Two Years Ago…
It is a beautiful, sunny day. The breeze is blowing very lightly. Our 6-year-old son, Sabastian, is in the front yard playing with our Golden Retriever, Rover. My wife is in the kitchen making her famous German Chocolate cake, only because her sister is coming to town for a long visit and it’s her favorite. I am upstairs feeding our 2-year-old daughter, Brylee. She’s been crying all morning, not having the best day. My wife, Krista, stands at the sink watching Sabastian run and laugh with Rover. Her phone starts ringing. It’s her sister, Kara. She’s about ten-minutes out. Apparently, her husband found an old antique shop that he wanted to stop by to try and sell some knick-knacks that he found when he was cleaning out their attic the other day. In the distance, she could hear faint music playing; the music that is familiar to the ear when you hear it: the ice cream truck. Krista knew it was just a matter of time before Sabastian came running in asking for a couple of dollars so he could have some ice cream. He always gets a little extra money because they now have ice cream for dogs that Sabastian loves to give to Rover. Not a moment later, Sabastian is standing at my wife’s feet jumping with excitement. She hands him a five-dollar bill and he rushes outside to meet the ice cream truck by the curb. Krista just loves it when Sabastian gets so excited about things. She steadily walks to the window to watch him get his ice cream. She finds it odd that Sabastian is the only child there, but she doesn’t think anything about it. Krista starts to tell her sister that everything will be ready by the time she gets to the house when the worst thing has happened. Krista watched as the ice cream man bent over the truck’s window and pulled Sabastian through it and then took off. Rover is barking hysterically. Krista screams my son's name at the top of her lungs and rushes out the door. I just put Brylee to sleep for her nap and was walking down the stairs as Krista rushed outside. I ran out there to meet her. She’s crying uncontrollably and is trying to chase down the truck, but it has already disappeared. Krista is crying in my arms and tells me everything she saw. Days goes by. Weeks. Months. No sign of our son. We have come to terms at that point that our son may never return home or be found. We have spent the first few weeks chasing down every lead we could with no success. The detectives that we have been talking to told us that it is best we keep a low profile just in case the kidnapper is lurking around and waiting for the right time to harm our son…if he hasn’t already. More months go by. No sign of Sabastian.
Today…
Brylee is now 4-years-old. She can barely speak full sentences, but speaks enough to where we can understand her. Krista’s sister, Kara, has officially moved in with us. She caught her husband having an affair with one of his students and is going through a divorce. It’s 9:00 in the evening and Krista is singing a lullaby to Brylee to get ready to put her to bed. About 30-minutes later, Krista comes downstairs with relief in her eyes that Brylee fell asleep so fast. We visit with Kara for a couple of hours and decide to call it a night. We all head upstairs and go to bed.
It’s 3:00 in the morning. I hear the faint noise of the ice cream truck music. Why on earth is the ice cream truck roaming these streets so damn early? I sit up in the bed to listen more closely in hopes that I’m just imagining things. I hear the truck getting closer when all of a sudden I hear our screen door slam. I immediately jump to my feet and rush to Brylee’s room: she’s nowhere to be found. I jolted downstairs and saw her running down the street after the truck, except the truck was not even nearby. I rush to grab Brylee and finally get her back in the house and in her room. I finally get back in bed and lay there thinking of what had just happened. My daughter was roaming the streets by herself in the middle of the night. How did she even open the door to get outside? I distinctly heard the ice cream truck, but it was nowhere in sight. What is going on? I end up going to sleep for what felt like five minutes when suddenly my alarm goes off promptly at 8:00 am. I have to work today. It’s a Saturday, but we have this big investor coming to pitch a plan to us and so everyone has to work extra hours to prepare for that big meeting. I get up and head to the bathroom to take a shower. As soon as I come out of the bathroom, I find my wife isn’t in bed. She is probably downstairs making breakfast. I get dressed and walk out of the room. It’s so quiet in this house. All I can hear are the clocks ticking. I walk into Brylee’s room