From the outside of the house, everything was neat and tidy: a small front yard, a freshly painted picket fence, rows of marigolds planted along the edge of the walkway.
Sheriff Drake took a deep breath before walking in.
The smell of death was pervasive, from the moment he opened the door. The coroner’s people were still taking pictures of the living room.
And another smell, like smoke, that only he could smell.
The child was sitting in the kitchen.
Her shirt and sweat pants were spotted with blood.
“Hi Sheriff,” the girl said.
Shauna Brown was with her. Shauna was a local social worker, but had experience working in New York before she settled in Lazarus. She nodded at him, but didn’t speak. Her bottom lip trembled. Shauna had seen many things, and he’d known her for years.
She looked as upset as he’d ever seen her before.
“Drake,” she said “Have you seen the … room?”
“No, I will go back when they’re done. I came to be formally introduced to this young lady,” he said. “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Hailey.” She rolled her big brown eyes at him. When he looked at her he felt the presence, something that did not belong to this child.
When she’s older, he realized, she’ll be completely gone.
This child was barely seven. It was hard to understand how Hailey could be so relaxed and comfortable, with her Mother laying dead and bloody in the next room.
Stephen sat down, watching the child carefully. He thought of his own niece, and how he’d spoken to her when she was that age.
“Can you tell me what happened today?”
She shrugged.
“Has she spoken to you about it?” Drake asked Shauna.
“Why don’t you tell the Sheriff what you told me,” She encouraged.
Hailey made a dismissive little toss of her braid. “I have to?”
“Yes,” Shauna was firm.
The child sighed. She told him, saying all that happened in a breathless rush.
“My Mom told me we were going to leave town today. She wanted us to live at Grandma’s.”
“Where’s Grandma’s?” he asked.
“Seattle,” Shauna answered. “Tell him the rest, Hailey.”
“I can’t be in that place. It rains too much. And I don’t like Grandma.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t,” she hissed.
“Okay. So what happened?”
“We got into a fight. I told Momma I was not going to do what she wanted. And she screamed at me. I got so mad. I got so mad I could feel it all stuffy down in my chest. And when it’s like that, it has to come out.”
“What has to come out?”
“Dark things. You know about the dark things, don’t you Sheriff?”
Drake and Shauna exchanged a look, but neither of them replied. Hailey continued with her story.
“So, I felt it. Everything came out of me. Momma’s eyes were bleeding. And then she was on the floor, and she was bleeding everywhere. She cried for a long time. And then she just stopped.”
Hailey took a long breath, relived to have said it.
For a moment, she had eased the pain, the feeling of something rising up in her chest.
“I miss Momma,” she said sadly. “She always said. ‘Everything’s okay. I’m still gonna love you.’”
And as she said that, her eyes drifted off. Her mind was someplace where they could not reach her.
Outside, Drake and Shauna argued in hushed tones. The police were still working the scene, and an officer had been left with the child.
“She’s psychotic,” Shauna said. “A textbook case.”
He shook his head. “Maybe. But a child couldn’t have done all that by herself. Listen, Shauna. She needs to be taken as far from this place as possible. She needs help, but not only the kind you’re thinking of.”
“What do you mean?”
“Have you ever considered,” he whispered, “that something may be controlling her?”
Shauna’s eyes widened. “Demon possession?”
He nodded gravely. “Yes.”
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©2008 Lori Titus
Tags: Lazarus, Lori Titus
February 28th, 2010 at 10:31 am
Thanks for sharing I liked it
see you soon on your blog again : )