Life With You Is A Miracle

TW: violence, depression, gore, suicide ideology and suicide

Trinity dropped the keys around her neck. They were those heavy, brass types lopped with a gold chain. The kind of weight you couldn’t ignore. The kind of weight you’d notice missing right away.

“Trinity…” a rasped voice wailed, “I’m hungry…”

“I’ll be back Miracle. I don’t wanna hear any complain’ from ya now.”

She left that bright red door, heading down the stretching hallway into the kitchen, where her mother was heating up a can of pork and beans over the stove. A radio cracked and sputtered on the island, incoherent static mingled with a word or two. Even the strangled sound of a long dead singer was better than crushing silence. At least to her mother. 

“How is Miracle ?” her mother said as she licked the metal spoon of its barbecue sauce. 

“Hungry as a tick in July. Like she always is.”

“You lock that door up tight?” her back was to Trinity, shoulders bunched and head low, stirring that pot like it was a home cooked meal. 

“You know I always do.” Trinity rounded the island, grabbing the rifle leaning against the front door, “I’m headed to the store. For Miracle.”

“Trinity,” her mother started, her spoon clinking obnoxiously against the metal in attempt to gain Trinity’s attention no doubt, “sooner or later we’ll have to do something about—“

“Ma. Finish your breakfast and we’ll talk after I get back. Miracle is hungry.” Trinity slammed the door on her way out, not bothering to hear her mother’s whining and begging for conversation. 

From the porch Trinity could finally breathe, surveying the rounding slopes and dirt hills of the family property. Situations like theirs, land made all the difference, providing the distance from people when all hell broke loose. Her mother canned, churned, and stockpiled supplies even before the world went to shit. Trinity banished those thoughts, not wanting the memories of the before period to start surfacing. Once they surfaced they always lingered. 

Whether she liked it or not, this was reality. No use dwelling on things she couldn’t change. 

A bell overhead jingled against the frayed twine tied to the porch roof, signaling Trinity’s traps had a catch, so she began her trek through the familiar trees. 

“I’ll have to replace you soon.” Trinity mused as her finger brushed the thinning rope. It had done her faithfully these last couple years, especially when Pa got sick. Then Miracle, and more and more of the gathering had fallen to her shoulders.  

About a mile—give or take—before Trinity found him. He was struggling like a fly in a web, breath heavy and ragged, most likely on the account he was upside down and wounded on the left flank by the trap.

“Ma’am.” he cried, wet and limp, tears clogging his throat.

Trinity ignored him, her head swiveling this way and that. Last time she was hasty. Last time she got a knife to shoulder. That’s why Miracle was so hungry, it was much too long until Trinity could go hunting again with a wound like that hindering her aim.

“Help me… help me down…”

The farm’s reputation was catching up to them, they were starting to stake for supplies in groups, but it didn’t appear this fellow had an accomplice.

Carefully, she lifted the rifle to balance on her right shoulder, testing to see if the left arm was healed enough to hold the weight correctly.

“What are you doing? What are you aiming at!”

After steadying her breathing, she fired, cutting through the man’s right thigh. She sighed in relief. Her aim was still a little off, but she didn’t hit his artery. He’d stay alive for the hike back home. 

He screamed of course, like they always did when they hit the ground, she tuned him out as she gathered him by the ankles. The dragging of the man bounced off neighboring trees, forcing Trinity to stop every few minutes and listen.

Listen for approaching human saviors or wildlife smelling blood. Listen for the worst case scenario— a sick and starving person wandering through the family’s acres. 

The hike back was never an easy one. 

Salty sweat dripped down her eyelashes as she climbed the porch steps. Along the way, the man grabbed roots, sticks, plain dirt, and everything in between. He hurled it at her, cursing this god forsaken world and her family. Trinity let him tire himself out. With two bad legs and being skinny enough that his ribs were protruding, she knew his threats were empty.

Only desperate people tried her farm for supplies anymore. That’s what made them so easy to catch. 

Like every dinner where Trinity came back with a prize, her mother ignored her, clutching her shawl in the summer heat and shaking like a newborn fawn. 

Ignoring her, something Trinity had become an expert in, she made her way down the yawning hallway to Miracle’s room.

“Miracle , you awake hon?” Trinity knocked on that bright door. The man sobbed underneath, from pain or fear, Trinity didn’t care to know. They usually didn’t even stay conscious through the entire hike back. 

