My Hamster Massacred My Family

“Hey kid, no one blames you for this butchery, you know that don’t you?” The police lady speaking to Sam chews gum at a nervous rate of repetitions, picking dirt from under her painted fingernails as she does so; anything to avoid eye contact. She is as round as a beach ball, so round the top button of her khaki pants is unfastened. Her red hair is short, like the Marine sergeants Sam idolizes in war movies he and his dad stream. Marine sergeants, however, don’t wear pink lipstick. She smells too, but not like the girls Sam knows, which is just his mom and older sister Charlotte. This woman smells like his gym class, of sweat and aerosol deodorant. Yep, Sam decides, staring down at his blood-soaked t-shirt; the police lady smells like a teenage boy. Only worse because most teenage boys Sam knows don’t chain-smoke menthol cigarettes, the ones that come 40 to a pack. The police officer smells nothing like his mom, who leaves the house each morning to sell houses smelling sweet, like roses and summer.

 Did. Sam reminds himself. His mom did smell of roses. She is in the past tense now.

He reads her name tag, Officer Waters, and sees crumbs of cinnamon sugar hanging off untrimmed whiskers that protrude horizontally from her chin, or should that be chins? Sam is only 14, and doesn’t know too much, but he knows enough to know something is up with Officer Waters. He takes a moment to study her from the top step of the front porch stairs where he has planted himself – the night is cool and he needs the fresh air, away from the rusty stench of fresh blood. Crazy. Here she is, standing in the middle of a bloodbath, four bodies ferociously massacred and she looks pleased with herself. Sam is no stranger to this look; he’s seen it a dozen times. It’s the look Charlotte has every time her phone goes “Bing!” with another dumbass text message from that dumbass jock boyfriend of hers, Gunner. (Is that really a name, Sam wondered out loud when he first had to shake the dipshit’s hand.) Every time Sam sees Gunner, and his goon squad of blonde-haired jocks, he just wants to puke. Though now his sister is upstairs, laying in a pool of her own gore, her throat torn to shreds and her blood-stained cheerleader body stiffening with rigour mortis, Sam guesses he won’t be seeing too much of Gunner anymore. Well, at least one good thing came out of tonight’s massacre.

“This is all my fault.”

Who cares, thinks Officer Sally. Truth-be-told, Sally can’t believe her good fortune. Girl, you just won the lottery. She feels so lucky she struggles to hide her glee. She never had a good poker face, but if there is one time to master one, it’s tonight. She looks down at the monstrous brat she is ordered to watch and sees big fat wads of $100 bills. She takes a moment to consider him. He’s so scrawny she could bench press him, and that sickly-sweet face framed by a well-barbered crop of brown hair, matted in parts by clots of drying blood, is pot marked with pimples. A part of Sally just wants to get her chipped nails and squeeze the puss out of them. Worst of all, he reeks of privilege. Stinks of it. Like privilege is dog shit, and he stood in it. She only needs to look down at his Airforce One’s - who buys a 14-year-old the latest Nikes? - to know this kid doesn’t want for anything. But what really gets her goat is his teeth. Sally sees a perfect set of fangs every time the little monster smiles. If her mom wasn’t such a deadbeat, marrying jerks and spending the few dimes she earned working the cash register at Walmart (and padded out with welfare checks and food stamps) on cigarettes and bottles of Yellow Tail Sauvignon Blanc from Australia, then maybe she too would have a set of nice teeth.

Sally is a betting girl and would wager a sawbuck that some kid knocks those pearly whites right out his smirking grin the first night he beds down in juvenile detention for slaughtering his family. She has not seen the carnage herself, but she hears the officers investigating the blood bath upstairs puking into brown paper bags Detective Johnson has handed out. "It's sickening up there, boys, more like a human abattoir than someone's home." Not being one of the boys, Johnson told Sally to wait downstairs and look after the kid. She was pissed until she had her come to Jesus’ moment.

It is dark, past 8 pm. Sam is hungry. He hasn't eaten since breakfast though he dares not ask for food. When your family lay viciously butchered upstairs, their innards used to re-decorate the bedrooms like the killer took cues from an episode of Good Bones, the television decorating show, being hungry is the last thing you should be. Sam watches enough television cop shows to know the drill, but everything happening right now is so surreal, so not of this world, he feels he stepped into an episode of Stranger Things.

