Brother Blood

I'm hiding in a stinking metal deathtrap, god only knows what kind of filth is in here but I have to hide. My aunty used to say so many horrible things about my mother when she babysat me, your mother is hopeless, your mother is a deadbeat.

I never listened to her, I loved my mother and I didn't care that we lived in a trailer park it was like a big adventure. I didn't like the shouting from the other trailers late at night though.

My aunt never called my mother a murderer, but tonight that was what she had become. Things had been tough lately, I was twelve and was starting to grow and needing new shoes and clothes that fit properly.

My brother was six and the school had been getting concerned that he might have some learning problems. I'd always thought Andy was stupid so I didn't understand why that made my mum so upset.

"He doesn't have anything wrong with him!" she roared down the phone one night after a phone meeting with the school had gone sour.

"If anyone has problems around here, it's you lot who are picking on my son!" she slammed the receiver down and grabbed her handbag off the rickety table she'd found at the tip. I knew that it meant she would be going out again tonight.

"I'll be back by the time you two are in bed, there's chicken nuggets in the freezer!" she hollered even though she'd promised to sew up the tear in my school shirt tonight.

Andy and I hardly ever slept in our beds on the nights mother went drinking. We spent the night in the small cupboard in the hallway where it was harder to hear her stumbling in much later then she'd said.

The night my mother tried to kill me started that way, my mother going out and my brother and I hiding in the cupboard. There were spiders and dust in there but at least the walls were thick.

"Jess, Jess something's poking me!" I sighed and shifted so I could see Andy better. We had the same eyes, as clear and blue as the sky on a summers day but his hair was a much darker shade of brown than mine.

"Shh! Doofus, that's my elbow!" I snapped, really we were getting to big to hide in here, and by we I mean me. What were we to do though? If we slept in our beds we'd be awake all night straining to hear the front door opening.

Creak! something moved for a moment in the trailer and I listened for mothers drunken footfalls. Silence, I must have heard the wind blowing outside. Andy tugged on my sleeve and I could feel him squirming.

"Jess, I gotta pee!" I cracked open the cupboard door an inch, it was only ten past nine, mother would be a few hours longer if she got home at midnight like she promised and that was a big if.

"Fine, but don't take forever" I let my little brother run to the bathroom at the other end of the hallway. I could hear him unzipping his trousers and hopping slightly as he tried to hold it in.

I closed the cupboard door, Andy could almost reach the knob now and I would hear him walking back down the hallway with his six year old gait.

Five minutes... Geez boys can't do anything fast can they? Ten minutes... Has he fallen in the toilet bowl? I knew I'd have to go find him so I started to open the cupboard door.

Thump! My eyes went wide and I stifled a squeak, the bathroom door was open I could just see it through the crack in the door. Except the feet standing there weren't my brothers, they were way bigger and had nine inch heels on.

Mother was home early, but I hadn't heard her come in, she must have only just arrived. My brain was chattering to itself trying to fill me with thoughts so I wouldn't panic.

I wanted to shut the door and wait for mother to go to bed, but Andy hadn't made a sound and I knew he hadn't left the bathroom. A wave of fear washed over me and tried to pull me under but I took a deep breath.

My mother did not hurt her children, she had never raised her hand to us and she would not hurt Andy. He was probably hiding in there somewhere, he hated mothers hugs because she smelled like alcohol.

The heels clicked their way out of the bathroom and into mothers bedroom where a Clank confirmed that she had closed the door behind her.

I slipped out of the cupboard as quietly as a mouse, I loved my mother but until I found Andy and got both of us back in the cupboard I couldn't let down my guard.

"Andy? Andy?.... Andrew?" I called softly as I walked down the hall towards the bathroom door which was still open. Something sputtered from inside and I hurried forward. My stomach clenched at the bitter tang of fear and the metallic stench of blood.

The bathroom was white and pristine, one of the parts of our home I really liked because it looked posh. Tonight though, it was spattered with tiny beads of red blood.

