David's Revenge

"Congratulations Felicity McGee! You've won the chance to talk to your dead brother! Come on down!!"

Felicity stumbled down the steps towards the announcer. She kept tripping on her feet. The air around her was thick and lit in garish tones of purple. Bilious blue smoke poured out of nowhere creating a barely navigable fog at her feet. The announcers voice was still booming at her, but she was oblivious too it. She fell on the last step, tilting to the side and hitting her head on something made of heavy metal. She looked up. It was a TV camera, and behind it was a cameraman, filming her every move.

"This way, this way please, Felicity." It was that announcer again. His fuzzy orange suit jacket clashed horribly with the violent violet lights.

"What do you want from me?" she asked him.

"I want to give you a prize. Tonight you have been chosen to talk to your brother David who committed suicide just last week." The audience gasped at this seemingly exotic news. "Step right up here..." he grabbed her by the elbow and heaved her onto a plush, white couch, "...and have a seat, he'll be right with you."

Felicity shook her head, trying to shake off the smoke that hovered around her. This had to be a nightmare. David had been dead only a week, dreams of his suicide plagued her ever since she'd come home after soccer practice one night to find him hanging over her parking spot in the garage.

She looked around, tried to get her bearings. She was sitting in a white, oversized couch that was actually fairly comfortable. To her right, there was a small coffee table with a mug on it. A tall lamp was behind the couch illuminating where she sat. On the other side of the coffee table was a matching plush white chair. It was overstuffed like the couch. The announcer was presently sitting in it.

Looking straight ahead she saw the biggest television audience she had ever seen. It stretched endlessly to the left and to the right, and it went so far back into the building, that she didn't see where it finished, the rows of people just faded into obscurity.

Upon a closer look, she realized that it was the oddest television audience she'd ever seen. She could have sworn a guy she saw in the second row a moment ago had been holding his own head up over the tall person seated in front of him so he could get a better view. She did a double take - this time he was holding his head in his lap. The man noticed her staring. His decapitated head BLINKED at her, then turned to talk to the person beside him.

Then there was the lady in the tenth row. She had what looked like a chicken bone sticking out the side of her neck. The man she was seated beside had a tire track across his forehead. Freaky. Just. Freaky.

The announcer stood up signaling the audience to stop talking.

"Here we go, folks!" His voice was rich and it echoed across the building. "David McGee, come on down! You've been selected to talk to your living sister!"

Felicity looked up in the direction the announcer was facing. Walking out of the blue-gray smoke was David! She couldn't believe it! He looked just like he did when they played soccer together last week. His cheeks were rosy red, contrasting with the paleness of his skin. His dark, curly hair came to just above his chin in a shaggy haircut that framed his face and gave him an impish look.

"David!" Felicity squealed. She jumped off of the couch and ran across the stage to meet him.

"Oh, Felicity! I am so glad to see you! I miss you! I love you!" David whipped her up into a tight hug and wouldn't let her go. He ran his fingers through her long, blonde hair and kissed her cheeks and her temples. "Oh God, Fliss, I've missed you so much."

Felicity was crying now. "Oh David, why did you have to leave me? Why'd you have to leave me alone?"

David tried his best to hold back the tears. He managed to keep the sobs at bay, but a few stray tears snuck out and streaked down his face.

"I -" he started, but was cut off by the announcer.

"I hate to interrupt, but if you two would just sit down on the couch over here, then the show can begin." He led them back to the seating area.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, ghosts, ghouls and other assorted dead people. Today we have with us David, the soul of a 23-year-old man who hung himself in his garage just last week! David enjoys soccer, photography and long walks in the park. Joining him is his sister Felicity, now be careful, folks! She's a live one!"

The audience - which was made up of dead people, Felicity realized - laughed at the joke.

The announcer continued...

"Felicity is 20. She is currently enrolled in a Psychology program at the University of Toronto. She enjoys ballet dancing, volunteering at the humane society and playing soccer. Felicity, we'll start with you."

Felicity stood there stunned. This was the oddest dream. All she wanted to do was talk with David, and though she normally had some control over her dreams, no matter what she tried, she could not gain control of this one. David looked just as sad as her about it, but he wouldn't meet her eye.

"David," she said, turning to him. "What's going on here? This isn't a dream, is it?"

"No, Fliss, it isn't." Sadly he took her hand, still refusing to meet her eyes. "I...I couldn't go on with out talking to you one last time, so...so I arranged for us to be on this show so I could talk to you."

"Oh, David..." Felicity whispered. "Is this for real?"

He couldn't speak, so instead he nodded.

"Okay folks, I'm running the show here. I'll ask the questions if you don't mind." It was that bloody announcer, budding in again.

"Now Felicity, sad as you were that your brother had hung himself, you were also very angry with him for leaving you alone in a very precarious situation. Would you mind telling us about that?"

Felicity froze. In her dream-state, she'd forgotten about that. Forgotten about how with her brother gone, her father had started knocking on her door at night. Had started creeping into bed with her. Had started forcing her to have sex with him. The suddenness of the memory was too much for her.

She turned and screamed at David. "How could you do that to me? How could you just leave me like that, alone with him! You had to know he'd come after me next! How could you?"

David was openly sobbing now.

"Felicity, I'm sorry. I just couldn't take it anymore. I had no idea he'd hurt you too. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

Upset as she was, Felicity knew she had no right to be angry with David for what he did. She turned to hug him and they held onto each other for a while until the audience started shouting for the show to go on. The reluctantly broke apart, but sat on the couch holding hands. It was a tenuous connection. David's soul was solid, but at moments, he wasn't there. Felicity had to hold his hand very carefully.

"So," drawled the announcer. "Now that we've got that out of the way, on to you, David. What are you going to do about it? Your father sexually and physically abused you for the better part of ten years. Are you going to let him get away with it?"

