A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters - Martin Harry Greenberg [92]
A new image blossomed, a memory of six years into Melinda’s marriage. She had awakened to the light touch of Mike, brushing a stray hair from her forehead. He was close, staring at her with an expression that defined devotion. She had asked the time, and he had told her 2:15 AM. He said he often studied her in the dead of night, reveling in her beauty and the unique, natural perfumes that defined her, scarcely daring to believe, even now, that he had won her. It was at that moment she realized how lucky she was to have a man who adored her, who prized everything about her, who gloried in even her most disheveled state.
Mike still loved her, she knew, even after the divorce. It was in his eyes, in the kindness he showed her, so unlike the exes despised by relatives, friends, and colleagues. When others droned on about post-divorce vengeance, she could not complain in turn. Mike listened when she spoke, he never missed a visitation or a support payment, and he spent as much extra time with Kaylee as she allowed. Only one thing stood between reconciliation.
Melinda rose from the bed, opened the trunk, and removed the 12-gauge. Carefully, silently, she eased a round into the chamber. She walked to Paige’s bed, an enormous crib with the pillow tacked safely beneath the sheet and the blankets carefully loosened to prevent suffocation. Without a real thought, Melinda pointed the barrel through the slats, directly at Paige’s head.
“No one will know,” the voice cooed softly. “Everyone understands that she can die any moment, that she should have passed away in her first year.”
The words prodded Melinda. She removed the safety. The sight of Paige’s familiar, flaccid body, the chest moving rhythmically, the breaths loud and snorting, seemed so normal. Melinda imagined the shot, the roar of the gun, the buck of the stock against her shoulder, the tiny head exploding, brains and bone splattering the walls and ceiling. Blood would pour through the bars, staining the bedspread, the carpet.
The voice grew louder, accusing. “You demon mother! Would you murder your own flesh and blood!”
Melinda staggered backward with a squeal of realization.
“What kind of vicious creature could murder her own daughter? The girl is innocent, her suffering untold and unfair. You have no right to call yourself mother, no reason to live.”
Melinda found the gun turning toward herself. Yet logic intervened. A handgun, she could press to her temple, but she saw no means to commit suicide with a shotgun, no way to place it against a vital organ and still reach the trigger. That confusion brought salvation. The voice was not her own, did not even originate inside her. It was an external force, one clearly bent on destroying her. “Broch de shlang!” she shouted. “Show yourself.”
Something heavy dropped from the ceiling. Melinda tried to dodge, too late. It slammed against her, seeming heavy as piled bricks, pinning her to the ground. The 12-gauge spun from her grip, bumping across the carpet. Before she could move, massive coils swung around her, and she found herself cocooned by a massive serpent. Melinda screamed, then immediately wished she had not. As the air rushed from her lungs, the coils found room to tighten. Desperately, she fought for breath, but only a strangled wheeze defied the serpent.
“Kill . . . me,” she gasped out. “Leave . . . daughters . . . alone.”
The snake eased up ever so slightly, just enough for Melinda to catch a slight breath. “I can’t. It’s my job to kill every member of your family I can.”
“No,” Melinda rasped, struggling. The coils pinned her arms. She could move her legs, but only up and down, in a pointless tantrum. “Spare them . . .” Ruth’s words came to her mind, unbidden: the curse will lift when the broch de shlang is killed the same moment as its host. Melinda no longer doubted. Her own death seemed certain, but she saw no way to end the curse, no means to take the monster with her.
“Mommy!” Kaylee stood in