Author Games: One-Shot, One Kill

Round Three: Jordie and Carl

Prompt: The aftermath of a horror plot

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Jordie- Ruby's Reaper

He was called many things. At work he was called Steven, and he worked at a factory that manufactured tools for the average family household. The late-night broadcasts called him the Reaper. Under the moonlit sky he scavenged the empty highways for a hitchhiker to pick up, dressed in a black cloak and a ski mask to conceal his identity. He was a husband as well, stripping the cloak to kiss his wife and crawl next to her warm skin every night, pressing his body weight against hers, moulding every fabric of his being into his vows; although he wasn't very good at keeping them most nights. The neighbours called him Steve, because they knew him well enough to invite him over for a beer, but not well enough to know the body count that lay in his backyard.

I called him Dad.

"Ruby," he calls to me now, lying on the floor, his skull fractured and his own garden sheers sticking up out of his chest. "Why did you do this to me?"

I blink, mostly to clear the blood that drips down from my forehead and into my eyelashes. I could ask him the same thing, but I don't; I'm too tired to know the answer. He cut the phone lines the minute he put his plan into action, but I look at the screen door to see the faithful Golden Retriever, bone in her mouth, with a note tied in an elastic band around the middle. This is the end, it's finally over.

"Good girl, Salty," I praise the Golden, side stepping to the screen door but careful not to take the gun off my target... off of my father. I open the door for Salty and she drops the bone on the floor as a present for myself. He paws are stained with mud and the fall leaves stick to her fur, thanks to the wet sticky blood that acts as the glue. I take a deep breath and hold down the bile that threatens to make its way out of my throat; I don't want to think of the body count that occurred here tonight. I unwind the note from the bone and read the note:

"On our way."

I let out a large sigh of relief and sink to my knees, allowing my back to rest up against the kitchen counter. The wound that leaves me forehead open for the world to view is throbbing, blood continuing to flow from my flesh. My father, dressed in his Reaper cloak tries to reach his ski mask on the nineties flower printed floor; I won't let him have the satisfaction of his preferred identity when he departs this world. His death will come as a shock to the neighbours, the townspeople, and all who knew him as Steven Wilson. Even his identity as the infamous Reaper that plagued Harewood for twenty-five years, nicknaming it 'Scarewood', will be a complete and utter jaw dropper for most. But not for me. I wasn't surprised when I first saw the decomposed hand behind the barn, the finger in the washing machine or the eyeball in my salad in kindergarten. I didn't understand it then and perhaps I thought it was normal. But I've learned that not all fathers try to weigh the balance of life and death in their own hands.

"Ruby," he calls again this time, running a shaky three fingered hand through his matted curly hair. His plaid shirt suggests he was maybe a farmer, perhaps of beets and potatoes, but who knows what he really farmed. "Remove the sheers, let me go."

Again, I don't give him the satisfaction of hearing my voice.

I feel like I'm dying, too, but maybe I am, although I've been feeling like I was dying since I was five years old. Salty scratches at the screen door, wanting in, wanting to comfort me or tear my father to shreds. I know she hasn't forgiven him for the swift kick to her underbelly two years ago that sent her to the vet. It's times like these that really make me hate humanity, seeing a dog having her ribs broken and she still comes back, forgiving the foot that hurt her, taking a treat out of his hand and licking the side of his calf when he gets out of the shower.