Vengeance

PROLOGUE

A hush hung over the small, sleepy town nestled deep within the southern landscape, as day made way for night and the shadows, lurking within the corners, hiding beneath shrubs and doorways, quickly covered all in a thick blanket of live ebony, eagerly creeping through the cool evening air, hungrily eat up the light.

Jessica woke with a start, a scream hovering at the base of her throat as her eyes met nothing but blackness and panic held her tightly within its grasp, as blind eyes darted around an imagined room.  Her heart slamming alarmingly loud with in her chest, every breath became a struggle, her throat feeling as if it would seize up at any moment.  Already the nightmare was slipping away, sloughing from her mind and body in great heaving sighs, leaving behind a lingering fear and unrest as the panic continued to grip her tight in its unyielding embrace. 

Since childhood she had always been somewhat afraid of the dark, a fact she hid from everyone.  Unfortunately, after living almost an entire year away from home, every emergency light source she’d hidden throughout her room had vanished, and time had done its trick to make her forget just how dark and still this house and the grounds around the estate could be at night.

Struggling to relax and allow her vision to adjust to the darkness, Jessica took deep, calming breaths and forced her body to relax, counting softly in her head as she snuggled deep into the feathered embrace the mountain of pillows behind her head offered, and concentrated on listening to the sounds of home.  Her body may have forgotten over the past year, but having lived here almost her entire life, her mind was quick to adjust to the familiar surroundings.

A sigh of wind through the weeping willow outside her window; the crackling of autumn leaves rolling across the pebbled patio; the tick of her grandmother's pendulum clock counting off the seconds… each sound, each wonderful memory quickly helped to put her at her ease, and as they slowly wove their magic web of comfort and love, surrounding her in a thick cocoon of security, singing their own lullaby of soothing waves, cresting and ebbing over her unusually taught nerves, Jessica struggled to remember her dream… but already it was gone.

The trip from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport into Savannah International had been exhausting, and she’d arrived home with nausea and a pressure at the base of her skull and behind her eyes that was threatening to become a full-blown migraine if it wasn’t treated quickly.

Spanning the small hop between Atlanta and Savannah in a twin-prop commuter plane that smelled vaguely of stale vomit and dirty diapers, and rattled so loudly she was sure they'd left the better part of the plane behind them in Atlanta, Jessica remembered why she hated flying in to Savannah.  Being forced to sit in the overly crowded twenty-five seater next to a mildly good looking young man whose enormous size caused the entire right side of his body to slowly pour over the flimsy armrests separating their seats, over the course of the 45 minute flight, like an ever expanding lump of yeasty dough slipping over the edge of a loaf pan, ultimately forcing her to squeeze her body up closer and closer against the wall, until she’d nearly became a permanent part of the fabricated vinyl by the time they finally landed, was definitely not on her list of ‘how to have a good time.’

At first she'd felt somewhat sorry and a little embarrassed for the young man, sure that his extremely stiff demeanor and lack of eye contact was a sign of his own embarrassment at the situation, but when little more than fifteen minutes after successfully pinning her against the side of plane with his overflowing bulk a pungent odor started to rise from the area surrounding his large exterior, assaulting her nose with its fetid stench, her feelings of sympathy faded, quickly replaced by a mixture of irritation, disgust and gut wrenching nausea by the time they landed.

It had been one of the most horrendous flights she’d ever experienced.

Breath, relax, breath, relax…

… the click of the old oak tree tapping its weathered branches against the French doors in her parent's room; Sally's radio screaming one of her many favored maudlin tunes through the headphones of the MP3 player inevitably hanging from her ears; the gentle creak of the landing on the main staircase as the house settled in for the night; the hum and hiss of her father's humidifier as it struggled to keep the dust and pollen to a more permissible level…

…beloved sounds for which memory had no enemy, feelings and emotions sweeping through time and space; love and home, she counted herself one of the fortunate.  This world had given her so much, but no matter how far she went, or where she ended up in life, her family was her home.

Yawning widely as her body slowly started to relax, Jessica slid lower beneath the thick down comforter her mother had brought out of storage earlier that morning, relishing in the happiness of being back among her family.  Her heartbeat steady, slowing to a melodious rhythm, she once again started drifting along the indulgent waves of dreams and memories…

thudump

Her eyes flashed opened as the skin on her arms suddenly felt tight and tingly, thousands of goose-bumps forming atop the cold, clammy epidermis.  An iron band of fear instantly clamped its fist tightly around her chest, making it nearly impossible for her to catch her breath. Every nerve in her body was ready for action before her mind even had time to assimilate the possibility of an unknown danger.  Listening to her ragged breathing as the air struggled weakly to escape from a suddenly painful and constricted airway, Jessica lay silent and unmoving …

waiting…

listening…

There! There it was again!  A noise! A step! 

