48 Hour Short Story Contest

Year:1930


"Thomas, get up! Don't forget to check the baby before you head to school! I don't want you going hungry either, so come eat," Thomas' mother demanded, side-eyeing him as he was in view with her meaningful order. He knew she would scold him if he refused, but he wanted to get to school early.

"I want to go play before the bells sound."

His mother sighed and told him to go ahead. Ever since I allowed the boy to go to bed without doing his chores, it seems hard to refuse to anything else he stirs up.


At school, two young boys were turning a corner around the schoolyard. The year was long and ached their young minds with lessons they found no interest in.

"I hate being bored. What should we do next to the teacher? Scare her with a tarantuala?"

"Maybe a dead cat. She hates seeing dead animals. "

"There's no way you'll kill a cat. You don't have the guts to-"

The two stopped in their tracks, surprised to see a schoolmate of theirs in front of something. He held a small knife in his hands, a sight that made the two shiver until it hurt.

Thomas turned to face the two boys as he heard they were behind him.

"Hey - Y' want a dead cat?" He moved to let them see a dead feline with grey fur hovered on the grass. The blood of the cat sprinkled on the grass and shone with the sun's light.

"Y- cat killer...?", one of the boys asked. "You're crazy!" With that the two boys dashed off in fright. Thomas stared as he was confused about the situation here.

What's so bad about playing with a cat? "She's just playing dead- asleep!" She'll wake up soon.


Before long his mother caught him walking inside of the house before he could open the door.

"What's this about skipping school, Thomas!? I heard you did something awful again today! Killed a cat?! What's wrong with you! Tell me it isn't true!" she screamed as little tears formed in her eyes. She was holding him by his shoulders as she awaited his answer.

"No I didn't kill her. She's just asleep, mama. She'll be ok," he told her smiling, innocence written on his young face.

Tears of joy spilled down the woman's face as she kissed her son's forehead. "Thank God..."

"Mama, why were you so scared?" Thomas pulled back with attentiveness. By now the two could hear the baby's cries. Instead of answering, his mother walked down the dining room as she picked up her little daughter from the baby carrier.

Rocking her daughter, she told her son, "I have a date tonight. A man around the house will possibly give us more money, and help assure order in this house. I want you to watch your little sister for me while I'm gone. I'll be back by eleven tonight."

Two hours later she locked the house and walked out to a man on a 1930 Indian motorcycle.

"Hey, so's the good kid doin' well?" his soft, gentle voice sounded off with a pitch higher when he said 'good', as his engine roared.

"He's a good kid, I swear. Whatever the people are saying about him isn't true," his mother defended as she hoped onto his motorcycle.

"'K babe, jus' hold on tight." And the engine crackled up as Thomas watched his mother dash off into the blanket of night. His attention was short-lived as he heard his sister wail.

"Ok Charolette, I'll get the milk."


At 10:30 Thomas was holding onto Charolette by her stomach, trying to copy what his mother would do as she would rock the child to sleep. How did she hold her again? I don't know how to do this stuff- it's a girl's job anyways. But his mother expected it out of him. He didn't plan on disappointing her again.

Charolette let out a loud wail as he tried to lift her up some more onto is lap. "Why are you crying now? I'm trying my best here!"

Little did he know the pain she was in. He never could catch anything's own pain and suffering, for his mother never told him the rights from wrongs.

"Shhh," he tried to calm the baby as he tightly held her, feeling like a protector as he held her close. "Please go to bed."

The baby's cries were gasping as he opened his eyes from before's close. "What are you doing? Is this how you fall asleep?"

He released her and she slid off of his legs, and in response he charged for her before she hit the floor. In shock he watched his little sister sleep soundly, like nothing happened.

"Why can't you just keep yourself from falling? And what's the weird noise you made when you were falling asleep?

For another thirty minutes he watched her in his arms. She was so small and little that he couldn't even tell if she was breathing quickly or slowly.

Soon his mother entered the house. "So you kept the door locked this time?" she said as she was getting her key out of the door's lock. Closing the door, she locked it again.

"Mama, I hate watching over Charolette. Why can't someone else?" was his greeting for her return.

"You might have a father to take over."

"I don't want one. You remember how the last one was."
The last one referred to his own father. He remembered the painful hittings on his body and the screaming from his mother from that man. "I don't want someone like papa."

"He's not like your father," her eyes shot him coldly, but then lit up as she walked toward her two children, picking Charolette up from Thomas' arms. "I'm taking her to bed. You get going too."

Joyce walked up the stairs to the baby's room. She carefully placed little Charolette onto the crib bed, tucking her inside of the little covers. She kissed the child on the head, unaware that little Charolette didn't feel the kiss at all.


