Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver

A murder was all over the news that Christmas, and Emmy was possessed. She’d park herself on the floor in front of the TV and wait for the latest. It was a whole family dead. Their neighbors got interviewed and said what neighbors always say on TV after a shocking crime, about the victim or murderer either one: totally unexpected, you never saw a nicer person. In other words, they’re paying zero attention to their neighbors. Not so where I come from, considering just for example how the Peggots had their eye out for me on numerous bad occasions of my life, starting day one. What tore Emmy up was this baby that survived the ordeal. The killers left him for dead along with the rest of the family, on the shoulder of a highway where they got carjacked in the worst way. The police found him crying in the arms of dead Mommy, next to shot-to-hell dead Daddy and dead big sister. Every night on TV they showed the same photo of this family, all smiles, matching outfits, taken obviously prior to the shit road trip. You could tell they were something over the top, religionwise, like Jehovah Witness. But that little blond baby. You’d think he was Emmy’s own. She’d asked Aunt June to find out what hospital had him so she could call about his condition. Answer: No ma’am, that was not happening, and Emmy needed to find something more appropriate to occupy her mind.