A thud!…

The sound was softer and more muffled than before, but undeniable, as if the person making it was taking great pains to keep their movements indiscernible, stepping cautiously through the house; around furniture, through doorways, shuffling through papers and personal belongings.

She could hear them in the foyer; a squeak of rubber on the marble floor, the brush of denim against a wooden jamb, a whisper of plastic against metal as drawers were opened and softly closed; sounds nearly undetectable to anyone without an experienced ear.

Jessica realized that things may have changed over the past year. Her father had been fighting a cold the last few weeks and hadn't been sleeping well, and though uncharacteristic of him to get up in the middle of the night, he could just be a little fidgety tonight.  Nothing to worry about.  No need to get so uptight.  Just a little bump in the night was all … her father deciding to get a little work done now that he was already up …

At 2:00 am…

Fully dressed…

Sneaking around like a thief in the night…

Sure.  That was all.  Nothing to worry about.

Think about something else… something mundane.  Concentrate on your breathing. Think about the flat in London … time to paint the kitchen another color, the green is really getting old.  Yellow!  Yes, maybe yellow would be better …

Whissssschaw … click!

Shit!!! That was coming from the front staircase.

There was no way that was her father!!  No way in hell!!!

Sick or not, her father would never use the front stairs when there was a more easily accessible staircase leading to the kitchen and study just around the corner from Sally's room! How stupid of her not to think of that earlier!  Whoever was down there had taken the more obvious route to the study, telling her that they were not as familiar with the house as her family was.

Or perhaps they were, seeming they'd been able to get into the house completely undetected by the mass of security watching the estate 24 hours a day.  Maybe they knew exactly what they were doing!  How long had they been in the house?  How long had they been poking around, walking the floors of her home as if they belonged?

Unwilling to succumb to the panic quickly threatening to take hold, Jessica tried to think of some logical explanation for what she was hearing.  After all, the Chamberlain Estate was like a fortress, surrounded by state-of-the art security cameras, infrared motion detectors, and a whole host of other gadgets designed for one purpose and one purpose only… to keep her family safe.

When another muffled sound, much closer this time, echoed through the thick walls, Jessica felt the fine hairs all over her body stand on end.  Her gut instinct told her that danger was very close, and over the years, she'd learned to trust her gut.

Her father was a very rich and very powerful man.  He had many friends, but even more enemies in the financial world and the idea that perhaps one of those enemies had decided to exact their revenge was an extremely plausible scenario.

With a convulsive swallow, Jessica reached for the panic button located just above her bed, installed for just such an emergency.  When the house was built, her father's company had insisted each room be equipped with an easily accessible panic button, along with a dedicated security phone line in the event the commonly used LAN lines were somehow cut.

Nearly choking, Jessica suddenly found it very hard to breathe as she started with growing dread at the dead indicator light located within the metal bracket on the wall just above her headboard.

Her worst fears had come to life!

The light that had continuously glowed red from the first day they installed the system, to indicate that the system was armed and ready, was suddenly very, very dark, telling her that the for the first time in her life, the emergency system had been turned off.  Even before she reached for the phone on her nightstand, she knew it wasn’t going to work.  Whoever was downstairs wasn't stupid.  They'd been able to slip across the estate without tripping the alarms, climb over a electrified, eight-foot wrought iron fence, past the multiple guards roaming the grounds, enter a house wired with one of the most sophisticated alarm systems to date and successfully turn off an emergency system, which could only be shut down from a remote location nearly twenty miles away.

In truth, Jessica wouldn’t be surprised to find the intruder, or intruders, had effectively killed every security guard on the premises, rendering the entire estate as helpless as a newborn child.

These were definitely no amateurs! 

Her entire life had been spent within a protective cocoon.  Her mother and father always telling her something like this could happen, but when you've never been touched by even the remotest hint of danger, it's hard to believe something bad could ever happen to you.  Her father had always taken the necessary precautions to keep his family safe, but it appeared all his efforts had been in vain.

For the first time in her life Jessica felt the full impact of what true danger could wrought, and in that moment she couldn’t have loved her parents more.  For eighteen years they had sheltered and protected her, ensuring that no matter where she went or what she did, she would never be touched by even the slightest hint of the evil that constantly lurked within the shadows, waiting to sink its teeth into the innocent and unsuspecting.

Panic and terror were prevalent, but Jessica was surprised at her overall calm, which seemed to completely engulf her, liberally spiced with an underlying layer of anger that seemed to be growing by the second.  She loved her family more than life itself, and the thought that someone actually had the audacity to come into her home and threaten their peaceful lives was enough to thoroughly piss her off!.

