Marsha’d had it all planned.

Honest, she’d meant to be out of the house months ago. But she kept finding some other thing that she absolutely couldn’t live without and had to take it down to the storage unit and had to put it off a bit longer in case she found something else.

And of course, every time she found something new it just gave her another excuse not to leave. A favorite sweater, a favorite childhood toy that made her chest squeeze thinking about losing it…

This time, though, she’d put her foot down. She’d leave in the next week or the next month, depending on whether or not she could find a reliable mode of transportation better than the bus or a taxi.

After all, her parents would notice sooner or later, that she kept taking a small amount of money at the beginning and ending of each month and saving it up for her escape.

Looking for the mode of transportation was yet another stalling tactic, but at least it was only going to stall her for a few weeks this time, instead of a few months.

And then this had to happen.

“Did you catch another dog?” her mother asks, smiling around a bite of chicken fettuccine alfredo. Her best dish, or so she would have everyone believe.

She cooks it a lot, Marsha supposes that must make her think she must be good at it. Regardless of the fact that the noodles stuck together in a big mushy mound and the sauce was too watery. Marsha has practiced in choking it down.

Whether it tasted good or not, Marshas’ stomach would still turn. It always does at mealtimes. But especially on days like this.

“Found it out while we were patrolling the park,” he says and cuts into the prime rib that he demands to have for dinner at least once a week. “Wandered away from the pack, I think.”

Marsha feels dull and quiet inside. Wondering if she’s going to have to watch it happen again.

“Just don’t make a lot of noise,” her mother says. “We got a complaint from Louisa next door the last time we had a dog. Would not shut up about it.”

“Henry can tell Louisa to shut up,” her father says. “It’s as loud as it needs to be. Ain’t like there’s anyone around here who hasn’t heard it before.”

Her tongue curls up in her mouth and she’s unable to eat another bite. “Mom, I can’t eat anymore. Can I put it in a tupperware?”

“As long as you only eat that for the next two days, you should lose some weight for sure,” her mother says with a smile. “Just don’t eat more than a single serving a day. You know you have problems with your weight.”

‘Ah yes, a-hundred-eighty pounds is definitely morbidly obese. Thanks, mom.’

She just smiles and agrees, moving to take her plate to the kitchen. Teeth clenching behind her loose lips, where they can’t see.

Part of her wants to leave before it can happen. Other parts call her a coward for thinking about it.

And then…one part of her…thinks maybe, she knows exactly how to compromise between the two desires.

After all, there’s nothing saying she has to leave alone.

“I’m not doing it tonight, anyway,” her father says.

Her ears tune in on his words to the exclusion of all else, her body pausing in the act of scraping the fettuccine into the tupperware for only a moment.

“Oh?” her mother asks. Sounding disappointed. “Was there a problem with it?”

“We might be able to use it as bait,” he says. “Catch a few more.”

That confuses Marsha as that makes no sense at all. Dogs can’t be lured with other dogs the way that people can.

She finishes the tupperware and then makes a split-second decision. While putting the tupperware away, she scoops more and more of the fettuccine into it until its full to bursting and then hides it in the back of the freezer.

Whatever kind of dog it is, it’ll probably be able to eat the chicken if she sucks the sauce off, right? The Chicken was slimy and weird, but a dog that ran away from home probably wouldn’t be picky.

‘I’ll have to drop it off at a vet or a shelter,’ she thinks.

Then she leaves the kitchen and makes a beeline straight for her room. Hoping neither of them has anything to say to her.

For a blessing, they don’t call out to her, continuing to discuss their disgusting business.

The worst part is the domesticity of it. How her father will bring home an injured baby deer and torture it and her mother will laugh as he tells her about how it screamed-- even though they could clearly hear it. He does everything in the fucking basement.

What’s worse is knowing that the neighbors are in on it. All of them on this street. That they take turns catching stray dogs and wild animals and sometimes even cats that belong to someone two streets over and they’ll torture and murder them for their sick amusement.

She can’t even call the police, because they have so much pull with them somehow that the last time she’d tried it, she’d been locked in her room for two days with no food or water and that was when she was still under ten years of age and ‘didn’t know better’.

Every once in a while, she’d be able to scare off the animal they were chasing or let it out of one of their garages, but the times were few and far between.

This time would be the last and she didn’t know how to stop them from doing it in the future. She could always call all the people who’d lost their pets around their area and tell them what happened to them. But there’s something holding her back, a twinge of uncertainty; of fear.

‘I can feed that poor animal in the basement something nice’, she thinks. ‘It might be the last meal it ever has, if I can’t do anything to stop dad from hurting it.’

That thought spurring Marsha on, she pokes her head out of her bedroom, scouting the corridor. Her parents’ laughter echoes from their bedroom. It’s all clear. Marsha hurries to the fridge, then the basement door and down the steps as quietly as she can. Heartbeat thudding in her ears, drowning out the sound of her footsteps.

As soon as she reaches the bottom, something moves, just behind a dusty metal shelf, stacked with boxes of the equipment that her father uses to…

“Easy, pupper,” Marsha says, putting one foot after the other. “I’m friendly.”

She swallows, and continues taking slow quiet steps, hunching over slightly. She holds her arms out, tupperware in one, the other splayed out in a show of non-aggression. She steps over a couple of boxes that she does not want to know the contents of-- then finally steps around the metal shelving unit.

In full view of what is most certainly not a dog.

Marsha jerks and straightens immediately, almost losing the tupperware. She fumbles and slaps it to her stomach, almost hard enough to hurt.

‘What the hell?' Just keeps echoing in her mind and rattling her skull as she steps slowly closer.

A young child scampers backwards, pushing themselves against the wall; the fear in their eyes willing it to crumble and just let them out. Their curly ginger hair a bird’s nest.

Marsha’s heart races. Her knees shake and she’s suddenly unable to breathe.

‘I always knew it would lead to this one day,’ she admits to herself. ‘I just hoped it never would and that I wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that my dad is an actual serial killer instead of just a pet murderer.’

Well, now. There’s…something to be done here. She just has to figure out what it is.