The sun is sinking down under the strong tree line surrounding a farm town in Mid-Western Kansas. John Murphy is on his nightly drive into his country home. Not only to his home, but to his beloved wife, Julie, and his occasionally ungrateful child, Jacob.
God damn it, who was he kidding? No one but himself, that was certain. Jacob was always bitching about something. Whether it be John’s parenting or Julie’s cooking, Jake always had a mouthful of bratty remarks. John gripped the wheel and eased on the gas so he didn’t slide on the country road’s loose gravel. He could feel the anxious feeling sprouting in his gut and knew it was about coming home from a long day at work only to open his front door to his disrespectful and unpleasant son. It was a similar feeling a teenager would get coming home to a mentally or physically abusive parent but it wasn’t a parent John was dreading coming home to. It was his child; his only one.
The car engine shuts off, then John removes his hand from the ignition, pulling out the key. He takes a deep breath. Julie comes marching through the front door and turns the corner of the garage.
“Do you know where Jake is?” Julie asked in a nervous tone.
“No.” John steps out of the SUV. “He hasn’t been ho- “
“Not since he left at eleven this morning,” Julie interrupted.
Afterwards they went into the house to try and get ahold of their missing son.
Jacob was a spoiled, annoying, and troublesome boy, and he showed that at home. Sure, it was normal for teenagers to rebel and be disrespectful to their parents, but Jacob had only just turned twelve. Showing up hours late for dinner, stealing money out of Julie’s purse or sneaking out of the house after midnight. The list seemed endless. At times, it seemed Jacob was doing whatever he could do to lash out at his parents. Even if Jacob Murphy really did hate his parents for any reason, they still loved him and were his parents. Instead of John’s fire red hair and light green eyes, he had Julie’s smooth brown hair and her soul staring brown eyes but he did, however, have John’s face.
With no sign of Jacob by ten thirty that night, they texted the cell phone Julie insisted upon him carrying. No response came from Jacob.
The chore of staying up for Jake fell to John since it was a Tuesday night and Julie had to be up and out by 5:45 am. It’s never an easy thing for Julie to just check out for the night when her son was out past ten; not knowing exactly where he was didn’t sit well with her. She always assumed the worst when he was out of her sight. Almost as if he were still a baby, but that was exactly the thing; he would always be her baby. His birth was a blessing she thought she’d never accomplish. This night, like many, John comforted her and promised her that he would wait up for their son.
Avoiding sleep was easier for John with television; just some old reruns of The Twilight Zone and himself. He tried to relax as he nursed his Budweiser. John had opened the window to the right of his recliner prior to making himself comfortable, not only for the cool breeze of a fall night to keep him awake but also so he could hear his son’s footsteps walk up the driveway. Three Twilight Zone episodes, four bottles of Budweiser, and three shots of Captain Morgan later, Jake still had not come home.
It was now midnight. John kept getting more and more frustrated with Jake’s absence from home. He could even admit he was furious. Although the alcohol he had been consuming may have contributed to his rage, he felt drinking was necessary tonight. Both Julie and Jake hated when John was drinking. Alcohol made John more aggressive and a little more outspoken about his awful son. From Julie’s perspective John was too hard on Jacob after drinking.
His beer was nearing empty. John patted his arm rest and stood on his feet to retrieve another Budweiser. Right before John turned to walk into the kitchen, his eyes were stolen by a picture of a newborn baby on the TV. The television was showing a Catholic anti-abortion ad during the commercial break. “There is never a reason to murder a child,” the screen displayed in bold, white letters but the word, “murder” was in red.
Tears began to fill John’s green eyes at the thought of a baby taken for granted and only to be cut off by its parents. As a biologist, the conception of life, to John, was a miracle. Why? Why would someone kill what some are unable to have, John thought as he dried his wet eyes.
Killing something that’s a part of you? It almost seemed as if someone were ripping a piece off of your heart to John. He would never hurt Jake. How could he?
That was his only child; the one that survived.
John began to think of Julie’s miscarriages, and this was not the subject he wanted to think on while he was indulging alcohol. Their unborn children’s names were going to be Josie and Jack. Twins at the beginning of the pregnancy, but it followed that two babies turned into one then one turned into none for the Murphy family.
In the medical field, they call it Vanishing Twin Syndrome. This occurred when the other twin was absorbed by the stronger fetus. In the Murphy’s case, the stronger fetus was Josie. Despite that fact, Josie went on not to achieve birth either. Julie was blessed with her baby boy, Jake, after the death of the twins about a year later, but John never got the daughter he had always dreamed of.
John threw another shot of rum to the back of his throat to shake off his drunken thoughts of his unborn daughter.