When she'd turned eight her parents had insisted she receive the best martial arts training possible.  Not one to disappoint, she'd become extremely proficient, obtaining a black belt in Taekwondo, Jujitsu and Karate at the tender age of fourteen.  At fifteen she took up Kickboxing and asked her parents for a gun.  Of course reluctant at first, her mother and father had readily given their consent after the security team assigned to protect them gave the go ahead, telling them it was good she have as much training and advantage as possible, just in case.  She was finally presented with a STI V.I.P. 10-shot autoloader, along with lessons.

Within three months she'd become extremely proficient, and by six months, was able to hit nine out of ten bulls-eyes.  Seven years of continual practice at the range every weekend kept her skills sharply honed.

Of course when she moved out of the house, Jessica realized the need to match firepower with sophistication upgrading to a Beretta 9mm when she turned seventeen, and adding a Gloch 4.5 to her arsenal after moving to London, but the STI had always remained her favorite, and still sat in the top drawer of her nightstand.

It was with a growing sense of inevitability, along with a massive dose of good old-fashioned rage, that she slowly opened the drawer and tucked her hand inside, feeling a charge of power race through her as she reached under a stack of old journals and pictures and wrapped her cold fingers around the slightly warm metal.  Slipping it silently from the drawer, a quick check told her the gun was loaded and, with a determined set to her jaw, she threw back her covers with lightly shaking hands and slid silently off the side of the bed. 

Instinctively walking on the balls of her feet so as not to make any noise, creeping softly towards the bedroom door, Jessica wasn't surprised to feel her knees turn to Jell-O the closer she came to the door.  Under the circumstances, she was surprised at how easily her defensives went up and how smoothly her body had been able to respond in light of the fact that she was quaking with all-consuming fear inside. 

Truthfully, part of her wanted to crawl into the nearest corner and bawl like a baby until someone older and stronger came to rescue them, like a scared child hiding away from the Boogeyman.  In many cases, fear may be the enemy, but it could also be a tremendous asset when you were trapped in a corner with nowhere to turn.  Fear was good.  Fear was your friend, but then so was anger… and a loaded gun of course!

Years of training automatically clicked into action, and by the time she reached the door, Jessica's fear had been pushed onto the back burner, temporarily overshadowed by pure instinct and not a little anger.

Placing a tentative ear against the wood of her bedroom, she held her breath and listened.  The thudding noise was still muffled, but it sounded much closer.  If she didn’t act soon, she might not have the chance to act at all!  For a brief moment fear took hold and her body froze as visions of her family’s bodies lying in pools of blood soaked sheets raced through her mind.  She couldn’t let that happen!!  Wouldn’t let that happen!  Dammit, this was her family and no one, no one came into her house and threatened their safety!

When the fear subsided a little and the anger became prevalent once again, Jessica grabbed hold of that anger with a firm grip and felt her frayed nerves quiet.  She'd been trained to protect herself  … she could do this!

Taking a deep, calming breath, she reached a shaking hand toward the doorknob and, with a light pressure…turned.  At first she thought she’d accidentally locked the door when the knob failed to turn, but a quick look at the dead bolt assured her it wasn't. 

Then why wasn’t it opening?! 

Turning the knob harder, she felt it give slightly, then stop, as if someone were holding it tight on the other side of the door.  Her skin literally crawled with terror and revulsion at the sudden vision which popped into her head, of the intruder directly outside her door holding on to the doorknob to bar her escape like some childish prank a sibling would play; wild eyes gleaming maniacally in the darkness, evil grin spreading across his face in malicious humor as he felt her struggle, putrid breath roiling out in hissing giggles, as he reveled at his own cleverness.

Shuddering, Jessica struggled to keep the screams bubbling in her throat from taking form. She understood fear, understood its strengths and weaknesses.  If you let it, fear could stew and fester inside, taking hold of your sanity, transforming you into a boiling mass of jellied terror, unable to move, unable to react, a mere lump of incapacitated flesh waiting to be consumed.

  By this time she was no longer fooling herself into thinking the sounds coming from downstairs were anything other than what she knew them to be.  Death had come to dine and it hadn’t bothered to bring the wine!

Gnashing her teeth tightly together with renew determination, Jessica gripped the gun firmly in her right hand and stepped to the left side of the doorframe. 

Ok, think dammit, think!  Unconsciously witching the gun from one hand to the other as she wiped her sweaty palms on the bottom of her Pajamas, Jessica could tell from the slight echo off the marbled foyer that the noises, though closer, were still coming from downstairs.  Perhaps there were more than two intruders down there!  She hadn’t been able to delude herself into thinking only one person had been able to penetrate the estate’s defenses, but the realization that there could be three or more down stairs was almost enough to send her thoughts reeling and her tightly reigned fear soaring.

