Chapter 13
A hairy, green monster lurked around Cindy's room. She stiffened. Its claws were as big as steak knives. It came to the side of her bed, grabbed her, pulled her up, and then drove her back down into the mattress.
Cindy woke with her mother shaking her.
Spittle flew out of Mom’s mouth as she screamed. But the next moment, she changed back to the monster from the dream.
Cindy was terrified. What was happening?
“Uuupppp!” Mom yanked Cindy out of bed by the arm, sending shocking pains through her shoulder and into her neck.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the wooden box trying to wobble off the nightstand.
Mom dragged her into the bright hallway, causing her to squint. When they got to the open hall closet, she saw a metal storage container inside. She had never seen this before. Its lid was open with a padlock hanging loose on the bottom part of the latch.
No toys were inside. It must store something else.
She was wide awake now. She wondered what she had done this time. Was it that her mother somehow found out Sharon and Laif were here? Sharon would have never told Mom. Maybe she had spotted them as they were climbing out the bedroom window.
“Get inside.”
A tear trickled down her cheek. “But why?”
Mom slapped the tear off. “I said get inside.”
She didn’t move. She felt like the walls were closing in around her, and she began to have trouble breathing. The metal container seemed to shrink before her very eyes. She couldn’t possibly fit inside there.
She heard her father’s footsteps stomping down the hallway.
Mom ordered, “Get in, you self-righteous bitch.” She grabbed Cindy’s arm, digging her fingernails into the skin. “Did you hear me?” A smile crawled only up the left side of her face as Dad reached from behind and cupped her breasts.
He kissed her ear and pleaded, “Let Cindy sleep in our bed tonight.”
Mom’s twisted smile dropped.
He kissed her neck, causing a spasm in her left eye.
She stared at Cindy with such hatred that her face burned red and began to shake.
Dad looked at Cindy as well, but his eyes were hungry and serious. His face glistened with sweat. “I miss Cindy sleeping with us.”
Mom twisted out of his grasp, picked Cindy up by the hair, making her scream and squeeze shut her eyes. Mom crammed her into the metal box.
Darkness jumped inside with her as the lid slammed into Cindy’s protesting arms. She sobbed as the last bit of light vanished and a suffocating feeling constricted her chest.
She could hear the padlock being placed in the latch and tried banging her hands on the lid, but there was no room. She was squatting on her feet, knees bent into her chest, with her back curled forward. She could feel the cold metal walls on all sides of her. She couldn’t move. She breathed harder and faster, pleading with her mother and father.
Cindy heard her mother reply, “Stay in there, dirty whore. He’s mine.” She heard sloppy smooching between her parents. Then Mom spoke close to the metal box, voice vibrating it, shivering into Cindy’s head, “You’re an ugly bag of bones. He’ll never fuck you again, slut.”
Cindy didn’t know what her mother meant, but she kept hearing those words as though echoing off stone walls in a tomb, and they became lonely, frightening voices in her head, as they repeated again and again in the darkness.