Published in DysFictional 3 and WPaD’s Creepies 3.
The sound of the shower ceased. Heather’s head poked out of the bathroom, wrapped in a blue towel.
“You don’t have an outlet in here,” she said.
“Well, it ain’t the Hilton.”
Heather held up a blow dryer. “How am I supposed to use this?”
“There’s a mirror in the hall. The outlet there should reach.”
Josh heard an exasperated sigh, followed a few minutes later by the sound of the blow dryer in the hallway. He rummaged in his sewing box for the right scrap of fabric. He found a suitable piece, snipped it to the correct shape, and then threaded the needle with matching thread. He sat calmly, stitching the pieces together.
The blow dryer stopped. Heather returned to the bathroom and Josh heard the clatter of makeup items being dumped on the countertop.
“I appreciate you letting me stay here,” she called through the open door. “I didn’t want to bother with a hotel for just one night.”
Not like you couldn’t afford it, Josh thought.
“Not a problem.” He snipped the thread and started a new seam on the other side.
“I’m going to stop by the hospital on my way to the airport. I need to see her one more time before I go…you know, just in case.”
Josh said nothing.
“I really wish you’d go with me.”
Not a hope in hell, he thought.
“Josh?” Heather poked her head out of the bathroom.
“What?”
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you. And the answer is no.”
“But Josh! She’s our sister!”
“YOUR sister. Not mine.”
“She’s sick, Josh. Really sick, and they don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
“Don’t care.”
“How can you say that? How can you not care?”
“You have no idea how easy it is.”
Heather emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed and made up. She stood in front of Josh. “How can you be so cold? She is your sister, Josh! She is family.”
“Ex-sister, and she is no family of mine.” Josh stitched furiously, pulling the thread too tight and causing the fabric to pucker. He loosened the thread before continuing.
“But she needs us. She has no one else.”
“Boo-fucking-hoo. I told you I don’t care.”
Heather thrust her cell phone in front of his face. “Please, just look at this. I made a video so you can see I’m not exaggerating.”
Josh finished the seam and knotted the thread before pausing to watch the video. He supposed it would be disturbing to watch…for someone else. The woman in the video screamed and thrashed on the hospital bed.
“What’s with the restraints?”
“Apparently she tried to claw her own eyes out. According to the doctors, she came in that way. Blind and screaming about pain in her eyes.”
“Holy shit!” He let out a chuckle. “She really is fucked up.”
“You think this is funny?”
“It kind of is. Not ha-ha funny. More like poetic justice.”
“You know what I think? I think it’s guilt. She regrets what she did to us, especially to you, and can’t express it, so it’s made her sick.”
“I agree with you there. She brought this on herself.” Josh said.
“Why don’t you go and see her?”
“Now that’s funny!”
“Maybe your forgiveness is all she needs. Couldn’t you find it in your heart to try?”
“I’ll send thoughts and prayers.” His voice dripped sarcasm.
“Don’t you think she’s suffered enough?”
“Oh, no. Not even close.” He snipped the thread and reached for a spool of red to match the next piece of fabric.
“What the fuck are you even doing? Are you sewing?”
“It would appear that way.”
“What are you sewing? Are those…doll clothes?”
“Mama Antoine has been teaching me.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Antoine is kind of like a mother to the whole block. She makes dolls. I help her out with chores and she’s been teaching me to make stuff. I’ve learned a lot from her. It’s very relaxing.”
“I don’t even know what to say. I don’t know you.”
“And that’s always been the problem, Heather!” Josh set aside his sewing project to give her his full attention. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve been through. You don’t know much of anything except for your own life. Where the fuck were you when I was thrown out of my home? The house MY father wanted to leave to ME, his only son. You knew what Dad wanted, but you didn’t stick up for me. You didn’t stand with me when I wanted to challenge the will. You knew Kristen was mentally incompetent, but you just stuck your fucking head in the sand! Where were you when she was out of control, and I needed your help?”
“I didn’t know how badly out of control she was, Josh. I wish things had gone differently.”
“A stitch in time.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It’s an old saying: ‘A stitch in time saves nine.’ It’s about taking preventative measures. If you act when you first see a problem you can prevent something worse from happening.”
“I couldn’t possibly have known how bad it would get.”
“You didn’t WANT to know. I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen. In fact, you went to great lengths to make sure nobody could tell you anything. Running around the Australian outback with your husband, hiking some Bibbity-Boobity Trail. Who in their right mind goes for a walk for three fucking months?”