Ok, even if there were three or more, they couldn’t have come up the stairs without her having heard them.  The third, fourth and fifth steps let out a distinctive creak whenever they were stepped on …

Oh God!!!

It hit her with the force of a 2x4 upside the head, and set her panic control button to ultra high. At least one of them had been upstairs earlier!!  The creak on the stairs earlier.  The sound she’d attributed to the house settling.  How stupid could she be?

Sally!  Her Mom and Dad!  What the hell was going on?!  What had they done to them?!  What would they do to her?  The realization that one or all of them could be on their way to her room at that very moment set Jessica in motion. 

Rubbing her left hand unconsciously on her pajamas as she tried to think, Jessica suddenly looked down at what she was doing and bit back a groan.  Her palms were sweating profusely, and though the door opened easily enough, the knob could be somewhat stubborn at times, especially during the more humid times of the year… and today had been especially humid. 

Cursing low beneath her breath, she took hold of the knob and, this time making sure her hands were as dry as she could get them, turned it hard, wincing as the latch engaged and the door popped open.  To her the sound was a loud as a gunshot echoing through the house, but she doubted that anyone downstairs could have heard it.  Holding her breath for an unbearably long moment, unable to move lest she miss the sound of rushing feet on the plush carpet as the intruders raced to see where the sound had come from, she stood statue still, listening … waiting…

Afraid to move.  Afraid to breathe.  Part of her unable to face the possibility of what lay ahead.  With gun in hand and nerves on the brink of snapping, she finally forced herself to slowly open the door wide enough to peer out into the gloomy hallway.  No leering face waited on the other side; no malicious grin greeted her wary gaze. With a mild sense of relief she slowly opened the door farther, enough for her entire body to slip through, and glided soundlessly out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind her as much as possible without engaging the latch. 

With her back up tight against the wall, Jessica froze once more, listening for any sounds that would alert her to a person’s approach.  Only when her nerves started to scream did she finally move, creeping softly down the hallway, inching her way along the slightly narrow outlines of the space between the walls, away from the stairs, towards her parent’s room, keeping her back turned towards the wall and her gun ready. 

Sally's wellbeing was her first concern, but her parent’s room was closer.

The upstairs hallway had been built into a "U" shape, placing one bedroom at each end of the hallway, Jessica and Sally's rooms were located directly across from each other, separated by the long sweeping staircase cutting through the middle of the floor.  Her parent's bedroom was located at the “U’s” apex, with the staircase directly in between.  In this fashion, each bedroom had been built to provide a mini-suite for each member of the family, with a private sitting room, as well as a full bathroom and private dressing area and walk-in closet.  Unfortunately, Sally's door was blocked from view by a dividing wall on each side of the main staircase, and her parent's bedroom, though close, was completely engulfed in shadows.

Never taking her eyes off the staircase as she made slow progress, inching her way within the gloom, ready to duck within the shadows at the first hint of trouble, Jessica's heart plummeted to her stomach when she reached her parent's bedroom and, stretching a nervous hand towards the brightly painted wood, found the door ajar. 

There was no doubt their nighttime visitors had already been here.  Her parents never kept their door open when they slept, even when they were the only two in the house.  Her mother had told her once that she couldn’t sleep a wink when a door was open even a crack, it gave her the creeps, always feeling like someone was standing in the doorway watching her.

Terrified to look, but knowing she didn’t have any other choice, Jessica cast a quick glance over her shoulder towards the stairs once more to make sure no one was following, then slipped silently into the room, pushing the door closed behind her. 

The darkness was nearly complete, and it took several agonizing minutes for her eyes to adjust - and her worse fears to come to life.

Even before she saw it, she could taste the blood in the air.  Salty and coppery, like a mixture of raw meat and rusty tin, it hung in the air with a density she could almost see.  There was no mistaking the dark stains spread across the white cotton sheets and pale green walls. She'd seen too many CSI shows not to know the meaning of those stains, but hope was a hard bug to squash and with a glimmer of that ever-present desire that this was all nothing but a huge misunderstanding, Jessica stepped further into the room.

In the darkness it almost looked as if someone has spilled a bottle of black ink all over her parent's room. The stain covering her father's side of the bed was almost unperceivable compared to the amount which covered her mother's side, a fact that made her stomach clench, and saliva to turn instantly to sand. It covered nearly every square inch of the thick down-filled pillow her mother slept on, splashed liberally lengthwise towards the foot of the bed, as if someone had taken a bucket of black paint and threw it on her mother's side from the foot of the bed.

