Red - Jack Ketchum [37]
She’s saying something. Or trying to say something. “Maithairs,” she hears but that’s all.
Her father varies his stroke. Up her breast and up her arm…to her wrist. The wrist she reached for him with, the hand that grabbed him. Her wrist black now with caked blood frothing white. The woman howls, absolutely screeches. Gasps. And then howls again and it’s fucking huge. Peg has never heard a sound like this and never, ever wishes to hear it again.
“Daddy, please! Daddy! Stop! She’s hurt! YOU‘RE HURTING HER!”
She’s never made quite so big a sound herself.
He releases the trigger, turns to her. She guesses she’s surprised him. Well, she’s surprised herself. And mom too. Mom’s looking at her like, is this my daughter? My little Peggy? Who played so quietly as a child I had to check her in her playpen to make sure she was alive? Or so the story went.
“Please, dad. Please. Enough.”
Her father looks…dazed or something. Like she’s broken him out of some strange deep concentration. He shakes his head.
“She’s not clean,” he mutters and turns on the spray again.
Pummels her wrist again.
And there’s that pig-being-slaughtered screech again.
“Fuck this!” Peg yells and turns for the stairs. He mother tries to stop her but it’s only halfhearted. Her mother’s hands fall away almost as soon as they touch her. But her father’s heard her too and he’s turned off the spray.
“Get your ass back down her, Peg. Goddammit!”
And she’s halfway up the stairs knowing her father’s right behind her, that her mother won’t try to hold him there either, won’t dare to, when she hears something that stops them all.
From the woman. In a very small voice. A voice thick with tears.
“P-puhleese.”
They’re all turned to her then. Did she really say that? Peg thinks. Was that our language? Please? She’s nodding to them. She says it again. The sound of it makes her heart race.
“P-uhleese.”
Her father smiles and drops the pressure wand clattering to the wet cellar floor.
“Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he says. “Belle? Peg? Go get some towels. And the first aid kit. We’ll need to patch her up again.” He shakes his head. “I’ll be a pure damn son of a bitch!”
NINETEEN
The girl’s actions have surprised her. She has begged them both for aid (“Will you help me, mother?”) but has not actually expected it. She is grateful. And very much wounded. Everything stings. Her entire body. She feels rubbed raw as if by sand. She’s freezing. Her breasts ache. Her hair hangs wet in her eyes so that she can barely see and she has not yet the strength to shake it free.
The man steps closer. Licks some spittle off his lips.
The man is a dog with the foam of madness on his lips.
~ * ~
“Finally had enough, have you?” he says.
“Puh-leese.”
She says it a third time. To him. Just him.
“I take well to manners,” he tells her.
He goes to the winch and cranks it down. Lets some of that tension out of her arms — so that they’re suspended at around shoulder length. He’s giving her a gift. A little bit of comfort.
He can see that she appreciates it too, relief apparent on her face.
They’re making friends here.
Belle walks down with the first aid kit and towels. Peg’s not with her. He decides to let Peggy skate on this one at least for the time being. No point making another scene down here. He’ll have a talk with his damn daughter later.
“Dry her off,” he says.
His wife hesitates.
“Her arms. You loosened her arms?”
“Don’t worry.”
“Says the man with nine fingers,” she says.
Cleek can’t help it, he bursts