to spring back to life. His choking breath accompanied the steady glug of blood pouring from the wounds on his neck and his face. My breaths were short and raspy, but when I eventually calmed down, when my heartbeat slowed and my breathing steadied, the house had returned to almost complete silence.

“Fucking hell,” I whispered under my breath, “That was intense.”

I left the kitchen knife where it was—the handle and blade now dripping with blood—and retrieved my blade from its sheath.