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Home Invaders |
| Written by Tim Dudenhoefer | |
| Thursday, 17 July 2008 | |
Home Invaders
I must have warned her over a thousand times not to open the door in the middle of the night-not even for the cat. But she had done it again, and just as I had always predicted, something dire had happened. The bad men had come. Oh, the do-gooder types would tell you the men were not bad, just misunderstood. They would say that what the two men were doing was "all society's fault," not their own.
That was hard to reckon with when the men were in the house. They had come for mayhem and robbery, and cared little for do-gooder psychobabble.
The tall one had smashed my wife in the face as she opened the door, knocking her out cold. Then the two began their rampage. Their violence had startled me awake; they dragged me out of a warm bed and began beating me, demanding money and valuables. I told them where to find what little we kept around the house, but this did not satisfy them. By this time they had gagged and bound my wife and had tied me up. The two of them took their turn and some time trying to "beat the truth" out of me before drawing out what they thought was their trump card. Our little girl stood before me.
She was three and she was terrified.
Her Mommy was out cold, trussed up on the floor, and her Daddy was being beaten up. I knew instantly that they would threaten her in order to get me to talk. But there was nothing to talk about.
"Where is the gun collection?" the tall one demanded. "Where's the rest of the friggin' cash?"
I tried to protest that there was no more cash and there was no gun collection. They had the wrong house. After two more direct punches I could feel grit in my mouth. I coughed and spat out pieces of my teeth. I could still provide no answer, despite the threat to my little girl. There was nothing else to give them, but the tall one refused to believe me. He decided to step it up a bit and nodded at the fat one. The fat one stood holding the child by the scruff of her pajamas. Her eyes went wide as he began to haul her off the floor; the collar of her pajamas was choking her. Fat one showed me his knife and placed the edge against her neck, I saw a tiny trickle of blood start down her pale skin. His eyes gleamed and thrilled at the prospect of hurting her, and making me suffer. "Don't make me do it," said Fat one.
This would be his one and only mistake.
I began to grin and let out a chuckle, tasting my own blood. My battered eyes twinkled, and I smiled through shattered front teeth.
Fat one looked at me with contempt, "What the **** is so funny?" He had inadvertently relaxed his grip on my baby, lowered her to the ground, and loosened the choke-hold her pajama top had on her throat. Fat one grunted. The girl smiled an impossibly wide grin that went unnoticed, except by me.
The next sound was a long, protracted, house-shaker of a scream. It was not high and reedy like that of a terrorized little girl; instead it was the deep, throaty bellow of a severely wounded animal. Blood and bits of flesh exploded from the man's forearm. His severed hand- still holding the knife- flopped to the floor twitching. With his remaining hand he clawed at the shredded stump of his arm. It had been bitten jaggedly through the middle; bones jutted out of the ripped and ragged flesh. Despite his best efforts to frantically hold it all in, blood spurted from the ruined limb. My little girl wiped at her face with her sleeve smearing blood and gore across her face. Her saucer-sized eyes grew larger as she shouted a command, "Stop being mean to my Daddy!" She was spitting tiny bits of flesh as she screamed at the men. Then she licked her lips and looked at the other man, taking a step toward him. With a wide, serrated grin about as large as her head, she said now very, very calmly, "Mmm...meat. Yummy." Copyright 2008 Tim Dudenhoefer |
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