The Slaughter

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Jonathan was the first to point out this odd revelation to the rest of his family. Being only a boy of five, he saw the candle burning as a wondrous opportunity to explore. His parents, on the other hand, looked at that candle burning with horror. They knew all too well what happened in that cabin the last time the candle had burned there.

Six years. It had been six years since the last time they saw the candle burning. Theresa had only just found out she was pregnant with Jonathan at the time. The happy parents took their 4 year old, Jake, on an easy hike along the trails. They had a picnic down by the water that evening, and were on their way home when they saw the candle burning in that cabin. Jake had also been entranced by the flickering of the fire and wanted to explore. He ran off before his parents realized. Eric and Theresa desperately tried to find their son. They split up in the woods, screaming out Jake’s name, trying to find their young son. They spent six hours in the woods that night, tripping over roots and bramble, getting caught on low hanging branches and bushes, hope fleeting from them with each minute that passed. Scratched and bruised, the defeated parents met back up to strategize how to move forward back at their house.

At this point, the cops were alerted and searching as well. Eric and Theresa were told to stay back at their house, waiting for a call about their boy. Eric had convinced Theresa to stay, but he was determined to be the one to find his son. Theresa paced back and forth on their patio, adrenaline the only thing keeping her weary mind and body going. She was sore, exhausted, and heartbroken.

Then she heard the scream. That inhuman, guttural scream of despair. It felt like ice had been rolled straight down her spine and her heart sank past her navel. She knew right then and there that Eric had found Jake, and that nothing would be the same again.

The newspapers called it, “Beyond a nightmare,” “A scene straight from hell,” and “Work that only the Devil himself could think of.” Locals blamed it on a desensitization to violence. Eric and Theresa, however, knew it was much more than horror movies and video games that could make anyone butcher a child in such a way. There was something deep down inside that was pure evil. To leave such a young child naked, hanging upside down, the blood drained from his entire body. Worse yet, neither the blood nor any evidence was left behind, only the small body hanging by its ankles in the center of the living room, on display as if it was at an art auction, illuminated by that candle in the window.

With no evidence, the boy's death was put off as a fluke, probably a drug addict passing through town. Thoughts and prayers, but no real action required. Besides, Leavenworth was a quiet, peaceful town where nothing bad ever happened.

Jonathan, only being five, had no idea of his brother's fate, nor that the cabin he ran towards was one that held so much trauma for his family. Eric and Theresa chased Jonathan, screaming for him to stop, but he thought they were only playing a game of tag. The young boy flung open the door and ran inside yelling, “Come and find me!” Theresa looked at Eric, seeing her dread mirrored in his face. Eric nodded and they both entered the cabin.

The living room hadn’t changed since they found their first born hanging in it. The same dusty blue couch to the right with the wooden coffee table in front of it. The same copy of Sports Illustrated lay on the side table with the golden lamp that had the light shade hanging off to the left. Against the wall still hung the portrait. This portrait looked like it was painted in the 1800s of a mother and son on a rocking chair. The metallic contraption that hung their son by his feet was placed right in front of that portrait. A “cherry picker” the police had called it, a mechanics tool to help pull an engine out of a car. And there on the window sill was the candle, which looked exactly the same as the candle that Jake had found so enthralling six years ago.

“Jonathan!” Eric called out. “Jonathan, we’re not playing! You need to come to us now so we can leave!”

The parents both heard the boy giggling, but due to the echo could not tell which direction it was coming from. “You go to the left, I’ll go to the right,” Theresa said quietly. “Remember, he likes to hide in dark places.”

Eric nodded and watched Theresa start heading towards the bedroom on the right. He heard his wife calling out to Jonathan in the sweet voice of hers, trying to coax him from his hiding spot. He was envious of the way she sounded so calm at a time like this. He took a steadying breath, then headed towards the dining room on the left.

He froze as soon as he entered the room. Hung all around the walls of the dining room were pictures of his first boy. They started with pictures of Jake on a hike. Jake was smiling, looking up at Eric as if his father was his greatest hero. Then there were pictures of Jake at a picnic. No, not A picnic, THE picnic. The last picnic they had with their son. Finally, there were pictures of Jake in this cabin. They started with the child happily playing, then to him looking scared, then finally to him hanging from the cherry picker in the living room, blood covering his entire face. Distressed, Eric started tearing the pictures from the wall. He called for Theresa through sobs but whether she answered or not, he didn’t know. All he knew is that his son’s killer had planned it all, and that they were here now.

