TRICK OR TREAT
Enter If You Dare...
I wrote this short prologue, with a serial killer in mind for this thriller. I’m going to use it as bonus content at the back of the book, once I get it written. I’m hoping to have it completed by the end of 2019.
I hope you enjoy my short story.
Birth of a Serial Killer
By Cheryl Yeko
Chicago Fairgrounds
Entering
the gates to the fair, I keep my head down, pretending not to hear my father
and grandfather talk about me. Today is my ninth birthday and this trip was
planned before the incident. Pain cracks my chest open as images from that day
twist together in my mind like a living thing.
“It’s
been six months,” my father says gruffly, “it’s time he got over it.”
My
grandfather gives my shoulder a little shove. “Your dad’s right. Quit moping
and act like a man.”
I suck in
a harsh breath of control as hate pours through my bloodstream. If they didn’t
spend all their time together at the bars, my mother might still be alive. Not
that I like my father home either, as he only uses his fist on us.
Now he
just uses it on me.
Memories
of hiding under the bed taunt me. Like a weakling, I cowered when that man
broke into our home and made my mother cry. Kicking at a pebble, I curl one
hand into a fist. My heart beats so fast I’m surprised it doesn’t leap from my
chest.
‘Whimp,’
the voice in my head screeches.
I
witnessed everything in the mirror against the opposite
wall as he’d hurt her.
I wanted to close my eyes, but somehow they remained frozen open. Wanted to
cover my ears to block out the sounds of her tears, but I was unable to lift my
arms to my head.
Instead,
I watched as he sliced her up with his knife until she stopped screaming. I
remained under the bed after he left, staring at my mother’s empty gaze in the
mirror as blood soaked the floor around me.
‘You
should have done something,’ the voice says bitterly. ‘Because of you, she’s
dead.’
‘No!’ I
bite back in my thoughts, shooting a glare behind me at my dad. ‘If he wasn’t
such a drunk, he could have saved her.’
Stuffing
my hand into my pants pocket, I feel for my father’s fishing knife. Rage coils
inside me as I finger the hard steel.
I want to
take that knife and stab him, over and over again, the same way that man
stabbed my mother. My hand tightens on the knife as I visualize doing just
that, then doing the same to my grandfather.
I want to
make them scream. Make them bleed . . .
As my
fury rises, the voice gets louder, more insistent. I gulp back the need to lash
out, hurt someone until the voice shuts up. Needing distance from my father, I
dart into the crowd and hurry away. Of course they don’t even notice, too busy
drinking their beers and watching women.
Entering
the Midway, the carnival barkers try to entice me over to play games.
Their
strident voices mix with the deafening one in my head until it all jumbles
together into a massive roar of sound, and my brain feels like it’s going to
explode.
I spot
the haunted house exhibit, and when the ticket taker is distracted by a large
group of people, I slip inside.
I’ve
always loved haunted houses, drawn to the images of blood and gore.
The same
way I love to burn bugs on a stick in
the
firepit in the backyard, or help my father bash in the head that litter of
kittens we didn’t want.
‘You
liked watching that man carve up your mother,’ the voice accuses.
I refuse
to listen, shaking my head in denial.
Catching
sight of a decaying woman, a little rush tickles my stomach and the voice
whispers, as if sharing a secret with me, ‘Did
too.’
“No!” I
push my way through the heavy flaps hanging in the doorway and enter the next
room as a small part of me acknowledges the terrible truth. Knowing I’d watched
each stroke of that man’s blade in fascination, even as my heart broke that it
was my mother being hurt. She’d been the only one to understand when I did the
things my father called ‘sick and twisted.’
She knew
it wasn’t my fault.
Moving
through another doorway, the sight of a headless man on the floor ramps up my
excitement.
Room
after room, the horrific images of murder and death calm me, caught up by the
beauty of it all.
The
wonderful artistry of sound and color coming alive in my mind.
The voice
grows louder, and I find myself offering encouragement now, instead of fighting
it.
‘Cut.
Slash. Kill,’ it intones as our thoughts mesh together, until we are one.
I am the
voice, and the voice is me as I withdraw the fishing knife from my pocket and
open it. In my mind, I watch myself stab my father as flesh splits open and
blood rises to the surface, glistening bright red before flowing down his body
in graceful lines, like a trickling stream.
When I enter
the next room, a zombie lumbers from a darkened corner.

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