BLOOD SISTERS 1

Chapter 1

Glenda Carton wore the cool October night like a

Legionnaires’ battle cloak, comforted by its weighty shroud,

concealed by its terminal pitch. She sat atop the washing

machine within the darkened laundry room of her small farmhouse,

blinking into the gloom and waiting like a hunting wolf.

Her senses were tuned to high alert, so when she heard the

scratching at the floorboards she knew it was a mouse even

before she looked down upon it. The tiny rodent stood upon hind

legs and sniffed the small room’s dank air. Glenda plucked a

slice of buffalo sausage from a paper plate that sat upon the

dryer, tore a morsel of the gamey meat off with her teeth and

dropped it to the floor. The mouse approached cautiously,

whiskers twitching, then grabbed the treat and stole away.

Glenda popped the remainder of the meat into her mouth, chewed

lustily and pondered this sudden change within.

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Before this night Glenda’s fears had been too numerous to

list. She feared snakes and heights and dogs and bats and

strangers. Yesterday she would have told you that at the age of

twenty-six she still harbored a child’s terror of the dark and a

shrieking panic regarding mice. But all that had been

yesterday. Today she felt bold enough to march through the

gates of hell and spit in the eyes of Satan himself. So much

had changed in the past twelve hours she scarcely recognized her

own thoughts and she mulled this transformation as her hand, of

its own volition, reached out and closed upon the burled grip of

a sawed-off shotgun. Before this night she had feared guns,

too.

She cradled the weapon, dense and heavy as a frozen leg of

lamb, and felt the power of its potential transfer into her.

She’d never fired the thing, or any gun for that matter, but she

felt confident that when the time came she’d take to it like a

duck to water. She raised the murderer and sighted down the

twin barrels, squinting down the narrow hallway at the back

door.

“Hurry home, husband,” she whispered.

The word tasted foul in her mouth and she hurriedly gulped

more sausage to purge it from her palate. How could she have a

husband when she’d never gotten married? The answer to that

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question lay in the equally unsettling words: Common Law.

According to the State of Colorado’s loose and ludicrous

statutes, all a couple had to do to be considered married was

cohabitate and present themselves as Mister and Missus. Glenda

could just kick herself now as she conceded she was guilty on

both counts. She and Carl Shepler had been living together for

the past eight months but there had never been a single moment

of wedded bliss, though prior to cohabitation he’d been quite

the charmer

Glenda had thick brown hair, lively hazel eyes, and a

beautiful complexion, but Carl Shepler saw none of this. All

Carl seemed to notice was the extra poundage that girdled her

hips and legs like pads on a hockey goalie.

“God, you’re fat,” Carl frequently observed after his ninth

or tenth beer.

“I’m big boned,” Glenda corrected. “It’s genetic.”

“Your sister’s not fat. Did she inherit the skinny bones?”

“My sister’s anorexic, Carl. She’s very sick.”

“Sick?” Carl mused. “Then you should move in with her for

a week, maybe you can catch what she’s got.”

Glenda sometimes wondered if his frequent hurtful comments

were the result of his own inadequacies, being that Carl was as

skinny as she was heavy. Recently, at a barbecue, Carl had flung

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a thin arm around Glenda’s wide hip and announced to their

neighbors, “She may not be much to look at, but she’s warmth in

the winter and shade in the summer!”

Their sex-life was a cruel joke that was only entertained

after Carl was thoroughly inebriated. Foreplay consisted of

Carl squeezing her breasts, like a farmer testing melons, then

rudely parting her thighs and attempting penetration. He was

always too obliterated to obtain an erection, and after a five-

minute eternity attempting insertion of his rubber key into her

sterling lock he would grumble, “You’re just too damn fat.”

Glenda had often wondered if it was possible to dehydrate

oneself from spent tears, for surely she had cried gallons.

Last week she had brought up divorce.

“Please!” he had laughed. “Divorce me. But remember, I

get half of everything.”

Glenda chewed sausage, scratched her hip and pondered

giving him half the length of a twelve-inch butcher knife. His

true motivations for courting her were now apparent: he had only

ever wanted half her stuff. He had contributed not one thin dime

to the mortgage, why should he get half of her house? Why

should she have to settle for this man, for this relationship?