“Come in.” Miracle called, hardly above a whisper through the barrier of wood. Trinity unlatched the three locks on the outside, her finger slipping slightly due to the blood coating them. Finally, the door swung open. 

Miracle was on the floor, coloring a picture with broken crayons, sunken eyes instantly falling upon the blood dripping to the hardwood. 

“Hello darling. Being good and patient I hope?” Trinity dragged the man further inside, ignoring the bright fire creeping up her shoulder. He wailed and apparently found a second wind as he struggled and chipped his nails trying to drag himself away from the small girl.

“Trinity,” Miracle cooed, putting on her candy coated tone, “is that for me?” she kicked her feet in excitement, leaning heavy against the chain binding her to the wall. Cold metal looped her ankles and neck, secured with more padlocks.

“Sorry I haven’t been here to feed you in a bit. Son of a b— I mean the last guy stuck a knife in me.”

“That’s ok. You’re here now.” Miracle reached out expectantly for the dinner while it was still alive and squirming— just how she preferred it. 

“What is that thing!” the man shrieked. 

Trinity cracked her back. In the home stretch now. She bent down again and grabbed the man by the ankles, dragging him toward the ominous red line painted across the floor.

“That thing is my little sister.” Trinity huffed in annoyance. Miracle strained against the chains, tearing the skin of her neck, although blood never came out anymore. 

With a thud, Trinity dropped his ankles on the other side of the red line and backed away. Like a striking snake Miracle grabbed them and yanked his body close. The man rolled like an alligators with prey but to no avail. Once you were past the red line, you were dead.

Trinity never stayed for the feedings and was on the other side of the red door before the sound of ripping flesh could make her vomit. 

Miracle was still young and played with her food, crying flooded Trinity’s ears, so she stomped down the hallway fast. Over and over she reminded herself this was for Miracle, this was for her sister,  as static from the handheld radio drowned the pained wails out.

“Trinity,” her mother rocked in Pa’s old chair, the one Miracle or Trinity were never allowed to sit in, “we need to speak about your sister.”

Everything regarding Miracle was an argument now. Her shoulders slumped in exhaustion already as she stared at the back of that rigid chair. The place her mother hardly left anymore.

“I can’t even call it that anymore. That’s not my daughter. Not my little Miracle.” her mother rubbed her own stomach as she stared out the window. Lost in days of the past. Days when Miracle was still celebrated as a miracle. 

“Don’t talk about her like that.” Trinity spit.

“We need to kill it.” she bunched her skirts up, hovering over the c section scar she used to boast about. 

This thing gave me two girls! Two angels!

“Don’t you say that.” Trinity grit her teeth, “Don’t you ever say that again!”

“You’re not thinking straight. Can’t you see what she’s doing? It’s an act, Trinity. She’s been toying with us… maybe something the virus does. I wouldn’t know. That thing up there is not my Miracle. Just like—“ she took a shuddering breath now, “—like your Daddy wasn’t right in the end.”

“A nine year old?” Trinity scoffed, “a nine year old is tricking me? Into what? Chaining her to a wall?”

“Twelve now. Her body doesn’t grow anymore but these three years still happened. That thing doesn’t care for either one of us. It only says what it knows will get it food.”

“And this virus makes Miracle color little pictures too?” 

“Do you remember when your father was first bitten? The days after… he wrote a lot in his journals. I haven’t the heart to read them yet, but I remember the days before I shot him. He was begging to hold my hand one last time, and promised to control himself. I had to dig my ring out of his stomach.” 

In the setting rays of sun shining through the window, her mother lifted her left hand to display the missing digits with a shiny wedding ring on her pointer finger. No ring or pinkie and only half a middle finger. She’d cut that one off just to be safe. Trinity swallowed. 

“Mama, it’s still her in there. I know it. Someone must be coming with a cure soon.” Trinity’s voice cracked. 

“Trinity. I didn’t raise a hopeless fool. We can’t avoid this altercation any longer.” she palmed the handgun on her lap. Cool metal seemed to drop the temperature of the room by ten degrees. 

“Mama ple—“

“I think,” she interrupted, “that I’ll go with her. My David. My Miracle. What else is there to be here for?”

Trinity clenched and unclenched her fists, willing the tears not to fall.

“Please don’t leave me.”

The rocking chair creaked to a halt, a heavy sigh cracking the air like lightning as every hair on Trinity’s body stood on end.

“I’m spent, my darling girl. I’ve tried to be strong for you and only you. I can’t any longer.”

