Dead Eyes

Blood was everywhere. Smeared across the walls and hardwood floor like some macabre work of abstract art. Her dress had fared no better, the front stained with a spray of crimson droplets which she wiped at with her blood stained hands.

She stared over at the corpse which lay face down on the floor before her, limbs torn from sockets and the face a caved in mass of tissue and bone.

She tilted her head, trying to grab hold of the overwhelming familiarity of the room, the photos on the walls, the body at her feet. She tiptoed across the room to a small end table which was home to several framed photographs, her feet leaving behind bloody stamps along the floor.

She lifted the frame slowly, her lips pulled back from her rotting teeth to mimic the smiling faces in the photograph. She tried to focus on faces that looked back at her, but all she was aware of was the blood. The smell of it flooded her senses. She dropped the photo when she noticed the caked blood along her palms, bringing them to her nose before giving them each a once over with her tongue.

The front door opened, startling her, and she turned slowly just as a tall blonde woman walked right past the living room where she now stood.

"Babe, you won't believe it," the woman called from the kitchen. "I found some oranges and a few bananas at the market on fifth. Probably the last we will have for a while."

The blonde woman rounded the corner and let out a gasp when she saw the blood stained walls and mangled body on the floor.

"How did you get out?" The woman hissed when she spotted the girl in the blood soaked dress.

The girl moved forward slowly, arms outstretched. She could smell the blood flowing through the blonde woman's veins. She opened and closed her mouth, needing to latch onto the living flesh, her whole body screaming for it.

The blonde woman backed away cautiously, her eyes clouded with tears.

"Sweetheart, it's me," the blonde woman sobbed. "It's Mommy. Try and remember, baby. Your name is Sara! You're ten years old!"

Sara continued forward, the blonde woman's words seeming like a jumble of syllables that Sara couldn't quite put together.

"That was your Daddy!" The woman shrieked, waving a trembling hand towards the crumpled form in the living room.

Sara turned her head slowly, glancing back at the source of the aroma in the air that fuelled her ravenous appetite.

Daddy…

Sara turned the word over in her mind, trying to make sense of it. It was familiar, having  meant something to her once. Something important, and meaningful, and true. Now, looking over at her father's body, all she saw was food.

She turned towards the woman again, but she was nowhere in sight. Sara inched forward, her head lolling to the side where the muscles around her neck had decayed.

Sara found the blonde woman in the kitchen, wielding a rolling pin.

"I don't want to hurt you baby," the woman shrieked, shaking her head. "We never should have kept you here like this. We should have—we should have--" the woman suppressed a sob on the back of her hand, her whole body trembling.

"I'm so sorry sweetheart, but I can't do this anymore," the woman whispered. "It isn't right."

Sara lunged forward with a guttural shriek and grabbed the woman by the throat with both hands, the feel of the woman's heartbeat beneath her skin sending Sara into a frenzy.  

Sara tried to bite at the arms that pushed her back, but the woman always managed to pull her hands away before Sara got too close. It took all of the woman's strength to shove Sara's small frame away. The woman raised the rolling pin and brought it down on the top of Sara's skull with an anguishing cry.