The front yard of Sam's house is a rodeo of cops, ambulance officers, onlookers, and, of course, television news crews. He's watched the shenanigans for the past ten minutes since he was ushered downstairs and into the waiting arms of that human beachball. First, there was one news crew from the local station, then one more, then another two, and now there must be 10, including Fox and CNN. It reminds him of pigeons in the park. Start feeding one, and before you know it, there is a flock in a feeding frenzy before your eyes. Sam hears a noise and cranes his head left. Mr Simpson's torso is lying in an open body bag that a man with a ponytail, wearing a jacket that reads CORONER, is about to zipper close. Mr Simpson is - was - a nosy neighbour, always causing grief for Sam's mom, popping over at inappropriate times of the day, an empty sugar bowl in one hand as he rattled the front door with the other. "Mrs Baker, it's Mr Simpson. Are you home?" Sam smiles, remembering his mom, rolling her eyes and making an imaginary gun with her thumb and forefinger, holding her hand up towards the front door and pulling the imaginary trigger, mouthing the word "kapow".

Two police officers with flashlights now search the trimmed hedge that separates the two properties - his and theirs - for Mr Simpson's head. It is missing. Sam wonders if Roger - that's the name of his hamster - ate it or tossed it aside. Roger eats grains and pieces of lettuce, so Sam can't imagine he would have an appetite for a head. Then again, who thought Roger could do this?

Officer Waters takes a handkerchief from her pants pocket, spits into the top corner and brings it to Sam's face to sponge off the blood. She knows she shouldn't - it might be evidence, but she needs this kid to trust her and fast. "There, there," she says, feigning empathy. "What a night you've had." Sam does not know this, but Officer Waters earlier had taken her iPhone and turned on the recording app, placing the phone in her top pocket.

Sally Waters has always wanted to be rich. Rich like those women on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Atlanta, even those Jersey bitches. Nothing she did, however, landed a dime in her pocket. Her lotto tickets each week lost; the girls she dated, the ones she met on Tinder and down at the saloon bar on a Saturday night - if she wasn't hauling her fat arse doing overtime - were as broke as she was. Weekly trips to the casino left her with a hangover and an empty purse.

Then, not too long ago, she and some other cops were slurping coffee and scoffing doughnuts over at Dunkin Donuts on 54^th and 3^rd when one of the cops, she thinks his name was Barry, told a yarn about a cop he knew who got a six-figure payment from one of those tacky tabloid magazines you wade through whilst waiting in line at Walmart, selling them photos of a crime scene he had attended. Sally's ears pricked up. "How much?"

Barry spoke chewing a mouthful of Strawberry Frosted. “One hundred thousand smackeroos.”

And now here she is, Sally Waters, sitting next to a snotty-nosed privileged kid who is the main suspect of what will be known as the Sycamore Street Slayings, the most brutal murders anyone in these parts can remember. "Inhuman," one news reporter will describe them; another will use words like ruthless, savage, cruel and merciless. All she must do is coax out his ridiculous story, dash upstairs, take a couple of snapshots and before she knows it, she too will have teeth as perfect as his. Maybe take herself to Cancun for a vacation. Or put a deposit down on one of those condos they are building downtown that look over the river, where the railyard was, and Wholefoods now is. She could afford to join a gym, lose a few pounds, shop somewhere nice and date someone decent.

“So kid, you going to tell me what happened up there. I mean, it’s quiet the mess. You say your hamster did this?”

Sam shifted his weight from one bum cheek to the next. As we said, Sam knows the drill - do not spill your guts (no pun intended) to a police officer without a lawyer present. Everyone knows that. But Sam isn't thinking now. They found Mr Simpson's head but he’s lost his face.

“We were having breakfast.” Sam sobs. “Me, my mom and dad, pancakes with bacon and syrup because it’s Saturday and mom always makes pancakes on a Saturday morning. She never gets the bacon crispy enough though, not like they do at I Hop.”

“I like crispy bacon too.”

I bet you do, Sam thinks, eyeing Officer Water's girth, and continues with his story. "I was just about to help myself to another when Charlotte starts screaming like she is being mauled by a werewolf or something; 'Mom! Mom! Sam's hamster is eating my underwear. Mom!'

“Mom gives me the biggest death stare. ‘Sam!’

“What? I didn’t put him there.

"'We say pardon in this household, not what", My father interjected.

"'Did you put your hamster in your sister's underwear draw?'

“It takes every bit of inner strength I posses not to lol. I can see the blood drain from Mom's face, and my sister wails and weeps upstairs, "Mom!" Mom is white with rage. She snatches the plate in front of me away, knocking over my OJ, and she does so. 'Now look what you made me do?'

"Mom is freaking out, though not as much as my sister, who comes screaming down the stairs, a towel wrapped around her, 'Mom! What am I going to wear? I'm meeting Gunner for breakfast in like 30 minutes.'

"'Sam, get upstairs and get that hamster out of your sister's draw. Right now!'

"'But I haven't finished eating.' I protest.

"'Now! Better still,' she turns towards me, threatening me with a silicon egg flip. "You can get rid of that hamster. Today! Once and for all."

“‘Mom, he’s my only friend.’

“‘Gone today. Otherwise, I will get rid of it, and trust me young man, I’m not shy about sending it down the garbage disposal.”

