chapter 1

A Lesser Evil – Malison; Chapter 1

         The young girl couldn't tell which sounded louder to her ears, her footsteps as she crept across the floor of the shack she shared with her father, or the pounding of her frightened heart. The one thing she knew for sure, she was not going back in that room.
         The light from a nearly full moon fell across the floor from the cracks in the wall, and a cool spring breeze sent shivers down her back. The bruises from her fathers' fists, while no longer visible, could still be felt. She knew for a fact that she would be dead if he caught her this time.
         The door, only another six steps away, her last bastion of freedom, still seemed unreachable. Every step she took, she balanced, slowly testing the floor for squeaks and cracks.
         Left foot, carefully balance; please don’t wake up, She thought, please.
The rough hands, groping her, pinching, touching her... She shuddered, though this time not from the breeze. He had sold her; her own father had sold her to anyone that… Stop, she screamed inwardly, escape first than think about it.
Right foot, carefully balance.
An owl screeched, somewhere in the trees nearby, the girl almost screamed along with it, but her breath got caught in her throat. Minutes passed by with her feet frozen to the floor, tears welling up in her eyes. Please, she begged, please don’t wake up.
Left foot, carefully balance, slowly shift your weight from one foot to the other.
Blinking back the tears, she looked again at the door, the last three steps, so close. Out of the corner of her eye a bit of moonlight glinted off steel. Her fathers hunting knife, fallen from its peg on the wall, discarded on the floor. She stopped moving, could she grab the knife and still reach the door before he woke up? Should she take the knife with her?
She looked back at the door; I can almost reach my hand out and touch it.
The knife, an extra three steps, grab it and then run for the door. I could be free of him forever.
Back at the door, I can almost reach it.
Her fists where clenched so tight, her fingernails dug into her palms. What should I do? She looked at the knife. Her mind was made up. She stepped for the door.
“Malison!” her fathers’ voice screamed at her from the bedroom. “What the hell are you doing? Where are you?”
She almost fainted in fear. I can’t move my legs. She started to cry openly now. I can’t even run away from him.
Suddenly he burst out of the room, almost shattering the door from its hinges with his weight. “What do you think you are doing?” His voice low and dangerous, his teeth clenched together, he stood staring at his daughter.
Malison’s knees started shaking, run her inner voice screamed, you’re this close to the door. She turned and faced her father.
“This is it you little bitch” he hissed“I’ve told you before I’d kill you if you ever tried running away again.”
Remembered pain flared up, the beatings she had endured; her fathers’ fists were like clubs smashing through stone. “Get away from that door!” The tone in of his voice meant one thing; obey.
Malison’s heart was pounding in her chest, the light of the moon, reaching its long fingers through the walls and across the floor, made the room look like a prison of light and dark.
Still she didn’t move
An evil smirk appeared at the corner of his mouth, his voice seemed to revert from seething hatred to hauntingly calm. “Not only am I going to kill you Malison, but your last breath will be as I bury you in that swamp.”
Malison looked up, fear lanced through to her soul, he had promised her before that no one would ever find her body, now she knew why; there were things out there.
Seconds seemed to pass like hours. Again the moonlight shone into the cabin, glinting off steel. Malison’s quick glance saw that the handle was pointing toward her. Had she only taken the knife moments before, she wouldn’t be defenseless now.
“Now what would you do with that?” his voice taunted, somehow seeing her glance in the moonlight, “unless that’s for me?”
Malison through herself at the knife, wrapping her fist around the handle, just as his big, meaty fingers grabbed a handful of her hair. Snapping her upright with a strength born of hatred, her father slammed her full force into the wall. Splinters pierced her neck and shoulder’s as boards broke around her.
Once more he pulled her hair, twisting her neck in a pain filled haze. This time she was thrown across the room, his hand mercifully letting go of her hair. Sliding across the floor and landing in a heap, somehow she held onto the knife.
Again with unbelievable speed he was crashing towards her, aiming to kick her in the chest, smashing her ribs and anything else in the process. Aron, father to Malison, and the Duke to all the paying customers, suddenly felt the knife Malison still held, cut through his foot, nearly severing his large toe.
Gasping in pain, the Duke, now unable to stop, slammed face first into the wall. There was a sick popping sound as his nose shattered from the force. Blood sprayed across the wall and covered his face as he unceremoniously collapsed to the floor.
