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My thoughts were interrupted by Anna bringing soup bowls into the room. She set bowls down in front of the Andersons first, and then served the Reverend and I before serving herself. She then sat down to the right of the Reverend. The Reverend still had the same eerily calm look on his face. The Andersons had dug into their soup with gusto. Watching them eat reminded me that I was starving since I had puked everything in my stomach up earlier.
I picked up my soup spoon, deciding that I needed to keep my strength up in case an opportunity to escape presented itself. As I opened my mouth to eat, I realized how strange it was that the Reverend hadn't demanded that we say a prayer prior to eating. I was sure that we had prayed when he had visited the Anderson's house before. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Anna was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, looking down sorrowfully. Meanwhile, the Reverend had begun eating, not seeming to notice his wife's distress.
I again was about to take a sip of my soup when I heard a choking sound from across the table. I dropped my spoon, making a loud clang as it hit the bowl, and looked over at the Andersons. Mr. Anderson was making a choking/gagging sound. Foam was dribbling from his mouth, and his eyes had gone bloodshot. He was grasping his neck as if something was stuck in his throat.
Mrs. Anderson started screaming, and began to pat him on his back. She was forced to stop her efforts when she too grabbed her throat and started to make choking sounds. A dribble of foam started to come out of her mouth as well. I stood up quickly, and looked over at the Reverend. He was serenely eating his soup as if nothing was happening at the table.
"What did you do?" I cried out to him. "Please help them!"
"Sit down Eva," the Reverend said in a voice that gave no room for argument.
Ignoring him, I raced around the table. He stood up.
"I said sit down," he yelled in a voice that felt like thunder. I glared at him, and started hitting both of the Andersons on the back, hoping that it would help them to throw up something, and get the poison (or whatever it was), out of them. The Reverend abruptly stood up, walked over to me, and dragged me back to my seat while Mr. and Mrs. Anderson continued to suffer what seemed like agonizing pain. I was plopped forcefully into my seat. The Reverend pulled handcuffs out of his pocket, and handcuffed one of my hands to the side of my chair, ensuring that I wouldn't be able to go anywhere.
The next thirty minutes were the most gruesome and frightening moments of my life. As I sat chained to my chair, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson continued to suffer and slowly die in front of me. Their faces turned a withered grey, green mix. Towards the end both of them started to bleed from their eyes and ears. I knew this moment would haunt my dreams for years to come.
When death finally came for Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, I felt immense relief that their suffering had ended. My mind was having a difficult time comprehending the fact that I had just been forced to watch someone die in front of me. And not just die, but basically be tortured to death in one of the most ghastly ways imaginable. I felt like I had stepped into an alternate reality, one filled with nightmares. How was it possible that I had just been laughing with Damon, and blushing over some text that Mason had sent over?
I began to shiver, I felt like I was freezing to death. I wanted to cry, but I felt frozen from the shock of what I had just witnessed. My back continued to feel strange, as if the muscles were twitching underneath my skin. My bones felt like they wanted to rip through. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. I was starting to lose feeling in the hand that was handcuffed to my chair.
I looked over at the Reverend. He had just finished taking his last bite of soup, and Anna was collecting his bowl with shaking hands. He looked over at me with an amused look.
"Aren't you going to finish your soup?" he asked in a seemingly solicitous voice, like two corpses weren't sitting across the table from us.
I gaped at him. The Reverend had given me a bad feeling when I had first met him, but nothing could have prepared me for the evil I could now see radiating from his soul.
"Don't look so alarmed my dear as if I'm some kind of monster. What just happened is a biblical principal that was commanded by God," he explained, the same amused look on his face as if my reaction was out of the ordinary.
I stared at him aghast. I hadn't really ever been to church. None of my foster families had been interested except for the Andersons, and they certainly weren't going to take me out in public like that would have required. However, I had skimmed over some of the verses here and there, and I couldn't remember it ever saying that you were supposed to murder people.
"Leviticus 24 is just one of the many chapters that I'm talking about my dear. 'Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth: as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.' It's all laid out very clear," he explained as if what he was saying made perfect sense.
I opened my mouth and then closed it again, not knowing what exactly to say to explain how crazy what he had just said was. As evil as the Andersons were, they had obviously never poisoned me to death. I felt the thick taste of guilt in my mouth. If I hadn't said anything, than this wouldn't have happened. I was basically a murderer.
Before I could get anything out, Anna arrived with more plates. She set salads in front of both the Reverend and I, her hands still shaking so hard that the silverware clattered against the sides of the plates. The Reverend sent her an admonishing look. Anna took a deep breath in what looked like an effort to calm down, but failed miserably. I didn't blame her. My insides felt like a sack of snakes had been let loose inside them.
The next hour stretched on for what seemed like forever. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson's corpses sat in front of me. Mrs. Anderson had died looking at me, with one of her hands outstretched on the table. I couldn't keep my eyes off of it. It seemed to be stretching towards me, a visual reminder that I had caused her death. The Reverend had Anna bring out three more courses before he finished with dinner. He ate painstakingly slow, as if it was his goal for me to spend as much time possible in this room, the lesson of what happened when he was crossed engrained in my mind for all eternity.
He finally stood up. Like me, Anna hadn't touched any of the food on the table. The Reverend clicked his tongue in disappointment at our full plates.
"It is a sin to be wasteful," he counseled us.
Anna nodded her head in agreement, but made no move to eat. I just stared at him, still not comprehending the lunacy that continued to come out of his mouth.
"I'm sure you are exhausted my dear," he said to me. "Anna will show you to your room. We have had it specially prepared for you."
He walked over to me and unlocked my handcuff, taking my wrist in his hand and massaging it. I felt dirty where he touched me, and it took everything inside of me not to visibly cringe. After he apparently felt satisfied that the blood had returned to my hand, he leaned over and placed a kiss on my cheek. This time I couldn't help but flinch and I immediately felt his anger at my reaction. He must have felt that I had been traumatized enough by the evening though, so he didn't say anything. His eyes held the promise that I would regret it if my actions continued.
I wondered what he was going to do with the bodies. I shuddered thinking that I would have to sleep under the same roof as the corpses. I wouldn't blame them if they came back alive and choked me in my sleep. I was sure that there would be plenty of haunting going on. Anna was waiting by the door for me to follow her. I felt the Reverend's eyes follow me out of the room, and I couldn't help but give a sigh of relief as I left at the fact that I was no longer in that hell-scape.
Chapter 25
Anna led me back down the hallway, past the bathroom, and into a small bedroom. I stared in confusion at the room around me. It almost looked like a kitchy honeymoon suite, like the kind at low-budget motels. I only knew this because one of the better foster families, pre-Andersons, had attempted to take me on a family road-trip with their kids. It had ended up being a disaster. The car had broken down and needed to go in a repair shop while we were in the middle of nowhere. The motel we were forced to stay in while the car was fixed had surprisingly only had one room available, their version of a honeymoon suite. I remember it had been decked out in red velvet with a lot of white and black trim. This room was similar.
The furniture was all black, but the bedding, curtains, lamp shades…basically everything else, was a blood red, and seemed to be made of some sort of velvet material. It all seemed strangely out of place in the house. Everything looked more expensive than anything else I had seen in the other rooms. A shiver went down my spine. I felt like I wasn't understanding something.
Anna cleared her throat behind me and I jumped. I had forgotten she was in the room with me.