and I freeze with horror. Standing in my daughter’s room is this burly man with the creepiest grin. His left eye is dead and part of his jaw is displaced, almost as if it had been broken. He stands there and then turns to pick up my daughter. I yell at him, “Do not touch my daughter, you creep!” He just laughs and picks her up. He slowly turns to me and speaks to me in such a heavy French language, “Vous voudrez peutêtre aller voir votre femme!” I look at him so confused. I do not speak French. And with his best American accent he repeated his words and said, “You might want to go check on your wife!” I could feel my heart start to flutter. I rush downstairs and find my wife laying on the kitchen floor, covered in blood. Lots of it. I grab her face to try to wake her up. I start looking for wounds. I cannot find any. I look at her face and she’s just staring at me. I ask her if she’s okay and then suddenly I feel this sharp pain in my stomach almost as if I was stabbed. I look down and find my wife holding a knife that is inside me. I can barely breathe. I look at her with such fright. She is crying and says to me, “I’m sorry, honey. The man told me that if I want to see Sabastian, I had to make sure you weren’t going to follow. This was the only way. I love you. I’m going to bring our son home!” She slowly gets to her feet. I try to tell her to not go with that man, but I can barely speak. I watch them walk out the front door with my daughter. I look over and see someone laying on the floor behind the island. It’s Kara. I crawl over to her the best I can. She’s been mutilated. She’s dead. What the hell is going on? Luckily, she had her phone in her hand so I grabbed it and called 911. About five minutes goes by and all of the emergency personnel start rushing through my door. They are able to get me up and in the ambulance. The coroner sends Kara off in a body bag. I cannot believe this is happening. As I am lying there in the back of the ambulance I look over and in the distance is my wife holding Brylee and behind them is that creepy man with his hands on my wife’s shoulders. They turn and start walking towards the woods. I try to scream but nothing comes out. The ambulance doors close.
Three months later…
I am sitting on my couch watching TV when an emergency broadcast appears saying how they have found a serial kidnapper who has been kidnapping kids and keeping them at his small cottage in the woods. They say that he was found dead in his cottage along with thirty-five other kids. I cannot believe what I am witnessing. Could it be the same man who took my family from me? Then I hear my wife’s voice in the distance coming from outside. She’s screaming my name hysterically. I rush to the door and she is carrying Brylee and holding Sabastian’s hand. What a relief! My family is home. They come into the house and sit down on the couch. I am asking if they are alright. My wife just stares at me. What is going on with her? Sabastian goes into the kitchen and comes back holding a knife. I tell him to put the knife down. He hands it to Krista. She looks at me and tells Sabastian to take Brylee upstairs. Krista slowly starts standing up and then with as much force as possible, she stabs me what feels like thirty times in the stomach. I fall to the floor. I can’t move. She then looks at me and says that I should have died three months ago where she left me. What is going on? She then says to me that our kids need to be free. I gain enough breath to say, “Free from what?” “Free from us,” answers Krista. She puts the knife up to her throat and slices it from left to right. Blood starts pouring out and she falls to the floor and is dead within a matter of seconds. I lie there, crying. I am so confused on what just happened. Sabastian is standing on the stairwell crying. I look at him and tell him that I love him and to take good care of Brylee. He rushes and grabs my phone from the dining room table and dials 911, sobbing uncontrollably. It’s too late. I know I am dying this time and I’ll be dead by the time they get there. I look at my deceased wife and then at my children. I tell Sebastian and Brylee that I love them very much. I feel the room getting smaller. I can hear the faintness of my heartbeat. I know I only have a matter of seconds. I take my final breath and shut my eyes.
Bio:
Jesse W. Melton is a resident of Sapulpa, Oklahoma. One of his favorite hobbies is writing short stories; more specifically within the horror genre. Jesse has a distinct imagination and applies those imageries within his writing style. Having such an itch for writing, he applies determinate details to his stories to catch the eyes of many readers.