Red Hourglass Read Online Free

strapped a thick canvas pouch to the bottom of the pack.
    I’d become quite skilled with blades. After my soft toy massacre, I moved on to large melons, bird carcasses, and legs of lamb when I could trade some of our farm produce for one. My cuts and slices were now fast and precise. I gathered up all the knives, daggers, and scalpels that I’d hidden around my room and put most of them in the canvass pouch. I slid a tight-fitting leather sheath over the blade of my favorite dagger and tucked it in the waistband of my jeans, and I slipped a switchblade in my back pocket.
    A few minutes before midnight, I grabbed my overstuffed backpack and crept out of my room. I couldn’t open the front door. It had a new dead bolt and I didn’t have a key.
    The television was off and I looked over my shoulder. My stepfather was on the sofa, cradling a can of beer and puffing away on a cigar in the dark.
    “I knew you were planning to run away with that boyfriend of yours you slut!” he yelled, shattering the still night air. He squeezed the can and I heard the sound of metal being crushed. “You’ll never leave this place, ever!”
    He got up and staggered toward me. His eyes were bloodshot and his breath reeked of alcohol. He gave me a hard smack across the face that sent me crashing to the floor.
    “I’ll never let you leave me!” He pounced on me and began pulling at my shirt, revealing my bra.
    “Leave me alone!” I shrieked as I struggled beneath his weight.
    “You’re exactly like your mother! I won’t let you leave me like Matilda did!”
    His eyeballs were bulging out of his head and veins were pulsating in his sweaty neck. He tried to pull down my jeans with his grubby hands and I screamed as loudly as I could.
    “Shut up you little whore! No one can hear you out here!” He slapped me across the face and unzipped my jeans.
    I was screeching in terror. The disgusting drunk maggot was going to rape me and I had to do something. I couldn’t reach my dagger, so I pulled out my switchblade.
    “STOP!” I shouted as I sat up with all my strength. I flashed my blade in front of his eyes and jabbed the tip into his neck. “GET OFF ME!”
    “How dare you!” he yelled, grabbing for my wrists. “This is my house and I’ll do what I like!”
    I was twisting and turning, using my body to push against him with all my might, but he wouldn’t get off me. I began swinging my arms wildly and the switchblade glided across his neck.
    “Yooooou … murderous … bitch,” he gurgled in horror as blood spilled from his gaping mouth and gushed out his severed carotid arteries.
    He instinctively put both hands to his neck before collapsing on top of me. His hot, purple-black blood poured all over my clothes. I pushed him aside and rolled out from under him.
    “You … won’t … get … away … with …” he coughed and spluttered as the last of his black blood drained from his body.
    My heart hardened as I witnessed his demise. I couldn’t believe that my stepfather tried to touch me, but I didn’t mean to kill him. I just wanted to cut him, to scare him off. He attacked me first. I had no control over what happened.
    I felt his sticky black blood seeping through my clothes like a plague. I rushed into the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror. The sight of his blood smeared all over me made my hair stand on end and I jumped back. I peeled off my clothes and scrubbed the remains of his filth off my skin as fast as I could. Then I bleached my switchblade.
    I went to my bedroom and put on clean clothes. I carefully placed my bloodstained bra, panties, T-shirt, and jeans in a plastic bag.
    I put my switchblade in the pocket of my clean jeans and went to the living room. I stuffed the plastic bag in my backpack and looked for my sheathed dagger. Somehow, it wasn’t covered in blood and I slipped it into my waistband.
    Bending over the motionless body of my stepfather, I placed my fingers under his nostrils. There was no