章 40: Sick Freak
"Those idiots, they are really doing it…" a middle aged man with hands swollen from harsh labour muttered to himself as he was sitting in a chair facing the blocked off entrance of his own home.
He couldn't help but shake his head, to him, trying to hunt down the maniac behind all the murders was only going to result in more casualties, he firmly believed that no simple man could massacre so many people.
Men, women, and the children too, even the vilest of people tended to have limits, this one did not, a savage beast in the form a man is all he was.
The man's house was situated in between the farms and the small habitations nearing the city, he had lucked out and managed to get a two-stories home for his family, the only thing he had feared until this had all started were the taxes he had to pay to the 'local' lord.
Humbled worker that he was, with a wife and three children, soon one more to come, it had really been his only enemy.
Now however, he had to stay guard, worried at every second that the 'sad faced man' as they called him was going to try and force his way into his house.
He rubbed his eyes and sighed again, he looked behind him for no particular reason and was faced with the darkness filling the room behind him.
Whilst it had a floor above, the house itself wasn't remarkably big, the first floor only had three rooms, a dinner room also serving as kitchen and two cellars in which they put either food or miscellaneous stuff.
Had he left that door open?
A question suddenly arose from his mind as he noticed the door of the food cellar hanging open, barely peeking out from the ambient darkness.
He had to have done so, or maybe someone else had forgotten, he tried to reason with himself.
'No, we always close it' he stood up, and moved the chair away, he grabbed a wooden club, it had been in use by his father for dealing with wolves back in the day, but the man still remembered clearly that he could deal with thieves and the likes just as easily.
'Just one good hit over the head… If you can't, just keep hitting until you can't anymore…' he remembered the wise words of his progenitor, whose brute force had solved a wide array of problems.
The man tightened his grip and grabbed the lantern he had been using as his source of light, the shine it let out was rather dim, it was also a relic after all.
He approached the cellar carefully, expecting a variety of scenarios, all of which involved the sad faced man rushing out from the darkness, so stressed, that he couldn't even contemplate the very real possibility that nothing of such amplitude was at play.
Normally, he would have simply assumed some animal had just pushed the door open, it wasn't like it was tightly locked or anything, this thing barely had a door knob after all, a stray gust of wind could have forced it open.
Only if it had come from inside the cellar however.
The man breathed out heavily, sweating in anticipation of the worst, ready to shatter the skull of anything that could appear, clutching the club and lantern so hard his battered hands turned somewhat purple.
The cellar was entirely empty.
"Ahah" he chuckled to himself for being so paranoid.
What had he been thinking after all? That the murderer was snuck up behind him and opened the door to the cellar? That was simply ridiculous.
All of the tension began to evacuate his body, only to rush right back in as he heard the floor creak right above him, and then a door being casually shut.
He quickly stepped over the bottom of the stairs and shouted up:
"Who was that?" he expected one of his children or his wife to answer him, but no one did, the utter silence of the house suddenly dawned on him, constricting his chest painfully as he once again went into full paranoia.
The worst possible scenarios going through his head, he rushed up the stairs without any caution and flung the first door he found open.
"Honey?" his wife was laying on the bed, the blanket up to her neck, just as usual.
He repeated himself as he made his way over to her side, shining the light on her face, she seemed to be peacefully sleeping, yet, she wasn't waking up.
Straining his eyes, he couldn't help but notice that her expression didn't seem very natural, it was more like someone else had tried to replicate the look of calm slumber, like some sort of demented puppeteer.
He lifted the blanket off of her, many things went through his mind as he glanced upon the guts of his loved one, how could this have happened? Whilst he was just on the floor below?
How could he have not heard any struggle? Any scream? What sort of sick freak would kill someone like this, and then take the time to cover it up, falsify the very expression on her face, all for what?
A scream whose driving emotion was unclear shook the house, spreading beyond his walls, straight toward the ears of the righteous crowd.
The man rushed out of the room, his steps were loud, making the entire house creak and wince, kicking the door leading to the room where his three children should be sleeping, the lantern shone its light on three beds.
Two beds, placed as they always were, with two children within that slept as they always did, two pillows on their faces, two chests that did not heave, the dim lantern shone, the father watched, his timely arrival─too late, a decision had been made, and don't we all have to go someday?
Standing over his youngest, the last child of his, there he stood...a man famed for his sad expression, a cut-out potato sack as a figure-head.
It was then that their gazes met for the first time...and it would be the last.
"..." he opened his mouth, trying to say something.
Only a rabid noise came out, dropping the lantern he gripped the club with both his hands.
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