Who killed Mom and Dad, Jack?

Trigger warning: child abuse

Dewinton, 1990

My parents weren’t the same as other parents. They didn’t take us to school or buy us clothes. Mom didn’t pack our lunches or read us bedtime stories, and Dad didn’t play ball with us or mow the lawn. That’s what other kids said about their parents. 

Mom never really said anything, she just giggled. Dad was always swinging his wooden bat around. Mom laughed when Dad swung his bat around, and she laughed harder when it struck us. 

Stop moving around! He howled with his guttural, raspy voice. Just take a hit! 

I was twelve years old when they died. It was New Year’s eve. They came home from work, pale and sweating, scratching, new needle marks laced their arms. Their skin burned to the touch, yet they shivered. Mom stumbled around, leaning against Dad for support. I wondered why they liked those needles so much. I wondered if they were drunk too. 

“What’s wrong Dad?” It’ll be fine, he told me, drugs make everything better. 

Oh was Dad wrong.

They laughed and smoked all night. Mom’s head rested on Dad’s lap, and they held hands. Mom comforted Dad, repeating over and over that she loves him and that everything will be fine, but he was always too frantic to listen to her, too busy yelling and swearing at me and my little brother, Tim. Timmy made me laugh, and he always had his nose in a book, which made him smarter than me, so I stepped in front of him when Dad swung his bat. I miss Timmy.

I remember how my Dad’s face glistened with sweat, stress beaded across his forehead. Mom’s face dripped with tears, damp with despair. The sounds of their short shaky breaths, their lighter flicking over and over again, used needles dropping onto the wooden floor over and over again, echoing throughout the house. A chill crawled up my spine as the cracking of wood splintering against skulls echoed in my head.

Our house was dim, shadows flickered, cast by flames in the fireplace. I remember I could see my breath, clouds of desperation escaping my lips, hung in the cold darkness. Outside, the sky was sombre and Jenny, my twin sister, had crawled under the deck. We tried to get her to come back inside but she threw dirt at us, so Timmy and I sat, wrapped in blankets, watching Mom and Dad for hours. When they eventually fell asleep, Dad’s bat was unattended. It was heavy, that’s what I remember, and the old, dry wood poked at my palms as my fingers wrapped around the handle. 

As the night went on, their groans grew louder, the bat swung harder, and their heads bloodier. 

I hated that bat. 

Mom and Dad laid on the floor. I saw the life leave their eyes. Half-used needles dangled from their arms. Their bodies limp, as though giant hands wrung them out like dish cloths. Red circles pooled around them. I watched as Mom’s heartbeat slowed and Dad’s lungs gave one last shudder. 

You killed them, Jack!

Jenny screamed.

No Jenny. The needles did.

Timmy died too. The bat hit him only once, but too hard. I sat in my corner, wrapped up in blankets, scared and helpless, pretending it was all just a nightmare and I’d soon wake up.

***

Dewinton Penitentiary, 2002 

Twelve years later, for the thousandth time, Jenny and I talk about Mom and Dad.

“I miss them.” Her voice is full of sadness and grief, the kind of sadness that when heard, I felt too. We’re sitting, crouched in the corner of my dark dark cell. I’ve been in the hole for weeks because a guard said I stabbed him. There’s no bed in the hole. No sunlight. Just four cold walls and the smell of my piss and shit. 

And Jenny.

Her head rests on my shoulder and she’s holding my hand but I hadn’t noticed until she tightened her grip. Her fingers cling around mine with urgency, and I look over at her face and see a tear run down her cheek, her eyes wet, ready to pour. I turn so that we’re face to face and wipe the tear away with my thumb.

“I miss them too Jenny but there’s nothing we can do about it. It was an accident.” I mumble the last part. It was an accident, but Jenny doesn’t think so.

“You need to wake up! Can you tell me, brother, why are you the only one alive?” She cries. I stand, leaving her in the corner, and start pacing.