Trinity walked to the front of the chair, her mother’s gaze shaking her to the core, it was like staring at a cadaver. Kneeling, Trinity placed her head in a lap she knew every curve, scar, and bump to. Two and a half fingers ran through her hair in the silence that accompanies the sun setting. They would stay in that position all night. 

Until the man upstairs stopped crying.

Until the sun made another appearance through the window. 

Until Trinity’s knees ached and her tears dried.

Until her mother stopped humming a lullaby. 

Until their eyes were equally determined. Equally devoid of the fire for life their family was known for.

“I’ll do it.” Trinity said, hoarse and deep from the waking nightmare she was having. Her mother simply nodded, kissing her forehead and cheeks, then her nose. Something she used to do after every nightmare. 

“Give Miracle my love.” she smiled for the first time in months. 

With a popping of joints, Trinity stood, brushing stray pieces of hair back into her mother’s braid. 

“I… I just need to say… well—“

“I know honey. My Trinity.” her mother placed the hand gun into Trinity’s sweat soaked palm. “I love you too.”

Trinity nodded, out of tears. She started the trek down the hall, unflinching when the rifle went off from that old rocking chair by the time she reached the red door.

Trinity was her Pa’s daughter, she checked the ammo, making sure the chambers were loaded and the safety off. A laugh slipped out of her at the thought of her Pa seeing her ignore all his warnings. 

Never take the safety off!

Never point the gun at a person!

She couldn’t even recognize that laugh hanging in the air. It was a foreign sound, like a chattering party or the words Be Careful, no she hadn’t found something funny in almost three years.

Without preamble, Trinity opened the door for the last time. Miracle had eaten through the legs and started on the face. For some reason she always loved the noses. 

“Time for bed doll.” Trinity beckoned. Miracle hissed and yanked at the chains, thrashing and scratching in the air to ward away her non-existent competition. 

Back when Trinity was an only child, her parents were thrill seekers and nature enjoyers, camping trips were a normal routine in the small family’s lives. 

The last one—the summer her mother found out she was pregnant—Trinity ran ahead on the trail. Her bulky backpack sloshed with iridescent stones and unfortunate insects in jars, out of breath she cartwheeled a corner (it was also the year she gave the cheer squad a try. That only made her realize she liked looking up skirts… not cheering) and saw a cougar. 

Right there, face to face with a predator crouched on all fours, licking its chops of residue blood from the ripped open deer in front of it. Looking back, it never made sense. Cougars are ambushers, they hide their kills and themselves by instinct, but here one was staring at Trinity.

Her hand shook as she lifted her disposable camera to capture the stare, that deadlock calculation only a predator possesses. After the flash, it screamed, bellowing a warning before lunging into the tree line. 

As Trinity watched her sister, she saw those same eyes, heard those same hisses and knew. This wasn’t her sister. This wasn’t the girl who cried when she stepped on a flower or made cookies for the nursing residents with no visitors. 

Miracle really was dead. 

“Come on darling, time to go to sleep. I know you must be tired.” Trinity crossed the painted red line and laid in the dusty queen bed. Miracle never slept, but Trinity had insisted the bed remain for when they found a cure.

Miracle would be awful tired after they found a cure. 

Before the dust even settled, Miracle was crawling into the bed with Trinity, eyeing the hand gun like a cat might. Suspicious of everything, but in the dark of any true purpose for the contraption. 

Trinity lined their foreheads up to touch, pretending the rotten flesh of her sister still held warmth, and slid her arm under Miracle’s head. There was a beat where their breathing synced, where Miracle’s eyes unfogged and she kissed Trinity on the forehead then the cheeks. 

“Is it going to be over now?” Miracle asked as their noses touched. Although it was rancid, Trinity breathed in every last breath of her sister. Someone needed to cherish her. 

“Yeah. I think it’s time we take a rest. What do you think?”

Miracle nodded once. She edged even closer as Trinity lined the barrel on the back of Miracle’s head. Though Miracle ate people, Trinity couldn’t bear to show her the violence about to happen. 

Clouded eyes traced every inch of Trinity’s face before landing on her nose. The same nose their mother had passed along to Trinity and not Miracle. The one thing that was Trinity’s and only Trinity’s. Blunted, decayed teeth began tearing into that nose. 

Trinity took a deep breath. She laughed one more time to try and leave this house with happiness. She didn’t want the depression to sink into the house’s bones.

She pulled the trigger.