Cameron (Flash Fiction)

Cameron

Cameron grabbed the door handle and twisted it with one white-knuckled hand, pushing through and slamming it shut behind him so hard that the door frame rattled and quaked like a sapling in a hurricane. He stormed into the house; each step tempestuous, each swing of his arm feverish. Pacing rapidly back and forth, he angrily studied the bruises on his arm. His nostrils flared as he remembered the strong grip, those unyielding and unrelenting fingers digging harder into his skin and leaving red crescent moon impressions when they finally receded. He paced faster, trying to clear his head, but his mind was filled with echoes of words, words that he could not forget. You’re a waste of space. Nobody wants you here. He covered his ears, but the words reverberated incessantly through his thoughts. A small droplet of blood appeared, welling into the nail marks in his skin. A repeating pattern of pain drawn onto his arm, all set on a backdrop of newly-formed purple and yellow bruises. Stupid, stupid, stupid! His hand flew out and punched the wall, causing a resounding cracking noise to echo through the myriad of rooms branching off into the darkness of his home. Small fractures spidered out from the point of impact and spread until they tapered off into the darkness surrounding him. He grimaced and shook his hand in pain. “Even the wall can fight back,” he muttered to himself aloud. Why couldn’t he have done anything? Grabbed the fleshy, horrible fingers and torn them off of him? But he had been weak, too weak to do anything about it. Rage coursed through his veins, partially hate for the bully, but partially hate for himself. His thoughts became so entangled with one another that he could not separate them; he clutched his head in pain. Suddenly, he was shaken from his own mind by a sound. What was that? Curiosity distracted him momentarily as he stopped pacing to listen. There it was again. A small whimper floated through the air from around the corner, easily carried through the silence of the empty house. Cameron slowly turned his head, searching for the source of the noise; his pet dog. Huffing angrily, he returned to his bitter reverie. Cautiously, the small animal poked its nose around the corner, and then its face appeared, but Cameron did not halt his furious marching. Click, click, click. The dog padded over quietly; the only sounds in the nearly noiseless house were its nails against the hardwood floor and the heavy breathing of the boy. Nudging Cameron’s leg with its wet nose, the little creature whined softly again. Cameron snapped his neck around, his eyes shifting wildly. His inhibitions had disappeared; all semblance of humanity had vanished. His leg seemed to move of its own accord and suddenly, with one swift movement, his booted foot had come down on the helpless dog. A horrible noise echoed through the room; shocked, the boy dropped to his knees and cradled the tiny broken body of the dog. Its ribs had snapped like a brittle paper mache art project torn in the clumsy hands of a small child; its breaths escaped raggedly, hardly shifting its soft abdomen. As he clutched the little dog to his chest, a tear slid down Cameron’s cheek and tracked down his face into his pet’s matted fur. What had he done? Fragments of realization slipped into his reality, shattering his previously clear vision. Cameron squeezed his eyes shut to cage the tears threatening to flood down his blotchy skin. His arms and hands shook as he held the animal close to him, trying to feel the last beats of its heart. As he felt its life draining slowly away, he let out an anguished and primal scream; all he knew was pain and pain and pain. Deep sadness engulfed him like a fog rolling into his mind, dulling his senses to everything but his infinite and unending misery. The dog blinked slowly in confusion and licked the boy’s hand with its rough sandpaper tongue. It took one shuddering breath, then another, then another, and then nothing.