A scream in the night wakes one of the neighbors. They wonder was that a cat, was it a person, what was that? A dog started barking somewhere as a car screeched its tires. They passed off the sound as the fool who just left $100.00 of rubber on the road.

SANDY

He hit her, this time really hard, across the right cheek.
Her teeth went flying out of her head. The blood tastes salty and starts dripping on the floor. Sandy can’t help the tears, they’re automatic. She looks at her 10 year old daughter and screams. “RUN!” The horror of seeing her child held down that way, by HIM, OH God not HIM! Her own husband, Pat was naked; pinning her half naked daughter down as her daughter whimpered.
“CRISSY, RUN! RUN NOW!”
Crissy froze, tears running down her face. She looked down on the bed below and realized there was blood on it. She didn’t quite understand where it came from; Crissy only knew she was hurt and her step-dad had been the one who done it.
Sandy’s mind blurred as the next blow came down from her husband. She felt the pain from the blow, then somewhere in her mind it registered that Crissy had brushed passed her. Crissy had nothing on but the blood stains on her rear end. Sandy’s thoughts raced, “was she imagining it?”, “what was that she just saw?” As Sandy tried to get up from the position she was in, she found herself hurting physically and mentally. The thought of Pat molesting Crissy, the sight of what Pat, her husband, was doing to her daughter was almost implausible.
Suddenly Pat hit Sandy above the eye and her mind started spinning, confusion and incomprehension started taking over. Sandy didn’t understand why he was hitting her? Where was Crissy now?
With the next blow to the back of her head Sandy started to throw-up. Pat bent down and started to growl in her ear…,”Bitch”. He kicked her, moving her a good six inches and causing her to fall on her side, crying. Everything was scrambled, her thoughts, the visions in her head, the nausea now demanded attention and she was confused even more. Loud alarms were going off in her head and with the next stabbing pain she had, her last thoughts were of Crissy. She blacked out as the next blow to her head made contact.

CRISSY


Crissy stood at the top of the porch stairs. She heard her mom scream and she moved one step back towards the door. “Mom?” It’s almost a whisper, she was afraid of what Pat would do to her again, but she was afraid for her mother as well.

“Mommy?” Crissy knew she couldn’t go back in, but she didn’t know where else to go. The lights are out on the street and there isn’t anyone around. Sounds like her mother throwing up came from the house and Crissy decided she had to hide. Mom had said she had to run and that is what she knew she had to do. Pat hurt her and she KNEW they had talked about this at school. Crissy started thinking if she could only go to school; she could tell Ms. Anderson. Crissy knew Ms. Anderson would help, tell her what to do, she’d be able to tell Crissy where she could go.

She looked around and saw the back yard. The woods were there, she thought “I can hide there. Mom will come get me.” It was scary, the animals will crawl on her and there might be bugs. Looking down the street and the awareness of loneliness and helplessness crept over the naked, bloody 10 year old body. She heard Pat’s steps in the house and that fear took over.
Crissy ran down the dark empty street screaming loud and long until her chest hurt. The only thing anyone could hear though was the slapping of bare feet on concrete and the shuffling of branches as she quickly ran and hid in some bushes. The bushes were next to the fence where the Christoffs have their dog. Crissy didn’t realize that she hadn’t made a sound.

Bruiser growls, then starts barking louder. He begins to go nuts, lunging, barking and snarling at the intruder to his territory. He’s growling meaner than Crissy has ever heard before. She’s always been afraid of him and the Christoffs have always warned her that he doesn’t like kids. Crissy prays, shivers and tries to shush the dog. Tears are rolling down her face as she hears the door slam at her house. She waits.
She wonders if he is coming and where her mother was? “Help. HELP ME! OH PLEASE SOMEONE, HELP!” She screams. Once again Crissy was screaming in her head and not out loud. She didn’t know, and no one heard her. She was screaming so loud in her head, she never heard the footsteps behind her

JOHN CRISTOFFS

John Christoffs was tired of hearing that blasted dog. “What was the problem?” As he looked out the window and noticed Bruiser was in the corner of the yard; serious about whatever was there. John called the police and loaded his shotgun. As he came out of the house and turned on the spotlight on the corner of the house. If someone was there, he hoped that would warn them! Caution and fear slows his steps and he hopes to himself the police come soon and that he really doesn’t want to shoot anyone. He raises his shotgun and fires a shot in the air.
Curled into a ball, cold, and aching from what had happened, she just kept her eyes closed only wishing the dog would be quiet and that Pat wouldn’t find her. Crissy didn’t notice the light.
John Christoffs saw something in the bush; it is really small and pail in color. The closer he gets and the more he yells at Bruiser he wonders “Is that a person?” He yells, “HEY! GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? I called the poli…” Realization of what was in the corner, caused John’s voice to trail off, not sure of why there was a naked child in the bush. The figure in the bush screams at the firing of the gun, Bruiser ducks and runs off hiding somewhere in the back yard.
There shivering and screaming in the bush is a child. Horror runs over him as he runs to the figure and he realizes, who the kid is and why she might be naked! “OH My GOD!” he says when the little figure turns around and in a half cry, half whimper says, “Help me, please. Help my Mommy.” Shock and dismay grip him while somewhere in his mind he hears the sirens in the background.

Lights in the neighborhood start coming on as others on the street realize they heard something like a gun and now there are police sirens approaching. Curtains move away from their resting place as curiosity becomes overwhelming. The neighbors start grabbing robes and clothes to go outside to see what’s going on. There isn’t that much that goes on, on their street and this is too much to let go. As people start to come from their houses, they see John Christoffs standing in the corner of his property holding a gun; they all watch and listen as he barks orders to his wife and at that dog of his.

PAT

Pat’s stomach begins to fall. He heard the gun, he knows that Crissy has just caused him even more problems than her bitch mother. The police sirens makes him grind his teeth and his mind starts conceiving an excuse.
The thought of running is welling up and he plots out an escape route through the woods. He is wishing he had stayed with his old habit of being with the teasing little girls at the park. They all taunted him. They threw themselves at him. He never understood why they cried after they had been asking him for it.
Pat hit the backdoor running. The yard wasn’t that big and he cleared it and was in the woods in no time. Knowing that he had the keys in his pocket and Sandy’s hidden credit cards, he just knew he was going to be okay. He would get back here in a day or two. Meantime, Pat knew he could hide out at the men’s room at the park, it was never locked. The anger and rage was welling up, It drove him, as IT usually did; into that “dead calm” as Pat’s mother always called it.
The dark figure of a man with black jeans, unbuttoned shirt and shoes in hand was never noticed by anyone. Everyone was looking at the Christoffs house. Everyone noticed his wife bring out a blanket and cover someone. As the first officer stopped and left his car, they could see from the lights he pointed toward John, the little figure of a girl who appeared to have nothing but the blanket on. The people on their porches started to come closer now that it was safe. Meanwhile Pat knew it wasn’t over between him and them. He walked away through the woods as if nothing was wrong. There were more sirens in the background now. That little bitch, just like her mother was screaming for even more attention than HE, himself had just given her. It wasn’t over with any of them.