Prologue
The gnarled claws of the giant, deformed skeleton briefly appeared again. The monster’s terrifying hands could only be seen in quick flashes on the walls and ceiling of the little girl’s otherwise dark bedroom, but she could hear them just outside, scraping and scratching at her window. The heavy rain pelting the roof and glass panes could not drown out the howling breathing and that horrible scratching. The six-year-old desperately covered her ears with her moist palms, her fingers practically woven into her black hair. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and cowered near the head of her small bed, praying like mad that somebody would come to protect her. Suddenly, a bright blaze of light penetrated her eyelids, and less than a second later, it was followed by an explosion so loud that she jumped with enough force to cause the bed to shift and knock into her small night table. The glass of water that she had placed on the night table just before putting herself to bed fell and shattered on the floor. Now an even deeper panic gripped the little girl. She knew that the thin walls of the house did nothing to prevent the announcement of her accident to all present. Seconds later, the girl saw the orange glow appear around her bedroom door as the hall light came on. The rest of her room faded into oblivion; only her closed door remained as brisk, heavy footsteps approached it. The door seemed to disintegrate into a rectangle of orange light surrounding the silhouette of a beast. The snapping on of her bedroom light confirmed that, indeed, it was the latest demon brought into the house by her mother, the demon the girl only knew as Mike. “What the hell did you do?” Mike growled, a lit cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! It was an accident. I swear!” “Shut your little bitch mouth,” he sneered as he walked over to the broken pieces of glass lying on the floor. He bent over and picked up one of the bigger pieces, then sat down on the little girl’s bed. The stench of beer filled her nostrils; he was so close to her. Almost calmly, Mike said, “Broken glass causes accidents too. It cuts people.” Suddenly, Mike grabbed her tiny left wrist with his free hand and roughly pulled it upwards, almost in a motion like he was raising her hand in class for her. With his other hand, he used the broken glass to slice a nearly one inch cut into the sensitive skin of the girl’s left armpit. She shrieked in pain and was soon bawling in shock and agony. Warm blood began flowing down her side and onto her nightgown. Still holding up her arm, Mike coolly said, “We don’t want another mess.” He dropped the glass onto the floor and removed the dwindling but still lit cigarette from his mouth. Ignoring the girl’s crying and begging, Mike buried the lit end of the cigarette into the girl’s skin at the site of her fresh cut, indifferent to her tortured screams. Rising to leave and dropping the extinguished cigarette to the floor, Mike advised, “You’d do well to clean up this room and yourself, then get your ass to bed without another sound.” Frantically holding her crying back to whimpers and hiccup-like spasms while cradling her scathed arm, the little girl watched as he exited her room. As he shut the door on his way out, Mike asked rhetorically, “Got it, Julie?”
