Catherine and Hannah Commit Murder

My hands are covered in sticky hot blood, but its beginning to cool now on my fingertips. Hannah’s hands are equally as cover as mine. We stare at each other from the chilly ground, the body lying between us. I don’t want to look at the smashed-in face of the body, a live grown woman just a few minutes before. Had that only been minutes before?

            She’d been screaming at us. Spit flying out of her mouth illuminated from the backyard’s porch-light. She’d been standing just the right way for the porch-light to brighten her enraged face. The deepening wrinkles of her face glaring at us offended of our youth. Obscenities that should never be uttered by a mother had slipped out of her aged lips slapping me and Hannah like a whip. A verbal whip leaving deep cuts on our psyche. God, hell, sin, eternal damnation mixed in with the names that women have to endure constantly from people who like wounding them: slut, cunt, whore.

            At first shock had kept us at bay. The shock one gets when found out, or when surprised by hurtful things people can say to each other, usually inflicted on them by someone they’d once had respect for. But that was before. Before the someone showed their true nature. The narcissistic and malicious woman before us should never have been a mother. She didn’t deserve Hannah. 

            Hannah had screamed out at her mother, tears falling down her cheeks fast and furious as if they were gutters in a rainstorm, “I hate you! I hate you! I’m leaving you! Just like how dad left you! You drive everyone away you evil bitch!”

            That had caused another onslaught of abusive rage hurtling from Hannah’s mother.  Her eyes had gone so bright in the porch-light that they looked paranormal. Insanity coated the older woman’s eyes like a film of pollen in spring. That was when I noticed that she was shivering. From the late autumn cold or from anger, probably a little of both. She was standing in worn plaid pajama pants and a humongous sleeping shirt. She had been asleep before she had caught us in the backyard. 

            Shaking with wrath, she lunged at her daughter. Hannah in her surprise at her mother’s behavior had taken the first few slaps on her already redden cheeks before she fought back.

I had screamed, “Stop it! Get off of her!” and had tried to pull the older woman off of her.  I had grabbed the woman’s salt and pepper hair, trying to pull her off my friend. She, however, didn’t seem to notice. Her hands had gone around Hannah’s throat.

Hannah’s nails scraped across the women’s wrinkled cheek in a desperation to escape, but it was still halfhearted, I could see that. Her mother, however, showed no empathy. That was when I saw the small shed in the backyard. It sat in shadow behind the two fighting women. I ran for it, slipping over the frosted grass of Hannah’s backyard, desperation in my hands as I ripped open the shed door.

I grab the first thing I saw in the shed. It was heavy and hard to lift. I dragged it back towards Hannah and her mother. Hannah was crying, trying to pry her mother’s hands from her throat, as the old woman laughed that she was no daughter of hers. I hefted the axe and swung it at the older woman’s back.

She had gasped and loosened her hold on Hannah’s neck, then she’d turned her head to blink at me. The insanity gone from her eyes. That was when Hannah coughing took the axe out of my shaking hands. She'd stumbled over to me. I mutely watched as she heaved the axe up and gritting her teeth, swung it at her mother’s head, screaming her hate into the night air. 

Hannah's mother had gone down then. Hannah hit twice more and then we were both crouched over the body. Hannah breathing hard. I didn’t have to. I knew she was dead, but I reached into the blood and checked for a pulse. there was nothing. A growing stillness under the cooling red goo. Hannah had blood all over her. Her face and heavy jacket spotted in dark spots. In the strange light of the porch she looked like a warrior. A princess of darkness. Beautiful and awe inspiring. 

Our eyes finally locked on to each other. I held out my bloody hand to her and she took it, sticky wet squishing between our enclosed fingers. I nodded and stood. She followed me. We didn’t speak. We didn’t have to. I led her towards the house. Right now, we needed to get clean.