Trouble (Part Two of The Babysitter)
2014 © All Rights Reserved
Martha and Laura are back and things have gotten more hectic than ever.
Martha sat on the couch, paranoia scratching at the inside of her mind. Her skin crawled with bad feelings, every few minutes she would recognize her nails scratching at her arms. When she realized what she was doing, she'd stop only to start back up a few minutes later. It was a continuous cycle until she could feel the skin on her arm tearing. Martha looked down at her arms, redness showing on her pale skin. She looked at her nails, dead skin lodged into her nails until she picked it out.
Martha got off the couch and checked on what her mother was up to, hoping it would be a distraction to her inner thoughts that could drive her off the deep end.
She walked through the house, checking each room to find her mother. Finally, she found her mother in the basement, where she usually was most of the time.
"Hey sweetie. You're here just in time to see my finalized piece of work." Laura said as she seen her daughter walking down the stairs.
Martha didn't see what was on the canvas until she reached the bottom of the stairs. It was a black background with the bones of the fingers they've cut off from their victims making a shape of a tree. The bones were glued to the paper, connecting together to make the trunk of the tree. Crushed up pieces of the bones scattered on the paper, making up the leaves on tree.
"You used the bones to make a tree?" Martha looked at her mother with a questioning look.
"I call it the Tree of Life." A smile grew on Laura's face, admiring her art work.
"So you're a comedian too." Martha mumbled, continuing to stare at the tree.
Her mother stared at her daughter. "What's that suppose to mean?"
"I'm just saying it's kind of funny you name it the Tree of Life when people had to die so we could get these fingers. Is this really what we're doing it for? Art?" Attitude came out in her voice, stunning her mom for a second.
When she found her words, she responded, "I thought you understood my creativity, but I guess not. Something has changed in you, Martha. I don't like it."
Martha sighed, sitting down on the stairs as she looked at her mother's creation. "I'm sorry, I've just been really on edge lately. Those kids I killed, I can't help but shake the feeling the cops are going to find us. Their mom knows what I look like. She knows what you look like. They're gonna find us mom and I'm not ready to go to prison. I'd get killed within the first week."
Before Martha could continue on with her babbling, her mother hushed her. "Stop talking. We're not going to get caught. I need more bones for my next project so go give Hensley more fingers. She loves them."
Martha scoffed. "If she loved heads, would you cut off the heads of our victims and give them to her?"
Without missing a best, Laura replied. "Yes I would. She's my little girl and she deserves the best."
Martha felt a ting of pain in her heart. "What about me? I'm your daughter too. Doesn't it matter what I want?" She stood up, ready to go up the stairs.
Laura walked over to her daughter, cupping her face in both of her hands. "Of course it matters what you want, but Hensley is little. Little kids need attention. You, you're not needy." She paused, taking a look at her daughter. "At least I thought you weren't."
"I'm not needy." She yanked her mother's hands away from her and marched up the stairs with feelings of frustration.
Martha walked into the kitchen, opening a red cooler filled with ice. She stuck her hand in the ice, numbness taking over her hand as she pulled out fingers. The cold flesh rested in her hand as she walked towards her sister's room. She didn't bother knowing or warning her she was coming in, she opened the door and Hensley turned around with a look of excitement as she saw the fingers in Martha's hand.
Martha stuck the fingers on Hensley's desk where she sat in front of. "Mom needs more bones for her work, so be quick and don't chew through the bone." Then she walked towards the door to exit.
Before she made it out of the room, she felt arms wrap around her waist. Martha didn't have to turn around to know it was her sister hugging her. "Thank you." She then let go and went to gnawing through the finger as if it were candy.
Martha left the room and walked back down to the basement where she could hear her mother talking.
"I don't know what to do. She's getting paranoid and I have to act like everything is fine. I've took the tv away so she doesn't see."
Martha walked further down the stairs. Her mother held up a phone to her ear, frantically pacing left and right in the basement. "See what?" She asked as she sat on the basement stairs.
Laura jumped, whipping her head to see Martha with a concerned look. She didn't say anything until her breathing returned to normal. "I don't want you to worry." By this moment, she had already hung up the phone.
"I'm already worried and you saying that makes me even more nervous." Martha's mind raced with bad thoughts and the feeling of paranoia shot up. Nothing could distract the feeling and her throat felt as if it were closing up.
"Just go to your sister's room and stay there. You'll be okay." Laura tried to persuade her to leave the basement.
"No." She stood up. "You have to tell me now. I'm a part of this and I have a right to know."
"Go upstairs." Laura demanded. When Martha wouldn't budge, she gave up. "Why did you have to inherit my stubbornness?" She shook her head walked towards a table with two chairs.
Martha followed her with caution. As she took a seat in one chair, Laura took a seat in the other one. Martha's eyes gazed up to hers. "I'm waiting." She spoke calmly.
