A Disturbing Dream 4

I'm 13. I'm in Jordan's house, my childhood best friend. It's night. His brother Ryan and him are trying to convince me to kill their dad Mark. They keep trying to push an Israeli made Uzi into my hands. Finally I except. They tell me that it is set on semi-automatic and has 30 rounds in the clip.

Mark, their father, comes home shortly after I've agreed to kill him. He comes into the kitchen through the garage. It's dark. No lights are on in the house. I'm crouching in the doorway to the dining room. As he comes into the kitchen he says "Hello?" and Jordan and Ryan both shout "Now! Now!"

I fire six shots into Mark's chest. He falls to the ground and groans. I stand and take a step closer, he's still moving. Panic drowns me. What have I done? What have I done? I fire again. Three shots. Two in the chest one goes wild and grazes his leg. I see blood. He lies still. Blood begins to flow from the leg wound and soak the kitchen tiles. I step closer to look at the body, horrified, but it is in deep shadow. The only thing I can see  in the kitchen is a pool of blood in a shaft of moonlight. I lay the Uzi next to the body. I have a fleeting thought of concocting a tale of suicide but I know that is useless. I'm going to jail.

Ryan and Jordan call to me from the front room. They are sitting on their couching waiting patiently for their mother to come home. Both have peaceful faces. I think there must have been things going on in that house which I had no idea of. The family always seemed nice to me but I get the sense of some underlying wrongness.

Their mother returns and before her sons can offer any explanation Mark walks in flicking on the kitchen light as he leaves it. The kitchen is splattered with blood, so much blood I think he cannot be alive. As we all stare at him in silence he reaches into his shirt and pulls out a large ring of keys. Bullet slugs have fused some of the keys together but it is clear they have stopped all the shots save for the one that grazed his leg. "Boys it's time to clean." We silently trudge into the kitchen and start to clean up the blood. "You're not leaving until all this is clean." he says to me. We begin to clean but whatever we do stains remain. Ryan and Jordan look deflated, defeated. I scrub the sink and think: how did blood get in here? And as I scrub the blood remains. I realize we'll be cleaning this kitchen until Mark is satisfied. On and on and on. How many times have Jordan and Ryan done this? Many times. And now I'm here until he lets me go.

I awoke.