The next morning Joyce came up into her son's room, gently waking him up by pushing at his shoulders. "Get up- someone's coming over today to watch the baby."

Thomas stretched his arms and wiped his eyes as he felt the sun sting them from his window's opening.

He stared sheepishly at his mother. "What do you mean someone? You're going on a date in the morning?"

Joyce sat next to her son as she smiled, "I'm taking you somewhere special today. Robert wants to give us all a surprise to a special Fun Day."

"Robert's his name, huh?" Thomas growled as he asked this question. His mother put her arms around him in a comforting embrace.

"I promise- he's a good guy."


The two headed down stairs as the door bell rang. Joyce went to open the door, finding that it was the man who was taking her and her son on a glorious date. Next to him was a chubby, sweet smiling woman in her thrities.

"Laya, my step-sister, is the one I told you about last night." The two lovebirds gave each other a light kiss as Laya smiled at Thomas.

"Well he looks like a sweet guy after all. Just a reg'lar boy that does reg'lar things and ev'ryone calls him a murderer," Laya exclaimed, allowing Joyce to let her inside the house. She walked up to the young boy and held out her hand. "So ye like to shake hands like a man? That's fine with me, if ya too shy for a hug." He decided to shake her hand.

"So where's the lil' gal?" Laya asked Joyce as she shimmered in glee.

"Come with me- we'll both get her." Joyce and Laya walked up toward the baby's room as Thomas stated to feel uncomfortable. The man his mother was seeing didn't leave with the women.

"I've heard you don't like your father. But don't worry, I'm not like that man," Robert told the nervous boy. His mother had told him this too, but he never came to think he would ever trust a father again.

"I don't like any father for me. I don't like any person for my mother but me and my sister. I don't like either of us getting hurt."

Robert looked compassionate, but hurt with the needles of the boy's words. As he crouched to be face to face with the boy, he said, "I can't say I'll get you to trust me automatically, but I promise I'll do all I can for you, your sister, and your mother to earn all of y'alls trust. I'm not perfect, I'll go ahead and say. I may do things that may make you mad or your mother, but I promise I'll be there for you. I don't want you to fear me. I don't want you to hate me. The wounds that your father left, I'm here to heal. That's what a good father does. Not taking away the pain, but nursing it. Will you allow me to do that for you, Thomas?"

Thomas' eyes lit up in surprise of what the man said; he didn't expect him to be so comfortable with what the man said.

"Pain? You don't know what that man did to me. If you did, you would understand why I don't need another!" Thomas softly said as he felt tears forming. He didn't want his mother to hear him, only the man himself. He was starting to trust the man already, which to him wasn't a good thing.

"I know your pain- I went through it myself. My father used to get drunk and beat me too. You're not the only child who's suffered abuse, Thomas. So many have. You're not the only one. But I overcame it. It was healed. I hope I can heal yours too."

Thomas couldn't help but feel a smile curve on his face.

Seeing the smile, Robert could sense the opening of the boy, "How 'bout I take you two to get a hamburger? We can go see the mountains afterward. Ever seen a mountain up close?"

Thomas never seen one; his mother never had the money to take him out to something so big and amazing.


Soon, they heard Laya scream, followed by Joyce's screaming of despair. In shock, the two males looked up to where the women's voices were. Robert dashed up the stairs like a cheetah on escasty, leaving Thomas to stare in bewilderment.

"The baby! The baby- she's dead!"

"She was fine last night! No wait...I never checked her! I never checked her!" Joyce's voice spoke after Laya's, with sobs taking over her speech. Thomas made his way, wearingly, up the stairs, confused. How could Charolette be dead?

"She was just sleeping!" Thomas blurted into the room, everyone staring at him except his mother, who rocked Charolette as if she was crying herself. Seeing his mother's tears soak her face like a sponge made him doubt his statement. "She's not dead. She's so not dead. She's asleep- she'll wake up soon!"

His mother turned to face him with a bewildered look. Her tears stopped, and she looked as if a light went off in her head.

"Thomas..what did you do to Charolette last night?" her voice streamed off like a calm, mystic river.

"I held her until she fell asleep," he answered, not sure where his mother was going with the question.

"Did he suffocate her?!" Laya squealed as she started to put two and two together. "The stories...the book-burning, the animal slaughtering... the refusal of church?"

"No, it's not-" his mother, confused of how the truth may be, started, then her son interrupted,

"Yeah you're right, although I don't know what slaughter means," Thomas replied, unaware of how wicked his answer sounded to Laya and her step-brother.

