Red Hands
Maria woke suddenly, thick sweat covering her body and making her shirt stick awkwardly to her skin. The cold air around her seemed to be closing in on all sides, constricting her chest, her breaths coming in painful gasps. Something was wrong, and she knew it without any doubt.
She threw the covers aside and raced from the bedroom and into the hallway towards her son Andy’s room. Too fast. She tried to catch herself as she fell, but it was like trying to walk on ice with flat-bottomed shoes; her socks slipping on the smooth hardwood flooring. Instead she ended up pitching forward, her head bashing off the handrail leading to the ground floor, resulting in a resounding CRACK that pierced the otherwise deadly silence that filled the house.
Maria cried out in anguish as pain radiated from the point of impact; an explosion of light and color burst into life in front of her eyes as she collapsed onto the floor. Through the pain, a warmness spread from the side of her head and down her face. It took a moment for Maria to realize that it was blood running into her eyes and not tears as she had initially thought.
Her stomach clenched tightly and Maria remembered suddenly why she was running down the hallway in the first place.
Rubbing the blood out of her eyes, Maria got to her feet, legs shaking, and made her way to the door at the end of the hall. Immediately she knew that she was right, that something was terribly wrong, because Andy’s door stood half open. Andy never slept with his door open; he was too scared otherwise.
Maria threw herself against the door sending it crashing backwards. The momentum of her charge sent her staggering as she did, before coming to a stop at the foot of Andy’s bed. Her heart felt too big for her chest as she grabbed the edge of the blanket and ripped it clean off with one fluid movement, throwing it onto the floor.
A scream caught in Maria’s throat. In place of Andy was the family dog, or rather what was left of it. All four of the poor beast’s legs were ripped off and the hilt of a knife was sticking out from between its bloodshot eyes.
Maria backed quickly away from the bed, her heart beating somewhere in the area of her throat, and crashed into one of Andy’s dressers, shattering the mirror that stood atop it, the glittering splinters showering down around her feet. She doubled over and heaved.
It wasn’t more than a minute before she rushed from the room. Andy had to be there somewhere. Maybe he was hiding. Maybe he had gotten away. Maria knew this wasn’t true before she even finished the thought.
Down the stairs and into the living room. Not there.
Around and into the guest bedroom. Not there.
Into the garage. Not there.
Then Maria raced into the kitchen and saw a few things all at once. On the counter she was confused to find an empty bottle of cooking oil, a pot and a funnel. On the wall leading to the dining room, a message had been written in black marker:
We’re even. Maria – 1, Jon – 1.
Your move.
Dazed, she ran her hand absently over the lettering as she walked into the dining room. She could almost see the words typed out on a piece of paper, some random text from a novel that was not her life.
“He really does it,” she said aloud to no one.