Prologue

It was late, almost three in the morning. The steady thrum of rain hit the roof and window. His wife should have been home by now. The children were tucked safety in bed. The two boys, twins, had put up a fight but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. The baby had fallen asleep almost before her head hit the pillow. He peered down at the video display that showed her room, there she was. So peaceful, so perfect. In all his forty-four years, he’d never seen anything more perfect.

 He looked back at the clock, where could she be? The store closed at eleven p.m. and it was one of the only five buildings in town that stayed open even that late. It was true that she wouldn’t leave until after midnight due to closing duties, that would still put her home at fifteen after, 12:30 a.m. at the very latest. They didn’t live far from the store, it was a small town after all.

He himself had started working from home once his daughter has been born. He stood his wife she could stop working if she wanted but she always got upset at the prospect of being a “stay-at-home-mom”. So, he dropped it and worked from home and played with the children and genuinely enjoyed life.

He just wished she enjoyed their life more.

They had built it together! It was everything that they had planned when they were younger. So why the hell did she seem so unhappy?

 

At 3:10 a.m. he poured himself some scotch and sat back down at the window to watch. Maybe she has just gotten held up. Or maybe something was wrong? Concern tore at his insides. He didn’t want to go to sleep without knowing she was alright.

Of course there was a simple solution to all this, a phone call. That’s all it would take to get everything sorted. He stood from his chair by the window and walked to the kitchen. His phone was nowhere to be found. He looked quickly out of the window above the sink as the motion light lit up before going back to his search. I could’ve sworn it was right here, he thought. He walked to the laundry room, maybe he’d left it in his pants from earlier, but no luck. Retracing his stepped lead him to believe he may have left it in the car.

As he walked as he walked back through the kitchen his noticed that the back door was unlocked, Must’ve left it open when I went to smoke. His wife asked him to smoke in the backyard so the neighbors wouldn’t see, she was always so worried about what they thought. After flipping the deadbolt into place he made his way to the front door.

It was still raining, but it usually was, he didn’t plan on being out there too long so he didn’t take his jacket just an umbrella. His feet slapped as he hurried to the Corolla and slide into the drivers seat. And there it was, resting in the cup holder.

“Car won’t start.”

“Hello?”

“I tried to call you…”

“Why don’t you ever put you’re ringer on?!”

He clicked on his wife’s picture at the top of the screen and the dial tone chimed for a second before he went to voicemail. With a sigh, he ended the call and sent a text back.

“I’m sorry, phone was in the car and I didn’t know. What’s wrong?”

The familiar swoop notified him that his message had sent. He looked back down, “She left me on read?” And exasperated laugh escaped him as he shook his head and readied the umbrella for the run back to the house.

As he stepped up onto the stoop he reached for the doorknob, locked? Had he locked it on accident when he ran out earlier?

The phone dinged, it was her.

“Be home in 15…Mary will drop me off…”

With another sigh he tried the door again just to be sure before going for the spare. The spare key was tucked in a flower bed that hung under the window by the door, the one he had sat at for the last several hours. The key slid into the lock and he heard the mechanism disengage with a twist of his wrist and the door swung open, allowing him in.

He has only been outside for ten minutes at most, but there was a strange aura permeating his home. He felt it in his bones, a chill ran the length of his spine.

The stillness engulfed the room around him, suffocating his vary being. Why did it feel so different?

He walked to the kitchen first to check the back door. Locked. He let out a shallow breath with a laugh as he turned to go back to the living room when the lights cut out.

His breathe caught as the shock of abrupt darkness hit him. He reached for the nearest wall switch, nothing. The fuse box was in the laundry room so he made his way back through the kitchen again. The flashlight in his phone cast a white pool at his feet as he entered the laundry room and opened the fuse box. He flicked several of the switches off and back on and nothing happened. Confused, his eyes scanned around the outside of the box.

The line running to the panel had been severed.

Someone was in his house.

His heartbeat thumped in his ears as he turned to run and go check on his children. He could barely hear his heavy foot falls and labored breathing I’ve the off beat rhythm of his heart.

With his legs pumping, he rushed up the stairs to where the children slept.

As he rounded the banister at the top of the staircase he felt a sharp pinch and a heavy hand on his right shoulder. He inhaled sharply, then his eyes recognized the large knife lodged into his stomach, and the face of the man holding it.

The eyes wholly uncaring and unconcerned.

With a grunt his attacker sent him cascading back down the stairs before following after. He could barely make out the figure approaching him, must have hit his head on the way down. His stomach burned and his head felt wet. I have to get up, get to my kids! What happened to them!? Oh God!

Using the corner of the side table by the couch he hauled himself to his feet in shaking legs. The pain was less than expected, adrenaline or concussion, he didn’t know.

The intruder now stood in front of him now. Shoulders back, raising and lowering with measured breathes. He let a toothy grin show as his victim pushed off the table in an attempt to rush him. With his right hand he punched the charging man across the jaw causing his head to snap to the left with a pop, throwing him off course and slamming into the wall beside the stairs.

His assailant loomed over him, that sinister grin splitting that all too familiar face, almost touching his eyes. He couldn’t hear anything over the pounding in his chest and his own raspy, labored breathing. The large figure said something he couldn’t make out as he reached down and grabbed his shirt to pull him up again.

All he could think about were his children, and how glad he was that his wife hadn’t been able to make it home on time.

                        

 

 

She knew that being angry at him was wrong, it had been a simple mistake, but he could be so frustrating! Mary was droning on and on about her husband, saying more of the same things she had been for the past few hours. If you hate him so much just leave, Jesus. But she just smiled weakly and nodded along, that was easier.

Her eyes were immediately drawn to the open front door of her home. As the car was pulling into the driveway she opened her door and hurried to the house.

 

                     

 

After taking off the jumpsuit, gloves and shoe covers and stashing them in the gym bag that he would burn later tonight, he crouched at the tree line across from the house. He watched as the woman, the wife and mother of the family he had just visited, entered into her home. Then he turned and walked away as he heard her scream cut through the night rain.