Heroes Often Fail

FOURTEEN

1313 hours

Amy Dugger couldn’t stop crying into the pillow. She buried her face deep into the musty thing, ignoring the poky parts somewhere inside the lumps and just let all her tears tumble out.

Some of the tears were born of the fear that she felt constantly. It was an uncertain fear and one filled with doom.

She cried because she hurt badly and in places she had never hurt before.

But most of all, she cried because she missed her mommy and her daddy. She missed them so badly that she thought her heart might burst with each sob that ripped from her throat and was drowned in the pillow.

After what seemed like the longest time, her tears dried up and her sobs died away. She rolled over and stared up at the rafters of the attic. She saw a spider web in the corner and watched carefully to see if the spider was home.

When the stomping came on the staircase, she wished with all her might that it wasn’t Grandpa Fred. Not again. Not so soon.

When Grammy burst through the door and she saw the wildness in her eyes, she forgot her wish.

Clutched in her fist was a hammer.

“Little harlot!” the troll-ish woman raged at her.

“Wha-what?”

“Don’t play innocent with me,” Grammy screeched, pointing a fat finger at her. “You know what you’re doing!”

Amy didn’t know what to say. She stared dumbly back at the woman, fixing her eyes on the large moles on her cheek, trying not to look at the hammer that twitched and jerked in Grammy’s hand.

“I thought you might be different from your stupid, ungrateful mother,” Grammy said. “I thought that once I brought you here, we could all be happy together.”

“I’m happy,” Amy lied, knowing it was what Grammy wanted to hear.

“I’ll bet you are, you little tramp!” Grammy screamed at her. She swung the hammer, bashing it into an old lamp stacked on top of a cardboard box. The lamp shattered and pieces of glass scattered across the attic floor.

Amy began to cry again.

“Can’t I have anything in this world?” Grammy asked, looking up at the ceiling.

Amy remained still, tears coursing down her small cheeks. She watched as the woman fell to her knees and sobbed. She used the hand with the hammer to steady herself on the floor and the other hand remained behind her back.

“I’m cursed,” she sobbed. “Cursed.”

Amy sniffed and said nothing, but in her head she thought that maybe someone who steals little girls from their mommy and daddy deserved to be cursed. If such a thing existed as curses.

“It’s not fair,” Grammy cried.

A long strand of snot began at her nose and got steadily longer until it had almost reached the floor. Amy watched it, fascinated.

As suddenly as her sobs had begun, they ended. Grammy wiped the snot away and stood awkwardly. She glared at Amy. “It’s your fault. You’re just like your miserable bitch of a mother.”

My mother is not a bad word! Amy cried out in her mind, but then Grammy swung the hammer again, banging it loudly into one of the exposed studs.

“I thought I could rescue you from all that,” Grammy said, waving the hammer in the air to punctuate her words. “I really hoped that things would work out, but obviously they aren’t going to.”

Amy wondered for a moment if she were telling the truth. She wondered if that meant they would take her home now, but the hammer scared her.

“How could you do this to your Grammy?” Grammy asked, taking a step toward her. Her voice was a mixture of hurt and rage.

“W-w-what?” Amy sobbed.

“Oh, don’t play innocent with me!” screeched Nancy. She swung the hammer, blasting it into the face of a china doll perched on top of a bookshelf. The shattered plaster pieces ricocheted off the unfinished walls. “Steal my man! That’s what, you little whore!”

Amy squinted her eyes in confusion. Steal her man? What did that mean?

Grammy’s wild eyes flew open wide. “Oh, you think you can steal my man and then glare at me? Defy me? Well, I will fix that problem right now.”

The large woman rushed toward Amy, raising the hammer in the air.

Amy let out a scream, but it was cut short. Her Grammy swung the hammer downward. Amy felt of momentary slice of pain, then darkness.