Chapter 1- Consideration

It was a dark and stormy night…

Ha. I wish. Then I would have been home in my favorite chair, reading the latest borrowed book or knitting and drinking tea. Instead, the day was bright and sunny, birds were chirping, the leaves falling gracefully from the trees. And I was on my way to work, late again, wishing the bus went faster.

I couldn’t help but go back to last night. The offer I was given to move into my dream house. An old but renovated Victorian mansion, with three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. A beautiful house on a hill, overlooking a valley and a mile away from civilization. In other words, pure heaven. Still, something about the offer itself kept bugging me. Perhaps the way the woman was looking at me when she smiled and showed me around the house.

But I was certain that sense of impending doom was nothing. I finally got to work, a cute little bakery in the edge of a small town. I was learning to bake there and today I would learn how to make the perfect pie crust. Life was good. The short, portly woman smiled as I entered and directed me to the back. “Just start gathering the ingredients, honey. I’ll be right there”

I started taking things out of the fridge and pantry and assembling them on the large table. I went to grab the old cook book, and that’s when I heard the crash. I peered out the door to the front of the bakery and there was a well dressed old man, silvery white hair and deep brown eyes. He looked both familiar and not. His long beard and hair framed his smiling face, a cigarette gripped by his yellow teeth. Before I could react he pulled the trigger to the handgun he was holding and I watched in horror as the bullet pierced the woman’s shoulder. She screamed and clutched her left shoulder, doubled over in pain.

“Marie!” I screamed, and the man looked in my direction. “Don’t worry girlie, this is all fer you” he said, and then winked. Two more bullets were fired, this time penetrating the woman’s skull. From my position, I saw them go straight through, some blood landing on my arm. I hadn’t even noticed that I had come out of the kitchen and I instinctively caught Marie’s body as it fell, my kneed buckling from the weight of the situation.

The bearded man smiled and tossed a small wooden box next to me, then turned and walked away, out the door. “See you at home girlie!” he said, waving as he left. Thoughts raced through my head as I clutched Marie to my chest. ‘Why? What had she done? What had I done?’ I looked at the box on the floor, and decided to pick it up, after laying Marie down gently on the floor. I opened the box, not even noticing the blood all over my chest. It held a single charm. A locket without a chain, a wolf’s face carved on the front, as if it were howling at the moon. I cleaned my bloody hands on my pants and opened the locket.

The inside had a mirror on the frame and a picture of a man on the inside of the cover. He too looked familiar, but I didn’t know his name. I closed the locket, dropped it and the box in my pocket and got up. Then grabbed my phone and called the police. Once I hung up, I remembered what the man said: ‘see you at home’. No, not that. I won’t let it happen. I went to the back of the store and got in Marie’s car. I hated driving, but this called for an emergency.

I drove as fast as I could, heading to my house. I stopped at a red light, wondering if I should speed past it. Too late. I heard the explosion, felt the ground shake. I could see the smoke coming from my house. No. I ran out of the car and sped the rest of the way, stopping once my house was in view.

Flames, a scream and a figure in the window. In a state of shock, my legs took me through the door. The stairs were gone. No wait, the back room. Gone too, just a huge opening, guess the bomb was here. I see him, father. He can see me too. I run to the living room and stop, the sight of his torso too gruesome to believe. “F-father… w-where are you legs?”

I can’t see, everything’s blurry. Right, I’m crying. Oh look, in the corner, there’s Muffin. What’s left of her. And the screaming. Mom is screaming. Mom is… screaming…

Thankfully, I collapse, my mind going blank…