PRINCE OF DARKNESS

By late afternoon the heat and humidity had reached its peak. For nearly two months the sun, showing no mercy, had blazed the southern states with temperatures rising to an unheard of one hundred and six degrees. Two miles south of the city of Charleston, and three miles west off the main road, loomed an elaborate Georgian estate that was half-hidden by a grove of wisteria.

A five-year-old boy, with walnut colored hair and intense brown eyes, sat on the floor of his room concentrating on a picture he was coloring for his mother. When the antique clock, located in the entry hall downstairs, began to chime he glanced up. After the fourth chime, the only other sound that could be heard on that hot afternoon was that of a dog barking in the distance.

Momentarily distracted, the young boy put his crayons aside and patiently waited for Uncle Phillip, his father’s best friend, and his mama, to finish napping in the master bedroom down the hall. The daily visit made by his uncle was a secret that he shared with no one, particularly his father.

The exact moment the clock chimed again, a horrifying scream penetrated the stillness along the corridors of the upstairs hallway. Alone in his room, the little boy stuck his thumb in his mouth and began to suck, a habit that began when he was an infant, the first time he heard his mother scream. At the sound of another scream, the boy scrambled to his feet and tiptoed to the door, opening it slightly. He glanced up and down the darkened hallway, searching for the intruders whose loud voices were all talking at once. A moment later, dressed only in his underwear, Uncle Phillip darted past him on his way down the hall. He tripped over a toy as he bound down the winding steps, carrying his clothes. 

The small boy looked up to see the familiar frame of his father fill the doorway of the master bedroom, and he began to cry. The huge man had dark hair, and penetrating eyes so black they could burn with a stare. He looked like a madman as he glanced briefly at his son and then slammed the bedroom door. 

Hesitating briefly the little boy started toward the stairwell, but the shrill of a woman’s scream froze him to the spot. He covered his ears trying to block out the sounds of his mother’s agonizing cries. He wanted desperately to fight for her, to help, but he remembered the sting of the strap the last time he tried.

Tears rolled down the small boy’s face. He tightened his fist into a ball and began to tremble. As her screams grew louder, he tried to move, to run, but it was like his legs were made of wood.

Suddenly everything became quiet. Moments later the bedroom door opened and a bloody creature staggered toward him.  It took several seconds for him to realize that the horrifying creature was his beautiful mother. Like a monster in a horror movie, her face spurted blood.  She had deep cuts, slashed diagonally across her face that ran from her temple, down her neck, and across her chest.  Twisted in agony, her lips, which were split open, hung obscenely, exposing a set of perfect white teeth. Her sky blue eyes, wide with pain, starred unseeingly in his direction as she staggered within inches of where he stood. 

Mesmerized, the little boy stared in disbelief at his mother’s left hand. Her ring finger had been severed and the stump flowed red with blood. As if in slow motion he watched her dark shiny hair bounce in the light as she stumbled forward, her hands grabbing blindly for the railing before she fell.

In shocked silence he sucked viciously on his thumb as his mother’s gold wedding band rolled across the landing and bounced down the stair steps, one step at a time. The fragile child failed to notice the warm urine that ran down his leg and onto the highly polished wooden floor.