The Killing House

4

Theresa said nothing. She had nothing to say. That pragmatic voice had nothing to say. Her mind felt as vacant as an abandoned house.

Marie Clouzot had to raise her voice over Barry’s muffled screams. ‘Kill your husband, and I’ll bring you to your son. If you don’t kill your husband, I’ll kill you, and then I’ll leave and kill your son. Are you familiar with slow slicing?’

Theresa didn’t hear the question, still in shock by what the woman had said: Cut your husband’s throat.

‘Slow slicing is a form of execution developed by the Chinese,’ the Clouzot woman said, reaching into her pocket. ‘You use a knife to cut away portions of the body over a long period of time. It’s death by a thousand cuts.’

‘I… I can’t…’

‘Can’t what, Mrs Herrera?’

‘I can’t go through with this.’

The Clouzot woman placed the wrinkled snapshot of Rico on Barry’s stomach.

‘You have fifty-three seconds left to make your decision, Mrs Herrera.’

‘I want to help you,’ Theresa said. ‘Please, let me help you.’

‘Forty-nine seconds.’

Barry was screaming, thrashing.

‘We can come to some sort of… accommodation,’ Theresa said. ‘Let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about how I can help — ’

‘Forty-three seconds.’

Theresa saw her son’s frightened gaze staring up from the photograph lying on Barry’s stomach, and she saw her son staring at her from the photographs on the walls and bureau — Rico as a baby and as a toddler, each picture showing a boy with a round, brown face and a mop of unruly black hair; a gap-toothed smile and, along the right temple, a strawberry-coloured birthmark the size of a dime.

‘Thirty-nine seconds, Mrs Herrera.’

She stared at the photograph on Barry’s stomach. Rico was alive. Her son’s life depended on her next decision — a horribly cruel, life-altering decision.

Was her husband’s life worth it?

Don’t let them take me back there, Rico had said.

‘Thirty-seven seconds.’

I can’t take it any more. Please, Mom. Please help me.

Theresa grabbed the heavy cook’s knife.

Barry screamed from behind the tape. He screamed and thrashed, the rope cutting deeper into his skin. Blood trickled down his wrists.

‘You have twenty-two seconds left.’

God forgive me, Theresa thought, turning the knife in her hands, just as a pair of car headlights flashed across the drawn blinds.