The Daughter by C.B. Cooper (robert munsch read aloud .TXT) 📕

left him trembling like a goddamned baby. He hated that, hated himself, hated those dreams.
The nightmare was the same every time, evil, faceless demons, chased him through a dark forest, branches and briars pulled at him, trying to impede his getaway, and no matter how fast he ran, or how well he hid, in the end, they always found him.
As he lay in bed trying to slow his beating heart, he heard the whisper of light footsteps across the room. “Gracie, is that you?” he called quietly.
“Yes, daddy.” came the whispered reply.
“Did I wake you?” Ben knew that often times he would holler and yell out in his sleep during the dark dreams, and he suspected that was the reason she had come into the room.
Earlier, Ben had moved his son’s old cot into the corner of the main room, he just couldn’t bring himself to sleep in the bedroom that had been his and Loretta’s. That bed held nothing but bad memories.
There was a hint of panic in Gracie’s voice when she answered, “No, you didn’t wake me.”
Alarmed, Ben sat up painfully and swung his feet to the floor, as he did, she struck a match and lit the lantern. “What is it, Gracie?”
She looked at him from over top the lit lantern, the glow casting strange shadows that made her dark eyes look like they burned black. “Someone’s coming.” she said softly.
Ben felt an icy cold hand wrap around his heart, freezing it in his chest. “How long ago did you get that?” He knew from past experience that she often got the feeling about five minutes before someone would show up. Another little gift of hers, and another one of the reasons her ma had been sure she had some connection with the devil.
“A few minutes ago, maybe three or four.”
“Son of a bitch!” Ben yelled as he tried to stand up. His damn hip had a tendency to lock up at night while he slept, and it always took some slow moving in the morning to get it working right, but there was no time for that right now. Falling back on the bed he grabbed for his pants, while yelling, “Gracie! Go get dressed, hurry now!” When he seen she wasn’t moving, he barked, “Go, goddamnit! Run Gracie, and snuff out that goddamned light!”
She had just turned, heading back to her room, when the front door exploded open. There, in the light from the lantern, stood one of the faceless demons that was always chasing Ben in his dreams. Only this time, he wasn’t dreaming. This was for real.
“Hello, Ben.” came the rough gravely voice.
Ben felt the chill of certain death settle in around him, weighing him down. “Hello, Russ.”


Ben let out a deep sigh as he looked longingly at his loaded rifle, leaned against the corner of the cabin, a good ten feet from where he sat. His army issue .44’s were in his holster, under his cot, he had no hope of reaching either of them. He could try, but he would never be quick enough to beat the bullet from the gun that Russ Conner’s had trained on him. Dragging a weary hand down his face he looked over at Gracie. She was standing stock still, her eyes wide with fear, staring at the massive, monsterous frame that filled the doorway.
Russ Conner’s stood a good six foot four and weighed a little over three hundred pounds, every ounce packed with pure evil. He had long, dark, wildly disheveled hair, and a wide, uneven purple scar that ran from the corner of his squinty left eye down to the tip of his chin, making almost a half moon.
Russ and his friends had been reprimanded, more than once, during the war, for using brutal torture tactics against the enemy. The last time they’d gotten caught, the Colonel had been so repulsed by what Connors and the others had done, that he had discharged them immediately and sent them packing. Russ Conner’s had screamed and cussed in outrage, then went into detail about what he was going to do to the Colonel when he got a hold of him.
After they finally got Conner’s and his gang of hard cases out of the camp, the Colonel had turned to his chief guard, and looking a little green around the gills, ordered him to triple the guards around his tent.
The man, and the men he ran with, were sick, twisted, miserable excuses for human beings, and now, the evil son of a bitch was standing in his house.