The clicks were audible as her cotton dry throat convulsed rapidly, struggling to produce saliva in a completely arid desert of despair. As if of their own volition, her feet moved towards, instead of away from, the horrors before her, as her mind screamed for her to stop.

A good two feet from the bed she could see where they had dragged her father off, perhaps after they had bludgeoned him.  The sheets on his side had been pulled halfway off the end of the bed, and a trail of blood was smeared across the pale beige carpet from the bottom of the bed towards the bathroom.

On her mother’s side, besides the enormous amount of blood, the positioning of the sheets looked almost normal slightly pulled towards the left as if she'd been hogging the covers.  The blood soaked pillow lay slightly askew, turned towards the edge as if pointing to some unseen object.  On suddenly weak legs she stepped around to her mother’s side, gritting her teeth tightly against the image she instinctively knew would greet her.

At first it looked as if her mother had simply fallen out of bed and, completely oblivious to the fact, remained sleeping on the floor, but as much as she wished it were true, Jessica knew a lie when she saw it.  With a sob catching deep in her throat, she walked slowly towards her mother's prone body. 

Mary Chandler had been a very beautiful woman, even at fifty years of age, but what was left of her beauty now survived only in the memories of her horror stricken daughter. Her mother’s face, which a magazine had once boasted beautiful enough to rival that of Grace Kelly, had been reduced to nothing more than a jellied, pulverized mass of blood, tissue and broken bone.

Choking back bile, Jessica struggled hard to fight back screams of revulsion and horror as blinding, uncontrollable rage coursed through her body, and tears streamed across her cheeks, instantly obscuring her view of what was left of her mother.  Knowing it was a futile gesture, but unable to help herself, Jessica knelt towards the body to feel for a pulse, part of her hanging on to a fine thread of hope, the other desperately praying for her mother to be dead, thus spared anymore pain or agony.  With a hiss and a shudder, Jessica instantly reared back when she came into contact with dead flesh.  The body was already starting to get cold, which meant her mother had been dead for at least two, maybe three hours.  Two things hit her at once the first being that in light of her mother’s condition, Jessica’s perceptions had altered somewhat, and what had only seconds ago been the body of her mother, now became nothing more than a cold dead thing; the second realization sent her into another panic, she’d been dead for maybe two to three hour!. Entire civilizations crumbled in less time.  What other horrors would she find? 

Trying unsuccessfully to stamp back the growing fear that nibbled at her mind, Jessica found herself wondering, if they were capable of doing this to her mother, what had they done to her sister?  Oh God!  What atrocities had they committed with that sweet, innocent little eight year old? Monsters!  They were nothing but monsters!! 

She tried to get a grip on herself, knowing if she let herself succumb to the grief and terror, she would never be of any use to anyone … if there were anyone left.  The sight of her poor mother’s broken body, crumbled so helplessly on the floor was almost too much!  She couldn’t do this!  Oh God, please, please help me!!

  For a moment utter despair over took her and Jessica suddenly knew, knew with every fiber of her being that all her efforts would be futile.  There was no one left to save, and soon she wouldn’t even be able to save herself.  Then as quickly as the thought came… it was gone, and a gentle warmth started to seep into her ice cold bones.  She could hear it… feel it… lilacs and sunshine, warm rays of hope and love caressing her cold skin, smoothing away the worry and helplessness.  She remembered the way her mother used to smell after coming in from the garden, the way she seemed to bring the warmth of the day in with her, how it made Jessica feel so safe and loved.  It was as if her mother was right there with her, urging her on, telling her that there was no need to be afraid … she could do it!  She could save what was left of her family!  Her mother had always been the strong one in the family, always pushing her daughters to succeed with loving praise and strong assurances.  If she were to fail now, she would not only be failing what was left of her family, but her mother as well, her poor, sweet mother who would never hurt a living thing in her entire life.

A surge of strength suddenly filled Jessica, chasing away her doubts as memories of her mother flooded into her mind. With an angry swipe at the tears cascading down her cheeks in rivers of aching grief, she blew her mother one last anguish-filled kiss before getting back to her feet and silently creeping through the bedroom.  A quick look in the bathroom as she passed substantiated her suspicions that her father was no longer on the top floor.

Trying to shut the image of her mother’s dead body lying so quiet and cold on the bedroom floor, Jessica quietly exiting her parent’s bedroom, gnashing her teeth together sharply as she tried to expel the visions of her mother’s pulverized face from her mind, and paused to take a deep, calming breath.  Quickly glancing up and down the hallway before slipping from her parent’s room and swiftly making her way to her sister’s room, Jessica fought to keep her nerves from snapping. 