Laura hesitated at first, unsure how to word what she was about to say. "I don't know where to start." Martha became impatient and she could see it on her face. "The mother of the boys did call the police and given them a description of the both of us." Her daughter's eyes widened. "We're basically on every single news station. People are searching for us and it's only a matter of time before someone finds us."
And for once, Martha couldn't speak. It was as if a vacuum came and sucked up all the words she was going to say. The queasiness in her stomach made her run to the trash can in the basement. Laura came up to her vomiting child, pulling her hair back as she continued to get sick. When she was done, she looked up at her mother. "Thanks."
The two returned back to the table after they gotten Martha all cleaned up.
"You look pale. You should go lay down." Her mother suggested.
"I'm always pale." She said without looking up at her. "What are we going to do?"
Laura pulled her in close for a hug, running her fingers through her daughter's hair. "Don't worry, I have it figured out."
"You do?" Martha looked up at her mother, still in her embrace.
But Laura didn't look down, she stared off, in her own world. "I hope so." The words comforted and made Martha feel uneasy all at the same time.
"Mom!" Hensley screamed from the living room. Martha and Laura wasted no time to see what she was screaming about. They both entered the living room and saw Hensley standing near a window but not looking out of it. "Be careful when you look, there's policemen out there."
What her sister said, made Martha feel sick to her stomach again but this time she could keep it down. Martha cautiously peaked through the curtain, looking outside. Police cars and people invaded their once vacant field. The men and woman in uniform held guns, pointing at the house. One man held megaphone.
"What do we do now?" Hensley asked, looking at the both of them.
Laura grabbed both of her daughters and ran into the basement. "Stay here until I say it's safe. Don't worry, everything is going to be just fine, okay?" Martha and Hensley nodded and their mom ran back up the stairs.
While in the cold, quiet basement, they could hear the man with the microphone. "We know you're in there. Come out now and we can talk about this, but if you guys don't come out, we'll have to come in. You've got a few minutes to cooperate or else we're going to have to take drastic measures." Then there was quietness.
Hensley weeped as her arms wrapped around her sister. She didn't push her away, instead she held her too. "I don't want them to take us from each other."
"They won't." Martha assured her even though she wasn't certain what she was saying was true. It calmed her little sister down and that's all that mattered.
Gun shots fired and echoed through the air as black vans also pulled up to the house. The men and women inside the vans fired at the policemen and they fired back. Most turned around right as they were being shot at, looking at their perpetrators in the face. It was a bloodbath as bullets penetrated through skin. One of the women on the opposite side of the law shot an officer in the leg, he was down on the ground yelling in pain until she put the gun to his head and put him out of his misery. They made sure to aim for the head. One by one, bodies fell to the ground, blood splattered on the white police cars and there was a silence as they realized they took out every officer.
"Get them and hurry. We don't want to stay long." The leader of them all ordered some of his members. As they ran inside, he looked at the others. "Someone get me that megaphone. I like it."
Inside, Laura watched the scene unfold as her friends took out the people who kept her from leaving. A smile grew as she watched them go down, dropping like flies. "Girls, it's safe to come up now." She watched outside, looking at her friend, Tony giving orders to people.
Martha and Hensley walked into the living room with scared looks. "What happened? We heard gunshots."
"Our friends came to help us with our problem." Was all Laura said before they came into the house to take them away.
"We need to leave now." One of women, Lissa told them. She had sleek blonde hair and wore dark clothing. "Tony's outside waiting for you guys."
Laura grabbed both of her daughter's hands, running outside to the vans. It was the first time the girls had seen what had unfolded outside. Carefully, they stepped around them making sure not to step on anyone.
"Are they dead?" Hensley looked down at the them.
"Yes sweetie. They were bad people who deserved it." Her mother explained to her.
They got in the vans, greeting some of the people who saved them. "Thank you so much." Laura said to Tony with appreciation in her tone.
"Anything for a friend." He smiled and they drove off the property.
"Mom?" Martha whispered to her mother.
She looked down at her daughter. Martha looked exhausted and her eyes fought, trying not to close. "Yes?"
"Are we always going to be on the run?"
She thought about it for a second. "I'm not going to lie to you. We are always going to be hiding, but this is the life we chose. We have to deal with the consequences."
"Just wondering.." Her voice trailed off. "Am I always going to be this paranoid?"
"Possibly, but you'll get used to it with time." She rubbed her back.
"Is that even a good thing? Getting used to being paranoid?" She looked up at her mother.
"It's either get used to it or lose your sanity."
"I know, it just doesn't seem very normal to get used to the feeling like everything and everyone is an enemy." Martha mumbled as she almost drifted off to sleep.
Laura brushed the hair out of her daughter's face with a grin. "Well, we're not a very normal family."
Author's Note: And you guys said I don't have happy endings.. Hah. I hope you guys enjoyed the second part to The Babysitter. I really tried to make it as good as I possibly could.