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I have to say this is all surprising, which is probably what they were going for. My excitement is wearing off and now I’m worried.
“Mom? Dad?” I finally call out. They knew I was coming.
“Jasmine?” I call for my wife. No one is answering.
“Sera? Chris?”
What if they went for a vacation? But that’s a silly thought. And it’s only been a couple of hours since I last spoke to my wife.
I look upstairs, nothing unusual. I had a moment of thought that they were going to scare the shit out of me when I climbed the stairs. I don’t care about a surprise anymore, I just want to see them.
I hear a ringing and it’s coming from my parent’s room. My sibling’s rooms were empty and the beds were not made. I check the room my wife and daughter were in, same thing.
What if something happened to them?
In a couple of hours? I mean, it could happen but to my family? I don’t want to think the worst.
Walking with uncertainty toward my parent’s room, I wrap my hand around the door knob. I am still half expecting for them to pop out from somewhere, but that’s becoming less likely. The ringing is louder and slightly echoes in the upstairs floor of the house.
I wrapped my hand around the door knob. It was cold but not ice cold.
“Mom? Dad? I am coming in.”
There is no response. I take a deep breath and slowly push the door open with my eyes closed. I wait for the shouting and popping, but it never comes. There’s no breathing, no wafting of perfume.
My jaw drops and my breath shudders when I open my eyes, my eyes sting, and that’s all I feel. The rest of my body is numb as I stare at the sight in front of me, unable to look away.
I force a lump of air down but that does nothing to change what I’m looking at or how I’m feeling. It’s impossible to breathe right now, I feel as if I’m being suffocated.
I want to believe I’m dreaming, but how can I when the light blue bedding is soaked with blood? The smell permeates the air. My parents lay on top covered with cuts and slashes. My mom’s hand is hanging off the edge, her elbow at an odd angle, blood oozing from a wound on her arm. She’s lying on her back, motionless. Her eyes are open, but it’s like she’s just staring at the ceiling.
My dad is still beside her, his right hand on her chest, facing her. His head is dripping blood, his pillow soaked. He has a gash on the side of his cheek. The blanket covers his feet, the rest of his body is clothed in blood-soaked pajamas.
I fall on my knees at the foot of the bed, my knees giving out, and touch their feet. They are cold, guaranteeing I’m not dreaming. I bury my face in the mattress and sob, banging my head against it as I cry tears I’ve never cried before. Whoever killed them had only just left, and that thought kills me. I should have come home yesterday, maybe they would be alive.
I turn my face and see a foot sticking out of the closet. I stagger to it, pulling it open and look on in horror to see my siblings. My sister’s clothes have been ripped from her body, and she has a gunshot in the middle of her forehead. There are bruises on her wrists and legs. She had no chance of surviving. Did she watch my parents get murdered?
My brother is next to her, just tossed in here like he was garbage, a hole through his chest tells me he never had a chance.
I find a blanket and cover them, before heaving everything I’ve ate in the last 24 hours into the toilet. That’s where my horror gets worse.
My wife and daughter are in the tub, her wrists are slashed, and it looks like she’s been stabbed. My little girl has cuts all over her and what looks like a small hole in her chest.
I run out of the room, my breathing heavy. Whoever did this killed children, ones that didn’t deserve to die.
I collapse on the front lawn, not even realizing I ran outside. The images of my family playing in my head. My heart feels like it’s been ripped out of my chest, the pain unbearable.
The only thing that seems right is getting my gun and ending my own life to be with them in Heaven, but I know better. That would make the pain go away, but just like them, I don’t deserve to die.
My uniform reminds me of who I really am. I pick myself up and lean on the porch for support and call 911.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“I…I…I came home to find my whole family mu…mu…murdered,” I’m fighting another wave of tears.
The dispatcher tells me to wait outside and to not touch anything else. Even if I leave, I have no where to go.
I start pacing, the images once more plaguing my thoughts. It’s not my first time seeing dead bodies. Hell, I’ve even killed people myself—it was war. But this is the first time someone really close to me has been murdered. They were all I had. I’m only thirty, but the thought that I will live every single day without them and the images of today will be burned into my mind for the rest of my life.