As before, she knew something was wrong the moment she put her hand on the door and it swung in freely.  Just like their mother, Sally couldn’t abide sleeping with the door open.  Stepping quickly across the threshold, Jessica let out an audible sigh of relief when she saw her sister’s bed was empty and no bloodstains marred the soft flower printed sheets.  A quick look around the room confirmed her sister was no longer on the second floor, they had taken her as well.

For a moment she felt a small glimmer of hope flare to life deep within her anguished soul.  With no evidence to support any type of violence, or even a struggle she felt certain that her sister might still be alive … but for how long?  That was the million-dollar question. 

Making her way back towards the stairs, Jessica went over in her mind the events of the evening.  How could they have killed her mother, bludgeoned her father and dragged both he and her sister from their beds without her hearing?  The soft thudding downstairs had been muffled and very low, but she had heard it!  It just didn’t make any sense… then the answer hit her

The Hidey!

The Hidey had been her secret hiding place ever since she could remember.  It was a place she liked to go whenever she needed to think, or just escape the world for a little while.  For security reasons, hidden rooms had been built off each bedroom, as well as the library and study.  Her hidden room was tucked behind a bookcase built into the bedroom wall, ingeniously disguised.  From all outward appearances, the bookcase looked normal, a false panel covering the hinges attached to the wall, but when you pulled on one of the shelves, the bookcase effortlessly opened to reveal a narrow stairway leading up to a small-carpeted room.

Long ago, when she’d first gotten into music, her father had soundproofed the room so that he and his wife would not have to endure the amateur wailings of keyboards, trumpets and drums all day long.

This evening she had gone up to that room for no other reason than to reacquaint herself with that beloved secret space.  She hadn’t been up there for more than twenty or thirty minutes, evidently long enough for the intruders to sweep through the upstairs and attack her family, kill her mother and abduct her father and sister, without her ever hearing a thing.

A part of her felt as if somehow she had let her family down.  If she’d been in her room instead of visiting the past, perhaps she could have stopped all of this from happening.  Perhaps her mother would still be alive.  Her sister would still be sleeping peacefully in her bed, not subject to the sadistic whims of some psychotic maniac, or maybe even lying dead in one of the rooms below.  Her father would not have had his head bashed in, and God knew what being done to him.  She would have been able to catch the intruders before they did any harm and they would be dead right now, or sitting in jail with a very long prison sentence in front of them.

Berating herself over and over again for her stupidity and selfishness as she silently made her way down the hallway towards the stairs, the rational part of her mind argued that if she had been in her room, she too might be dead or tied up downstairs somewhere right now, instead of slinking through the house with gun in hand, ready to put down anyone who got in her way.

But the angry part cut this argument down swiftly.  She was a black belt dammit!  Not to mention a hell of a shot!  She can take care of herself and her family!  All those years of training … and for what?

The battling emotions continued until she reached the top of the stairs, where Sally’s anguished wail rang through the house, all thought suddenly stopped.

For a moment Jessica could do nothing, every muscle in her body froze.  She could hear her heart pounding; it’s beat of fear and apprehension punching a permanent hole in her chest.  She had never heard anyone scream like that… not even in the movies!  That one short scream carried with it all the terror and pain she herself had been feeling from the moment she found her mother’s dead body.

Another thud echoed through the house, this one much louder than the others. A hard grunt of pain followed, deep and low.  That was her father!  There was no mistaking her father’s voice, even if it was only a grunt.  About twenty years ago he'd been riding across the estate when his horse bucked unexpectedly and threw him into a tree.  A low hanging branch had caught him square across the throat, nearly smashing his larynx.  He had healed well, but the damage to his throat was irreparable.  The build-up of scar tissue had rendered him nearly incapable of speech and only through a rather sophisticated device ingeniously implanted into his throat, could her father actually make words.  Unfortunately, though giving him the ability to speak, the device distorted his voice so badly, it sounded as if he were some type of computer.

The relief of knowing both her sister and father were alive was enough to nearly reduce her to another bout of tears.  It was odd how powerful an emotion relief could be. For a moment she didn’t know what to do.  Couldn’t think, could barely breath.  Every bone in her body was singing with joy and desperation.  She knew if she didn’t act soon, the chances of them surviving were nil-to-none.  But how should she proceed?  If she charged down the stairs with guns blazing, she took the chance of harming, or possibly killing them both!  She had to think this through carefully because once she started, there would be no turning back!

First off, she needed to know how many intruders were in her house.  If there was only one or two, she had a chance.  Any more than that severely depleted the odds for success.  She could probably kill one right off with the gun before they knew she was there.  The second might be a little harder, which would be where her martial arts came in, but if a third or fourth one surprised her, she didn’t know if she could still control the situation.  She was good, but her skills were a tad rusty.  A year of college would do that to a person.  Still, her personal trainer had always taught her that the best weapon she had was her mind.  If she didn’t allow herself to become confused, if she focused on the situation and let her instincts guide her, success would be hers.  Of course, it was a truism she’d never had to practice in real life, up until now.