"Oh Andy!" I whispered as I came to a stop besides my poor brother. My hands shook as I took in his crumpled form and the knife lying beside him.

Stab wounds in his chest, legs, god she must have snuck up on him from behind. My baby brother, she'd stabbed my brother!

I fell to my knees next to him as tears streamed down my face, he had been a pain in the butt, yet he had never deserved to die especially not like this.

"J-Jess" I looked at my brothers face and his eyes were open, you could hardly see the blue they were so dilated but they still had life in them.

"I'm here Andy, I'm right here, I'm so sorry Andy" I whispered as I took his hand in mine. It was so cold and almost blue in colour, god I hated this so much. He was six, he had so much more to do in his life.

"Jess, Run! She'll catch you Jess, and she'll put the knife in you!" the colour was draining from his face now and his breaths were jagged like the knife that had stabbed him.

"I can't Andy, I can't leave you here" I sobbed he was small enough to carry but I couldn't leave quietly if I took him with me. I didn't want to leave him with mother, it wasn't right.

"You... Have to go. You can't... This can't happen to...It hurts!" he was really struggling now to take in enough air, he was panicking I couldn't let him be scared.

"It's ok Andy, don't you remember? Daddy's in heaven Andy, and he'll be waiting for you" our father had died of cancer when we were very young. He was like a fairy tale, the knight in shining armor that would save us.

Andy took a deep breath and didn't let it out, his eyes lost their spark, and I was kneeling next to a corpse. I had to get out of here, Andy was right I couldn't let her get me or no one would ever know what happened.

I snuck to the edge of the bathroom and peeked out into the hallway but it was deserted and the trailer was quiet. Hopeful that mother had gone to sleep I walked in quiet steps towards the front door.

Whoosh! the air was knocked out of me as something collided with my chest. I bent double wheezing and gasping and looked up into my mothers face.

In the stories I made up for my brother she was a beautiful princess who married the handsome prince but now she had morphed into the evil queen. Her red brown hair hung in her face and masked her green eyes from me.

Her pink cocktail dress was dotted with my brothers blood and if I had any doubt that she was responsible for his death it was gone when I spied the thin knife she held in one hand.

"Now, now Jessie where are you rushing to at this late hour?" her voice was honey sweet but I knew not to believe her. She'd snapped, she was dangerous, I was twelve but I was smart enough to know that something was very wrong with her.

"You know where! Away from you! You killed him! Your son is dead because of you! Andy is dead!" I yelled as I eyed the door a few feet away. Could I open it faster than she could swing the knife?

"I saved him Jessie, those bastards at his school, they wanted to get him tested. They couldn't see how perfect he was! Well now he'll always be perfect and no one can change him!" she laughed and I almost threw up at the sound.

"I'm going to save you now Jessie, my sister always told me you were going to end up a hopeless case just like your mother. I can save you Jessie, we'll prover aunt Jasmine wrong together!" she swung the knife back and I wrenched open the door.

I leapt out into the night at the same moment as a burning pain in my leg threatened to send me to the ground. I didn't have time to look but I knew she'd stabbed me.

I ran through the trailer park, under washing lines and over picnic rugs looking for a place where she wouldn't find me. I was giving up, my leg pumping blood onto the ground when I spotted the dumpsters behind the reception building.

I limped over to the dirtiest one my fingers fumbling in the darkness over the lid. I opened the dumpster and clambered in wincing as fire laced up my leg. I pulled the lid closed and curled up in the corner.

I've got one hand over the wound in my leg and the other in the indistinguishable muck underneath me. I'm not sure what's going to happen to me. Someone will find me eventually the question is who will it be?

If it's mother I'm dead, if it's someone else I'm saved, but if they take until morning I'll be dead anyway. They'll open the dumpster to find a twelve year old girl who bled to death in the night.

Crunch! Crunch! The sound of asphalt crunching under someones feet as they walk towards my dumpster. This is it, I'm either going to be killed or I'm going to be saved.

The dumpster rumbles and the rubbish ripples as the lid is lifted off, I look up and see something which will end my ordeal for good...