The Middle of The End

Chapter One: Happy Birthday, Big Brother

|WARNING: CONTAINS ABUSE|

I was barely eight years old when I saw my father stabbed to death by my uncle, his brother. We had gone out to pick up the surprise birthday present for my big brother Shane; Mama sent us on a mission and we had to be back before Shane woke up.

"Daddy, what's the surprise? Can I pick it out?" I'd begged my parents to let me in on the secret but like always they didn't tell me.

"You'll see when we get there. First we have to make a quick run into Uncle Paul's." Daddy drove our minivan up a bumpy hill and I rolled my window down. It was going to be really hot. Hopefully Shane would take me to the lake when he went with his stupid friend Rick.
The minivan slowed to a stop and I unbuckled my seatbelt. "No, you wait here. This won't take long."

"Awww!" I frowned, crossing my arms as I watched Daddy jog to Uncle Paul's secret shed. I was absolutely forbidden to go anywhere near it. A scary man with a pretty green bottle stumbled out onto the porch, and I locked the doors in a hurry. Uncle Paul and Daddy were screaming at each other. This was normal, they always yelled and then made up. Daddy was on his way to the van when Uncle Paul ran up behind him.

They were going to make up!

And that's when Uncle Peul pulled out a knife and stuck it in my Daddy's back. I tried to look away, but it's like something bad on TV that Mama doesn't want me to watch. You can't help but look. Daddy fell to the ground pretty quick, his white shirt painting itself red.

I screamed.

The man with the bottle said something and Uncle Paul stood up. He said something too and walked around in circles before stepping over Daddy and coming towards the van. I wasn't scared of Uncle Paul, just the other man. He had a mean look on his face, one I would learn to fear and hate with every fibre of my being.

"What did you see, Callie?" Uncle Paul asked me through my open window.

"We ain't got time for this, Paul. We need to get gone 'fore anyone comes lookin'." The scary man grumbled, his bottom lip twitching. "Kid saw the whole thing. Grab 'er an' let's go!"

I cried the whole day, eventually falling asleep in the backseat of a car. Shane and Mama were eating cake without me and Daddy all because Uncle Paul got mad and painted Daddy's shirt until he stopped moving.
When I woke up, I was lying on the floor nexxt to a smelly torn-up couch and I got up to find a bathroom. The place looked like a dump, and smelled like one, too. The first door I opened was a small bedroom and someone was asleep on the mattress that lay on the dirty floor.

"Uncle Paul?" I called out after closing the door so I wouldn't wake them up. When no one answered I ran outside. Uncle Paul and that scary man were talking. "Where's Daddy, Uncle Paul?"

"He's dead you stupid brat. Now shut yer trap an' get back inside!" the man yelled at me, and I hurried back to my spot on the floor.

"Who're you?!" I looked up and saw a boy sitting on the couch. His brown hair was a mess, his shirt stained and dirty. I didn't say anything; he was the kind of kid Mama told me to stay away from.
It was nighttime now and my stomach was growling noisily. I hadn't waten anything since yesterday's breakfast of bacon and waffles and boy was I hungry. I'd heard the man tell Uncle Paul not to give me any food, that he had something else for me. I wasn't allowed to move from my spot unless the man said so.

"I'm hungry! Gimme food!" I cried out and the man glared.

"Shutup!" he threw a handful of stale bread crusts at me, which I threw back at him. He turned to Uncle Paul."You gon' let 'er get 'way with disrespectin' me like that?"

"She's just a kid. Maybe-" Uncle Paul began to protest.

"Think my boy'd try to pull that shit? No. Teach 'er a lesson or I will." As soon as they were finished taking their turns hitting me with a belt, the man called the boy out. "Get 'er cleaned. She looks like shit."

"Yessir." the boy mumbled, helping me up. I cried harder as he wiped my face with a wet rag. "What's yer name?"

"Callie." I sniffled and told him how Uncle Paul painted Daddy's shirt with his knife, asking who the man was.

"My father. Sorry 'bout yours." he looked quickly behind him and back to the rag in his hands. "I guess you're stayin' here for a while."

"I wanna go home!" I couldn't stay here, Mama and Shane would miss me too much.

"I know. But ya can't. So listen up; if you wanna stay alive do what they say. I mean it, anythin' they tell ya." he helped me put my shirt back on as gently as possible. "I'll be right back." While he was gone, I sat on the toilet and had what was probably the best pee in my life. I was buttoning my shorts when he came back in. "Come on. I made you a bed."

For the next three weeks I was kept in a dark room with little food and water. The boy, daryl, snuck me any food he could. When his father and Uncle Paul went out to get drunk, we would watch the two TV stations. My face was all over the news, and Uncle Paul was wanted by police.

"They're back! Quick get back in the closet!" Darl turned off the TV and I ran down the hall pushing the closet door shut just before they stomped inside. We'd been caught before, and we payed for it.

"Boy, bring out the girl." I heard someone slur and Daryl opened the door. "Hurry up! I ain't got all night!"

"We're comin'!" he snapped, knowing it would earn him a good slap. I walked in front of him to the kitchen table.

