The Perfect Son
Mary had always wanted the perfect life.
Since she was a little girl, she had wanted to find the perfect man (who would then become the perfect husband), move to the perfect neighborhood, then raise the perfect son or daughter, and be the perfect stay-at-home mom. And she had been so close to achieving that goal.
Joe had been her high school sweetheart and had promptly asked her to marry him when they had graduated. He got a job at the local factory and they moved to a lovely house, complete with a big backyard and a white picket fence.
And after two years, she had given birth to their one and only son. He arrived in the world on the 6th of June.
It all went downhill from there.
Her son had always seemed to be…different, ever since he was born. He was always so, well, "detached" might be a good way of putting it. Mary could never remember a time when the boy smiled. Or laughed. Or cried. Or show any emotion at all. She never heard "I love you mommy", nor did Joe ever hear "I love you daddy".
Not to mention his anti-social behavior. He wouldn't speak to any child his age. He wouldn't play with them. He spent recess at school alone in one corner of the playground. People presumed that he was just shy.
Yet the other children seemed to be afraid of him because they certainly didn't try to spend time with him. They would give him one frightened look and run off. Strangely enough, the local stray dogs would do the same.
Some of her friends would comment on it and complain of being uncomfortable around him. It didn't help their reputation among their neighbors. Then there were the accusations of him torturing squirrels...she refused to even consider it. She tried not to, anyway.
For sure, he was a brilliant boy, far surpassing his peers in every way academically. Mary had also pushed him to enter as many extracurricular activities as a boy could, so even by the age of 10 he had quite the pre-job résumé.
Mary was scared that maybe it was somehow her fault, that they were raising him the wrong way, but Joe assured her that nothing was wrong. They were raising the perfect son, after all; he was a smart and well behaved boy. Except when it came to going to church.
Of course, they went to church every Sunday, like any perfect family should.
But it was always a struggle to go, because of her son. Every Sunday morning, he would throw a tantrum, demanding that they not go. The closer they would get to the building, the more he would complain of feeling sick. Inside, he would scream and tell everyone who went near him that he hated being there. He tried biting some of the fellow parishioners. It was all very embarrassing and made it quite hard to get through an entire service. In fact, he once threw up on the pastor during the coffee hour. It had permanently stained the man's robe a horrible green color.
Strange thing was though; Mary couldn't recall him eating anything green on that particular morning. And certainly not that shade of green.
Her unease kept growing with each day. Something wasn't right; she just knew it.
So in some odd way, she wasn't surprised when she came home from food shopping to find Joe lying on the kitchen floor, maroon liquid pooling around his body and bloody holes in his back. She had dropped the groceries that were in her arms, and as the eggs cracked and the oranges rolled out of the brown paper bag, her son had stepped out from the shadows. One of her knives was in his left hand, dripping with her husband's blood. And the boy, for once in his life, was smiling, albeit a perverse and twisted grin. She had started to back away and he had followed slowly. His eyes never left her own.
Of all the possible times to ponder such a thing, she couldn't help thinking that maybe they shouldn't have named him Damien after all.
The End.
Author's Notes: I got the idea for this during church (I'm not kidding). Oh and the "coffee hour" that was mentioned, in case you're unfamiliar with it, is simply an hour after the church service where people socialize. And drink coffee. At least at the churches I've gone to.