Felicity was flabbergasted! Ten years? Her father had been hurting David for that long? She knew they got into he occasional fistfight, but the sexual abuse? She had had no idea.

"David, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. Why didn't you tell me? We could have done something!"

David nodded grimly. "I know Fliss. Well, I know that now. The fact is, I didn't tell anyone and nothing got done. That's why you are here today."

"What do you want me to do?" she asked.

"I want you to avenge me."

It took a moment for his request to sink in.

"You want me to kill dad?" Her voice was quiet, meek. She was afraid.

Once again David was too emotional for words; he just nodded at her. His clear, gray eyes looked into her deep brown ones. The connection between them was almost palpable.

Felicity swallowed. "Okay, David," she agreed. "What do you want me to do??

*

Felicity should be exhausted, but she wasn't. She had just returned from a four hour soccer game and usually she would skip a much needed hot shower and fall straight into bed, ignoring how sweaty and smelly she was after the game. But not today. Today she was going to kill her father.

She put her cleats in the closet and took out David's old, yellow rain slicker. She snapped the buttons into place. The idea of being covered in her father's blood repulsed her. Though she was hot, the rain slicker was a necessary evil. Leaning down, she grabbed a crow bar she'd tucked in a rubber boot. She'd bought it at Canadian Tire last week, just for the occasion.

"Welcome to premeditated murder," she mumbled to herself. Taking a deep breath, she spoke again, this time louder for her father to hear her. "Daddy, I'm home."

"I'm upstairs, pumpkin," his voice echoed down the stairs to her from the hallway up above. "I've missed you, sweetie. I'm so lonely. Come upstairs and make your daddy happy."

Closing her eyes, Felicity took a few more deep breaths.

"Hurry up, Felicity! Don't make Daddy come and get you. You know how angry I get when I have to make you come up here. If you aren't up here in ten seconds I'll -"

"I'm coming, Daddy!" she yelled.

One more deep breath and she headed up the stairs. First one at a time, then two at a time, and then at a run. She was anxious to get this over with.

When she got to her fathers door, she hid the crowbar behind her back. Leaning in the doorway she whispered "Hi, Daddy."

Her father was lying in bed, the sheets crumpled up at the bottom of it. He was wearing only boxers. His left hand was on a can of beer and his right hand was moving beneath his shorts.

"Hey sweet baby, nice jacket. Get over here."

It was all she could do not to choke on her words as she talked in the sexiest bedroom voice she could muster "I thought we'd play dress up..." It was disgusting how her father's eyes lit up at those words. "...You sick son of a bitch!"

Those last words were yelled at the top of her lungs as she lunged across the bedroom, swinging the crowbar in front of her.

In the split second before her attack, her father managed to heave his hulking weight onto the other side of the bed. Her first swing with the crow bar hit his leg instead of its intended target - his head. For a moment, the only thing that could be heard was the sound of the two of them breathing and the sick rip of flesh as the end of the crow bar caught on his fleshy calf and tore it open.

"Why you little BITCH!" her father spat out. "That fucking hurt. When I'm through with you..."

It was an idle threat though.

"You mean when I'm through with YOU, father."

She leapt over the bed, a vengeful demon in a bright yellow rain coat. Her father half fell, half crawled onto the floor beside the bed. He was trapped in between the bedside and the wall. He had nowhere to go.

"Baby, don't do this. You don't know what you are doing," his voice quivered with every word.

"Yes I do. Damned fucking RIGHT I do. Just like you knew what you were doing to David almost every night for TEN YEARS! Ten years, father! A fucking decade! And just like you knew what you were doing to me, your own daughter, every night for the past two weeks. Well, you aren't going to hurt anybody else, Daddy." She spit the last word out like it was poison. "You won't hurt anyone ever again."

At that, she brought the crow bar up like a baseball bat and then swung down to hit him in the head. His body flopped down like a rag doll, but she hadn't knocked him out.

Cole McGee looked up at his daughter. It was as if she was in a haze. Suddenly the room was filled with a blue-gray smoke. His eyes focused in and out. Out of the blue, David came looming up from behind Felicity.

"David," he whispered. "I'm sorry...make your sister stop, please. She always listened to you. She always does what you ask her to."

Disgust and hatred shone pure on David's ghostly face. He shook his head no. Instead of helping his father, David stood behind Felicity as she rained blow upon blow with the crowbar upon their fathers face.

Blood and brain matter splattered everywhere. Cole's face was a bloody pulp of mashed up skin and shattered bone. Seconds after the last blow, David shimmered out of existence and disappeared from the room. When she was sure he was dead, Felicity threw the crow bar across the room and collapsed on the bed in tears.

She'd done it. Avenged David. Avenged her own lost innocence. She could sleep peacefully, now. And David's soul could rest peacefully as well.

*

"Ladies and gentlemen, ghosts, ghouls and other assorted dead people! Welcome to today's show."

There was the announcer, again. The same orange suit jacket, the same garish purple lighting. The same dead folks in the audience.

"Today's guest was killed a scant three months ago and by his own daughter! Let's have a warm welcome for Cole McGee." There was mild applause before the announcer continued. "You might remember Cole's daughter Felicity from one of our earlier programs. Felicity is a soccer star and still in school. She recently plead not guilty when charged with the murder of her father. The trial ended yesterday and she was found not guilty - by reason of insanity."

*

In the second row, a young man with rope marks around his neck smiled broadly at a young girl standing ten feet away on a corner of the stage. At her feet, was a crowbar and she was wearing a yellow rain slicker.

Authors Notes:

Wow.two years after I write this, I finally get a firm grasp on grammar and edit it. I promise not to be that lazy in the future!