Tatum Donnelly (a_straychild) wrote in horror_story, @ 2013-04-11 19:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | complete, cycle002, tatum, teagan |
WHO: Tatum [and cameos by Michael & Teagan.]
WHEN: January 13th, approx 2:30pm.
WHERE: Donnelly house.
WHAT: Tatum returning home, only to stumble upon Teagan's handiwork on their father.
WARNINGS: Mild. Some language, a little blood, a little vomit, something for everyone.
When Tatum arrived outside of Michael Donnelly's front door, she hadn't been expecting it to be unlocked. Especially with her dad's police cruiser parked motionless, and menacing, at the head of the driveway. It had been three days since her fight with Emma, an event that was still weighing heavily on her mind and seemed to squeeze her heart in her chest uncomfortably every time she thought about it. Two long days had passed, and while Annie had been a kind enough cousin to let her stay with her (possibly permanently, a thought that delighted the redhead), she needed her things. She was going to get her stuff back whether Michael liked it or not, and Tatum had told Annie as much, before she left for her father's house that afternoon. She needed a change of clothes, all of her electronic material belongings, her familiar toothbrush, a variety of necessity items.
She wanted it all back, everything she was entitled to. And my, did she feel entitled. He couldn't ground her if she didn't live there anymore. She needed her goddamn camera, more than anything. Her sour mood was putting her more in the mood to take some photographs. Relieve some stress. She always felt better when she took pictures. Even if there would be no more of Emma.
She'd find a new muse.
While the back door being unlocked was a blessing, especially after she knew that Michael had changed the locks at some point in the past week and she had been expecting to need to pound on the door to gain entry, her easy entrance to the house was a short lived victory. When she entered the Donnelly house fully, the first thing that registered with Tatum was the fact that she had never in her life smelled such a putrid scent as the one currently permeating her entire home. Her quiet, seemingly darkened, home that it had taken her over ten days to run back to. It smelled.. rotten inside of the house, almost sweet. Like overripe fruit with some other more disgusting scents mingling below the surface.
"Fucking sick," she had muttered, wondering vaguely how her father and Teagan were even living with the smell, as she wandered further inside. What the hell was it? Did the toilet back up or something? She was waiting, expecting her father to appear, maybe come around the corner from the living room, probably screaming bloody murder at her about how irresponsible she was acting.. she expected her sister to appear just as readily, looking concerned and annoyed. Teagan might even call her an asshole for not calling in over a week. Tatum wasn't exactly sorry about the radio silence on her end, she still felt it justified.. but if Teagan had come to her senses and was ready to help her, she could feign an apology. They had both been a little wrong. Teagan moreso than her.
But there was no one around, just the monotone ticking of the grandfather clock that had been residing in their living room for as long as Tatum could remember.
"Teagan?" she had tried, as she reached the bottom of the steps, hand clutching the railing. "You home? I'm ready to say I'm sorry.. sort of," she added, louder, though there was no response. But someone was up there. Tatum could hear whoever it was moving around, moving something around, or trying. While Tatum's typical gut reaction to unknown sounds and strange noises would have been to run, to run very far in the opposite direction, she found herself heading further inside anyway. "Daddy?" she called out, once she was further down the dark hallway, hesitating again. She was running out of options. Perhaps Teagan had been right with her suggestion last week at the video store, maybe she could play things down and butter their father up at the same time.. it would make things easier. But he was often so damn unreasonable, so stubborn.
Her bedroom was empty, as well as the bathroom, and her father's office. If one could call it that, he had converted it himself. It was a spare room next to Tatum's that had once belonged to Teagan, until she had become old enough to call dibs on moving into the basement bedroom anyway. The smell was worse the further she went into the house, much worse, almost choking her. The rank sweetness with an undertone of rot was everywhere, it'd probably stick to her clothing, her hair. The last door to check was her father's room, and as she neared it, silently declaring it as the undeniable source of that smell, she almost didn't want to open it and see what was waiting on the other side.
Everything that happened once Tatum did cross the threshold into Michael's bedroom seemed to happen in a blur. First, the smell had hit her even harder, although it was clear someone was trying to air the place out. The windows were wide open, at least, but she still had to stifle back a gag, her stomach rolling. The sweetness was mostly chemical. Cans of peach apricot air freshener were on the dresser; one tipped over on its side. Empty.
Tatum had barely even acknowledged Teagan was in the room at first, her brown eyes surveyed the room and only locked onto Michael Donnelly, bound to his bedposts with blood caked into his hair. Beaten down, feverish, and reeking of his own filth, the sweat, the drying blood.. and the fresher stuff, too, oozing down the side of his head from his ears. How hard did one have to hit a person to make his ears bleed? She could tell even from the doorway that he must have been that way for a few days, the disgusting state of the defecated sheets beneath him revealed part of the story, not to mention his glazed eyes. His slumped form, unable to hold himself up.
"Daddy!" The cry came out of her like a reflex, despite all of the awful things she had ever said about her father, particularly in the last week or two. Concern marred her pale face, as she stumbled further into the room, but he didn't acknowledge her presence. Pissing him off, disobeying his rules, going out of her way to get under his skin, even moving out was one thing.. but this awful act was something else entirely. He was still her father, her daddy. It was a heinous sight. Tatum didn't even hear Teagan talking to her until her sister was talking practically right in the redhead's face. Did she do this? Why did she do this? Why did she looked so pleased with herself about it? Teagan's smile was gleeful, toothy, almost deranged, and Tatum only half heard what her big sister was telling her. Something about giving needing a hand, turning him over, that she needed Tatum's help to get his sheets changed. He'd probably like to use a real toilet, if he could make it. They'd have to keep his wrists bound just in case. He sure did stink, didn't he?
