Easy as shucking an ear of corn, Bernie stripped off her pajama bottoms.

Hilda had told her what would happen if Bernie ever came into her room at night. She’d cut his balls off and make Polly eat them.

With a wrench that made her neck hurt, Polly got her face free of the pillow and screamed.

His hand left her back, grabbed her hair and pulled her head up. His other huge stinking paw slapped over her nose and mouth.

“Shut up. Your mom’s so fuckin’ drunk, she ain’t gonna hear. You stay quiet and we’ll have a fine old time. Fun. We’ll have us some fun. Bernie knows how to make a little girl sing like a bird. Tweet, tweet. Now, you gonna stay quiet?”

Polly managed a fraction of a nod between the slabs of flesh imprisoning her head.

“Tweet, tweet,” he said again. Bernie was such an incredible asshole.

He took his hand away, and Polly screamed with every bit of air left in her lungs. She twisted and bucked. Hair was yanked out, but the pain made her stronger, and she clawed at any part of Bernie she could find.

Her room was never real dark, not like in-the-woods-at-night dark. The trailer park had big security lights everywhere, and the light leaked in around the curtains-when she’d had curtains. Since the sun had rotted them off, the room’s single high window was her own private moon, always full and stupidly square.

Bernie was naked and his thing was poking up like a big old dead stick sticking out of a swamp. It made her scream even louder.

“God damn it!” Bernie hissed and grabbed her face to cover her mouth again.