Malison staggered to her feet, staring at the knife, red with her father’s blood. The door, once more across the room, now seemed in no urgent need to be opened. She had some unfinished business with this whimpering blob on the floor.
“You bastard!” she screamed. The first time she had ever spoken back to her father. “I hate you.” The knife slashed across his right bicep, cutting a deep path through the muscle in his arm. He screamed again in his high pitched, pain filled voice. Reaching up with his left hand he tried to stop the bleeding, now in three spots on his body.
Somewhere in the forest, a lone wolf answered in a long mournful cry. “I was only six years old!” she screamed again. Blinded by her tears she missed cutting him a third time.
“Malison,” he gasped, he was covered in blood. His right hand trying to hold his toes together, his left hand slowing the bleeding on his arm, “how could you? After everything I’ve done for you.”
Malison kicked his foot; the puddle of blood grew a lot bigger as the Duke screamed in pain.
Finally, speaking through the agonizing pain he hissed, “What will you do, murder me like you murdered my wife, and my son!”
“It wasn’t my fault! I was only six years old!”
“You killed them”, he screamed, rolling over he managed to put his knee under him. “You didn’t deserve to live.” He began balancing on his good foot and the wall until he stood, towering over his daughter, his imposing size more than a match for the knife she pointed at him. “I’ve given you more than you deserved, if it wasn’t for me, no one would ever have touched you. You’re just an ugly little bitch that needs me to tell you what to do.”
Blood rolled freely down his arm, dripping of his hand. The puddle on the floor continued to grow bigger and bigger, spreading out around him. Malison began to wonder how long it would take him to bleed to death. Slowly he curled his left hand into a fist, able to balance only on one foot; the Duke had a slight tilt to his usually straight stance.
In a voice filled with pain and rage he ordered “Drop the knife Malison.”
She stood staring at the growing puddle. So much blood had already drained out of him, and as he stood there, more was running down his arm. His toe was cocked off at an angle, blood oozing out of what looked like a mouth.
“Drop the knife Malison!”
How long? How much longer could he stand there? How much more blood could he lose before he died?
Malison began to doubt he would ever die. She began to realize how worthless her feeble attempt at escape was. Escape? Where would she go? She didn’t know anyone, and anyone she did meet would know her father and take her back to him.
“Drop he knife now.”
Her grasp on the knife started slipping, this wasn’t her life; it was his, to do with as he pleased. He told her that everyday. She was to do as she was told, without question, without hesitation, or else there was pain.
The beatings, the strappings and of course…
The hands, gripping her, tearing at her clothes, touching her, pulling her down…
“Drop the knife you little bitch!” His scream nearly made Malison jump out of her skin.
Her fingers gripped the handle. Never again, she had told herself, would he ever have power over her. Never again would anyone have power over her.
Somewhere deep inside, Malison reached down for her inner strength, down past the pain of the last nine years of her life. Down past the beatings and the torture. Down past all the times she was raped.
She began to lock away bits and pieces of her life. The painful memories, the humiliation of what had been done to her. She began pushing it all aside where she could deal with it later.
Using all of her anger, from all of the memories of what her father had done, and had allowed done, to his daughter, she slowly brought the knife back up. Her grip on the handle tightened even more.
“No.”
The light in her father’s eyes seemed to disappear, as if a candle was suddenly blown out from behind them. “Last chance,” his voice a dangerous whisper. His face was a confused ball of emotions, seeming to slowly shift from hated to fear.
“No!”
Somehow with a terrifying lunge, the Duke was hurtling towards her. Blood from the deep gash on his arm hung suspended in the air for a few seconds, as if realizing there was nothing holding it up anymore. His large toe made a sickening, sucking sound as it was torn from the floor to dangle at an obscene angle. He swung for her head, huge fist clenched tight, with enough force to snap her neck.
The calm euphoria that Malison was feeling took over all her reflexes. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Her father’s movements were sluggish; she could see what she had to do to kill him.
She bent down and stepped to the side, spinning quickly she slashed at his head. The knife sliced from back to front, a large crop of dirty, greasy hair fell away. The top half of his ear was sent spinning across the room. His cheek was opened up, exposing blackened, rotted teeth.