“The Bibbulmun Track is a huge commitment. We trained for months to prepare for that hike.”
“Your timing was impeccable. You found the perfect place to hide where nobody could reach you. A convenient excuse to not get involved. Let poor dumb Josh twist in the wind while Miss Psycho destroys everything his father worked a lifetime for.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“It’s always like that. You’re always training for some kind of marathon. You use fitness as an excuse to hide from anything you don’t want to face. You ignored what was happening, what she was doing to me. It wasn’t until she attacked you that you stepped up and did anything. But by then it was too late.”
“There are things more important than money, Josh.”
“Says the wife of a millionaire. You didn’t get pissed off until she wanted money from you. Yeah, there are things more important than money. Dad wanted me to have his fishing gear and tools. Those are the best memories I have of him, and it meant more to me than money. I would’ve gladly paid for them, but I wasn’t even allowed to do that. Instead, she has an estate sale behind my back and sells my memories to strangers for a few lousy bucks.”
“It was wrong of her to do that, I agree. But can’t we let by-gones be by-gones?”
“Maybe you can, but you have a lot less to forgive than I do. You didn’t have your life torn apart. You weren’t the target of personal attacks, of false accusations. You weren’t driven from your home into a shitty apartment without so much as a memento.”
“Isn’t that a bit dramatic?”
“How is the truth dramatic? Dad was my best friend. We did everything together. When he got sick, I took care of him. She never called or visited. Not until he was on his deathbed. Then suddenly she showed up, looking all weepy. And everybody bought her bullshit act.”
“So I can’t talk you into coming with me to the hospital, then? I have to leave if I’m going to make my flight.”
“I think my answer is pretty clear.”
Heather stomped to the spare room to collect her things, then with the slam of a door she was gone.
Josh didn’t have to explain himself. He had plenty of reasons not to care what happened to Kristen. He didn’t believe in Heaven and Hell, but if there was an afterlife, he hoped his father waited for her on the other side to make her answer for what she’d done.
* * *
The three siblings shared a mother, but the girls had a different father than Josh. When their mother was diagnosed with cancer, Josh was only twelve. Kristen was eighteen and Heather, five years her senior, was already married to a famous athlete and living in Sydney.
The day after their mother’s funeral, Kristen moved out, stating that she could not live another day in that house with HIM. She despised her stepfather, and resented Josh’s close relationship with his dad.
With both sisters gone, it was just Josh and his dad. He spent his teenage years fishing and learning to fix cars. His father was his hero, his mentor, and his best friend. Josh was well into his thirties and still living with his father when the old man’s health began to fail. With Kristen estranged and Heather in Australia, it was up to Josh to take care of his dad, which he did lovingly. His father promised to leave Josh everything: his house, his tools, his fishing gear – the things that had shaped his childhood and held beloved memories of their life together.
When the time came, Heather made the trip from Australia to say goodbye to her stepfather.
And then came the reading of the will. Josh assumed it would be a will created by his father leaving everything to him as promised; him being the only biological child. Then came the surprise: Josh’s father had never made a will. But his mother had, years earlier, when she was dying. Her husband, grief-stricken, had signed without question. After her death, that will became his and he had never bothered to update it. Their mother’s will named Kristen as executor, or “executioner”, as Josh came to call her, and ordered all assets to be sold and split equally between the three children.
At his father’s funeral, Josh faded into the background and Kristen took center stage. She played the role of bereft daughter to perfection, sobbing and hugging, soaking up sympathy like a toxic sponge. The moment the door closed behind the last guest, the tears dried and a ruthless tyrant stepped forth.
Growing up, Kristen had been the embodiment of middle child syndrome: acting out to get attention, and then telling lies to get out of trouble. She was jealous of her siblings: of Heather, for having more privileges due to being older, and of Josh, for being the “spoiled baby”. Josh was the only one of the three who had a relationship with his biological father, and Kristen did little to hide her resentment.
Being appointed as executor finally gave Kristen a chance to stick it to her brother and sister. Mentally unstable, drunk with power, and bent on revenge: it was the recipe for a perfect storm. A shitstorm, that was.
She arrived at Josh’s home unannounced, suitcases and screaming children in tow. She moved into “her” house and declared everything in it to be property of the estate, even Josh’s personal belongings. She barked orders at Josh like he was a servant, then screamed and raged when he refused to obey.
Kristen made it her mission to make Josh’s life as miserable as possible. She convinced the rest of the family Josh had been stealing from his father. She had her lawyer waste countless hours poring over years worth of old bank statements. When no evidence of fraud was found, she accused him of stealing “estate assets”, which were, in fact, his own belongings.