Tatum literally heard barely a word, staring at her father, wondering if he was even alive. Even as a lapsed Catholic, her right hand moved automatically; fingers touching to her forehead, her stomach, the right side of her chest and then the left, crossing herself. Michael's chest still seemed to rise and fall, shallowly.. but what kind of existence was he living? Why hadn't Teagan just killed him? Put him out of his misery? The younger sister was totally in silence, shock, as she stared wide eyed at Michael on the bed for what felt like forever to her. In actuality, it was only a few seconds, and it wasn't until Teagan reached out to pull her closer by her arm ("c'mon, dad needs our help, Taters,") that Tatum finally seemed to snap back into reality.
She flinched violently away from the brunette's touch, recoiling, and almost falling as she retreated several paces away from her sister. "What did you do to him? What the fuck happened to him?" she demanded to know, almost rhetorically. It felt like the closest that she’d been to a panic attack in weeks. She truly in her heart had no desire to know know what Teagan did specifically. She could see enough. She wasn't sure she could handle the details. With her back pressed against the hallway wall across from their father's bedroom, her eyes were still wide, unable to do anything but stare at her poor father, confined to his bed. Dying in a pile of his own excrement. He'd only ever wanted what was best for them. Was this her fault? Had she put this idea in Teagan's head?
The older girl blinked. Wide eyes, dinner plate eyes... a picture of innocence, were it not for the traces of old blood that had been wiped on her jeans. “What do you mean, Taters? I fixed things! It’ll be better, now. He’s not mad, anymore.”
Suddenly, Tatum realized, being bad wasn't as fun as she had made it out to be. Bad things happened to bad people. Tough as she wanted to be, she was still just a little girl, and she felt violently ill, shaking all over. Like a leaf. Everything was very fucked up, and she had burnt too many of her bridges to go back now, when she had barely had any bridges in the first place to burn. She had alienated Emma, pushed Teagan to this, and gotten her father killed. Or damn near close to it.
Teagan would go to jail for murder. First degree, probably, this plan had clearly been premeditated. They both might go down for it. Would she get pegged as the willing accomplice? God help her, she didn't want to touch anything in the house. She didn't want anyone to even know she had been there. She wanted to go, needed to go. She had to go back to Annie's and tell her, or find Emma, find someone, tell someone.
Someone that, ideally, wouldn't want to turn Teagan in right away. She was still her sister. They could fix this.
Despite any sisterly love for her though, when Teagan took another step closer, looking like she was wondering why her little sister was acting so strangely, Tatum didn't hesitate to bolt. She knocked several family pictures down as she shoved herself off the hallway wall to escape her sister, broken glass hitting the floor from the smashed frames. Pictures of Michael and his girls in happier times, pictures of Teagan and Tatum both on their first days of school respectively, one of a much younger Tatum playing in their backyard, one of Teagan on her highschool graduation day, a picture of their elusive mother that their father had never taken off the wall even after she had left so many years ago. Tatum didn't seem to care what she knocked down in her hurry to abandon ship, the glass crunching under her sneakers as her skinny legs (still wearing the skirt that she had borrowed off Teagan ages ago now) carried her with speed that she didn't realize that she possessed. Speed she never had, at least normally, when she wasn't running for her life from a bully. It was an unwelcome change, to be running from her own flesh and blood instead.
She ran like the wind, down the hall and out the backdoor that she had entered through with a bang, not even considering bothering to stop and shut it behind her. She crossed the yard, already winded, but still running. Pushed, mostly, by fear. It felt unfamiliar and strange to be so scared now. The redhead desperately wished that she had her car, even though it was a lost cause that would never happen now. Her dad certainly wasn't going to be able to get it out of impound for her in his current condition. She'd have done anything to make it to the driveway and see her car. To be able to climb into her shitty little silver hatchback and drive, to get as far away as possible from what she had just witnessed.
Alas, it was not to be. Tatum made it halfway up their end of Maple street, on foot, until she couldn't push herself any further. She had to stop running. She has always been scrawny, out of shape, and her muscles were screaming with protest as the adrenaline drained from her system. Her heart still pounded steadily. She whipped around to look behind her, half expecting to see her sister in slow pursuit, like a smiling Terminator. But there was no one, not even any cars driving on the street.
Finally convinced that she was far away enough from her house, that Teagan couldn't get her and that she didn't have to smell that smell anymore, Tatum finally gave in. Hunching over along the side of Maple street, hands on her knees, she let herself gag. It only took a few seconds before she threw up violently on the shoulder of the road. It was a mixture of exhaustion and fear turning in her gut, but also the fact that the smell from the house was still in her nose. She hadn't had much to eat that day, she hadn't wanted to eat Annie out of house and home when she was a guest, but every little thing that she had eaten came up easily. The fit of vomiting left her crouched down and panting, scrubbing at her lips and with an empty stomach, the taste of puke and guilt filling her mouth. Both equally distasteful things.
Fuck, she needed to do something. She needed a joint. She had never needed one so badly in her whole life.