Ben sat atop the nervous horse, tears drying on his face, staring straight ahead with dull, unseeing eyes. Every ounce of his energy had been drained out of him, right along with his will to live. He’d witnessed things in the last two hours, that no man should ever have to see, he’d endured more pain than any man should ever have to bear, until finally- something inside him just snapped and shattered.
Earlier, Russ Conner’s had him thrown up in the saddle, his hands bound firmly behind his back, the business end of a noose wrapped tightly around his neck, the other end was thrown up and over a large branch and tied off at the trunk.
Then he’d had to watch as they set fire to his house, Gracie’s house, the men laughing as he screamed and cursed them. Ben’s cries of outrage had reached a frenzied pace as, in the sickly orange glow of the fire, his worst nightmare began to play out right in front of his eyes. It had took two men to hold the frightened animal still, beneath him. They weren’t ready to hang him yet, they wanted him to watch what they did to her.
Gracie was thrust into the circle of men, her clothing ripped roughly from her body, before being shoved to the ground, completely naked and helpless. Ben had screamed with every fiber of his being, split flying, white foam collecting in the corners of his mouth, as the first man, Conner’s, took his pants down with a smile.
Gracie had fought him like a wild cat, but that had only seemed to fuel his brutal rampage. Ben could see how much the man enjoyed it. The harder she fought, the more violent and perverted he became. He wanted desperately to tell her to stop. That fighting it was only making it worse, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say it. It was her fight now, and all he could do was watch the horror unfold.
Gracie fought her way through four more men, before her efforts became noticeably weaker as her will exhausted, until she seemed to give up and lay quietly, staring up into the night sky, staring up into nothingness.
She had eventually closed her eyes, her face becoming lax. Ben was afraid she was dead, and even more afraid that she wasn’t. Sobbing, he apologized to her over and over, ignoring the cruel taunts it drew from the men. He alone had brought this evil down upon them. Even though it was the vile men that were committing the unspeakable acts against his daughter, he alone was responsible.
“I’m so sorry Gracie. I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you, Angel.” he choked out.
He watched as her head slowly turned towards him and she opened her eyes to look at him for the last time. “It’s okay, daddy.”
Those three words hit him harder than a shot gun blast to the chest at close range. They tore holes straight through him, shattering what was left of his soul. Their hollow eyes remained locked on each other, until finally, the last man was done. Nine men in all, had violently raped his daughter, his Angel, right before his eyes, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could about it, except watch helplessly.
He heard Russ Conner’s evil chuckle, “I got one more present for you, Ben. This one’s from Jarvis and Adams.”
He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Gracie’s. They were held together, bound by pain, humiliation, sorrow, and the eternal love that exists only between a father and his daughter.
Russ stood at Gracie’s head. Pulling his gun from the leather at his side, he cocked the hammer back. Ben watched in numb horror as Gracie’s eyes gently fluttered closed in acceptance and surrender. A moment later the gun roared in the night, the bullet striking her in the head and ending her pain forever. Sending his precious Angel, home.
It was a beaten and broken man that raised his heels, then brought them down sharply, sending the horse under him on its way, and delivering him from evil.


Chapter 3


Gracie awoke to a white hot blinding pain. There wasn’t a square inch on her body that didn’t scream out in unbearable agony. She lay, trying desperately to remember what it was that was causing her all this pain. Her head felt like it was going to explode, and the pain between her legs was hot and fierce, every muscle in her body burned.
Fighting the urge to vomit, she rolled onto her side and forced one eye open. Her vision was blurry at first, but slowly things started to take shape. The blades of the trampled grass around her were coated with a sticky looking red substance. Looking a little farther, the trunk of the big oak tree that grew in the side yard came into focus, and then she seen the boots. Her daddy’s boots.
They swung slowly in the light breeze, back and forth, back and forth. It was then, that the signifigance of the softly creaking of the rope registered in her mind, and she remembered.
Memories began to pour in, one after another, piling on top of each other, and crowding an already distressed mind, to the point of breaking.
It was precisely at that moment, that young Gracie Ann Walker, died.

Reverend Sharp was a few miles from the Walker farm, when an old familiar feeling settled over him. Trouble was coming. He’d spent most of his life down in Indian Territory, and had learned from a very young age, that paying close attention to those feeling would keep a man alive, and his scalp intact. It had been years since he’d had that feeling, but like an old familiar friend, it walked right up and settled in.
When his palms started itching he instinctively reached for the set of pistols that no longer hung from his sides. Grimacing, he told his horse, “Old habits die hard, I guess.”
Instead, he reached back and threw open the flap on his saddle bag and drew out the old dog-eared black book. Running his fingers along the worn leather cover he began to pray

“Jesus Christ!” Reverend Sharp cursed. He wasn’t praying any longer, he was staring at the burned out shell of the Walker home. Gracie’s home.
“Gracie!” he yelled, panicked, and waited for a reply that wouldn’t come. Icy fear gripped his heart at he began searching for clues that might tell him what had happened in his absence.
The dirt directly in front of the cabin was torn up with both boot and horse prints. The grass in the yard was trampled and ate up, nudging his horse forward, he bent in the saddle to examine the ground more closely. Riders came in from the east, a lot of them, from the looks of it. Rode right up to the front porch, then several scuffed boot prints headed around the corner, towards the side yard. As he rounded the corner, two things jumped out at him. The first being