Little Girl (Retribution)

Little Girl
(Retribution)
by: Jesse Haltom
The candles covering the sills on the windows dripped wax onto the carpeted floor in puddles around the dolls that lay underneath. Glass eyes staring into nothing, they seemed so sad, their hair brushed to where it was smooth, but no one to play with them. The pitiful stubs soon went out, a darkness settling into the room. A doll with long curls of blonde hair was in the middle of the floor, half under the four-post bed with the pink silk canopy being it’s shelter. Little girl’s clothes were strewn around the room, quite a mess amongst the stuffed animals and other playthings. A little music box sat upon an oak dresser, a ballerina in a delicate tutu of lace spinning to music someone had twisted it into not too long ago. Stains of the deepest crimson were still wet on the white carpet, a maniacal splattering that upset the otherwise childlike enchantment the room held. In the closet, the door held open by a single book-A book of fairytales a little girl and boy would most likely enjoy, the page opened to an illustration of the beautiful Sleeping Beauty- blue eyes on a pale porcelain face stared out through blankets and sheets, through darkness and death at the ballerina, its spin slowly coming to an abrupt stop.

Sweet little girl, she was. So young and innocent. So lovely in the taffeta dresses she seemed to always wear for her parent’s many guests.


The candlelight dinner the mother and father had, between a bouquet of the most lovely roses and through the gentle haze the wine had put in their eyes, a little girl interrupted. Eyes open to never blink, in a foggy anticipation she limped to where they sat, not noticing her until she was standing right before them. They both stopped drinking the delightfully sweet drink and turned to her, faces the very definition of shock.

It was so horrible what happened to her... That her mother and father could not have saved her from that retched man, Mr. Glen... Their very own butler... The pervert.... murderer...

The woman cried out in terror, and dropped the wine glass, it shattering on marble floor at her feet. The little girl’s eyes as black as the floor stared at them with fiery malice mixed with a horrid child-like wonder and she was holding the knife that had been stuck in her stomach, through the blood-stained dress covered in frills and pink bows. When she pulled it out, a disgusting noise of putrid meat being cut, made her mother’s face go green ever so slightly and her father grimace in disgust before he stood, shakily to his feet. The open windows blew the ghost-like curtains around the rose-papered walls and the moon stood dominant outside above the tress of the woods, holding the little girl in enchantment as she turned to greet it, as if it were a long-lost companion she hadn’t seen in years. Tightening her grip on the handle to the dull blade, she was so transfixed on the night sky that she didn’t seem to notice her father coming behind her, palms open, as if to try and kill her but a second time. “The ni-ght was the la...st thing I saw,” she whispered, through her swollen and yellowed lips, pus and blood stringing out with every horrifying mechanical word. He was behind her now, the moon reflecting the black of his hair, as his lips trembled, trying to form words for the justification of something he thought would never be found out. “Bef-ore I saw... The blood... And the dark-ness.” He wrapped his hands around her little swollen neck, the scent of rot from a day being in the humid closet filling his nostrils... He tightened his grip as the mother shrieked, now against the far wall, next to a family photo framed in gold, and her blonde hair so like her little girl’s loose from it’s bow and falling into her eyes in tight curls.

Her eyes turned away from the moon, though she still seemed slightly distracted, her neck moving mechanically to face her father, in a twisted smile and a fiery glint to the black pools of her eyes. He froze in terror, “I killed you! You’re dead.... Stay away...!” He screamed when he saw the shine of the blade and what the smile meant. “I’m not dead, dad-dy... I’m truly alive... I can mo-ve... I can hear... I can se-ee... And I can... tas-te...” She lifted the blade and licked it of all the blood, a long black tongue making him scream louder as her mother near-fainted. He still had a sweaty grip around her neck, though he felt thoroughly weakened and trembling, cold to the bone, though the hot and sour-smelling air blew all around the family. She pulled the knife back. “Don’t do it! Nooo!” her mother shrieked, a pitiful heap of lovely pearls and tears on the cold floor. She plunged it into his groin, a loud groan escaping his pale lips and blood dripping down from the wound to the floor, while she looked at him with aberrant disgust. “No more childr-en... Dada,” she pulled it out and he gripped the wound, falling to the floor. She stood over him, a halo of moonlight over her honey hair made her seem, perhaps an angel to her father, his sight blurred from the white never-ending flash of pain, “No more... Any-thing!” she screamed in a voice not her own, but a deep masculine voice tinged with a girlish scorn as she plunged the blade through his forehead and pulled it out, as blood sprayed in a great fount all over the floor, staining her pale green face as she closed her eyes in a look of pure pleasure and stabbed him once again, right next to the new wound, his brain eroding from the two fatal openings. Deep crimson played on his lips, dripping to the floor and the little girl still stared in obvious rapture at her dying father. “May I b-be the last thing you se-e?”

