fourteen

Nigel ran in before me, yelling at me to stay in the car. Of course, I did no such thing. However, once inside the door, I stopped short in confusion. It was as if I’d suddenly stepped into one of those annoying dreams, where everything familiar is unfamiliar. The kind that you later try to describe with the unhelpful opening, “I was in our house, but it wasn’t our house. You know what I mean?” Except, that this time, I did know.

All around me was utter chaos. Furniture was overturned. Emptied drawers lay in a discarded heap; their contents scattered all about. The bookshelves were bare, their volumes strewn across the floor. Atop all of it was a thick layer of feathers; the cushions they once resided in now deflated and disemboweled.

“DeDee!” Nigel and I screamed at the same time as we sprinted down the hall toward the home office. Like the front door, the office door stood wide open. Like the rest of the house, the office was in shambles. However, unlike the rest of the house, more than just material goods had been attacked. Here, the intruder had attacked the living. Bile rose in my mouth as I looked down at DeDee; her body bloodied and still.