"Sit." Uncle Paul ordered, pointing to a chair. I hopped on it and he set a can in front of me, a can of that awful smelling liquid. "Now drink."

"But-" I protested.

"Shut up and do as I say, girl." Uncle Paul's fist hit the table and I picked up the can, taking a sip. It was horrible! I spit it out, throwing the can on the floor.

"I ain't drinkin' no more of that!"

"Clean that mess, boy." Will, his father, growled and began unbuckling his belt. "What ya think, Paul? Should we?"

"Nah, Let's get 'em both good an' drunk." Uncle Paul smirked and pulled Daryl up by the back of his shirt.

"Lemme go!" he fought, kicking and swinging his balled up hands.

"Shuddup and drink, ya little shit stirrers." Will placed cans in front of us and there was nothing we could do but obey. Daryl must've done this before because he'd downed the first can in minutes. I was nearly forced to drink and gagged over the taste. Soon my body and head felt fuzzy and I couldn't stop giggling. I wet myself, and Uncle Paul and Will kept laughing. Daryl was crying in a corner for someone named Merle.

"Yer brother ain't gon' save ya, so quit yer fuckin' whinin' boy!" Will kicked Daryl, laughing when he tried to fight back.

"Ain't no one's gonna save you, neither." Uncle Paul pointed a greasy finger in my face and drug me by the hair back to the closet.

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Almost a year had passed, and since I'd grown out of my clothes long ago, I was given Daryl's torn hand-me-downs. The day Merle first made an appearance, Will and Uncle Paul were disciplining us for some reason or other. They stopped right away. Daryl's brother was mean. Not with his hands, but his words. As usual Uncle Paul and Will went out drinking so I was left alone with the brothers. I'd grown used to being called awful things but Merle just got under my skin, making me believe I deserved it all. Of course, Daryl told him to lay off when I ran to the closet in tears.

The summer was spent in the woods watching them hunt. I was taught how to skin and gut everything they brought back, and I hated it. The smell of blood made me sick to my stomach.

I'd stopped talking, because it only seemed to get me in trouble. Sometimes, late at night, I would sneak to Daryl's room and tell him about the life I'd had before, what I could remember. He was the closest thing I had to an actual friend and we could relate with each other because we went through the same things every hour of every day. Will was starting to hit him more often. Uncle Paul had begun bringing drugs into the trailer and wanted me to take funny pills.
Daryl, being two years older, knew what they were doing and protested. He went to school the next day with a black eye. I wasn't allowed to go, in case anyone recognized me and called the police. I really missed going to school and learning new things, so one day Daryl brought a workbook home and showed me how to multiply. It didn't take long for me to pick it up and soon Daryl was asking me to help with his homework. The teachers didn't like him too much because of his attitude and lack of interest. The things they wrote on his report cards made me sad. Why couldn't they see how brave he was? He really was smart, smarter than me. I wanted to write them a letter but I wasn't supposed to even exist. How would he explain that he had a girl living in his closet, one that was missing for over a year?

After one particularly bloody beating with Will's leather belt and a beer bottle smashed over my head, Daryl tried sneaking me to the hospital. He knew I would need stitches. He was the one who cleaned me up, as usual. Uncle Paul was busy with some woman on the couch and Will, passed out on the kitchen floor. I was losing blood and felt extremely dizzy so I was carried out the back door. We were halfway to town when Uncle Paul's truck pulled in front of us with a very angry Will driving.

"Get in this truck now, boy, or I'll kill the both of ya." He muttered harshly.

"No. She needs to see a doctor. An' stitches." Daryl started walking away when Will got out of the truck and grabbed Daryl by the neck. I fell to the ground and watched as Will took his anger out on his son, throwing him around like a ragdoll.

"Stop!" I threw a handful of rocks and dirt at Will, catching his attention.

"So now you talk." Will started for me, giving Daryl time to find something to use as a weapon. Before he had a chance to do anything, Merle rode by on a moterbike.

"Well what do we have here..." Merle coughed and Will stopped dead in his tracks, almost as if he was afraid.

"These two shitbags were tryin' to sneak off so I'm teachin' 'em a lesson." he kicked me hard in the ribs for good measure, a garbled sob escaping my cracked lips.

"I'll finish. You get back, and I'll be right behind ya." The last thing I remember was Will driving away, seconds before I blacked out.

Merle stitched up my head while I was asleep, and I woke with a splitting headache. My ribs were bruised and even Merle wanted to take me to the hospital. Doctors were against the rules especially right after a beating. Yes, there was alot of rules that couldn't be broken, unless we wanted to be smacked around. No talking back. No eye contact. The one rule I always seemed to break was no crying. Unlike Daryl, I had a low tolerance to pain, so I was nearly always crying.
My eleventh birthday passed completely unnoticed by everyone but Daryl, who gave me a chocolate bar he'd most likely stolen. He'd shown me an old notebook with messy writing and dates, telling me it had been three years to the day that I'd been there.
It was Shane's fifteenth borthday. I missed him most.
Happy Birthday, Big Brother. You can't hear me but I love you.

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