Her mother had long ago fainted. As soon as the heavy realization of all that was happening came to her, she blacked out, falling against the wall she sat against and making the picture next to her fall down and shatter, steering the child’s attention from her father to the wall her mother lay against, a broken and hopeless looks showing through whatever dreams held her.

When she awoke she was in her daughter’s silk bed, so comfortably soft and cold to the summer’s intense heat. “A horrid dream,” she muttered to herself through the heavy spell sleep had put on her. Dolls were in their places on the shelves and dresser, all staring at her as if to welcome her awakening. The ballerina in the music box was spinning an enchanting melody, a simple children’s rhyme played over and over again until she spun to a complete stop. The closet door was propped open by a book of children’s stories and she noticed a shadow in the darkness... The shape of a little girl that stood there, non-moving and facing the side where her clothes were hung. “Honey? What are you doing in there? Come to mummy... I just had the most dreadful...” Before she could finish her daughter spoke from the darkness in a voice low and tremulous, “I had a nightmare, too, mo-ther,” Her mother sat up off of the down pillows and looked out the window, candles on the sill all burnt to nubs and the sky slowly lighting, though stars still dotted its light purple beauty. A soft wind blew all around her, though the windows were closed and it carried with it a scent of something heavier than the roses, something acrid tinged with something.... “Why did you set the candles on the sills, darling? I told you before that the fire could catch the curtains.” She noticed her daughter was now sitting, far back in the shadows, shaking as if weeping heavily as the scent grew heavier, almost to an unbearable peak. “I- I didn’t set them there...” she stuttered, shakily, as sobs broke out, mournful and pitifully weak. “Who did, then, hon? Who would want to set fire to these lovely lace curtains,” she ran her fingers down the lace curtain closest to her and sighed, “And have you been leaving food up here again? I can smell it in the air all around us and it’s giving me the chills.” A silence permeated the room, as heavy as the... metallic scent of blood that lay heavy in the room. “Daddy did it, Mummy! He did a very bad thing!”
Her mother jumped out of the bed, her silky night gown flowing behind her as she padded across the carpet and stopped... The dolls! Their faces didn’t seem right from looking close-up... Sort of distorted in the shadowed light of the room and what was the cause of the slipperiness on her feet? She looked down and saw the carpet stained the deepest crimson, a malicious splattering that upset the white carpet and made her scream out in shock. “Darling... Are you hurt?” she reluctantly walked to the closet where her daughter sat, sobbing, her face covered by pale hands, her pale form shivering under a pink taffeta dress that she had worn that last Easter to church. “Maybe... Maybe not... I can-not te-tell,” she cried out in the eerie darkness of the closet. The sheets surrounding her fragile form seemed spirits... Demons ready to grab her. Her mother pulled the light switch on the ceiling and closed her eyes to the light, slowly opening them, allowing them to adjust to the brightness. A little pale form surrounded by sheets... One sheet in particular caught her eye, propped up against the side wall, the blankets around it disheveled and stained with blood. The little girl lifted her face to her mother’s, horridly unmasking the truth, “There’s daddy, mother,” she smiled, through bloody tears revealing elongated teeth yellowed and rotting. Her swaying form stood in the familiar mechanical way and her mother could here the slight cracking of bones. “What happened to you, dear?” Her blood-drenched hair hung in her face as she reached towards the sheets covering something propped against the wall. Down went the sheets and down fell her husband, covered in blood, his eyes wide in terror still in death. “I’ve changed... You see, hell changes you, mommy. I know it all... I’ve seen the wrongs you two have both done to me... I know it was for the money my grandmother left me... She never liked you... Always hated you for marrying Father... I know it all... The violence,” She shook her hair out of her face and licked her lips, obscenely, “Sin... Now there will be retribution... Sweet retribution.”

Mother lay next to Father on the ruffled canopy bed, both still and soundless, a tinkering music spun around on the music box, the ballerina spinning it’s pirouette. Her head had been chopped off by a wood-chopping axe the butler and gardener used and placed on his lap, a puddle of blood pooling around the stub of her neck, the white sheets red. Daughter lay curled at their feet, death a blessing to them all. The ballerina stopped its spin, facing the bloodstained bed and the family laying on it, her black eyes shown the rising red sun forever to smile. Maybe someday... Someday soon another little girl could keep her as her own... Set her on her dresser and let her spin.
The End.