She begged us not to leave her alone but we did anyway.  We could be mean when we wanted, cruel without trying.

When we got back from bowling, our little sister had locked us out of the house.  We could hear the screams coming through the walls, a flock of magpie shrieks, a hundred horror movie murders taking place inside.

The earth burped, then shuddered and thunder clapped and several crows slammed into the window and slid down the cracked glass like oil stains. 

It began to hail, a trillion little balls ice-picking our skin.  The wind winged at us sideways, trying to tear us from the porch, trying to rip our limbs off.

I held onto Jerry because I was the elder twin by a minute, but my fingers had gone numb and he was rain-slickened.  He yelled that he was sorry, so sorry for all the bad things he’d done in his life but he’d kept doing them because he got away with it, same as me, he said.  Could we ever be forgiven, he asked, but by then Jerry was feet-off-the-air flying through the sky, down the street, going going gone.

A few moments later the storm stopped.  Just stopped.   

I tried the knob and walked in and she wasn’t anywhere.
I called, “Sarah.  Sarah.”  I searched behind doors and in every crawl space she favored.
I thought I caught a glimpse of her in the corner of the bathroom mirror holding a dagger shoulder-high, the large knife Mom used to part chicken, but when I wheeled around, the breeze ruffled the plastic shower curtain, showing me its culled and gleaming guts.

Across the tiled wall were the words EVERYTHING IS EVENTUAL.  The words were written in crimson lipstick that bled red tears into the grout.
 
Around midnight the front door opened and my mother asked why I was sleeping on the couch.  She looked pale and sauntered up the steps to bed.

My Dad sat down on the couch and patted my knee.  “We lost him,” he said, and I told him I already knew that.

I said, “Jerry–he got blown away in the storm.”

My father’s cheek twitched and his eyes flickered, gauging me warily.  “Who’s Jerry?” he asked.  I forced a nervous laugh.  “Hello??  Dad?  Jerry, my brother?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Dad said.  “Your mom had another miscarriage, so your brother never made it into this world.”
 
I didn’t sleep that night.  In the morning my sister was at the breakfast table.  I asked, “What’re you doing here?”

“I live here, you stupid creep.”

“But I thought—“ I said, unable to continue.

“You thought, you thought.”  My sister’s arms were crossed, eyes blazing.

“I don’t feel good.  I think I’m staying home today.”

My sister took a gulp of orange juice and didn’t bother wiping her sopping lips.  “You can’t stay home.  Mom’s staying home.  Mom lost the latest baby.”

My knees trembled when my sister withdrew a long knife with the serrated edge from the butcher block.  “Look familiar?” she asked.

“We were only horsing around.”

She lifted the carving knife, then plunged it into a cube of soft butter.  “Do you think it’s okay to go on torturing me, blaming someone else?  Huh?” she spat, leaning forward. 

“He said he was sorry.  He didn’t mean all those things he did.”

“He?”

“Jerry?”

She leered.  “Maybe you could look up the word accountability some day.”

“How’s that?”

“Jay, there’s no Jerry.  Jerry is in your head, a scapegoat so you won’t feel guilty.”

“That’s not true.  We’re, we’re twins.”

“Sure you are.  And I’m Michelle Obama.”

“He and I are the same age, fourteen.”

“You’re the one, Jay.  You’re the monster in this house.  It’s all you.”

“But I-”

“That’s why Mom keeps losing the babies.  They can sense how evil you are.”

“But it’s Jerry.”

My sister rounded the table fast as jaguar.  She was different, still frightened but powerful now with the knife in her hand.  She grasped my jaw, held the blade an inch from my face.

“Do you think I’m joking?” She asked.

I muttered, “No.”

Sickly streaks of butter dribbled off her fingertips.

“I’m doing you a favor here,” my sister said.  “I’m killing the monster once and for all so you can have a normal life.  Do you get that?”

I nodded.

“Do you mean it?”

“Of course.”

“So, you admit everything that’s happened, that it was all you?”

The knife tip moved closer.  Reflected in the blade was a gray impression, almost a blemish.  It shifted and moved in the metal.

“Say it was you.  Say it, Jay, or die.”

The image took shape and Jerry looked back at me, that familiar smirk on his face, him always the confident one.  He gave me a wink and mouthed the words, “Go ahead.” 

Relief washed down my chest as I exhaled.

“It was you.  Say it!”

The voice was mine but the words were his.  “It was me.”  Jerry took the blame because it was all his to take.

______________

©2010 Len Kuntz

Len Kuntz lives on a lake in rural Washington State with an eagle and three pesky beavers.  His short fiction appears in places like Camroc Press Review, Right Hand Pointing and also at lenkuntz.blogspot.com  .

A glaring overhead light bore into his head through eyes that refused to close. The operating table to which he was strapped spread-eagle was cold, hard, and like the room in which he found himself, sterile. He tried to turn his head, move his arms, legs, but was unable.

