The Gun Room [2011]

Bleeding profusely from his left knee, the boy was hurried up three flights of stairs to a place they called The Gun Room: a converted walk-in closet that housed a CB radio workstation and a large stock of firearms.  Once there, he was made to sit on the edge of an old Air Force footlocker, and as he attempted to situate himself, his father tore away the remains of his tattered Toughskins.  The deep wound gushed with every rapid beat of the boy's heart, but there was no sign of the broken glass presumed to be lodged within.  Observing this, the father cursed under his breath, jumped to his feet, and ran out into the adjacent room, where he could be seen digging for something beneath the king-sized bed.  The boy's mother -- arrived from the kitchen stinking of raw meat -- leaned over the boy, stuffed a rolled-up dish towel into his mouth, and instructed him to bite down, which he did, just in time for the rag to muffle his panicked screams.  His father, with a determined look on his face, had returned carrying a rusty grey Craftsman toolbox, which he methodically placed on the linoleum beside the boy's blood-drenched feet.  Then, in a hauntingly calm voice, the father instructed the mother to leave the room; and when she did, she closed the shuttered black door behind her without looking back.  Tears streamed down the boy's flushed face as his father opened the toolbox and removed a pair of needle-nose pliers.