Cries in the Dark

It was a dark and dreary night.

The wind howled & shook the leaves off the shivering trees.

The air was filled with a vile feeling...

The feeling that something wasn't quite right. The feeling that something horrible was about to happen.

Everyone felt it.

Children whimpered. Mothers rocked them to sleep, with worrisome faces. Dogs growled and barked with an unusually ferocious spirit. Cats hissed and scratched at the walls. Fathers stood guard at the window, ready to protect their families... from whatever frightful things might be lurking in the night.

Even the wild animals and birds cowered and hid from view. The wind shrieked across the darkness. The trees quivered with fright.

As I said, something just wasn't right...

Everyone felt it.

That is, except for Byron.

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Byron was a twisted child.

The town bully, to say the least. Unbeknownst to most of the adults in town, he was the terroriser of small children and the violent experimenter of pets and animals...

He had committed so many violent and strange acts, that it was almost too much to believe. And so, his neighbours, his teachers, all the adults... chose not to believe it.

When children came to them, crying of what he had done~ they were dismissed and scolded for "creating such horrible stories!"

No one wants to believe that anyone, let alone a child, could commit such gruesome acts.

Byron had chuckled to himself at their blindness.

He had fooled them all. He was clever. He was calculating. He manipulated them like brainless puppets.

He knew his targets: children, small animals... those weaker than him.

And he knew who he had to charm: the adults of the neighbourhood and kids older than him...

He knew how to select his victims with calculated precision. Those who couldn't speak ("the animals", he smiled) and children younger than him were his prime targets... Especially children who were already troubled, whose "stories" would easily be dismissed as cries for attention.

This twisted boy learned that as long as he showed a pleasing and harmless (even victimised) facade to the adults, he was able to get away with anything he wanted- behind their backs. Believing he was harmless and simply misunderstood, they would even jump in to defend him. Against his own victims! This pleased his corrupted soul more than anything else.

Byron thought that he had nothing to fear.

He was powerful. His disturbed mind knew how to deceive and twist the truth. And so, he was free to experiment with violence to his little heart's content.

"That is, if I had a heart", he snickered.

So, as he ambled along the crooked path he felt freer than ever.

Even as the jagged branches fell all around him. Even as the creaky gate clanked creepily against the fence. Even as everyone else cowered in fear and the sky blackened into a pit of nothingness.

He felt at home.

Little did he know what was awaiting him.

Little did he know that he was the one who had something to fear that night.

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Byron arrived back at his home... the rickety shack on the hill. It almost looked abandoned, and rumour had it amongst the children that it was haunted.

He lived here with his very sick mother, whom he had to take care of. He begrudged this fact. And yet, it was great for his 'image', he remembered.

But as he entered the garden gate... he noticed something unusual.

A disheveled Ford pick up truck, parked on the front lawn.

Byron's cavern-of-a-heart shuddered and he quivered in fear. He felt a vile sensation flood through his whole entire body.

As he came closer, the door of the truck cracked opened. Byron saw a pair of dead eyes piercing straight through his soul. He knew what this meant and, for the first time in years, the boy was petrified of the horror that awaited him.

He ran.

The wind shrieked in his ears. The branches clawed and scraped at his arms and legs. A crow screeched, foreboding his frightful fate. The blackness all but swallowed him up.

He could hear a pair of dreadfully quick boots coming up behind him. Those terrifying footsteps echoed in his ears with harrowing clarity. Byron's feet couldn't carry him fast enough.

He panicked. In his fright, he tripped on the uneven ground and tumbled face first into a ditch.

He recognised where he had landed. This was a ditch he had been digging as a place to dispose of his animal experiments, once he was 'done' with them.

He scrambled to get back to his feet. Clawing himself out of the hole he had dug. But he wasn't fast enough.

From above him approached a dark figure. It grabbed his clambering body with a horrifying strength that Byron could not fight. It carried him swiftly back to the shack, where the boy's fate awaited him.

The helpless boy screamed into the darkness, but no one came.

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Byron found himself in the garage, tied to a dusty old chair.

The walls were stocked with the rusty tools he used on his victims. The windows were boarded up, to hide his gruesome acts from the world. The table in the middle of the garage was empty, to make room for his violent experimentation.

The lights buzzed and flickered, adding to the haunting energy of his favourite space. He had even hung images of scary creatures that he drew, all over the place. He usually revelled in the horror he created... but tonight the roles were reversed.

His mind flooded with the whimpers and cries that he had caused here... they seemed to taunt him now.

"I hear you've been a naughty boy," the man spoke with a deadly tone.

Byron could do nothing but quiver in his chair.

"You know what we do to naughty boys, don't you?"

Byron knew, and it awakened a spine-chilling fear within him.

The man held a glimmering blade in his right hand. He stroked it with sinister care, with the other. For a change, his eyes gleamed with a sick and twisted glee.

Byron struggled to get out of the chains that bound him.

The man let out an ominous laugh, amused by the puny boy's attempt.

He drew closer... step by step... revelling in the terror that each painfully slow movement evoked in the boy... Smiling and chuckling all the while, as Byron quivered in utter fear and dismay.

The deranged and violent boy was now whimpering and helpless. He was at the mercy of the only one who had ever overpowered him.

The inhumanity of his perpetrator was unmatched. The gleeful brutality with which violence was inflicted, unparalleled... The mercilessness and cruelty, unsurpassed.

The boy knew this all too well. He shook uncontrollably in the chair, knowing what was to come next.

"It's been a long time, my boy... but here I am again..." the cruel man tormented, scraping the knife along the steel leg of the table, making a terrible, ear-piercing screech.

"Aren't you happy to see me?" a sinister smile crossed the tormenter's face. "Well, I'm happy to see you. This is going to be so much fun....... for me!" the man cackled outrageously as the sky began to thunder.

The boy had fervently hoped this day would never come. The day where his worst tormentor would be back to inflict horrible acts upon him again. The day when his most painful memories, which had become mere nightmares, would be real once more...

...The day that the man he called 'father' would return.

The man was close to him now... with a menacing scowl upon his face. "You are pathetic, my son... I'm going to enjoy this."

The blade was cold upon his skin, but his father's cruel eyes felt colder.

Byron let out a horrifying scream. A scream that would send shivers down your spine. A scream that would flood your whole body with dread. A scream so terror-filled that your blood would curdle!

But no one heard.

The wind shrieked. The crooked branches clawed. The crow wailed.

And the blackness swallowed him whole.