Cracking open his fifth Budweiser, he decided to retire back to his recliner by the open window. Then the sound of gravel shuffling under walking feet came from outside. No jacket, just his old Kansas University t-shirt and his cargo shorts but the liquor kept him warm as the crisp October air surrounded his body. John quickly turned the corner of the garage to meet his son walking up the driveway.
Jake’s eyes held a look of surprise when they settled on his father.
“Where have you been, Jake? Your mother has been scared shitless!” John said in a loud but not-quite-angry voice.
“Dad, I just went to a friend’s house. Is that a crime?” Jake stepped right of John to escape to the front door. He was stopped by his father’s hand.
“Where do you think you’re going? I’m talking to you!” John nearly shouted.
“I don’t want to talk. I’m going to my room to call a friend,” Jake snapped back at him, removing his father’s hand.
“The hell you are!” John reached out his hand, “give me your phone. Now!”
“No,” Jake said, simply, rolling his eyes and that simple “no” sent John over the edge.
He quickly and aggressively grabbed his son by his scrawny wrist.
“Let me go, Dad!” Jake screamed in agony.
“Give it here, then!” Jake pulled his phone out of his hoodie and surrendered it to his father.
John let go of his son’s now red wrist. Out of his drunken rage and with all his might, he spiked he cell phone on the hard, stone ground destroying it into several pieces. But even right after shattering Jake’s phone, it seemed to John that still didn’t feel drastic enough for his son’s action.
“This is my fucking house, Jacob, and you are my son! You live by my rules because you wouldn’t even be living without me!” John, at this point, was nose-to-nose with his son, gazing into his brown eyes; the same brown eyes his wife has. He saw fear in those soul-staring brown eyes. Fear wasn’t far from respect to John Murphy.
Without a single word, Jake turned to walk to the front door only to stop right at the door knob.
“I hate you!” Jake sobbed, sounding like an infant with lack of sleep. John looked up at him while he was picking up the pieces of the destroyed phone. “You’re a drunk and you were never meant to be a father. The kids who didn’t survive are better off dead and I would be, too!” Jake then stormed off inside followed by the slamming of the front door, leaving his father speechless in the cold October night air.
Moments after the intense confrontation between John and his son, John quietly crept into bed with his wife. He was too drunk to stay awake but his shaking fury kept him staring at the rotating ceiling fan. Due to that same loud, rusty fan, he wasn’t surprised Julie didn’t wake up when Jake slammed the front door, or even when he was screaming in pain while John held his wrist tight.
“You were never meant to be a father.”
Could his pesky son be correct? Was that what God was trying to get across when the twins didn’t survive the pregnancy?
All of these thoughts made John grind his teeth. “I hate you.” With tears welling up in his eyes, John took a deep breath with that last thought of what his son had said earlier and quietly said, “I hate you, too, son.”
He then rolled to his right to embrace Julie then blinked, keeping his eyes shut for about three seconds. His eyelids were getting heavier, he noticed.
On Julie’s side of the bed was an alarm clock poised on a nightstand with a picture of the Murphy’s right next to it. The clock read 1:06 am and the picture depicted Jake with a mediocre smile in-between John and Julie. Another long blink came upon John. This time, his eyes kept shut for about ten seconds and a tear escaped the corner of his eye. The cool teardrop slid down across John’s resting head. His heavy wet eyes blinked and they stayed shut until he saw light appearing through his eyelids. It was the sun flaring through the window.
John’s eyelids burst open with confusion. Julie was nowhere to be seen but how could it be morning already?
He observed the room, hearing the roar of the loud fan. “I don’t remember falling asleep,” John said out loud but quietly to himself. Rubbing his tired eyes, he looked at the alarm clock on Julie’s side. The clock read 8:06 am. “That’s about two hours early, my friend.” He smiled. John began to roll over to close his eyes again but instead, he whipped his body to the nightstand to observe the family photo.
The photo that included the Murphy trio now included a fourth person; a little red-headed girl. Right next to Jake’s mediocre smile was a girl that held a bright smile and even brighter green eyes. His jaw dropped along with his eyes, which opened as wide as a window in the spring, and John sat, baffled.
Who is that little girl? What is going on? This has to be a dre-
Then John’s heart dropped in his chest when he met eyes with that exact red-head girl just standing right in the doorway.
She was about Jacob’s age but a little shorter. The girl shared the same green eyes and red hair as John but looked remarkably like Julie in the face.
“Can I turn this off now?” She asked with her hand on the switch for the fan.
John sat with a knot in his stomach and without a word.
There’s no way this could be real but he could hear the birds whistling outside; he could feel the heat shining through the glass of the window, and his stomach moving from his heavy breathing. The eye contact between the two was locked. For John, it was like looking into a reflection of his own eyes.
