Sisters in Blood

Sandy saw the bloody knife and found bloody shoes in the doorway of the laundry. Billy's gone killing again she thought. Billy, 35, wore straight, jet black hair in a severe bob. She had been severely abused when she was a child and she was anything but normal. Hiding behind a face that was overly made up with shocking red lipstick, blue eye shadow and a heavy coating of rouge.

Billy was Sandy's sister and they shared a tiny house with yet another sister named Jean. Jean was 10 and never uttered a word. Instead, Jean loved to wear pinafores and play with her dolls, all the while she was humming. The sisters were nothing alike as Jean had long blonde curls and Sandy had curly red hair that showed off her freckles. Sandy knew Billy was escalating out of control with her murderous ways and that they would soon have to find another small rural town to live in.

Sandy's head was pounding again, she suffered from disabling migraines, which was the reason she tolerated Billy's presence. Billy helped watch Jean (who never left the house) and she brought home money. Sandy backtracked the bloody footprints to the dining room table. There she spied a roll of money. She always had a roll of money after a kill. Next to the money, sitting on a bloody paper towel, was an ear. Bad enough that Billy had the need to kill men, but why did she have to bring home souvenirs?

Sandy's head was splitting. Suddenly she realized that Jean was humming. She could hear her from her room down the hall. With her vision obscured by her migraine and the darkness of the hallway, Sandy stumbled and fell over something. She felt something sticky on her face and her hands felt hair and matter. With Jean's bedroom light shining under the door, Sandy's eyes adjusted enough to recognize the boy that Billy had been flirting with from the bowling alley.

The humming continued in Sandy's ears along with the rush of blood from the horror she had just witnessed. Sandy's anxiety was extreme and so was the pain in her head. Sliding through the pools of blood and tissue, Sandy reached Jean's door handle. It was slippery and Sandy's hand was violently shaking...still the humming.

Where was Billy? Was she still in the house? Hadn't Jean heard the ruckus? Shoving the door open, Sandy was on the verge of collapse as she started to survey the room. Blood sprays from stab wounds were running in streaks down the wall by Jean's bed. The dolls were lined up neatly on the bed with blood showered on them.

On the wall over the table where Jean gave her dolls tea parties, were words written in blood smears. "I win".

Sandy ran for Jean's bathroom. Jean wasn't there but the humming was deafening. Sandy felt like she was in a nightmare. She looked up to see herself in the mirror...she froze. Staring back was an overly made up face, from red lipstick and rouge to the infamous blue eye shadow. The girl was wearing a pinafore and she had red curly hair. She was soaked in blood from head to foot.

NO! NO! It all came flooding back. Her father and uncle abusing her, the days locked in the storage shed, the brutal beatings. The doctor's white coat and the words "split personality". The humming, the migraine pain. All came to a crescendo for Sandy.

When Sandy woke up, her migraine was gone and she was sitting in the bus stop. She was headed for McGregor, Iowa. She had a backpack with 2 dolls, a black wig, a blonde wig and a hunting knife. She was short of money and for some reason, the smiling bus driver felt like an invitation.She would meet up with Jean and Billy in McGregor. Sandy felt like humming!