Glenda’s heart was so big and just brimming with love,

overflowing with it. Sure, her outside wasn’t so attractive,

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but her inside was absolutely beautiful. Why couldn’t a decent

man see that? Why had Glenda reached the advanced age of

twenty-six years without having a man ever look her square in

the eyes and say, “I love you”? Was it too much to ask?

Since Junior High, long before she should have entertained

such worries, Glenda would lie in bed at night, praying: “Just

once, God. Just once, I want a man to whisper those three

special words to me. Just once and I think I can die happy.”

Glenda scowled at the memory. No time for tears now. No

time for prayers. Time for blood.

She snapped her attention right as the mouse reappeared at

the floorboards, shivering timidly, afraid to venture forth.

Just yesterday she had felt that fearful, that insubstantial.

Now she felt ready to roar.

Why the change, and when exactly had it begun? She

recalled the events of last night.

Five o-clock and Glenda had hurried home from her job at

the Safeway, wanting to fix Carl’s dinner before heading off to

her second job, waiting tables. Carl was supposed to be out

job-hunting and she hoped this meal would be a celebratory one.

She fixed his favorite, spaghetti and meatballs, while pacifying

her own hunger pangs with thick slices of buffalo sausage the

kind old lady across the road had given her. Glenda was trying a

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high protein diet and praying this one would work. At five-

thirty she heard his dilapidated truck rumble up the drive. The

sauce was simmering, the buffalo sausage half gone, and Glenda

was feeling . . . odd.

Carl lurched through the front door, shouting, “Where’s my

pool cue?”

“Good evening to you, husband.”

He frowned at her tone. “What’s up your ass?”

“Any luck finding a job, husband?”

Carl waved his hands, “I don’t have time for this. Where’s

my goddamn cue?”

“Stay for dinner.” Glenda stirred the sauce. “I’ve made

your favorite.”

“Don’t want any!” He yanked open cabinets and drawers, one

after the other, not bothering to shut them. “What’d you do with

my cue?”

“That six foot stick?” She laughed. “That’s what you’re

looking for in the drawers?”

“Very funny,” Carl glared. “I’m down two hundred bucks and

I need my goddamn cue!” He staggered past her. “And gimme two

hundred bucks!”

“Uh-uh.” Glenda shook her head. “Not today.”

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Her vision suddenly flashed and she rocked back onto her

heels. He’d hit her. She found her balance and shook her head

to clear her vision. He’d hit her. This was not the first

time. It would be the first time she hit back.

Glenda busted him in the mouth and watched him stagger and

buckle. She stepped forward and swung again, this time getting

some weight behind the fist, plowing her knuckles into his teeth

and knocking him into the wall.

“Bitch!” Carl wailed, jumping behind the kitchen table,

dabbing a hand to his mouth and seeing blood. “You hit me!”

“Twice!” Glenda nodded. “And I ain’t done yet.”

Carl Shepler may have been lazy and mean but he wasn’t

completely stupid, he spit blood at Glenda to cover his retreat

and beat-feet out of there. Now, eleven hours later, Glenda

waited and watched as the mouse emerged from beneath the dryer

then suddenly reversed direction and bolted for cover. She

looked up at the back door.

Pre-dawn’s ochre light illuminated two figures beyond the

curtained window. Glenda immediately recognized Carl’s slender

shadow but she was slightly taken aback by a hulking shape

hovering behind him. A key scraped the lock, followed by an

unfamiliar baritone growl. “Open the damn door, Carl.”

“I’m trying, dude,” Carl whispered.

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A creak and bump as the security chain halted the door.

“Litt-le pi-ig!” Carl sang through the narrow opening.

Glenda felt a chill, like a needle-toed millipede, race up

his spine. Every nerve in her body began to hum and blood

thrummed in her ears as she felt her muscles engorge. Never had

she felt this alive.

“Little pig, little pig!” Carl barked. “Let me in!”

“Kick it!” The baritone voice ordered.

“No, dude, let’s try the back door.”

“Bullshit! Kick it!”

“Wait.” Carl said.

“Get the hell out of my way.”

Glenda slid off the dryer just as the back door burst in.