The fan started to power down after the girl flipped the switch. “Dad, I’m about to eat breakfast. Do you want to join me?” She was still looking into his eyes.
John moved his feet off the bed and onto the floor, breaking the stare. He took a huge breath and noticed his cargo shorts where he left them before bed.
“I’ll take that as a yes, weirdo.” She then giggled, walking down the hall.
“This had to be a dream,” ran through his head though the booze from last night was still strong on his breath. Despite his preference of just going back to bed and hopefully waking up normal and not in an episode of The Twilight Zone, he put on his shorts and left the bedroom.
Walking past Jake’s and the guest room, he noticed that the hallway, which had always contained family pictures, seemed to double in content. New photos lined the walls and he scanned them on his way to the kitchen.
John’s eye was caught by a picture of the red-head holding a certificate. In
bold, black letters, the certificate said:
First place Science Olympiad awarded to Josie Murphy.
The tight knot in his stomach constricted even further.
“Josie,” he gasped.
“Yes, Dad?” Josie answered, standing to his right as if she were standing there the whole time.
He swallowed hard with the intention to speak but had no idea what he was going to say.
“Hi, Josie,” came from his mouth in a bewildered voice.
She smiled big.
“Hi.”
Josie had a wonderful smile with straight teeth and the most beautiful dimples much like Julie’s.
“What’s the matter, Dad?” she said, still with a grin.
Her smile swept his confusion away and the knot in his stomach was gone. John couldn’t help himself from smiling.
“Oh nothing, honey. Just a little tired, I guess.”
“Okay, whatever you say, Pops.” Her smile turned into a laugh and she hugged him tight, then she walked away into the kitchen.
John didn’t know what to think but he felt happy. This had to be a dream but just maybe it was a dream come true.
He made it to the kitchen and Josie was sitting on a barstool at the kitchen counter. Resting her head in her hand, she found John’s eyes with her own.
“How’s it going, Joes?”
Where the hell did that nickname come from? It just came so naturally.
“Good! But I’ve been up ever since Mom left for work this morning and I’m starving now.”
Right before John had the change to reply he felt a chilling breeze roll in from the window he left open last night. Swiftly, he went and closed the window.
“Hey, Dad? I’m going to go and see if I can get Jake up.” She hopped off the stool and skipped down the hall.
“Jake.”
John Murphy had almost forgotten about his son. He began to think of the tight grip he had on his son’s wrist and then smashing his cell phone.
Oh man, he’d been drunk and now he felt the guilt.
Like a dog with his tail between his legs, he walked to the trashcan to see if the pieces of the phone were still there.
At that exact moment, coming from down the hall, he heard a crunch and the sound of an open mouth eating. Abandoning the shameful path to the trashcan he started to walk towards the hall that held the sound.
Then, approaching Jake’s closed door, the sound of feeding got louder and more ferocious.
“Maybe we also got a tiger,” John joked to himself right before he pushed open the door to see the unimaginable.
His son’s body was lying still on the bed with his stomach ripped wide open. Standing above him was Josie, smothered in Jake’s entrails looking like a baby with tomato sauce after a spaghetti incident. Her soaked hair was matted with the blood of her brother. Pieces of Jake’s torn flesh stuck around her mouth and, ignoring John’s entry, she kept ransacking inside Jake’s corpse.
Meanwhile, John stood, petrified with fear, gazing at his son’s head staring up at the ceiling through his soulless brown eyes. In that moment, Josie’s head shot up and locked eyes with her father. In her right hand, she held Jake’s blood-dripping and still-beating heart. When her beautiful smile turned sinister, she brought the throbbing organ to her teeth and ripped off a piece of Jake’s heart.
Blood flooded out of Josie’s mouth as she began to speak, but her voice was deep and monstrous.
“You were never meant to be – “
All of a sudden, John was awake in his dark bedroom. But it wasn’t the horrifying, cannibalistic dream with his unborn daughter that shot him back into reality.
No, John Murphy woke up to liquid, impossible breaths, realizing only after he began to choke on his own blood that someone had slit his throat. After struggling, he felt his arms and legs tied to the top and bottom of the bed frame and duct tape slapped over his mouth. He looked around the dim room to identify the slasher but it was no use since the sun had not yet fully risen. All he could see was a silhouette of the killer standing, watching his blood drain from him paling body. While his blood poured profusely out of his open neck, soaking the sheets and his own body, all he could think about was his son.
Was he alright?
Did the killer spare his child…
Or was he already dead?
At John’s weakest point, when he was bleeding to death with no hope of survival, he thought only of Jacob and his regret of how he’d treated him. The sun rose over the strong tree line and shone through the bedroom window. Rays of sunlight glinted off of a straight razor while the light cascaded over John’s only child’s face. Jacob remained until the end, staring down at his father’s demise.
the end
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