Cheryl Yeko

TRICK OR TREAT

Enter If You Dare...

I’m working on something a bit different. Instead of a romantic suspense, I’m working on a thriller with romantic elements.

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.

Smiling, I sink the knife deep in his stomach and slash down, blood splattering across my face in warm streams. The sound of his high-pitched scream slides across my nerves like a soft breeze as the voice in my head offers praise . . .