Loosening her death grip on the gun, Jessica backed up against the wall and silently sidled closer to the stairwell.  For a moment she could hear nothing but the sounds of the house ticking softly in the early morning humidity, but as she quieted her raging heart and ragged breathing, the sound of voices coming from what seemed like her father’s study drifted up through the stairwell.

The deep timber of a man’s voice talking quietly and a muffled grunt, which sounded like her father trying to speak through a gag of some sort.  Of her sister she could hear nothing.

The study was at least six feet from the stairs, directly off the foyer with only one door leading in.  To get down the stairs and across the foyer without being seen would not be an easy task, but it was doable, as long as whoever was in her house wasn’t in the doorway to the study.

Luckily she knew the trick to the three creaking steps, which would aid in her element of surprise.  Getting across the foyer without being seen was a little trickier, however having grown up in this house, she knew her way around better than anyone. 

Unfortunately, so far she had only heard one man’s voice, though she figured it was safe to assume at least two assailants were in the house, however the likelihood of more than two was a fact she would have to take into consideration. 

When another thud ensued from the study, followed by an even louder grunt of pain, Jessica knew she was out of time.  If she didn’t act now, both her father and sister would be dead.

Silently creeping down the stairs, she held the gun before her exactly as she’d been taught, muzzle pointed towards the ceiling, hand firmly but loosely gripping the butt, finger ready on the trigger.  When she came to the fifth step from the bottom, she nimbly stepped on the banister baseboard and, keeping the gun at the ready with one hand, gripped the handrail with the other, slid silently down the wood to the third step, jumping over it and onto the second to the bottom as gracefully and nimble as a cat jumping from the branches of a tree; all the while keeping a close eye out for any oncoming assailants.

Once in she was on the last step before the foyer, she kept her back tight up against the all  and peered through the railings towards her father‘s study.  She could see two large shadows pacing steadily across the open mahogany door.  They seemed agitated and Jessica wondered, not for the first time, it this was a right course of action to take.  Though she couldn't tell which way they were facing, she knew the two were male by their stance and the size of their shadows.

Sliding to her right, she quickly glancing over her shoulder towards the entrance to the library and formal dining room ascertaining from the silence in each room that the two rooms were unoccupied, which hopefully solidified her assumption of how many intruders she was dealing with.

A sudden shrill scream from the study set Jessica's nerves on edge, along with a rushed mixture of relief and horror racing through her.  Thank God her sister was still alive… but for how much longer?!

In that moment it would have been so easy for her to throw all caution to the wind and blindly race into the study with bullets flying, but imprudent and impulsive behaviors had never been one of her fallacies.  Instead, throwing one more cautious glance towards the library and dining room, she slowly crept down to the foyer and with heart pounding,  raced from her hiding place, across the open foyer to the paneled wall just to the right of the study door.

Her only hope was to lure one of the assailants into the foyer, shoot them, then get the other as he came looking for his partner.  No way could she handle both at one time.  The only way to win was to pick and choose her battles.  Listening to the muffled whispers of the intruders, she wondered why they were talking so softly.  It was obvious by their bold actions so far, they had no fear of being discovered.  This close to the doorway, she could hear the steady sobbing of her younger sister and her heart went out to the eight year old. 

Don’t worry, baby girl, I’m coming!  Jessica promised silently, hoping that the overwhelming love she held for her family would somehow be strong enough to convey her words and giver her sister strength.

Sliding closer to the doorway, she could hear her heart beating so loudly in her ears, for a moment she was afraid the assailants would hear it and come rushing out before she was ready for them.

Taking a deep breath, she concentrated on slowing her heart rate as she quietly let out her pent-up breath.  Once things were set into motion there would be no time for panic.  If she was to succeed she must strike and strike quickly, without hesitation and with the deadliest of force.  Timing was of the essence!

Daring to close her eyes for a brief moment, she sent out a quick prayer.  Please God let this work, let me save them!  If nothing else, at least the prayer helped to calm her.  Taking another breath, she readied her mind for what was to come and, aiming the gun towards to doorway where she estimated the assailant’s head would be, lifted her right foot and rapped it hard and quick against the wood paneling.

The first intruder had evidently been closer to the doorway than she’d estimated, exploding into the foyer so quickly, she almost didn’t have time to squeeze the trigger.  As it was, she was only able to get off one shot, hitting the side of man’s face, sending him spinning limply to the floor only seconds before the other intruder was upon her.

