300 Horror Writing Prompts- Prompt #20
Chapter 3
Aiden pulls the car into the driveway, the kids all passed out in the back and his wife contently reading in the passenger seat. They have just returned from their trip from Florida and even though they had fun, they couldn’t wait to sleep in their own beds.
“Home,” Aiden breaths in relief when he turns the car on their street and pulls into their driveway.
Carol slips her bookmark into her book and closes it before she looks up with happy eyes. “A beautiful sight for these tired eyes.”
“Now to get these tired kiddos to bed,” Aiden says as he stretches his achy body. “Then we can have a glass of wine and wait until it is our bedtime in a few hours by sitting on the porch. What do you say?”
Carol smiles, “I like that idea. I may be tired but a glass of wine while sitting on the porch with my husband and watching the sunset sounds like heaven to me.”
Aiden and Carol pile out of the car and pick up the kids. Marcos snuggles close to Carol’s neck as she carries him to the front door. Aiden shifts the twins so that he can carry them better, following behind Carol. Carol slips the keys out of Aiden’s front pocket then opens the front door, shoving it open with her hip. She carefully flips on the lights to the front entryway and freezes, taking in a sharp hiss.
Aiden comes up behind her, wondering why she has stopped and looks over her shoulder to a mess of their belongings. He curses under his breath and quickly takes the kids into the living room which is also a complete mess. Broken pictures, tossed furniture, and scratches on the walls greet Aiden when he turns on the living room lights. He wakes up the twins and sets them down on the couch, the only piece of furniture that hasn’t been flipped or broken.
“I’m going to call the police and take a look around to see if there is any intruder still here. You stay here with the kids,” Aiden tells Carol as she joins the twins on the couch still hugging a sleepy Marcos.
Carol nods her head, her eyes wide as she surveys the surrounding damage. The twins’ whimper and clamber closer to their terrified mother. Aiden pulls out his cell phone and quickly dials 9-1-1 as he begins to search for the madman who wrecked his family’s home. Room to room Aiden moves fallen or broken items as he talks to the operator, giving her all the information that is needed. She tells him to get the family back into the car and lock the doors to wait for the police to arrive. He thanks her and hangs up, moving upstairs to check the other rooms, not having found anyone on the first floor.
He can’t believe what he sees in each room; shredded clothes, torn books, broken furniture, ripped sheets and pillows, and toys strewn around the floor. He even found the kids coloring books and crayons destroyed by someone or something. He stands at the doorway of the master bedroom and squints into the darkness. His hand runs against the wall, finding the light switch, and flips it on.
The lights flicker for a moment then come on, casting away the darkness but before the shadows are completely gone, Aiden sees a large looming figure in one of the corners. He squints his eyes when he sees the figure, shocked. He cries out at the figure and lurches forward to grab the perpetrator, wanting to grab him and hold on to him for the police. His foot catches on a pile of shredded clothes, and he falls face-first into the side of the bed, hitting the side of his head, inches from his eye.
Carol takes the children back outside, fearing that the person who had ransacked their home could still be somewhere inside. She places her children in the back of the van so they can play quietly in the back and sits in the passenger seat. She locks the door and texts Aiden to let him know where he can find them after he is done checking the house She doesn’t get a response and grows worried but she knows that she has to stay in the car with her children. She checks again to make sure that all the doors are locked before she sends another text message.
She taps her foot as she stares at the front door trying to will Aiden appear at the door but it doesn’t work. She hears her children playing in the back and turns to watch them, hoping that they can distract her from her thoughts of something bad having happened to her husband. Flashing lights appear from somewhere behind their car and Carol quickly unlocks her door, hoping out to meet the cops. Two police officers climb out of the car and rush over to her.
“My husband is still inside. He went to check the rooms to make sure that no one is still in the house and he hasn’t come back out yet,” she hurriedly tells them, pointing at the door.
“Okay, ma’am, please get back in the car and lock it until we return,” one of the officers instruct her while he and his partner pull out their guns.
Carol does what she is told and waits in the car talking to Marcos, Leah, and Lance to try to keep them from being too scared by the events playing out around them. She keeps an eye on the house as the cops enter through the front door, their guns pointed inside, and watch as they enter the house, their shadows racing around in the lighted rooms. Twenty minutes later, the policemen are walking back outside, helping Aiden who looks dazed and injured. Blood slowly trickles down the right side of his face where he must have hit something while looking for whoever had destroyed their home.
“Aiden?” Carol jumps out of the car again and runs over to see what has happened. “Aiden!”
“Ma’am, we have found your husband in the master bedroom just waking up from hitting his head on the edge of the bed. He told us that he had seen someone in the room and went after them but tripped on a pile of clothes. Knocked himself out cold,” one officer tells her. “Take him to the hospital to get checked out and make sure that he doesn’t have any broken bones or a concussion. We looked everywhere but we didn’t find anyone else except for your husband in the house. Whoever he saw must have been scared and fled out the back of the house.”
“Thank you, officers, for coming out here so quickly and for finding my husband,” Carol tells them as they head back to the car.
She gets the kids buckled back into their seats while one of the officers takes the keys and runs back to the front door, and locking it, returning the keys back to Carol. They then load Aiden into the passenger seat while Carol slips into the car behind the steering wheel. Once everyone is buckled into their seats, Carol starts the van and the officers climb back into their own vehicle, both backing their vehicles out of the driveway. Before Carol turns the car away from the house, she sees movement in one of the upstairs bedroom windows. She stops the van and watches as something seems to melt into the wall next to the room where Marcos sleeps.
Believing that she is seeing things, Carol drives away, heading for the hospital to get Aiden checked out right away. She looks at her husband worriedly before returning her anxious eyes to the dark road ahead of her.