All In The Family

ALL IN THE FAMILY by BRIAN WARNER He hoped the tape recorder would still work. it was one of thoses small portable ones often used in schools or libraries. Teddy didn't even realise the irony of his action-Angie was in fact the one who had bought it for him. He wiped the hair and blood off the crner and released a sigh of frustration. "Mother will probally ground me from watching the television," he cnsidered, looking to the mess he had made. Damn her. Damn them all. Why did she have to hurt Peg? Why?" Balefully, he kicked the corpse beside him. Her glazed eyes stared back at him with empty fascination. "You bitch. You killed Peg." His sister's dead look gave no response. (He wondered why.) Her face loked so shadowed. He lifted her head up by her clotted hair and saw that it was dried blood on her cheek that created the mock shadow. He saw, too, that the dent in her skull had stopped gushing; the congulated blood had formed a gelatinous plug. Mother would be home soon. He would have to dig a grave. Teddy got up and walked to his bedroom where peg's plastic body lay deflated. atop her bloodless chest was a kitchen knife and she stared at the ceiling with her permanent expression-mouth in the shape of an O. She looked as if she would scream. He picked up the Doll's head and looked tearfully at the flat terrain of her airless, lifesized figure. cradling her head, he began to cry each tear held a thousand wishes to bring her back. He was glad Angie was dead-she had deserved every last blow. As Teddy stroked her artifical hair he noticed the stench coming from his sister who lay several feet away. He knew it was urine-he had heard her bladder release when he had struck the final deadly blow. He had hit her once more for good measure-she had killed Peg. He had every right. Carefully, he let Peg's head rest on the carpet. Bending down, he kissed her cheek and whiped ssome stick stuff from her rubber lip. Mom had told him before not to to touch Peg or to make the nasty in her mouth, but he coudn't help it. He loved her to much just to leave her be. If Mom found out he was doing the nasty then she would take Peg away, like before-he would have to find her too. As Teddy went back to Angie's body he stopped for a moment to marvel at her nudity. He had always watched her dress from the closet, but he had never seen her thing up close. He was fascinated by the dark tuft of hair between her legs-Peg didn't have that. Cautiously he touched her touched her thigh, and jerked away as if her flesh were red hot. It wasn't, though. In fact, she was starting to get

cold. It had been four hours "I hate you," he informed her cadaver eyes. Again he touuched her thigh, but this time he didn't pull away. Gently, he ran his fingertips up her hip and towards her crotch. With the other hand, he pulled her muscled legs apart. Between them was a puddle if urine the size of a pancake. He gave her genitals a curious poke. She was much softer than Peg, and warm-although her body was cold and pallid, she was warm inside. He was getting excited by her macabre sexual divintity. He had to stop-Mother would be upset if he was doing the nasty; Dad had found that out the hard way. All she like was sewing and watching Family feud. She loved that Richard Dawson guy. But she was so yielding, so doughy. Peg's skin was hard and waxy inside-he'd had her for ten years (when he was eighteen he ordered her from a dirty magazine). Angie was only fve then, and now she had matured into a beautiful young woman. He really didn't hate ter that much but she shouldn't have killed Peg. He was nly watching her shower. It was nothing new. But she would have told Mother, Mother couldn't stand for that kind of filth in her house. Thats why he had to hide Peg in the first place. Mother was so old-fashioned; he had to hide alot from mother. Going to the garage, he fetched a spade and began digging in the garden. He had to finish before she got home. The soil was tender, and it tooke but half an hour to make the grave. Time was precious so he went in and cleaned up. He grabbed a towel and went to angie's room. Grabbing both her arms, he pulled back a few feet-the puddle had soaked into the carpet leaving a dark stain. He considered an idea. It was the best idea he had ever had. If Mother had liked the nasty she would have been proud of his idea. He dropped Angie's arms and went back to his room. It pained him to look at peg's wasted body; the gash in her chest seemed bigger and painful. But she was old, he thought. Maybe it was best that she had died. Teddy tossed the knife and carried the rubber doll's limp torso through the kitchen into the back yard. "I'm sorry Peg," he told her painted face. He wouldn't bury her just yet-first he wanted to try out his idea. if it worked he would cover her up. It was almost time, he would have to hurry. Back in His sister's room, he took off his jeans and knelt beside the corpse. The smell of death was pungent and sickening, but life was too frightening for him to handle. He was more like a watcher. But it was too late for watching and she would be perfect. He could hide her. Just like Peg. As Teddy mounted his sister in a fumbling,

incestous act of necrophilia, Mother's car pulled into the cracked driveway. She saw through the grimy windshield the rotting bags of trash piled among the weeds near the porch. That damnable Teddy. Just like his farther. Merely four strokes within her. Teddy finished shamefully; he stayed inside for a few moments-he liked the slimy grip on his flesh. He was embarrased, but he liked the nasty stuff so much. Why couldn't Mother uderstand his needs? "Teddy, didn't I tell you to take out the trash?" she hollered as the front opened, slamming into the fall. she grimaced as a rat scuttled frm somewhere. A catalog of punishments befuddled her mind as she crossed the living room. Teddy froze. How could he explain this to Mother? He would have to hide Angie; if Mother saw what-"Teddy." As Mother hobbled into the hall, he looked up from his disgraceful postion. She stood above him, ancient and leviathan from his angle. Her cane loomed over him like a tree trunk. Teddys frozen panic melted and he leapt up and hurriedly cupped his naughty parts, hiding them from Mother. "Teddy, why didn't you take out the garbage?" "Huh?" He was confused by her displaced question, her banal motherliness. "Oh, never mind." Sho poked her cane at Angie with simple curiosity. "put on your drawers." "Mother it wasn't my fault, she killed-" He quickly shut his mouth-Mother couldn't know about Peg. She hated Peg. "She's dead, huh?" "Mother I didn't mean to kill her." That was a lie. "you were watching her again," Mother beamed "No Mother." That bitch, she had told. He wished he could kill her again; she suffered to little. "I told you not to do the nasty. And now i catch you doin' it on your sister. What can i do with such a disrespectful boy?" Her rhetoric frightened him. What if she took away the television? What if she made him take those pills again-what had she called them? Saltpeter? He could fix that though. He was good at hiding them under his tongueand then throwing them out his window. Although Teddy was taller than Mother, she overwhelmed him with her presence. She stepped over Angie and raised the cane to his head; she was varicose in her elegance. "Bad boys have to be punished. that's how we keep a family together." Sharply, and with suprising force, she bludgeoned his head repeatedly until he collapsed,

limp and degenerated on the carpet. When Teddy woke he winced at the tugging pain at his eyelids-they wouldn't open no matter how hard he strained. Atop his naked groin he felt the cold security of Peg, and beneath him the gritty soil. DAmn Mother and her sewing. He touched his eyelids and knew he would find tiny knotted stitches binding his vision. "Teddy," she called from above. "you've been a bad boy. You won't be be looking at Angie anymore though, iv seen to that. Just like your farther you areI had to teach him a lesson too." He heard an earthly scrape above and pleaded for forgivness. "Mother please I didn't mean to look. I'm sorry. Please, Mother-" A scoop of dirt landed on his face, covering his nose and mouth; his arms were squeezed too tightly into the grave to protest. "Got to keep the family together." Mother continued to fill in the grave as Teddy struggled to free himslef; he wanted to spit but his mouthful of dirt prohibited any such action. Above, Mother babbled abouth discipline and Teddys Punishment led to suffocation as his eyes seeped tears of blood.