I Saw My Father Kill My Mother

When I was ten years old, I saw my mother lying on the floor in my parents’ bedroom. I didn’t understand why she wasn’t moving, or why my father was standing over her, holding a hammer. He spotted me, dropped the hammer, and scooped me up into his arms.

“It’s ok, buddy. Everything is going to be ok. Mommy can’t hurt us anymore,” he whispered.

I didn’t react in any way; I could only stare at my mother’s corpse.

My father got rid of my mother’s body, but he never told me how. He told me what to say to the police, and I complied. Not because I was afraid, but I think it had to do with the fear in my father’s eyes. I couldn’t explain it at the time, but it wasn’t the fear of getting caught that scared my father.

It was something to do with my mother, but I didn’t know why. She was dead. He killed her. Why was he afraid of her?

The police never figured out what happened to my mother, and it remained that way for years to come. I went to college, flunked out, and I never married or had kids. My father was disappointed, but when he looked at me, thirty years later, the two of us side by side drinking beer, he only said:

“I’m just glad you’re safe. Your mother can’t hurt you as long as I am here.”

“Why did you kill her, dad? Please. Tell me.”

My father shook his head. “I can’t.”

I protested, but he stopped speaking to me after that. I later tried again, but it was always the same. No answer, or he would change the subject completely. One day, my father suggested that we go fishing.

We rowed out to the lake on a boat, and took out our fishing poles to hopefully catch our dinner for tonight. My father was whistling a tune, but suddenly stopped, and cranked his neck in one direction, staring off into the woods.

“Dad? What’s wrong?”

“We need to go back. Now.”

My father and I put everything away, and rowed as quickly as we could back to shore. I was about to pick up our stuff, but he grabbed my arm.

“No. We will come back for that later. It’s us she wants.”

My father started to run, shocking me with his speed. For a man about to hit seventy years of age, he was surprisingly fast. I ran after him, and I thought I could faintly hear a cry out in the woods. It sounded like that of a fox, but it was too odd to be an animal.

My father waited until I reached the cabin, and he locked us inside.

“Go to my bedroom. She won’t be able to reach us there.”

I ran into the bedroom, and my father followed, holding a gun. He locked us inside, and lifted up the old, ugly carpet that my parents had in their room for years. A strange symbol was etched into the wood. It was red, and I had a bad feeling that it was blood.

A cackle from outside of the window made me gasp. It was a woman’s voice, but something was wrong with her.

“Dad…who is that? Why are we supposed to stay in here?”

“Your mother. She can’t reach us in here.”

I remained quiet for the rest of the evening. The silence felt threatening, and the cackling did not stop until the next day. I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep, and when I awoke, my father was sitting on the bed, holding the gun.

“She’s gone. Now we can go back for the fishing gear.”

“I thought you killed her,” I said softly.

“I did. It wasn’t enough to keep her down for long.”

“What is going on here, dad? What happened that night?”

My father blinked back tears, and turned away from me.

“Something bad got in your mother. I had to kill her, but that thing never left your mother’s body. She kept going after us for years, but I found a way to keep her at bay.”

He pointed at the red symbol on the floor.

“But this spell can only last for so long. Once it fully breaks, she will be able to break into the house. God knows what that thing will do to both of us.”

“But why didn’t it go after me when I left home?”

“The spell can protect your loved ones wherever you go.”

“Why can’t you…do the spell again?”

“It’s best if you don’t know that part.”

We both grew silent after that. My father and I retrieved the fishing gear, and I found myself searching the woods, wondering if we were being watched. My father did the same, and we both acted like a paranoid mess before we made it home.

Every day, it became worse. The cackling would resort to my mother crying, calling out my name, or telling my father she loved him. Hearing her voice again made my heart ache, and I hid my tears from my father as he stared at the bedroom door, gun in hand.

The day came eventually, when she was able to break down the door into our home. My father lifted up his shotgun, and I had a baseball bat. It was one of the few sports I played in college, so it would have to do.

“I love you, son. And I’m sorry.”

“I know dad.”

My mother was now at the bedroom door, cackling.

Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn