In The Beginning...(Part 1)

Silence, again. Clayton hated it. For eight months since he learned of her pregnancy, this is how it has been. Questions answered with one or two-word replies. Why was all information offered only under duress or coercion? Clayton didn't know. But mostly it was the silence.

It hadn’t been that way before Edgar was born. Clayton had been happy then. Back then he could see the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. He knew where he was headed. He could see what life had in store for him. Clayton knew where he stood. That was so many years ago; now the silence got to him; he hated it. The only thing he hated more than the silence was the pregnant bitch sitting across the table. So he asked himself as he did so many times before. Why did I marry her?

That bastard baby: the quick reply from a voice somewhere in the back of his mind. Lately, that voice seemed always to be Carrie. Carrie was always the one with the practical view of the world: never letting things get her down. If something awful happened, something unexpected came along; Carrie carried them through - Carrie's inner strength that's what had attracted him to her.

Clayton's mother had seen it too, she said, "You'll never do any better than that one Clay. You'd better tie her down while you can."

"Yes mama," he had said. On their second date, Clayton had proposed. Ten months later, that July in 1948, they had their first and only son. Two-weeks later Clayton's mother died, leaving Clayton, Carrie and their newborn son Edgar the house and three acres. The small yellow ranch house nestled in a wooded area outside York, Pa, known as Hellum Township.

Edgar—that handsome, adorable baby—grew up to be a difficult child. When Carrie became sick with cancer, Edgar only got worse. Edgar would go off for hours leaving Carrie alone in her sick bed while Clayton was at work. Edgar blamed Clayton for everything and ultimately refused to attend Carrie's funeral just to spite Clayton. Those memories filled Clayton's mind now; Clayton chomped hard and relentlessly on the too-tough overcooked meat, and he seethed.

Clayton, well known in these parts for his stealthy hunting abilities. Why it was, said that Clayton could sneak up on himself well before he knew he was coming. But lost in his thoughts as he was, Clayton was genuinely startled when the loud cracking sound of splintering wood engulfed him from behind. Who was the Damned fool who kicked in my door? The thought— to get his gun and show the fool the business end—rushed through Clayton mind. Before he could react—and mind you, he had planned to react, a hand slipped around and latched onto his forehead: the pinky and ring fingers half covering his eyes. Clayton's head was violently jerked back allowing the cold sting of metal to slide elegantly under his chin. Emma sat in the old creaky wooden dining chair. She took quick, furtive glances at Clayton every few seconds. He’s mad again. She sighed. It seemed Clayton was always mad lately. Why did I marry this old man? That hard, stronger, person inside – the one who never let her get away with doubting herself for any reason – offered a quick reply. 'Cause your baby needs a daddy; that's why. Don't go foolin' yourself. Ain't no world out there for a poorly educated woman luggin’ around a baby. So get used to this Old Man. You need him more than he needs you.

That voice was always right, and she hated it for that very reason. But she listened. Her mama always said she was 'an obedient girl; never fussin' or fightin', just listenin'. She wished her mother was around right now. She would love to be able to talk to her. Tell her how lousy things were and have her mother hold her, smoothing her hair down as she used to do. Don't wish for things you cain't have. The voice shot at her. Ain't no use in cryin' 'bout things that cain't be changed. Have your baby, Clayton will make his claim to it and hope that old age takes your husband soon, and nobody will be the wiser. You’ll get the house, land, and his last name for your baby.

Emma chewed the tough meat: no one had ever accused her of being a cook—good, bad or otherwise. She glanced again at Clayton: despising every wrinkle on his weathered face. Emma missed her mother terribly; not that Clayton cared a lick: He wouldn't even go to the funeral. He said, "I didn't know the old bitch, why should I go?"

Emma knew that question was more a rhetorical response than anything else, so she just walked out the door. As Emma walked down the driveway, her feet crunching across the pea-gravel, she couldn't believe she would be that man's wife in two weeks. The only solace she could glean from the whole debacle was that her mother died not knowing that her daughter was pregnant with a bastard. Wasn't that the reason she made sure that Clayton had never met her mother. If he had, Clayton surely would have blurted it out. So she went to the funeral without her fiancée, and the whole thing became a scandal that would have given her mother a heart attack; had she not already died from one.

The chair creaked again under her considerable girth as she shifted. I’ve gained so much weight. The chair just made her seemingly constant lack of comfort unbearable. He had to sit at the table, which meant she had to endure these chairs. They're so uncomfortable. When he dies the first thing I'm going to do is toss this dining set on the fire pit out back. Maybe cook up some doggies and marshmallows to celebrate. A tight smile slid across her face as the thought floated through her mind. She glanced at Clayton again, popping another blackened piece of pork chop into her mouth.

Splinters of wood slid across the floor stopping just before they reached her chair. She looked up towards the front door. The blade flashed brightly in the fading light. Like a deer in headlights, Emma froze as the man walked determinedly and stood behind Clayton. He grabbed Clayton's head and jerked it back. The man's fingers partially covered Clayton's eyes. For the first time in the eight months since they were married, she looked, really looked, at Clayton’s face. She realized he was handsome, so frightfully handsome. Emma noticed Clayton’s strong brow. That he got from his father. She knew that because of the resemblance to the old photos he kept. The ones in his mother’s hope chest. I was just looking at them the other day. I remember thinking then that the young man in the photos was a decent looking man. The high cheek bones; she hadn’t noticed before how they made Clayton look so regal, like a prince. She had hated the pout of his full lips, he never looked happy, but now they gave a level of sex appeal she had never noticed before. Then there were Clayton’s eyes. The deep azure blue of a warm ocean, so clear you could see to the bottom of his soul. A soul so deep, so thoughtful that it made her regret never truly knowing him: and now she never would.

She watched as the bright-blue orbs darted back and forth beneath the fingers, thick as sausage-like digits clutching his forehead. The glint of a large hunting knife flashed—made brighter by the dull glow of the dining room’s lone ceiling light—as it went to Clayton's neck with the determined ease of a seasoned hunter. The prey's neck—Clayton's neck—opened: spilling, red and gurgling, onto the unfinished dinner. Emma watched the crimson fluid raced down Clayton’s neck, pooling on the plate, overrunning the rim, forming a rivulet that streamed briskly across the table toward her.

Only then did Emma look into Edgar's hate filled eyes.
  Edgar looked at Emma as his dying father's head lolled in his hand. Finally, he let the head go, and the bloody mess that was Clayton fell to the floor in front of Edgar. Still, he looked; their eyes never separating, never faltering. Then the fat, redheaded bitch spoke. She always messed up the fun by opening that sassy mouth of hers.

"Edgar, what have you done?"

Hell, she isn't even bright enough to figure that out. He's dead now; you'd think the hateful bitch would be happy. But, there is something there, he could see it now. Was it love? No, that ain’t it, can't be.

Edgar stepped across his father's body, and then circled the table towards Emma. She tried to get up and move in the opposite direction, trying to get away, but the chair leg cracked and sent her sprawling on the floor. Edgar kicked the chair out of the way. Emma tried to lift herself from the floor without much success. That unborn brat is weighin’ her down in so many ways. Edgar let a little chuckle escape his otherwise tight lips. So now she’s crawlin’. Edgar shook his head at the sight.

Edgar caught her with little effort. He grabbed a handful of her thick, fire-red hair and yanked. She screamed, digging her fingernails into the wood plank flooring; trying to get purchase and pull away. Edgar pulled harder, causing small clumps of hair to loosen. She screamed louder, scratching harder at the floorboards; her fingernail ripped off; it stood bloody and stolid in the wood like a sentinel.

Adrenaline coursed through Edgar's body. Through every inch, from head to toe, fingertip-to-fingertip, Edgar felt elated. He had no idea that it would be this exhilarating. It hadn't felt this good when he sliced up old Miss Clever a couple of hours ago. That was fun, and he just couldn’t get over the irony of—and here he allowed himself the slightest of giggles—hacking at Miss Clever with the cleaver. Even that hadn’t felt this good. Miss Clever, that old mouthy bitch, deserved what she got; she always told father everything. That’s not to say that father doesn’t; it just felt incredibly satisfying to shut her up. Clayton deserved what he got too, but Edgar intended to do the deed for years, but it wasn’t until today that he had felt it time to commit the act. Today, he had reached his limit; he had all he could take. This bitch helped Clayton take it all away, so she deserved death.

Edgar slammed Emma's head into the floor. Pulled it back, and then with jubilation did it again; and again. When she stopped fighting, he rolled her over. Her plump face cut; slick oozing and red. He cast his gaze down on her as her eyes slid open. Her eyes grew as wide as quarters as he raised the hunting blade into the air. Edgar had to stifle a laugh; he didn’t want to miss the target.
  The 12” blade sliced through the hazy air of the house, penetrating the soft flesh of her ample breast, plunging deep into and through Emma's chest cavity; thumping into the hardwood floor beneath. The baby lurched inside Emma. Oh, my God, the baby’s coming. How am I goin’ to get to the hospital? As Edgar pulled the blade out of her chest, a full-blown contraction seized her. She didn’t need the sudden wetness between her legs to tell her that the baby was coming. The cold steel was ripped from her body—she felt more than heard the sucking sound as it went—then Edgar raised blade high again as another contraction hit her with searing pain. If someone were to ask, she would not have been able to tell them which hurt worse—blade or baby. The pain made darkness crowd her mind. It crept into the corners of her vision; the blade plunged as unconsciousness took her.