Home Again

TW: murder, suicide, reference to drugs, foul language

    Lily had absolutely no desire to ever return home, it held too many memories that still haunted her to this day, but here she was at the Richmond Amtrak station getting ready to board a train destined for Jacksonville.

    “I don’t know why I even bother thinking Rachel will be around when I need her, she never has been in the past,” Lily mumbled to herself as she found her seat and settled in. “I know going home is hard for both of us but damn, am I always the one who has to do everything?”

    As the other passengers found their seats and stored there bags she tried calling Rachel again, “Where are you?” she whispered. “Duncan from the coroner’s office has called again wanting to know when someone would claim the body; I told him I’d be arriving tomorrow. Dammit Rachel! Where the fuck are you?! Call me back!!”

    She felt judging eyes on her from surrounding seats as she put her phone on vibrate but she didn’t care, she was too frustrated with Rachel; with Mom and Dad gone, she and Rachel were the only family Anna had had left, the only ones who knew her pain, the only ones who knew the truth.

    As the train began its long nights journey south she leaned back, attempting to get comfortable, laying her head against the travel pillow, she began watching the ever changing landscape roll by like frames from an old home movie. The trains gentle rocking soon had her drowsy, in that place between now and then, in that place where memories resurrect themselves all to well, in that place she tried not to stay too long.

******

    “Please, please, please let us go,” Lily begged through tears of fear just before the man put duct tape over her mouth and then Rachel’s.  This lunatic no one knew, who’d just broken into their home moments before already had Mom and Dad bound, both now tied to their bed’s footboard, mouths duct taped and facing her and her sisters, she assumed to make it easier for everyone to see the terror she feared he was about to unleash.

    Anna was the only one he allowed to talk. Sweet Anna, beautiful, beautiful Anna, the baby of the family, the carefree sixteen year old with her whole life ahead of her was the one he’d been secretly stalking for months, the only one he truly wanted, the one he would make pay unless she wanted him back.

    Lily could see the terror in everyone’s eyes as the crazed man paced back and forth ranting, screaming at Anna, demanding to know why she had ignored him, he’d said hello to her at the bowling alley, tried to make conversation with her in line at the movie theater, but she had ignored him he claimed.

    “Why couldn’t you have just talked to me, given me a chance?” he screamed.

    “I’m sorry,” Anna cried, sobbing hysterically, “I don’t know.”

    The bald man’s nostrils flared and eyes glared to such extremes even his unkempt beard could not hide his rage. And in the split second it took for Lily to meet her father’s eyes the man smashed the hammer he’d been clutching down on his head with such force blood splattered the girls even in their attempt to retreat.

    “See what you made me do? It’s all your fault Anna, just tell me how much you want me, that’s all you have to do,” he said as he kneeled in front of Anna, slowly pulling the hidden knife from his combat boot. He walked around and knelt behind her, stroking her blonde blood stained hair, sliding the shiny blade along her cheek he whispered, “Tell Mommy what a great catch I am and how lucky you’d be to have me.”

    Lily’s mind raced as she glanced at Anna, then the man, then her Mom and that’s when she saw the clock behind her, it was 9:30 pm, Ray, her boyfriend would be calling any minute to let her know he’d left work and was on his way to pick her up for the Friday ten o’clock late night horror show they were supposed to go to tonight. “Oh God, please call,” she thought, “Please call.”

    She could feel Anna shaking beside her, terrified. Then the man got up and walked over to her Mother, standing over her he looked at Anna and said, “Tell her Anna, tell her what a fine catch I am.”

    With pleading eyes Anna looked up at him, “Please stop, please.”

    “As soon as you do as I say this will all be over. Now tell her!” he growled.

    “He’s a catch Momma, look at him, I’m so lucky,” Anna whimpered.

    “That’s just not convincing enough!” he yelled plunging the knife deep into her Mother’s chest, pulling it back out in such a wild craze blood flew across the ceiling.

    “NOOOO!!!” screamed Anna as Rachel moaned hopelessly.

    “Ahhh, so you finally have something to say do you goth girl?” he smiled, cocking his head mockingly at Rachel.

    “Now Anna,” he snapped, “we’re starting to get low on bodies here; you better get real convincing, real quick.”

    Jerking Rachel’s head back by her hair he caressed her skin with the tip of the knife allowing it to roam slowly along the collar of her shirt, then as it made its way to the first button, one by one he sliced the threads of each as he looked menacingly into her eyes. Opening the shirt with the knife exposing her bra he then without warning made a quick slash just above her left breast, not deep, but enough to cause drops of blood to cascade down her skin.

    Then a phone rang from the next room, jolting him out of his cruel fantasy and causing Lily to wake from her nightmare of memories as the passenger in front of her answered her phone. 

******

    Breathing hard and scanning the train she realized she was safe, unlike she’d been 10 years ago when Michael McDaniel broke into her parents house and killed her parents and terrorized her and her sisters. Had it not been for Ray’s phone call as he was pulling into the driveway, who knows if she, Rachel and Anna would be alive today, not that they’d had much of a life since.

    Lily had done her best to block it all out by diving straight into college and then a career. Between staying busy and popping sleeping pills she was all but able to push it into the recesses of her mind most days. Last year though she’d finally come to the realization she needed help and began therapy.

    Rachel on the other hand had turned to drugs as a means to forget, constantly in and out of rehab the past ten years. When she wasn’t on illegal drugs she was over medicating on prescribed ones and knowing Rachel, she was probably in a crack house now, which would explain her disappearance. 

    And Anna, poor Anna, feeling like all this was somehow her fault that if only she’d said or done the right thing her parents would still be alive went into such a dark depression she had to be hospitalized for months after. Sadly all these years later her bouts of normalcy usually only lasted a couple of weeks at a time before she’d fall back into darkness again, this time being her last as she hung herself, at 26 years old, on what would be the ten year anniversary of that horrific night. It hadn’t helped that Michael had been arrested five days after he’d destroyed their lives when he’d attempted to break into another home 20 miles away, Anna in all these years never forgave herself.

    As the conductor came over the speaker to announce their arrival to Jacksonville in twenty minutes, Lily looked out the window again, praying the memories would pass as fast as the trees but she would not be so lucky, for she was home again, and all the memories she’d worked so hard to leave in the past were flooding back in.

    As the train station came into sight a tear fell from her eye, would she ever be able to put all this behind her, would she ever be able to put the pieces of her life back together and move on, she wondered, and in that she didn’t know, God help her she prayed, but she just didn’t know.