34

Lauren took the lead, walking ahead of her son, her steps slow and methodical. She thought back to when she was younger, to the house she had grown up in. In that house, she had memorized a detailed blueprint of every single stair. Which ones creaked, which ones groaned. She would play her own game of hopscotch as she moved up and down late at night or early in the morning. This house was new and didn’t creak or groan in the same way, but she applied the same level of care and attention now as she had done when she was a child trying not to wake her grandmother.

Ethan’s hand rested on her shoulder as she descended, a process that seemed to take several minutes. The light at the bottom of the stairs was on and she could see the front door, part of the passageway, and part of the living room. She scanned every visible inch on her descent but didn’t notice a single thing out of place. At the bottom, she turned toward the kitchen, to the source of the noise.

The light in the kitchen was off, as was the light for the hallway leading to it. A little voice at the back of her mind told her that something was wrong—if it was John and if he had fallen, why would the lights be off? She pushed this to one side, keeping her head clear just in case someone was lurking around the corner, just in case her husband had hurt himself.

Ethan’s hand moved from her shoulder to her back, as if urging her forward, pushing her toward the kitchen door, which was slightly ajar, the gaping blackness beyond sending Lauren’s heart racing when she imagined herself walking through and discovering something that she didn’t want to discover.

She pushed the door open with her lead leg, listening to the squeak of unoiled hinges as it rocked this way and that. Ethan removed his hand from her back as she stepped inside, swallowed thickly, and prepared for whatever chaos awaited her, from a sleeping or unconscious husband, to broken plates and more.

When the light eventually snapped on, Lauren came face-to-face with a sight unlike anything she had seen before, a sight that hadn’t even haunted her disturbing dreams. She also saw someone she never thought she would see again for as long as she lived.

“Martha,” Lauren mouthed slowly. “What—what—what the fuck is going on?”

—

Lauren hadn’t noticed the stench at first, but as soon as the light snapped on, as soon as she saw the twisted, bloodied portrait of her former husband on the hardwood floor, it hit her. It was a coppery, sewage smile that invaded her nostrils and made her sick. Her stomach acid rose, her gag reflex activated, and while the stench alone wasn’t enough to bring her to her knees and force her to vomit, the image was.

Lauren gagged once, twice, thrice, before she finally vomited. But there was nothing in her stomach, nothing waiting to be purged except bile and acid. The pain of gagging was all she felt and all that the vomit produced initially, but then yellow bile surfaced, dribbling out of her mouth like a strand of spaghetti and drooping to the floor. A sour, burning taste remained in her mouth—her throat on fire, her stomach in agony, her eyes watering, both from the pain and from seeing her dead husband.

“You finished?” Abi stood between Lauren and her husband, moving off to the side to allow Lauren to glimpse every inch of the carnage. A knife hung loosely in her right hand, her left rested lazily on the counter. She looked like a teenager waiting idly for a friend, and not a sick killer who had just butchered someone in cold blood.

“What did you do?” Lauren asked, trying to tear her eyes away from her husband but finding herself unable.

“He got in my way, dear.” Abi shrugged, checked her nails. “I would say that it was either him or me, but he never stood a fucking chance.” She chuckled. “It was like Dawn of the Dead. I don’t know what you saw in him, to be honest.”

Lauren finally dragged her eyes from her husband and fixed them on her sister, a woman she hadn’t seen in years, a woman she barely acknowledged. “What are you wearing?”

“Excuse me?”

“The wig, the makeup, you look like—”

“A much younger woman? A mature model? I know, I still have it, don’t I? Even at my age.”

Lauren shook her head. “What are you doing here, Martha? Why are you dressed like an old woman?”

“Firstly,” Abi pointed the knife at her sister, the tip of the blade thrust menacingly toward her. “Old woman? I raised you to respect your elders. God knows what this loser has been teaching you.” She glared at John Mathers, kicked out in his general direction, but missed him by an inch. “But it’s not too late to relearn some of that respect.”

Lauren found herself just staring, a thought slowly occurring to her, a thought that should have been obvious the moment she stepped into the kitchen and found her long-lost sister wielding a knife, standing over a dead body, and wearing a gray wig. “You’ve lost your fucking mind.”

“Language!” Abi yelled, advancing on her sister. “I’ve always told you girls—just because I swear, doesn’t mean you can!”

“You girls?” Lauren mimicked. “Do you think you’re my—our—fucking grandmother?” Lauren shook her head in disbelief and then laughed.

Abi’s face twisted with rage, “I told you to watch your fucking mouth!” She grabbed Lauren by the hair and pulled.

Lauren felt strands of her hair rip, felt the pain burn across her scalp. She quickly propped herself up, using her hands and knees to support herself, to avoid her entire scalp being ripped off. “Now,” Abi said, pressing the blade to Lauren’s throat. “Get in the living room. The night may be over for your late husband, but for you, it’s only just beginning.”

Abi moved around the back of her sister, keeping a clump of her hair clasped firmly in her left hand while she used the right to wield the knife and press her forward, the blade pricking the skin on the back of her exposed neck.

Lauren took several steps forward, moving closer to her husband’s dead body, to the stench that cloyed at her throat, the sight that would forever stay in her memories. Her knees went weak, her body threatened to collapse, but her sister’s words and the images they conjured kept her alive, strong.

“And where’s this son of yours?”

In the chaos, Lauren had forgotten about Ethan. She recalled feeling his hand on her shoulder as they descended the stairs, then on her back as they walked across the hallway, and then—nothing. He hadn’t joined her in the kitchen, had sensed the danger and stayed back.

Lauren couldn’t help but smile, and as they entered the living room and she allowed herself a cheeky glance at the kitchen entrance, confirmed that Ethan was nowhere to be seen. “He’s not here,” Lauren told her sister.

“Don’t lie to me, or I’ll—”

“He’s not, I swear. He’s at a sleepover.”

Lauren screamed as her hair was yanked back, nearly lifting her off her feet before sending her to her knees, the blade of the knife now firmly in her flesh, drawing a line of blood she felt trickle down her back. “You better not be fucking lying to me, dear.” Abi’s words were hot and hushed, spoken within inches of Lauren’s ears. “If you are, I’ll kill him just like I did your husband, only this time I’ll make you watch. This isn’t my first rodeo; I know what I’m doing. You can’t play me like you did your sister. Fuck with me and I will kill you.”

“I swear,” Lauren begged, tears streaming down her face, her words shouted, screamed, making sure that Ethan, wherever he was, could hear. “He’s at a sleepover. You can check his room if you want. I swear he’s not here.”

That seemed to satisfy Abi. She dragged Lauren to her feet, tapped her lovingly on the back, and then, in a calm, sweet, grandmotherly voice, said, “That’s okay, dear, I trust you.”