The Friday the 13th Murders
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What caused a normal, nonviolent man to crack and brutally annihilate three children?
Samantha’s crying cranked in David’s aching head like a Dante-esque buzzsaw from one of the inner Circles of Hell. It was Friday night, April 13, 1973.
He. Could. Not. Take. It.
His week was hard enough.
Oh, WHY did I drink so much tonight? he thought as he tried to get much-needed rest in the next room while waiting on the children’s parents Clive and Elsie to arrive home from Elsie’s shift as a popular local bartender at the Punchbowl Tavern.
They should be only about 20 minutes, David reassured himself, pillow over his head to try to keep out the loud machinations of the demon spawn in the next room.
The incessant wailing made him glad his relationship fell apart — that he was 21 and not saddled with kids. I miss Mary but damn, I dodged a bullet there.
Then that one moment’s bliss was obliterated again by the crying in the next room.
The Kids. Kids. Kids.
Unemployment was making David feel (generously) “neutered” in having to lean on good friends like Clive and Elsie — even though he rather liked their children: Paul (5), Dawn Maria (2), and Samantha (almost 1).
Still, like rusted nails on a chalkboard, the high-pitched crying made his skin crawl. The sound was visceral, lighting a fire in his bones — all-consuming, hellish, and causing flashes of sharp pain in his forehead and behind his eyes.
KIDS-The KIDS-KIDS
It felt like some unseen force was impaling his organs from the inside. He yearned to jump out of his skin and escape because…
He-Could-Not-Take-It!
That was when an idea hit what was left of his brain: still taking trips off the diving board into the pool of warm beer and Irish whiskey that his liver and brain were floating in.
The Kids. THE Kids. THE KIDS!
(the cadence and volume of the word echoing in his ears like a siren’s song from Hades.)
