REMOVED

"My only love sprung from my only hate; too early unknown and known too late.”

Romeo & Juliet, Act I, Scene V

Prologue

The grizzliest murder to ever occur within a hundred mile radius of North Pellin, Illinois occurred on All Hallows’ Eve, 1988. Wind whispered in the trees, sending leaves scuttling across the front lawn of a tiny cottage on the edge of town. The streets were crowded with the neighborhood children, fake bandages wrapped around their face and hands, ketchup staining the woven fabric. They giggled, recounting tales of their midnight adventures, swapping candy bars, and trying to cross lawns without being spooked by the demons and zombies hiding in the bushes.

Buckets jingled, weighed down with extensive candy collections, as the minutes ticked by, signaling the beginning of a new day. The bewitching hour was over, yet the thrill of Halloween still lingered in the air. Rushing home on sugar-highs, the streets quickly emptied as children and their parents made their way back to their ancient farmhouses and crumbling trailers. As safe as North Pellin presented itself to be, it was still Halloween, and there was an overwhelming sense of suspicion that something could, inevitably, go wrong.

A young couple, each holding the hand of a small girl, slowly made their way up a tiny cobblestone path, chuckling at the child’s eagerness to return to the festivities. She was not so extraordinary, dressed in costume like the other children. Green eyes were alight with excitement, thick brown lashes brushing against her cheek as she blinked; curly blonde hair had been pulled back into a ponytail high atop her head, a crisp blue bow tied around it; a starched white blouse had been layered with a blue and white checkered jumper; ruby red slippers gleamed in the light of the full moon; her lips matched the color of her shoes.

Dorothy was now being escorted back to her home in the company of her father, the Tin Man, and her mother, Glinda, the good witch. Together, they were safe from any of the flying monkeys, or obnoxious children still begging for sweets.

Two large pumpkins stood guard outside the front door, ugly faces burning in front of the flickering orange light of a candle, and the child instinctively squeezed her parents’ hands tighter. A glass-paneled door opened to reveal a tiny living room decorated with paper chains and Kleenex ghosts, and the two adults grinned in response at their daughter’s handiwork.

Flipping on the overhead light, the tiny cottage was suddenly filled with a radiance comparable to daylight, casting shadows across the front lawn. Anyone watching from the street would have seen a perfectly loving family sitting on the living room floor, dissecting a rather large pile of tootsie rolls and lollipops. The father, careful to avoid detection, slipped all of the dark chocolate bars under the couch to eat later; the mother watched in amusement as the girl sorted through everything – M&M’s here, Kit Kat’s there, suckers on the table, gum in the garbage. As the little girl was oblivious to them, her eyes focused on the sweets scattered before her, she didn’t catch the knowing smile that passed between her parents. They could not have been luckier, and would never take for granted the miniature bundle of joy that sat between them.

On this particular night, the Goodmans were huddled in front of the television, watching reruns of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. The little girl was lying across her parents’ laps, her mother’s fingers carefully untangling the knots in her hair as she waited for her daughter to fall asleep.

As soon as the little girl’s eyes had closed – faking slumber, unbeknownst to her parents – the TV stopped its flickering, and John bent down to gather his daughter in his arms. Silently, he and his wife tiptoed upstairs, wincing each time the stairs groaned beneath their combined weight. They didn’t bother to turn on the child’s nightlight, since the moon was so bright, and carefully laid her beneath the white eyelet comforter, her thumb automatically moving towards her mouth. Still in her costume, the tiny child smiled in her sleep, curling into a ball beneath the blankets. With a goodnight kiss and a fond smile, both parents placed an arm around each other and left Dorothy to dream of Oz and the Lollipop Guild.

Outside, the wind had picked up, and two men kept a careful watch; one on the house, the other on the street. They were dressed in identical suits of black, so as to blend in with the night as best they could. It was a shame the moon was so bright, but they’d decided it would not hinder their plans in any significant way. They would just have to be extra careful to avoid detection.

They watched the lights in the upper right-hand side of the house to go out, and waited another fifteen minutes before dropping out of the tree they’d been hiding in since sundown. With stealth akin to that of a fox, the two men slowly made their way up to the house, continuously glancing over their shoulders at the slightest sound; a twig snapping could be a witness, another person that had to die.

“Why are we doing this, again?” the shorter of the two asked in a surprisingly deep voice. He didn’t sound as if he cared, just that he’d needed to say something.

The taller one turned to glare at him, but didn’t answer.

They weren’t surprised to find the back door unlocked; nobody in North Pellin locked their doors. Everyone was so eager to trust their neighbors that they would never have guessed two killers lived amongst them. The door shut quietly behind them, and they looked around, trying to discern where the stairs leading to the bedrooms would be.

