Daniel scooped up Diana from the recliner, and she snuggled closer.
This is not new.
He kissed her forehead, lingered on a smear of blood on her cheek, then shook his head as though throwing off a dream.
Ducks in a row.
He carried her up the stairway and settled her onto her bed.
“Once every two months was enough for Mother,” he whispered. He’d read about sleep-learning and brainwashing and started to go on about their mother’s selection process that didn’t bring questions to the doorstep. Too late, he thought, she knows all that. She’d already painted her room black on black to match her black quilt. Her plant sat on the bedstand instead of inside its special sun box. All of its needle-edged leaves were closed tight, with a bit of blood drying on their stems. He pulled the bedspread over her and said, “Now you’re just a junkie who’ll get us both killed.”
“Tomorrow,” she whispered.
“Tomorrow, what?”
“Paint your room. Paint kitchen.”
“That’s good,” he said. “I’ll work on the garage sheetrock.”
She answered with a grunt and a snore.
Daniel hurried down the stairs, and Bill’s arm twitched as he passed. He rushed into the garage, rummaged through tools to find his short-handled sledgehammer and a long survey stake. He hurried back to Bill, whose right hand clenched, unclenched.
Daniel placed the tip of the stake near the center of Bill’s chest. The ravaged throat revealed fresh tissue already rebuilding deeper structures.
He must’ve been healthier than he looks.
Daniel took a deep, meditative breath, let it out, then slammed the stake through Bill’s chest in three heavy, practiced strokes. Bill’s eyelids snapped open, betrayed and unbelieving, and his hands scrabbled for a moment at the butt of the stake.
The struggle ended with a weak spasm and something unintelligible from the six-inch rip in his throat. Daniel rolled Bill’s staked body inside the bloody tarp, dragged it into the garage and placed it into one of his shipping crates. He changed clothes, washed his face and hands in the workshop sink, then drove through clearing fog to find the boat haven.