Again he screamed, his voice beginning to go hoarse from the pain. The gash in his cheek opened up wider, making it look as if there were two mouths’s yelling in unison.
Suddenly she was behind him, stabbing again and again, through his back and shoulders.
The momentum from his punch carried him back across the room, towards the door, where he stumbled and finally fell. As if a great tree had fallen in the forest, the entire cabin shook with the impact. The floorboards seemed to jump from the foundation.
Malison jumped on top of him, stabbing his head, his neck, his shoulders and back. Again and again the knife plunged.
Up down.
Up down.
Blood sprayed all over her face, her hands and her arms. Slowly, recognition began to dawn on her. Somewhere in the forest she could hear the howling of the wolves, many this time. Outside in the tree, a crow cawed triumphantly over and over again, the sound lessoning as it flew away. Looking at the knife nearly black with the amount of blood and tissue, she forced herself to stop. Holding the blade in front of her, she sat for awhile, staring at it.
He was dead. Her father was dead.
She had finally done what she had wanted for all these years; she had killed her father. She had killed her tormentor. She had killed her jailer.
She looked down, what was left of his body was riddled with holes. The clothes he had slept in had darkened from his life blood.
Time passed slowly. The cabin seemed to be brighter, as if the moon was shining straight through the boards. Looking around, Malison could tell the sun was beginning to climb above the trees. How long had she sat here? How long had it taken to kill him?
Pushing away from the body, she stood on shaking legs. She had to get moving; she had to get as far away from here as she could.
Her father had kept most of his, or was it hers? Money well hidden, but she thought she knew where some of it was. Going back into his large room, her search was unsuccessful, nowhere she looked could she find it; under his bed, in his clothes trunk or on any of his shelves or tables. Beginning to get discouraged she sat heavily on his bed, a sharp clink rewarded her ears. Feeling around the edges of his mattress she found a long incision, reaching in she pulled out three good size bags of coins and the black leather book.
The book, she knew, contained all the names of all the customers that frequented the cabin. Malison knew all the faces of every man that had paid for her and she would kill every one of them. This book would justify their deaths.
Turning she began to fill the wash basin from the jug of rain water, it turned almost instantly red when she started to clean herself off; her hair, her face, her hands. Blood had completely saturated the thin night shirt, making it stick to her as she removed it, and the already stained water left more streaks than it cleaned. The lone coarse bar of soap in the cabin belonged to her father, any other time she wasn’t allowed to touch it, it cost too much to waste on you, now she lathered herself up.
Feeling fully clean for the first time in years, Malison found one of her fathers robes; a long white hooded gown which she kept from dragging on the floor by tying it off at the waist with the knife strap. Stuffing the bags of coins and the book into the deep pockets of the robe, she wiped the knife clean on a pile of his dirty clothes. Reaching for her sandals, she suddenly heard movement coming from the other room.
Her father was still alive! Oh my god, he’s still alive!
Peeking around the corner of the door she could see her fathers’ feet and legs still stretched out on the floor. The pool of blood still spread out around him. She could hear some type of grunting noises, but she couldn’t decipher what they were or who was making them.
His leg twitched. His foot moved a tiny bit in the blood. So small a movement, Malison had to blink to make sure she had seen anything.
The grunting became fiercer, more guttural. It began to sound like growling. His leg twitched again and again, the foot sliding through the blood, leaving a tail about an inch long.
Malison grabbed the knife again, why couldn’t he be dead? Why couldn’t he just stay dead? Why? Why…
She had to kill him again. She had to get out there before he could get to his feet. She had to finish the job once and for all. Screaming in rage, she ran around the corner, planning on stabbing him over and over again.
The vicious little swamp rat looked up and hissed at her before scampering back out through the hole in the wall. Malison dropped down heavily on her knees and began laughing, a clean innocent sound she hadn’t done in years.
Flies were now beginning to settle on his body, drawn to the scent of his blood. He was dead. He would stay dead. But before she had another scare like that, she was leaving.
Let the animals eat him, let the bugs eat him; let him rot for all she cared. He was dead, she was free.
For the last time in her life, Malison passed through the outside door. Never again would she come back here. Someday someone would come looking for business, let them find whatever would be left of his body. Let them care about what happened. She was going south to the Capital.
Sarsipnia was a city she could get lost in and still claim her vengeance. Her revenge would be sweet.