Two men in white lab coats and contagion masks moved in and out of his field of vision, hovering over him for brief moments before moving to unseen corners of the room.

He heard the rattle of steel surgical tools on a table to his left, and the squeaking of casters as something rolled toward him from the right. A bulging rubber bag of clear liquid sagging from a hook on a stainless steel pole moved into view on the right-most edge of his periphery. One of the masked men—“Dr. Wong” read the embroidery on his coat—attached a thin tube to the bottom of the IV bag, and, twisting a grooved ring in the pole’s center, raised the height of the bag.

“Are you sure this is necessary?” asked the other masked man, one Dr. White, according to his coat.

“We have our instructions,” said Dr. Wong. “Prep the patient.”

Dr. White draped each of the patient’s limbs with light blue surgical cloths, and then the torso, leaving only the head exposed. Dr. Wong manipulated a blue plastic clip on the tube, near where it connected to the IV bag, and waited as the clear liquid snaked its way through the length of the tube. A few drops escaped from the needle on the opposite end, and Dr. Wong re-engaged the blue clip.

The patient felt a prick in his right arm. Coldness spread through the limb, like alcohol evaporating from skin, as the liquid soaked through his arm, wetting the table beneath.

The smell of stranged chemicals overwhelmed him.

“Where shall we begin?” asked Dr. White.

“Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up.”

The patient sensed, rather than saw, the doctors move to the foot of the table. He heard the rattle of the surgical tools rolling toward his feet. With unblinking eyes he stared into the overhead light. He felt a thin pressure moving back and forth on his left ankle, then an insistent wrenching. The patient heard something tear, like fabric ripped, and the wrenching stopped.

Dr. Wong held the patient’s foot under the light, in plain sight above the patient’s face.

The two doctors observed the foot as Dr. Wong turned it this way and that. The patient understood what he saw, but did not recognize the foot as his own. He felt no pain, only and absence where the foot had been.

“Hmmmm. I’ll take this to the lab. You continue here,” said Dr. Wong.

“Are you sure this is necessary?”

“We have our instructions.” Dr. Wong turned and left.

The patient heard pneumatic doors open, then close. He again felt the thin pressure moving back and forth, this time across his left knee, then the wrenching and tearing.

Then at his left hip. Pressure. Back and forth. Wrenching. Tearing. His right ankle, knee, hip. Left wrist, elbow, shoulder.

Still staring into the light, the patient heard the pneumatic doors open and close. Dr. Wong’s face appeared over the patient, observing Dr. White’s work.

“What did the lab say?” asked Dr. White, pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow.

“They need more time, more specimens.”

“I’ll take these, and you can finish up here.” Dr. White gathered the pieces of the patient’s limbs, one by one, and carried them off to the left. The patient heard wheels rolling, the pneumatic door open, then close.

“I think we can get rid of this,” said Dr. Wong. He pulled the IV from the patient’s arm, and let the needle drop to the floor.

Dr. Wong’s head eclipsed the overhead light. Back lit as it was, the patient could not see the features of Dr. Wong’s face, but he got the impression Dr. Wong was smiling. As his head moved to the right, and the eclipse waned, the patient noticed the surgical shears Dr. Wong lowered toward the patient’s remaining arm.

The patient heard the snick, snick, snick of the heavy scissors. He felt thick fingers force their way inside his arm and peel back the outer layer. As before, there was no pain, only the realization that the events were taking place.

“Hmpf,” snorted Dr. Wong.

A glint of silver flashed through the patient’s field of vision. A thin pressure settled on his throat, and slid back and forth. The glint of silver flashed again, and rattled as Dr. Wong dropped the saw onto the table with the other tools.

The overhead light was again eclipsed as Dr. Wong’s hand gripped the patient’s face, fingers sinking in as the hand squeezed. The patient felt the tremendous weight of Dr. Wong’s other hand settle onto his chest, and again the insistent wrenching followed by the sound of tearing fabric.

The light returned, and a wave of dizziness washed over the patient as his vision swept the ceiling and stopped on a bare wall, which had been above and behind him. He heard the pneumatic doors open and close. The world spun.

The patient’s gaze swung around the room, but the picture was upside down. Across the operating table that held the remains of his body, the patient saw Dr. White, who seemed to be standing on the ceiling with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Siliconized polyester fibers,” said Dr. White.

“What?” heard the patient from above—or below?—and behind him.

“Fiberfill. It’s just a child’s teddy bear.”

__________________

©2010 Brad Nelson

Brad Nelson is a former backyard samurai and blue-jeans Zen master who spends most of his time now on the back porch with his pipe and a cup of coffee. He retired his sword and took up the pen after serving five years as an interrogator in the U.S. Army. Brad is a creative writing M.F.A. candidate at National University and Chief Editor of Eclectic Flash, a new literary journal. You can find Eclectic Flash at www.eclecticflash.com.