Josh had no choice but to leave. He walked away from his father’s legacy and the only home he had known for 34 years, and moved into a cheap apartment. Yet again, Kristen spun it to make Josh look like the villain and she the victim. He had walked away and left her, a poor single mother, to care for that large house and property all alone. Nobody in the family cared to hear Josh’s side of it.
Heather watched events unfold from a distance, through the rose-colored lens of Kristen’s lies. Josh begged and pleaded with her to listen to the truth before it was too late, but his pleas went unheeded.
By the time Heather suspected a problem, four years had passed and she was thousands of dollars out of pocket – money she had sent Kristen for “estate expenses”. When Heather refused to send any more money and demanded to know when she would be repaid, Kristen showed her true colors. She vowed to drain the estate until not a penny was left. Heather hired a lawyer and brought Kristen’s reign of terror to an end, but by that time Kristen had already wasted most of the money. After legal fees, only a few dollars remained.
Josh didn’t care about the money. Everything that had mattered to him was gone. All he had left of his father was a collection of bittersweet memories.
But maybe Heather was right. Maybe he should pay the bitch a visit.
* * *
Josh stood in the doorway for a moment, observing.
Kristen moaned in pain and thrashed on the bed. Her face was covered with angry red scratches.
Josh entered the room. The door clicked shut behind him. Kristen turned toward the sound, her sightless eyes glassy from pain medication.
“Who’s there?”
“Hello, sister dear.”
“You!” The glaze in her eyes turned to clarity.
“Yeah. Me.”
“You did this to me.”
“Actually, you did it to yourself.”
“Fuck you!” she spat.
“Poor little Kristen. Always the victim. And look at you now. Hope it was worth it.”
Kristen responded by literally spitting at him.
“Gross. You always were a slob. You invaded my home and stole my father’s things, and didn’t even have the decency to clean up after yourself. I had to clean your nasty hairball out of the shower drain. Luckily, I had a use for it.”
“I never asked you to come here. Get the fuck out!” Her fingers groped for the nurse’s call button. Josh yanked it out of her reach.
“Don’t worry, I’m leaving. Just had to see you one last time.”
“Get out! Help!”
“I’m going to need you to shut up now, Kristen.”
“Help! He – ” Kristen’s scream cut off abruptly.
“That’s better. I’m sick of hearing your voice. All it does is tell lies.”
Kristen kicked her legs and fought against the restraints. When she tried to scream, no sound came out. She gasped and panted, but remained mute.
“It’s a shame you have to be strapped down like that. I think I can help.”
Josh held an object in his hand. A doll, hand-sewn from scraps of cloth. A clump of human hair harvested from the shower drain adorned its head, embedded in a bit of wax. Pins protruded from its eyes and various other parts of its body.
“You were always such a pain in the neck,” he said. He twisted the pin he had just inserted into the doll’s throat and shoved it deeper. “There. Now I’ve returned the favor. Now you won’t need those restraints anymore.”
Kristen’s struggles ceased and she lay limp on the bed.
“How’s it feel to be powerless? At someone else’s mercy?”
Her unseeing eyes smoldered with the blackest of hatred. Tears trickled down her cheeks.
“I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You may be paralyzed, but at least you aren’t numb. You can still feel everything. Everything. ”
He examined the doll thoughtfully. “I wonder what we should do next. We’re going to run out of room eventually. When that happens, a nice jab to the brain should finish you off.
“I’ll leave you alone…for now. But every once in a while, when you feel a little twinge…or maybe a big one, you’ll know I’m thinking of you.”
* * *
Josh stitched the final seam together and snipped the thread. He admired his handiwork. Mama Antoine was right. He was getting better the more he practiced. All it needed was a final touch.
He ran his hand over the carpet below the hallway mirror and found what he was looking for. He then proceeded to the bathroom, where the blue towel still hung on the shower curtain rod. There, he found three more long auburn hairs. Cleaning the shower drain produced several more.
He lit the candle and melted the wax while speaking an incantation in an ancient language.
Josh inserted a pin into one of the doll’s knees, then the other. He repeated the process with six more pins in the legs of the doll.
Heather didn’t deserve what Kristen had gotten. She wasn’t a bad person. Self-absorbed perhaps, but not hateful like her sister. With a few preventative measures, Heather could improve. She could learn to face her problems instead of running off to the wilderness. No more hikes. At least not for now.
Copyright © 2018 Mandy White
DysFictional 