Page 17 of The Silent Night Stalker
Steve pulls out a crushed pack of cigarettes from his jeans pocket and lights one up. Then he leans against the doorjamb and watches me as he takes a drag, filling my bedroom with the smell of smoke. I hate it, and it makes me cough all the time. Sometimes my lungs tighten, making it hard to breathe.
“How many times have I told you not to lock the door?” he asks way too calmly. It’s his calm before the storm. He always does this before he lashes out. I know it’s coming. It’s not an ‘if’ but a ‘when.’
“I-I’m sorry.” I hate fucking crying in front of him. He hates it, and he enjoys it. Steve likes to make me cry and will do whatever he can to put me there. At the same time, he sees it as weak, and he beats me for it. You can never win withan abuser.
It started quickly after Mom married him when I was eight. He really enjoyed tormenting me, particularly on Christmas Eve, for some reason. It’s not only the beatings. He does that all the time. It’s the promise of something beautiful. Something kind. A reprieve from the pain. I no longer fall for it, but I used to. I’d tried so hard to get him to like me and stop hurting me. After a while, I learned that he doesn’t care. He just wants me to suffer. He hurts Mom, too, but usually she’s too fucked up to care or notice. We’re basically his punching bags. Mom fought it at first, but eventually, she just gave up. As long as she’s fucked up, she’s good. I don’t know when she quit caring about me.
“Time to come downstairs. I have a special present for you.”
Younger me would’ve had a flicker of hope. I remember smiling excitedly that I was actually getting a present for the first time, just like all the other kids at school. But Steve has beaten anything positive out of me. What’s worse are the presents he gives me every year. I don’t get toys, clothes, or a book. No, that would be too normal. Instead, I have an unhinged stepfather who gives me grotesque things. Things that will make you barf and give you nightmares.
The tears come faster now. I feel so fucking helpless. Weak.
Steve blows a stream of smoke into my room, and even though his demeanor is casual, he’s tight and his jaw is clenched. He’s going to lose it on me soon if I don’t move. But what does it matter? He’s going to lose it no matter what.
“I-I don’t want it. It’s going to be bad.” Being brave is useless, but I have to try. I’d rather die than see what he’s given me.
Last Christmas Eve, the present he’d made me open had been a dead pigeon. It wasn’t just dead, but the head had been severed and was lying next to its body on a bed of white tissue paper. It smelled so bad that I threw up all over it. Then the beating came. He’d been extra brutal because I’d gotten vomit on his gift.
Steveis fucking sick in the head, and each Christmas, I worried that I’d get a dead human instead of an animal or animal parts. Anything but that.
He finally explodes. I’ve set him off with my silence and not moving quickly enough. I scramble back farther on my bed, but there’s nowhere else to go. When he reaches me, he grabs my ankle and yanks me across the mattress.
I scream and try to get away, but he’s too strong. I’m not fed well, so I’m weak. He pulls me so hard I fall with a thud onto the floor.
My panic becomes full-blown when he sits on top of me, his knees pressed into my upper arms. I’m pinned down. He’s so heavy, and my arms quickly lose circulation. Soon, I start blacking out. Not in the sense that I can’t see or feel. But in the sense that I begin to lose myself. I go into the shadows of my brain, somewhere deep, to hide. I imagine being on a beach, feeling warm sand between my toes as water laps on my legs. Even though I’ve never been to the beach, I imagine what it might feel like.
I can’t move or breathe. As my eyes roll up into my head, a burning sensation instantly brings me back to reality. It stings, and the smell of burned skin fills my nose. Then he tears open my shirt like it’s made of tissue paper. A scream bursts out of me when Steve puts his cigarette out on my chest.
My reaction pleases him, and he laughs and laughs.
“Fuckin’ pussy. You’re so goddamn weak, Arthur. Even your name is for pussies. Arthur. Your fuckin’ idiot mother must’ve thought you was some royalty or some shit. Now look at ya, a simpering weakling, who cries about fuckin’ everything. Can’t even take a little burn. Dad used to burn me, and I didn’t cry as much as you.”
I’ve had a lot of burns and got the scars to show it. Little circles sprinkled over my body like polka dots.
“Please,”I whimper. I just need him to stop. Or to kill me. I’m not sure how much more I can take and for how much longer.
Steve quickly grips my throat tightly, no longer laughing, and squeezes. Between his weight on me and his hand tightening its hold, I can’t breathe.
Do it.
Do it.
Again, I pray to a god that probably doesn’t exist, but I so desperately want him to be real.
Kill me.
Let him kill me.
But Steve doesn’t kill me. Instead, he leans forward, and now I’m nauseous with his stench of alcohol, sweat, and putrid breath. “Please, what? Do you want me to let you go? If I do, you’d better come down and open your present.”
A sob escapes me as I nod. I guess Iamweak. If I were stronger, I’d tell him just to kill me already.
He lets go of my throat and gently pats my face. “Good boy.”
Once he climbs off me, I stand, wobbly on my feet, and I’m gasping for breath, coughing a few times. My arm and chest still burn. After I open my gift, he’ll let me treat my wounds.
My T-shirt is in shreds, so I remove it and toss it onto the floor, not bothering to put another one on because the fabric will stick to my burn marks.