“‘Mom!’

“Dad says something. He’s such a wimp. Does my head in sometimes. There are two girls in this family and three boys if you include Roger. You'd think we controlled the place right? Nope. Dad is a pussy and always sides with the girls, leaving Roger and me in the minority.

"'Sam, do as your mother says.'

"I scuttle upstairs, get Roger out from my sister's underwear drawer, and retreat to my room, land myself on the end of my bed, cupping Roger in my hand. I hold his whiskered face up to mine and look into his tiny dark round eyes. "I wish you were big, like a gorilla, then they wouldn't be threatening to send you down the garbage disposal. Then you'd have some respect.'

"'I popped him back into his tiny hamster home, jumped onto Facebook, and posted that I was giving away my hamster to a good home. This was just for show; there was no way Roger was leaving my side.

"Mom found my sister some clean undies to wear, and dad took me to my football game; we won 2-1 in extra time and everyone seemed to have forgotten about this morning. I got a few likes on my Facebook post, but no one said they would take Roger away - which was just what I wanted. Then, Saturday night rolled around; I was lying on my bed listening to some music when there was a knock at the door.

"'Sam.' It was mom. 'Mr Simpson from next door is downstairs. He saw your Facebook post and said he is happy to take Roger. He has a nephew who would love a new pet. So, pack him up and bring him downstairs, okay? Sam?'

“What? I couldn’t believe my ears. She wasn’t really going to make me give away Roger was she”

 "'Now, Sam.'

“‘But mom. ‘I cried back.

“‘Now!”

"She handed me a Nike shoe box. I scooped Roger out of his cage and placed him inside. 'Get 'em,' I whispered into his little fury ear and kissed him on the top of the head. He looked up at me, and I swear he winked as if to say, 'I've got this.' I stood at the top of the stairs, watched mom give Mr Simpson the box holding Roger and turned as I heard the door closing. Not a second had passed when we all heard a huge roar followed by a scream. Mom ran to the door, opened it, and became hysterical, slamming the door shut and running up the stairs, 'Jeff, Charlotte, Sam, hide!'.

“And that’s when I saw Roger, the size of a gorilla, come stomping up the stairs, blood dripping from his front two teeth. I ran to my room, slammed the door shut and covered my ears with my hands as the house filled with the screams of my family as my hamster massacred my family.”

Bingo. Sally thought. What a story. I might be able to buy that condo outright.

“Wow kid, some story. Where’s the hamster now.”

"Upstairs, in his house. Once he had finished, I went to the landing and found him in front of my bedroom door, back to his normal size. I picked him up, put him back in his cage, and called 911. I should never have made that wish.”

Sally took the phone from her pocket, closed the voice recorder app, and opened the camera app. “Wait here kid. Don’t move. I’ll be back.”

Gingerly she took a step towards the door, then another and another before she started to move her bulky frame with determination. She needed photos, and now. She bounded up the stairs, past the wall of blood-sprayed photos of smiling privilege, past the forensic team with their flash cameras and tweezers going over every detail, past where Sam's dad lay, his throat torn to shreds. Sally takes her first photo. Wow, she thought. This is going to be so easy. No one noticed her, not the forensic guys, the uniformed officer, and the detectives. This is her life story; no one notices Sally Waters.

Next, she sees the sister's room. She pukes but holds it in her mouth and swallows. It's rough, her stomach churns, and she now wishes she hadn't eaten that last doughnut. She even begins to tremble in horror as she takes her photos, the pure merciless brutality of the slayings. And the blood. How could a 14-year-old do this?

Sally carefully steps around body parts, pools of more blood and gizzards as she tiptoes towards Sam's room. Posters of Marvel superheroes and some Spanish football clubs are tacked to the walls, and against the far wall is a bookcase sagging under the weight of R L Stine novels, dozens of them. Sally has no idea who that is. And there, sitting outside of his cage, licking what must be blood from his paws, is Roger.

“Officer, I thought I told you to look after the kid.” Johnson barks from across the room.

Sally thinks quick.

“He’s cold sir. I thought I’d come up and get him a jacket.”

The detective rolls his eyes; Sally raises her camera to take a photo of Rodger and sees that he has disappeared.

There’s a collective gasp.

Then a brutal growl.

She sees a uniformed officer reach for his holster.

Someone, something, tapped Sally on the shoulder.

She turns

She wants to scream, but only a hiss of air leaves her mouth.

She drops her phone.

Someone is pushing her from behind, screaming run.

But Sally’s feet don’t move.

She is transfixed by the six-foot-high hamster that is bearing down on her. It's two giant front teeth - as perfect as that kid's downstairs – tear at her throat, ripping the life out of her. She can't scream, there is nothing to cry with, and so she falls, her blood spray painting the kid's bedroom a bright red; her last moment of life is hearing a bullet rip through the skull of Roger.