"He's a demon! I have to go! May God bless you from this wickedness!" Laya rushed out of the room, trying to keep herself from panicing until she was out of the house. "The devil's house! That child's the devil!"

Robert tried to act reasonable about the situation. "Why Thomas? Why burn the Bible? Why the animals? Why?"

"It was fun to burn books. I did no harm- it was just paper! I don't like going to church when the preachers say everything's God's plan, because I didn't want anyone to plan on giving me a dad that beat me like a wall! They say everthing's going to be ok in the Light, but look now! That bastard left and we're dirt poor, running out of food- out of time! I don't even know what slaughtered means! But I didn't hurt Charolette, and she's not dead! She's just sleeping!" Thomas could feel his nerves popping all over his body, enraged with the past he was remembering, feeling the fire burn his skin as the anger grew.
"What good is God if He couldn't keep the pain that came from that man! He hurt me so many ways I don't want to talk about it! Mama doesn't even know it all! " he heard his voice grow dark as he said the last part, and tears strolled down his eyes.

"Wha..."Joyce felt a swirl of sight encircle her. "There was more...?" Joyce fell to her knees as her dead baby girl was held to her chest.

"She's dead, Thomas. How tight did you hold her? And for how long?" Robert opened sound in the silence as Joyce cried harder, rocking herself as Thomas tried to understand what was going on.


"Hang the demon! Let us clear the evil in God's land!"

Joyce snapped out of her world as she looked to her son. Thomas could see that time passed by so quickly that the sky just turned dark a little.

"Why are they saying demon, mama? What does hang mean?"

Robert could see the fear rising inside of Joyce. Grabbing ahold of her son's hand, he delcared," You two need to leave! This town is run by religious accusation! It'll be just as the Salem trials! Damn good- for-nothin' step-sis! And I thought she was different by now!"

With that he and Joyce rushed down the stairs side by side, one holding a dead baby, the other dragging along a confused child.

As Robert led them to the back door, Thomas wailed, "Why are we running like this? What's wrong?"

"It's ok, Thomas, just stay by your mother. I'll hoard them off. Just get away from this town," Robert handed Thomas to his mother, then kissed the woman passionately. "I understand a lot of why Thomas' the way he is now. I understand it clearly." He knew he also suffered like the boy, but the pain Thomas felt was far worse. "Whatever you do, don't let them get him." With that he sent the two off, and Joyce held her son's hand as she forced him to run, following the moon into the dark woods in the cold, dark night.

They both could hear a dog's bark. Joyce didn't have time to let the fear of being caught stop her though. She knew her boy was different- maybe needed some help- but whatever happened wasn't on purpose. He was all she had left.

"Don't look back, son. I'll never let you experience pain ever again."

They rushed like the wind through the loads of trees as the dog's bark got louder.

"Mama, why's a dog barkin' like that? It sounds so scary," Thomas couldn't help but say as he looked back in curiousity, seeing a small form appear from way behind them.
"There's something coming for us!"

"I told you not to look back!" Joyce held her son's hand harder as she pushed him to run faster. "There's no way they'll be nice about it. They think you did this all on purpose. I am sorry you had to go through what your father did, but why did you hold Charolette so tight?" Her tears started to take over her rationality again, and before she knew it she had halt and fell to the floor.

"The dog's coming- I can't go on- you keep running!" Joyce told her son as he stared down at her, scared stiff to move.

"Go!" She screamed in agony.

"I can't leave you!" He responded back, standing like a statue with tree roots stuck in the ground.

"I don't want them to kill you!" She looked into his confused, worn eyes as his tears formed when hers fell.

"Why would they kill me!?" He yelled with anger, refusing to leave her.

Joyce could see the dog, being a bloodhound, and before she knew it, she stood up and charged at her son, wailing like a hit animal. She ran with him in her arms, crying in pain with the harsh wind tearing at her lungs.


"Mama!"

The dog caught up to them and avoided the baby corpse, heading straight for Joyce. He attacked Joyce's leg, causing her to scream in extreme pain, tripping on the experience of anxiety as she landed hard on her son.

The dog started to tear at her leg, but didn't leave it as she looked one final time at her son. She held him tighter, and before he could gasp he became nauseated.

"I won't let them hurt you. I won't let you suffer again."

The people caught up to where the dog's barks were, finding a woman atop of her son. They realised the boy was dead, and instantly comforted the limping woman as they saw her sobbing uncontrollably.

"You did the right thing, Joyce. Your son wasn't like the rest. He wasn't a human, he was a demon as your son." But Joyce cried softly in emotional pain.

I couldn't let them hurt you...


3000 words.
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