Vampire Dancing by J. K. Gray Page A

wasn't loud, but she sounded like she was being hurt.
    My heart started to hammer. What the hell was he doing to her now?
    I took my ear away from the door. My fists were clenched. I'd never felt so angry and frustrated in my life. I imagined myself throwing open the bathroom door, retrieving that big psycho knife from the kitchen and storming into the living room and stabbing that fucker until he bled through to the apartment below.
    Fuck it .
    I opened the bathroom door and stormed into the dark hallway just as I'd imagined. I hesitated at the entrance to the kitchen. Incredibly, some of my bravado was already fading. I could hear my parents a little better now, but mostly Mom. She kept making these weird sounds. I was terrified to discover what Dad was doing to her, yet my curiosity compelled me to confront whatever was going on.
    I was trembling so badly I felt like I might piss my pants.
    Before I knew it, the dimly lit living room was in front of me. The moth was still beating its wings inside the lampshade, immaculate people were still trying to sell stuff on the TV (we'd reached the tech hour by the looks of things) and the place was still a clusterfuck of assorted stuff like clothes and shoes and books and newspapers and cups and dirty plates.
    It was all so fucking depressing .
    Mom was nowhere to be seen, but I could still hear her. She had to be lying flat on the sofa. I could see King Fuckhead. He was turned to one side and was looking down - no doubt at Mom. He seemed occupied.
    I stepped quietly into the room, then took a few more steps. Fuckhead noticed me. He stopped what he was doing. I didn't say anything, but I took another step. Mom's head came into view. It was on the armrest of the sofa. Her face was flush and her eyes were wet with tears.
    What the fuck ?
    Dad raised a bottle. The neck of it was covered in blood. He grinned. “Go get yourself a beer, kid. We're playing spin the bottle.”
    The realization of what was going on struck me so hard that the room began to simultaneously tilt and spin. I turned and stumbled for the doorway. I was going to be sick.
    I made it to the kitchen before a major stomach spasm served up my dinner. Strings of spaghetti and chunks of meatball along with a side of spicy sauce splattered into the sink. I wiped my mouth with the back of a hand and looked over at the knife rack.
    I decided then and there I was going to kill that motherfucker .
    I burst into the living room clutching the biggest kitchen knife we had, and, propelled by a rage so intense that the only thing occupying my field of vision was my abusive father, I ran at the sofa. In that very last moment before I thrust the knife into his neck, he turned and looked at me; and I think he understood that he'd went too far this time, and that he was going to die.
    Eyes wide with surprise, he clasped a hand over his neck and got to his feet.
    I rounded the sofa and readied the knife to stab him again.
    “Jason!” Mom shouted, sitting up.
    I froze.
    “If you stab him again they'll take you away.”
    I looked at her. My eyelid was still jerking around.
    “We can make this okay,” she said. She glanced briefly at my old man stumbling around. “I'll say I did it.”
    I looked at her with alarm and shook my head. There was no way I could let her go to prison for what I had done here tonight.
    “He's tortured us for years,” she said. “Physically and mentally. Tonight I'd just had enough. They can't prove otherwise. We’re around the same size and weight. We just need to get our story straight and stick to it.”
    Dad, already completely saturated in his own blood, staggered against the TV and knocked it over. It landed on its back. The screen went dead.
    Mom got up from the sofa. I could see spots of blood around the crotch area of her dress. My stomach burned with anger. She moved cautiously towards me. “Jason, honey, please ... put down the knife.”
    Rather than doing what Mom requested, I increased my