Coda

SLAM!

Beth flew down the porch steps as the screen door crashed into the side of the single-wide trailer. Her stepfather, Frank’s, yells faded into the background as the nine-year-old ran to the next street and turned the corner.

Her heart pounding, Beth eased up, slowing to a trot before finally coming to a rest at a small strand of trees near the edge of the trailer park’s retention pond. The street lights that had come on at dusk barely reached this far out, but there was still enough light left to see the uneven ground. Beth flopped to the grass on her stomach, rubbing at a stitch in her left side while she caught her breath.

Stifling a sneeze from the tall grass and weeds, she wondered at her own brazenness at running away. She hated that her mom had forced her come along on this visit to Frank’s mother in rural Tennessee. Beth barely knew the woman; the old hag was scrawny and strict and smoked an endless train of Parliments.

But, the grown-ups had felt the need to show off Mrs. Kapinski’s rapidly swelling belly; a physical manifestation of the squeaks, moans and other nightly sounds Beth had been suffering through for the six months since her mom remarried.

Beth stuck out her tongue in defiance and flipped over onto her back. The grass was warm and only slightly scratchy. After a few minutes, the cicadas and pond frogs got over the disturbance her sudden appearance had caused and restarted their familiar noises. Soothed, Beth looked up at the stars beginning to appear in the sky above her.

She idly traced the blister that was forming on her right forearm; unused to the cheap twist-and-turn knob on the trailer's bathroom door, Beth had accidentally locked herself in earlier that afternoon. In her panic, she’d begun screaming and banging on the door to get out. Frank had to take the door off its hinges to get her out. As soon as the door was removed and Beth had seen his face, blurry through her tears, she’d known she was in for it.

Sure enough, Frank had grasped her arm and yanked her out of the tiny bathroom, smacking at her backside whenever he could reach it past her squirming. Beth’s mom quickly convinced him to take her for a ride in their old Chevy, leaving Beth alone with Frank’s mother. The witch had promptly put the lit end of her cigarette to Beth’s arm as punishment for upsetting her "father."

It was Beth's reaction to that term that led to Frank's mother calling her an ungrateful bastard - leading to another confrontation when her mom and Frank returned about 15 minutes ago.

Beth didn't want to think about what was going to happen when she went back to the trailer. Her bravado started to fade as she realized the enormity of what she'd done. She was hours from home or anyone she knew and now that she thought about it, she realized how hungry she was.

As if in concert with her growing fear, the insects once again fell silent, and a split-second later Beth heard the crack of a branch being stepped on. Something was coming through the brush on the other side of the pond. The deepening dark hid the intruder in shadows and Beth held her breath...