Killer

We returned to my Grandmother's house on 86th Terrace late in the afternoon. The inside of her house was stacked top to bottom with cheap picture frames decorated with ribbon, lace, silver, and gold. We never ate at the small round dining room table. It was filled with photos of my sister and me when we were little, my cousins, and really old photos of my grandfather in his army uniform. If you walked down the only hallway in her house, you would see walls covered with picture frames of even older photos- wedding photos, and photos of all my grandparents' kids at the farm- all that milky yellow tone, not quite black and white, not quite color.

When my sister and I walked in the house on this day, I knew something wasn't right. I felt a rush of knots go from my stomach to my throat. Nobody was home. But a man in black jeans, black boots, and a black leather jacket came out from one of the bedrooms. I didn't know him, and he looked like a killer. I froze. He came for me and I tried to fight back, but I had no strength against the man. My muscles were like jello when I tried to punch him. He grabbed my hand and took out a pocket knife. I squirmed and cried and pulled to get away, but I couldn't. He took the knife and made slits in my hand just above each knuckle. I couldn't feel the pain, but I knew it must have hurt, and I was bleeding.

All I could think was that I didn't want to die. And where was my sister? Out of the corner of my left eye I saw her standing behind me, paralyzed with fear. Just then my dog came darting towards me. I didn't want the man to hurt my dog. I screamed, and my dog held a ferocious grip on the the man's neck. The louder I screamed, the tighter his grip. Suddenly the man went limp and fell to the ground. His eyes had rolled to the back of his head and both sides of his neck were bleeding profusely.

My sister and I dragged the bloody mess to the back patio. We went back inside. It was dark already, and cars began pulling into the steep driveway in front of my grandma's house just in time for the party. My guts were still in my throat after what had just happened, and I had to make sure that the man was really dead.

I stepped into the puddle of blood that was seeping into the cracks of the concrete and surrounded the man's head, and I looked down at his face. His eyes fluttered under his bloody eyelids. My chest flooded with fear and I quickly began stomping his face with the bottom of my shoe. I tried to smash all the life that was left in him. My weak legs made no impact. The man's eyes shot open and he grabbed the foot I had planted on the ground. My hands and knees scraped the concrete as I barely escaped. I ran inside, grabbed my sister by the sleeve of her jacket and pulled her through the house to the side garage door, and outside to the front of the house. I scrambled for the key to my car, but my car was blocked in by all the cars that had just arrived for the party.

Heartbeat surging, and short of breath, all I could do was run.