Biology Homework

Clare looked from the still dripping axe on her night stand to the closed – sadly, unlocked - bedroom door. Trying not to be distracted by the pretty fan of blood spray on the ceiling, she fought to keep the excitement out of her voice. At least her mother still knocked. Let her suspect masturbation rather than … this.

“Sweetie, can I come in?”

“Er… not right now, mum. Kinda busy.”

Which was a variation of the truth.

“May I ask what with? This is a little urgent.”

“My biology project…?” she ventured. Again, a version of the truth. Biology homework had been to study the human anatomy.  Her dissection, George, the school bully, lay in beautifully disjointed pieces on her duvet.

She grabbed the axe, intending to throw it under the bed, lurching around in startled horror.

“Dammit!” she exclaimed as the axe, swinging under her momentum, connected soundly into her mother’s torso. Mummy dearest seemed too shocked by the mess on the bed to scream or react. She dropped like a stone, spilling a rather elegant pool of claret blood where she lay.

“Seriously, Mother? Why choose today to quit waiting for me to say come in, huh? Do you have any idea how much of a problem you have created? Mother?”

She didn’t really need to check the non-existent pulse at her mother’s neck to know she was gone. The blood had quit gushing in spurts, almost ceased even to dribble.

A few hours later Clare began humping the filled, double-bagged body parts down to the garage. Entering through the door from the kitchen, she was able to drag each bag and heft it into the back of the station wagon her parents had gifted her for her eighteenth. She could have dealt with it all earlier, but she’d needed to make careful diagrams and notes for her essay.

She wished she’d been faster as the garage doors began to roll up and she heard her father’s car purring up the drive.

“Dammit to hell! Today you decide to come home early?”

She slammed the rear door of the car, pelted into the kitchen and up the stairs. On occasion she had trouble sleeping. Her doc had prescribed tablets, one of which she fetched before hurtling back down to the kitchen. She threw it into her dad’s favourite mug, poured steaming hot coffee over it and offered it to him with a smile as he came through the door.

“Good day?”

“Exhausting. Where’s your mother?”

“She slipped out, groceries or something. You go watch some tv, I’ll start dinner.”

“Good girl.”

He kissed the top of her head and ambled away. She waited a few minutes before creeping into the front room. He was out cold. Breathing a sigh of relief she headed back to her room to remove the last of the bodies.

With only her mother’s head left, she grabbed the bag and headed for the stairs. To her chagrin the bag gave out, ripped open and set the head bouncing down the stairs with thudding echoes. Worse, her father appeared, bleary-eyed - should have used two tablets -  and screamed like the demons of hell were after him when his wife’s head hit the newel post, rebounded and set off down the hall.  

Seeing him blanched, unable to quit screaming, Clare wondered how she could have sprung from such pathetic loins. She belted down the stairs, grabbed the penknife she kept in her jeans pocket, flicked it open and cut his throat. The relief of silence was wonderful… until the sirens started.

When they asked her why she smiled and shrugged;

“I was just trying to do my homework.”

Later, in the asylum, surreptitiously sharpening a toothbrush on the metal of her cot, she grinned. Exploring the nuthouse might prove educational… and fun.