Dog Days of Summer (Damned of the 2/19th Book Four) - Finished

At Home with the Folks

Shady OaksTrailer Park

Lot #19

Chehalis, Washington

United States of America

09 August, 1986

1935 Hours

      It had all gone downhill. I wasn't sure what I had expected, coming into the house like I had, but it sure as hell wasn't facing off against my sister-in-law/ex-wife and Jed with drawn knives. Tera had the knife held downward in her fist, the blade up by her ear, her left arm something she wasn't sure what to do with. Jed held the knife completely opposite of what I had expected. Jed had the knife blade up at waist level in front of him and his other hand right at the same level. Not how they teach you to hold it in the military.

        "Gonna make a man outta you, you little shit." Jed smiled, his lip and nose still leaking blood from where I'd slapped him to the floor. "Nobody to save your little ass." He wiped his mouth, smearing blood across his face. "Gonna show you how we did it in the Big Red One."

        "Cut him, Daddy." Tera squealed. God, how did I not notice just how much she sounded like a piglet? That nasal goddamn whine cut through my nerves like a dentist's drill.

        Jed tossed the knife back and forth from hand to hand, grinning at me. Martha was still rocking Logan back and forth, and he was wailing and weeping and still holding his face.

...talons, cold as icicles, trailing down my face, leaving behind frostbitten trails of blackened flesh...

        "Really, Jed?" I asked when he threw the knife from one hand to the next and flipped it up and back down.

        "Huh?"

        "He broke my nose, Daddy." Tera squealed.

        Jed went to flip the knife and I slapped it out of the air with one quick motion, the blade bouncing into the room where Martha had been reading the Bible, sliding to a stop under the table. Jed just stared at his hands for a second and I shook my head.

...seriously?...

        I turned to Tera, who was suddenly backing up toward the kitchen, the knife forgotten in her hand. Funny, for someone who was just ready to try to stab my ass a few seconds ago.

        "You ain't got the balls to take me on, boy." Jed sneered.

...why do they always say that?...

        Jed jumped toward me, a scare tactic, like we were in grade-school, or I was a child and he was an adult. He used to scare the hell out of me when I was a child, but that probably had more to do with the fact I'd been like half his size. When I was a kid, I'd have jumped back, maybe fallen over the coffee table, and maybe even screamed.

        Instead I just stood there, unphased by his bullying tactics.

...STAND AND DELIVER...

         Jed grinned. "Knew you didn't have any balls, boy. Always been a coward." He hissed at me through his hate and anger. I was embarassing him, in front of his wife, in front of his two kids, and it was starting to really anger him. He'd ruled the house when I was smaller with fear and brutality, not love, not respect. Punishments for any infraction, real or imagined, were met with violence. Now I wasn't reacting right to him, and he was geting angry, looking for a chink in my defenses.