Read Online The Silent Girls by Eric Rickstad - Free Book Online

Dad said, “thought maybe you’d like a piece o’ Porkchop.”
    “I’m good,” Rath said.
    “ She’s good. Fifty bucks.” His finger slipped inside the 625 JM’s trigger guard.
    Rath felt his balls tighten. He had to get out of there. He inched his chair back.
    A tomcat the size of a Labrador retriever lapped blood from the baking pan, hissed at the other feral felines who eyed the blood.
    “Cheapskate, huh?” Dad moved his hand from the .45 and picked up the .22. It nearly disappeared in his palm. He folded his arms across his chest, tipping back a bit in a chair two sizes too small for him. “Or are you queer?”
    “Yeah, that’s it.”
    Rath glanced at the deer leg.
    Drip. Drip.
    “Well,” Rath said, “it seems you’d rather speak to a real cop.”
    Dad considered this as if he were trying to figure out the quantum physics of Time’s Arrow. He looked hard at Rath. His eyes had lost their milkiness and were bright and clear now, crazed.
    A cat stood on its hind legs, stretched to rip its claws along the meat, shredding it.
    Dad kicked the cat, and it bared its fangs. Dad aimed the pistol square at Rath’s chest. Smiled. Then he swung the .22 at the deer leg and fired a round. The cats didn’t flinch. They seemed used to it. It was only a .22, but would still kill Rath at that range. It might take awhile, hours, but it’d do the trick eventually.
    Dad leaned back, a madman’s smirk seeping across his face. Rath sprang then, shoved the table hard so it struck Dad’s fat gut, and Dad sucked in air with a whump, his chair teetering, arms pinwheeling, and eyes blowing up. “What —”
    Rath shoved the table harder. Dad toppled back and hit the floor so hard, empty beer bottles fell and smashed. The back of Dad’s head struck the counter edge as he went down, and he lay there making blubbering, snoring sounds, blood leaking from an ear.
    Porkchop ran into the room, pupils huge, teeth clenched. She eyed the .22 on the floor. Rath kicked it under the stove and glared at her. “Get out,” he said. She glared back. “ Now, ” he ordered. And suddenly all her teen bravado evaporated, and she was a scared child. She ran out through the living room and threw open the door and crashed down the fire escape.
    Dad was hoisting himself up, eyes locked on Rath, homicidal. Rath grabbed the .45 as Dad came at him, his head down and his arms wide. Rath raised the .45, but Dad hit him square in the solar plexus before he got it all the way up. The wind left Rath, and his vision splintered in silver explosions as he landed on his back. He howled when Dad fell on him, and his spine felt as if it were being crushed.
    Rath tried to get the .45 out from between him and Dad as Dad rose, hauling Rath up by the neck, and tossed him across the kitchen as if he were a dirty sock. Rath smashed hard against the cold slickness of the deer leg, then struck the refrigerator’s door handle with his spine as a blinding pain ignited in him, and he collapsed on the floor. He thought he would pass out, his vision spongy, the world warbly. A hive of bees droned in his ears, and he smelled the ocean.
    The .45 lay on the floor beside him, light-years away. He stretched his fingers for it, his eyes leaking hot tears of pain. He got a hand on the revolver’s grip as Dad tossed the table aside and bore down on him.
    Dad was reaching for the .45, and Rath shook his head, no no. Dad backhanded Rath across the face, the stone of his ring taking a chunk of Rath’s cheek.
    Rath kicked Dad hard, square in the ankle. Dad hopped in pain, and Rath drove the heel of his boot into Dad’s kneecap. Dad crashed on the table, the table imploding under his mass.
    Rath stood, grinding his teeth against the savage wreck of his back, and grabbed the .45. He caught Dad trying to gain his feet again and jammed the .45 to his forehead. “I’ll paint the floor with whatever’s inside that fucking skull of yours instead of brains.” He pressed the muzzle