He was massive!  A good six-four, six-five, and at least two-fifty to three hundred pounds of pure muscle. To her small, delicate stature he seemed like a giant bulldozer coming at her head on.  She tried to prepare herself for the impact, instinctively bringing the gun up in front of her, but we was too fast and when he finally slammed into her, the impact was explosive as he rammed into her and kept on coming.  When she hit the wall, she was sure every bone in her body had been broken.

Years of training had never prepared her for the type of pain that could be inflicted on a person. Knowing her life and the lives of her family hung in the balance, Jessica strove to stay conscious and focus her mind away from the pain as the strength of the second assailant’s blow slammed her full force up against the wall near the doorway to the kitchen, crushing her tiny frame against the paneling so hard, she felt her left collarbone snap like the wing of a chicken beneath his weight.

Holding her a good three feet off the floor with one arm pressed against her chest, he leaned his face so in closely to hers, she could smell the mixture of spiced meat, onions and corn tortillas from the tacos he consumed earlier.  That smell alone was enough to make her gag, but what lingered like a rotting corpse between their faces was enough to flip her gag reflexes into high gear… it was the putrid smell of insanity.

Her brother looked into her face with the psychotic eyes of a killer and at that moment Jessica felt her mind start to crumble beneath the lunacy of his gaze as the true meaning of his presence became clear and the lies of her childhood finally lay bared before her.  She had never known that beneath the heavenly light of those crystal blue eyes lay the rotted, festering soul of true evil.

Taking only a few seconds for her stunned brain to fit the pieces into place, Jessica knew in an instant her brother was completely and totally insane, and probably had been all his life.  Her parents had tried their hardest to keep this from their eldest daughter, sending him to the best mental hospitals money could buy, bringing him home only on those special occasions when family gatherings were expected; telling their daughters that their brother was getting better and didn’t have a lot of time to spend with the family.

When he did come home, she assumed her brother had been heavily drugged in order to keep him manageable, which is why he always seemed so withdrawn. 

Gazing into her brother’s eyes now, she realized that what she was seeing was the true psychotic soul finally free after so many years of imprisonment behind the façade he’d been able to hold together through a combinations of drugs and God knew what other kind of treatments.

He’d killed their mother, bludgeoned and tortured their father and terrorized their sister.  He was a monster, pure and simple!  No matter how closely she looked, she could find no semblance of the person she had known so long within those piercing, crystal blue eyes.  What stared back at her was pure animalistic rage and she knew right then he was going to kill her.

Kendal stood still, silently staring at her until she felt as if she were going to scream.  He had always been a big man, but in the last year he’d become impossibly huge.  At nineteen he resembled something akin to a giant and it dawned on Jessica that those so called “treatments” the doctor had wrote about probably had some type of adverse effect on him, both mentally and physically. Whatever they had done, it had obviously sent him over the edge. 

As her tortured mind tried to sort out these startling revelations, something wickedly sharp jabbed into her chest and the palm of her right hand, bringing her quickly out of her terror-filled stupor.  A dim, rational part of her, the part buried deep beneath an onslaught of fear, panic and pain, the part of her that even now gasped for breath as it struggled back to the surface, recognized the pain for what it was.  Somehow, throughout the assault, she’d managed to keep hold of the gun, the butt of which was now being crushed in her palm that was now digging into her chest as her brother pressed his body close to hers… and it was still pointed straight at him. 

Before she could give herself even a minute chance to reconsider, her instinctive reactions kicked into high gear and the sounds of three shots echoed through the hallway with the explosive force of cannon fire.  For a split second Jessica saw a dawning comprehension flash across Kendal's beautiful face as the veil of madness lifted from his eyes and clarity of thought was given reign; then in a blink the sanity was gone, replaced once again by the look of pure madness, twisting and contorting his face into a mask of sheer evil. 

In one single flash of movement, Kendal yanked the gun from her hand and simultaneously pulverized the tiny bones of that fragile limb.  The screams of agony echoing off the foyer walls were enough to make her ears ring, even before she realized they were coming from her own lips.  Looking up into her brother’s face with utter disbelief, she watched as it suddenly split into a grin filled with the worst evil ever imaginable, just as the shot came, hard and searing, the bullet slamming into her chest, sucking every ounce of life and breath from her body.  Fire and ice spread across her body in searing, numbing pain as her precious life blood poured over the black and white marbled floor beneath her dangling feel.  Fighting to stay conscious as the room started to dim and darkness closed in around her, the last thing she heard was the sound of her brother’s triumphant laughter echoing in her head, following her into the ebony pit of oblivion, filling her with the knowledge that all she had known and love was no more… she had failed and now her life was over.