Killed Dead, Part 1 of 3

This story is fiction. Part 1.

Molly heard the bathroom door open and felt little tremors in the trailer every time Tommy took a step. He walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.

Tommy was wearing a pair of cut-off jeans and nothing else. His hair came to his shoulders and was wet from the shower. He had carefully combed it, parting it just so. He was a compact man. Molly could see his ribs from the back, but he wasn’t overly skinny. His stomach was flat and his arms and legs were toned from carrying roofing shingles up a ladder all day. The top half of him was brown from the sun. Everything below his waist was as white as God made him, all the way to his feet. Molly thought he looked funny in shorts. A two-toned man. And why was he even wearing shorts? It’s freezing outside and chilly in the trailer.

Molly watched him from the cluttered kitchen table as he pulled another beer from the refrigerator. He stood there and drank half of it in one pull while he held the door of the fridge open. She knew he was going to guzzle that one and grab another.

“Give me one of those,” Molly said as Tommy reached for his second bottle. He turned to her with raised eyebrows. “Are we a big girl now?” he said. “You ain’t old enough.”

“Oh hell, Tommy, just give me one.”

He grinned. “Okay then. If you think you can handle it.” Tommy held the bottle out toward Molly and jerked it back just as she reached for it. He did that twice before finally giving it to her. “You gonna drink the beer, you gonna have to help pay for it,” he said.

Molly rolled her eyes. “I don’t think drinking one out of a whole case means I have to buy your beer.”

“You see it’s just the one,” Tommy said, using the half-empty bottle to point at her. “I’m watching you.” When he said it, he did watch her. Molly crossed her arms over her chest. Tommy was looking there more often lately.

Molly twisted off the cap and sniffed the bottle. She wrinkled her nose and jerked her head back. Tommy laughed. “See? I told you. Fifteen is too young.”

He sat across from her and reached for her bottle. Molly let him take it without complaint. Tommy hooked one arm on the back of the chair and looked at the dirty kitchen table. His eyes rested on Molly’s science book. “What’s for supper?” he asked.

“What do I look like, a chef?” Molly said.

“You kids are spoiled,” Tommy said. “You better be glad I’m not your daddy.” Every time he said that, Molly was relieved that Tommy was not her dad. She hoped Mama would never marry him.

Molly wished Mama had not brought Tommy home last year. The first time he came over, Tommy had taken them all out to eat at the steakhouse in town. Molly and her brother Cade couldn’t believe it. They’d never had steak. And such a fancy restaurant! Molly was sure nobody else in the trailer park had ever been there.

Every time Tommy came over after that—which was practically every day—he brought more of his stuff and left it. He’d been living with them full-time since the spring.

Molly glanced at the clock. Twenty more minutes until Mama got home. Her science book showed a drawing of a man with no skin and his arms spread wide open. They were learning about muscles. For the first time, she noticed that Tommy looked like the man in the book. Tommy’s stomach looked just like the stomach in the drawing. It had the same line down the middle, with lines going across, dividing his belly into sections. No fat at all. Not like her brother, who had a chubby stomach. Not like herself or her mother either.

Tommy went to the refrigerator again. “You need to clean this house up, too. Me and your Mama work all day. A girl your age is old enough to have supper on the stove when we get home.”

Molly gritted her teeth. “I have school all day. And homework every night,” she said.

Tommy’s head snapped up. “Don’t talk back to me, girl. Get up and wash those dishes. Now.”

“I have a test tomorrow! I have to study.”

Tommy’s face turned red. He spoke through clenched teeth in a low voice. “I said, get up and wash those dishes,” he said, staring hard at Molly.

Molly stared back at him for a few seconds. She closed her book, stood up and went to the sink. She was so mad she wanted to cry, but she wouldn’t give him the pleasure. She filled the sink with scalding soapy water and started piling the dirty dishes in.

“There, is that so hard?” Tommy said. Molly could tell he was staring at her. He stood, and Molly thought he was going back to the fridge. Instead, he stopped behind her. He stood inches from her for a few seconds before leaning into her and reaching for the cabinet above the counter. She could smell his soap and wet hair.

“’Scuse me,” he said. Molly shrank away from his body and his beer breath, but he took his time getting a bottle from the cabinet above her on the right. Then he leaned the other way, brushing hard against Molly again, and got a small glass from the cabinet on her left. “’Scuse me again,” he said, laughing. Molly looked at the clock. Her anger was turning into something else. She wanted Mama to get home.

Tommy sat back at the table and Molly heard a plastic lid being unscrewed from a glass bottle. She heard liquid splashing into the glass and smelled the sharp, sweet smell.

Tommy put the glass to his lips and moaned with pleasure. “Damn that’s good. Where’s that fat brother of yours, anyway? That little pansy needs to be helping you.”

“I’m almost finished,” Molly said quickly. “I’m fine.” Cade never left his room when Tommy was there unless Mama was home.

Molly heard more liquid being poured into the glass.

“By the way,” Tommy said. “Did you hear about the neighbors?”

“Which neighbors?”

He thrust his chin toward the window. “A few trailers down. Those old folks raising their grandson. The Mitchells.”

“What about them?”

“Dead,” Tommy said.

(Look for Part 2 next week)

-Melanie K. Patterson

© Forged in Words 2023