The Weight of Blood
Tiffany D. Jackson
Dedication
This one is for me!
For the little girl in pigtails who went running for the TV whenever her favorite horror movie came on, doing the absolute unimaginable when so many doubted her dreams, including herself.
Look at you now, Tiff-Tot! Look at you now.
Part One
One
MADDY DID IT
EPISODE 1
“It all started with the rain”
THE SPRINGVILLE MASSACRE COMMISSION
From the Sworn Testimony of Mrs. Amy Lecter
We heard the crash first. Right before the lights went out. We don’t live too far from the country club. Our son, Cole, even worked there during the summers as a caddy. Made good money too. Anyway, next we smelled the smoke and ran out onto the porch. I could just make out them flames over the treetops. That club must’ve been brined in gasoline—it lit up the sky purple. My husband, George, jumped in his truck to head on over there while I sat on the porch and waited. And waited. And waited. Two whole hours, I waited to hear something. Had no idea what was going on. Phones weren’t working.
Just as I was finna to head over there myself, I see Cole walking out the dark, limping down our driveway, eyes wide like he saw the face of God. I was so relieved that he was alright that I ran up and gave him a great big hug. But . . . he was soaking wet. Like he done grabbed his tux right out the wash and threw it on. It wasn’t until I stepped away that I noticed red all over my robe and started screaming.
We took him down to the hospital. Not a scratch on him but they transferred him to the mental ward on account that he wouldn’t talk. Still won’t talk much. And my Cole, he was a talker. From day one, we couldn’t get him to shut up if we tried. He was the tattle-tale of the family, always ripping and running. Now, he barely moves. Barely blinks, just stares off at nothing.
Only two kids survived Prom Night at that country club. Cole was one of them. They say when you go through something like that, your instincts kick in. So his mind must’ve told him to come on home. He walked over two miles through the mud with one shoe, covered in the blood of other children.
When I asked him what happened . . . he just kept mumbling, “Maddy did it.”
May 1, 2014
FIRST PERIOD. Gym.
Maddy Washington tugged at the bottom of her green gym shorts, eyeing the dark gray clouds circling above Springville High School’s racetrack. Her nose twitched.
It was going to rain.
“Jules Marshall?” Coach Bates bellowed.
“Here,” Jules yawned.
“Wendy Quinn?”
“Here!”
“Ali Kruger?”
“Here!”
The girls gathered by the far fence, using it to help them balance as they stretched their calves and hamstrings. Maddy nibbled her thumbnail down to a bloody stump, simultaneously touching the roots of her bone-straight hair, feeling for its silky smoothness.
“Coach, are you really gonna make us do this?” Charlotte McHale whined, stomping in place like a toddler.
Coach Bates checked off her attendance list without looking up. “You ladies need a run. Do those muscles some good.”
The girls grumbled in response. Coach stuffed the clipboard in her armpit, her long gray hair tucked under a Springville Pirates softball hat.
“Don’t you want to stay nice and thin for your prom dresses?” Coach teased.
“I don’t have to worry about that,” Jules quipped, bumping Wendy with her butt. “Don’t know about the rest of these fat asses.”
Wendy laughed, pinching Jules’s exposed thigh. “Speak for yourself!”
They giggled, playfully evading each other’s grasps. Maddy wasn’t paying attention. She could only hear a pulse beating against her eardrum, nose picking up the scent of her greatest nightmare.
It wasn’t supposed to rain. She’d checked. She always checked. Every day, she turned the radio on while cooking breakfast and called the weather hotline twice before walking out the front door. Even with a 20 percent chance of rain, she would’ve stayed home. The forecast called for cloudless skies, seventy-five degrees, low humidity. So why did the sky look like it was about to change its mind?
“Earth to MADDY! Come in, MADDY!”
Maddy whipped around, pushing her crooked brown frames up her nose. “Huh?”
The entire class stared at her, scowling.
“Well, thanks for joining us,” Coach Bates snapped. “I only called your name about five times.”
Maddy quickly eyed the ground, combing through her long ponytail with shaky fingers.
Coach Bates shook her head and pulled out a stopwatch. “Alright, ladies! Line up. Time to head out. You’ll run down by lower field and back. Two loops. On my count!”
Maddy glanced at the sky once more. Something sour dripped down the back of her throat, forcing her to do the unthinkable.
“B-b-b-but . . . it’s gonna rain,” she blurted out in a shrill voice.
The entire class turned, dumbfounded. Maddy hadn’t said more than three words all year. Now, mid-May, she had strung together an entire sentence.
Coach Bates, shocked at first by the sound of her least favorite student’s voice, rolled her eyes.
“Well, guess that means you ladies will be running faster. Now move it! You’ll be back long before it starts. Let’s go, ladies. Chop-chop!”