“Stop. I hate questions.” I feel dizzy, Jenny floating in and out of sight.

“Oh baby brother, you were never the smart one.” 

“You think someone murdered them.” I clarify, Jenny’s words jumbled in my head. I know that’s what she thinks, but she doesn’t know what she’s saying. 

The needles killed our parents. Right?

I hope one day she’ll change her mind so we stop arguing. She narrows her eyes at me and I take a long, deep breath. I’m growing tired of her games.

“They were murdered.” She spits, angry.

“Jenny please” I roll my eyes. Why does she argue with me? She must know by now that I’m right.

“No! What are you gonna do Jack? Kill me?!” Her voice hysterical as she cries harder, hiding her face, and I don’t know what to say. I stutter and start crying too. Memories resurface: blood drips from the corner of Mom’s mouth onto her gentle hands, my brother sobs, Jenny screams. 

She doesn’t stop screaming. Her screech rips through my ears.

Dad’s soaked in sweat, and I hear the thud of his head against the floor. 

Jenny turns to me then, her face red and puffy. She stares at me, any emotion void from her eyes, which seem entirely black and she’s smiling. I start punching the wall, cold concrete splitting my knuckles open.

"Who killed Mom and Dad Jack? Who killed Timmy?" Her questions don’t make sense. She lets out a giggle, my anger amusing her.

“Who killed them baby brother?” She repeats, over and over. She reaches for my dinner tray, food still untouched. She whips it across the cell at my head but misses, mush splattering across the walls. I offer her a smile. She thinks she’s quick, but I’m quicker. 

I take one more deep breath before I sit next to her, wrapping her tight in my arms, partly because I want to console her, but mostly because I don’t want her to leave me.

“Why, Jack, why did you do it? WHY? WHY?” I whisper reassurances in her ear, but she repeats the same meaningless word, over and over again.

***

Hours, maybe days later, it’s hard to keep track of time in the hole, Jenny finally stops crying. We haven’t moved from the corner, every muscle in my body is weak.

“Do you wanna know who did it Jack?” she asks me, her voice thick and mischievous. Her head nestles into my chest and my arms wrap around her.

“Jenny you know it was the drugs. They killed themselves. They weren’t good parents.” They were drug addicts. Why does she care about them? They’re gone.

“You’re not thinking right Jack.” She mutters. There’s nothing else to say. There’s nothing to do but stare at the concrete walls. I wait until she closes her eyes and falls asleep, then I try to take my arm out from under her head, though it gets caught in her long, tangled red hair. She stirs and looks around with sleepy eyes. She’d always been a light sleeper. Since the day Mom and Dad died, if I wasn’t holding her she couldn’t sleep. 

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“Nowhere, my arm’s falling asleep. Sorry.” She turns her head to the side and grins.

“Sing to me” she demands, and we both laugh, knowing all too well I can’t sing. But I pull her closer in my arms and start humming the melody Mom always sang. The song echoes off the grey, concrete walls. Distant voices holler:

“Shut the fuck up!”

“Psycho!”

“Kid killer!”

I wrap my arms tighter around Jenny, but she’s not there anymore.

***

The front page of the Dewinton Newspaper Headline reads:

"Kid Killer" Jack Sammy Murders Half a Dozen Innocent Jail Guards

Thirteen years ago today, infamous "Kid Killer" Jack Sammy, brutally murdered his parents and siblings in their family home with a baseball bat at just 12 years old. James has been on death row at the penitentiary institution in Dewinton for 9 years. But last night, he struck again, killing 6 prison guards with a single towel. According to the Dewinton Police department, one of the victims, a new prison guard that had only worked at the Dewinton Institution for a week, told Jack that he had a visit from his parents, mistaking him for another inmate. Upon hearing that his parents were visiting him, Jack went on a killing spree within the prison, holding several inmates hostage, and murdering 6 prison guards.