“This way,” the taller one whispered after a long moment, and the two headed towards the living room, nearly stumbling over a pair of glittering red shoes hidden by a shadow.

Upstairs, the little girl pried one eye open, sleep escaping her. After so much sugar, it was a miracle she wasn’t dancing on the ceiling. She thought she heard the door to the kitchen open, but after a moment of silence, decided she’d been imagining things. She sat down in front of her dollhouse and picked up her favorite Barbie, digging around in a nearby pile for the frilly pink ball gown she knew went with her.

She hummed contentedly, dressing her dolls in extravagant outfits, placing them all carefully inside a large red convertible, crawling next to it as she pushed it around the room.

“Vroooom,” she giggled, pushing the car into the wall. “Eeeeeeert!”

She had gotten up to retrieve the convertible when she heard a loud bang that stopped her in her tracks. She had heard that sound numerous times on hunting trips with her father and his friends. A scream quickly followed, then was silenced by a second explosion. Gunshots. She knew that sound well.

“Mommy?” she cried, peering through the keyhole in her rotting wooden door. Two black figures could be seen across the hall, holding two oddly shaped silver barrels in their gloved hands. Red fluid stained the carpet of her parents’ bedroom, and it took the child a moment to realize that it was leaking from a large hole in her father’s head. He lay sprawled across the floor, his wife beside him, eyes wide and glazed over with a blank stare the living could not duplicate.

At her words, the two figures looked up in surprise – they had forgotten about the child.

She saw the look in their eyes, the enjoyment in senseless murder and vicious crimes, and strangled the scream rising in her throat. Terrified, she ran to her closet and threw herself into the corner, closing the door behind her. She held her breath in fear, waiting for the men to shoot her, too.

“What do we do with the girl?” one was asking. “He said we were only supposed to kill the parents.”

“She’s seen us. We have to kill her,” the other one replied. “We can’t risk her going to the cops.”

Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. The words ran through the girl’s mind as she listened to the approaching footsteps. They were in her room now, checking under the bed, behind the dollhouse, growing ever closer to the closet.

“Come on out, honey. We’re not going to hurt you,” one purred, and the child watched in horror as the door to the closet began to slide open.

Two pairs of liquid brown eyes stared at her for the briefest of moments, filled with a hunger she had never seen before. She tried to scream, but no sound came out. She was going to die, just like her parents.

One second she was waiting for her life to end, staring into the vicious eyes of a murderer, and in the next she found herself staring at absolutely nothing. The man was gone, and so was his partner. Voices suddenly penetrated her brain, and she realized that there were more than two, one of which obviously belonged to a woman. It was a familiar, soothing voice, one she had heard many times before. She tried to place it, but found that her brain was muddled with images of her dead parents, and she closed her eyes, desperately trying to focus on something else.

Weird, unfamiliar sounds could be heard coming from the other side of the closet door, and she tried to ignore them. Horrible tearing sounds were followed by loud thuds, as appendages flew across the room and fell limply to the floor. The tips of bloodied fingers were just visible from where the child sat huddled in the corner of her closet.

Too terrified to move, she pulled her knees to her chest, rocking back and forth, trying to calm herself. She wasn’t dead, and she wasn’t going to die. But someone else’s life was over, probably lying not five feet from her, and she didn’t want to think about it. She had watched horror movies with her parents, just that afternoon, in fact, and could picture the carnage on the other side of the door. She suddenly felt nauseous, and emptied the contents of her stomach into a shoe.

The foreign sounds continued, and she waited for them to stop. After what seemed like years, the night finally grew silent once more, and the soothing female voice called out for her.

“Fiona? Fiona, darling, it’s Mrs. Danver. Sweetie, are you in here?”

Relief washed over her, and she tried to speak. Only the faintest breath escaped her, but it seemed enough. The closet door flew off its hinges, and Martine and Lewis Danver stood there, bathed in crimson. The little girl threw up again.

“Sweetie, are you alright?” the woman begged, wrapping her arms around the trembling youngster. “Fiona, honey, talk to me.”

Her voice only a whisper, she managed, “Where’s my mommy?”

The woman glanced at her husband, whose face was hard and emotionless, though his eyes sparkled dangerously.

“Darling, I… I don’t know how to tell you this…” She looked pleadingly at her husband.

“Fiona,” the man said, squatting down in front of her and taking her tiny hands in his, “your parents are dead. I’m… I’m so, so sorry…” He sounded as if he was, and the sincerity in his words broke through some unseen barrier. Suddenly the child began to scream, filling the night with painful, ear-shattering shrieks. She continued to cry while her rescuers called the police, and kept at it while they waited for what seemed like hours.

It wasn’t long before the police arrived. The Danvers carried the still-screaming child out into the night, a pair of sparkling ruby slippers left discarded on the living room floor.

She wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

Copyrighted by SamanthaNicole