March 2008, Late Saturday Night

For a moment it sounded like the cawing of a bird, then there was silence. The body was heavy in his arms and in the bathroom mirror he could see how her head fell backwards towards his chest. Leaning back unnaturally, with closed eyes and mouth wide open – she could have fallen asleep like that on the bus. Perhaps the uncomfortable position would make her jerk awake and then she would fall asleep again, wake up, fall asleep, wake up … But no, the gaping cut across her throat and the blood pumping more and more slowly out of it bore witness to something else. This woman would never wake up again.

He wiped off the blade of the hunting knife on his jeans and set it on the sink. Then, with minimal exertion, he tossed her up into his arms, his right arm under her knees and the left behind her shoulders and neck. He carried the dainty body through the bathroom door and into the bedroom, where he carefully set her down on the double bed beside the two sleeping children. With quiet, deliberate steps he returned to the bathroom to retrieve his weapon. The girl, lying between her mother and her older brother, was disturbed by the movement in the bed, whimpered and started groping for her mouth with her thumb.

Just as it reached its target he was back with the hunting knife, and without a moment’s hesitation he cut the girl’s slender throat with a single motion. She did not let out a sound; her big brother’s calm breathing was all that could be heard in the room. He himself was hardly breathing at all. He stood quietly for several seconds and watched the blood running out of the little body. Then he quickly made his way around to the other side of the bed and leaned over the soundly sleeping boy, before ending that young life too with a single cut across the throat.