After gathering all the photos from the walls, he laid them out on the dining room table. He pieced the day together from the beginning of the hike to the picnic to skipping rocks before they took the walking path past this cabin and lost their son forever. With the photographs in order, Eric started looking for clues. Then he saw it. In the picture of Jake laughing in the cabin’s living room, a wrist and hand to the right of the photo, as if the photographer was trying to get the boy's attention by snapping their fingers. Easy to miss due to the darkness. Eric’s heart jumped into his throat. He knew that hand. He knew that wrist. He knew that infinity tattoo with his name in it on that wrist.

Theresa.

How could his wife, his son’s mother, be the one to kill him? To drain him of his blood like a pig who’d just been slaughtered. And what happened to that blood?

As reality washed over Eric, he quickly retreated, crashing into the wall, and vomited on the floor.

“Eric? Where are you?” Theresa called sweetly from the living room. “I’ve found Jonathan, don’t you want to come see?”

Shaking, Eric slowly walked towards the door that led to the living room, his mind racing on how to save his boy.

As soon as his silhouette was in the door frame, Theresa started screaming. “HELP! HELP! IT’S ERIC! HE DRAGGED ME AND JONATHAN BACK TO THE CABIN! HE’S ALREADY KILLED JONATHAN AND NOW HE’S TRYING TO KILL ME! AHHH! ERIC, NO, NO, LEAVE ME ALONE! AHH!” Then she hung up the phone and started laughing. “Oh you didn’t think I was going to go down for this did you?”

“Wh… Who did you call?” Eric asked.

“The police, of course.” she said in her sing-song voice. “Now when they get here, you will go down for murder, and I will be free!”

“Why? Why are you doing this?” Eric asked. Theresa sat down on the blue couch, and for the first time, Eric looked around the living room. There on the cherry picker was Jonathan, blood draining into a kiddy pool underneath him. His gray and waxy skin told Eric he was already dead. His eyes just stared unseeing into Eric’s soul. Eric fell to the ground, fresh sobs taking over him.

“Well, that’s easy. I want out,” she said. “Out of Leavenworth, out of this marriage, out of motherhood. This all should have ended six years ago, but then you walked in on me taking a pregnancy test and then I was landed with this brat. I knew I couldn’t let Jake grow too big or I’d never be able to take him on physically, so I had to go through with that part of the plan that day. You got to survive that night because of the bastard in my belly. Six more years I had to suffer with you and him. And tonight, my plan finally comes to fruition. Jonathan’s already dead, now it’s just you.”

“You think I’m just going to roll over and let you kill me?” Eric spat at her.

Theresa picked up a little scalpel from the couch. She stared at it while spinning it in her hand, contemplating her answer. “No,” she finally said. “No, I don’t expect to kill you at all.”

“Then what is the point of all this?”

Theresa started laughing. It started off low, then started to grow more maniacal. “You really don’t see where this is going?” Then she stabbed herself in the chest with the scalpel. Blood began to ooze down her chest and through her fingers. She looked up at Eric with a smile before she took the scalpel out to do it again.

Eric rushed forward and tried to take the scalpel from her hands. “NO!” he shouted. “No, I will not go down for your crimes!” He wrestled her to the ground and started to bend her wrist back to take the scalpel. He heard the sirens and knew he only had to hold her off until the police got there. Now it was his turn to laugh. He was about to ruin her plans.

There was a slamming behind him as the door swung open. All Eric felt was the pain of the bullets entering his chest as he swung towards the door, scalpel in hand, the triumphant laughter turning to shocked screams as he realized what she had done. Theresa screamed and got out from under Eric’s body. He turned towards her “You…” was all Eric was able to say, and then he was dead.

Two cops ran over to Theresa to pull her away from the scene. She fought them, trying to reach out towards Jonathan, tears streaming down her face. “Not my boy! Not again!” she screams. “Please, please, I need my boy.”

The cops convinced Theresa to leave the cabin. She was sobbing, but as she looked back at the cabin on her way to the ambulance, a shadow of a smile passed her lips as she knew everything went according to plan.

Locals say the next morning when the cops came back to the scene of the crime, the kiddie pool full of blood was missing. Theresa left town the next week, saying there was no way she could live in the place where such tragedies happened. She soon developed her own face cream with a special secret ingredient. And in every city she moves to, children tend to go missing. The ones who are found all have had the blood drained from their bodies, yet no blood left to be found.

Some say when they pass the cabin where her sons met their fate, they can hear innocent laughter, as if children are having the time of their lives. Others say in the dead of night they can hear dripping as if a sink is leaking, yet all the sinks are bone dry.