The hot splash of a sticky metallic liquid on my puffy face woke me up. It was either that or the panicked grunts and sounds of metal on metal. What the hell was going on? The bedroom my husband and I shared was still dark. Some light was spilling out from the hallway outside the door, illuminating the bare minimum. But the light was obstructed by a dark human silhouette. Was it my husband? No he was bigger. But there were two silhouettes. It looked like they were dancing together? No, they were doing something else. They were fighting. Wrestling by the looks of it. The larger figure has something in his hands resembling a tool? An axe? That was when my half-awake brain actually woke up and I registered danger for the first time that night. A sharp heat ran down my neck as I froze, unable to register the horror movie in front of me. They were not dancing. There was nothing rhythmic about the scene. The larger man was pummeling my husband over and over again. He tried his best to fight back, and he grunted at me to run and call 911. He managed to slow down the larger man and was fighting back with the lamp on his bedside table. He was bleeding profusely, and only managed to get off two swings before he was stopped. He tried his best but the larger man was 100% winning by the time I staggered out the door. By the time I reached the phone I heard no resistance from the bedroom, only the sickening sound of uninterrupted chopping. I hoped against the odds for the better of the two outcomes and reached for the phone. All I heard was static when I realized the cord was chopped up.
Why was there a man in my house? It was 4 A.M. Me and my family had no criminal connections and no one had a motive to hurt us. We lived in a quiet suburban neighborhood. We had a decently large home as a result of working hard our whole lives. We had advanced security features, fences, an alarm, and we never forget to lock the doors or the windows. What had happened?
My next sober thought was to check up on my toddler. I turned my body in the direction of her room and made a connection. The lights were all on in the house. The intruder must have broken in, turned on the lights, and then made their way upstairs. Hopefully straight to my room, skipping the nursery. My husband was a light sleeper, and must have been awoken by the light spilling into the room. He must have scrambled into the hallway, saw the man with the axe and made sure to fight him where I would wake up to help. The killer must have known that we would have the advantage in a familiar darkened house, and sacrificed the initiative for that. I had to force myself to run up the stained red carpeted stairs - maybe the fight started here? - because I knew the threat was very much upstairs and imminent. I reached the top. Across the hall I saw the man going through the guest room next to our bedroom. He didn’t see me as I slid into the nursery.
There wasn’t much nursery left. It had all been bloodstained. The walls, everything. What was left of my precious baby was its severed head, still on its pillow. I only found solace knowing that she was asleep when it happened, as her eyes were closed. A gaping black hole still filled up my body. I didn’t want to move, or do anything. How could this happen? My whole life was shattered and I wanted to give up. Then I saw the finger. My husband’s index finger, with the ring still on it. I was pathetic. He heard the commotion in here, came running and eventually died trying to protect the baby and myself. What was I doing? Sleeping.
My self-pity was enough to overcome my desire to run. What it wasn’t able to cover-up was my primal human desire to survive, to preserve the self. When my mind registered the intruder in the next room my legs co-operated and got me down the stairs and towards the door. I nearly fell down them but steadied myself and collapsed on the door. I gave the knob a turn and pushed out. Nothing happened. It wouldn’t budge. I leaned to the left to look out the side - window. There was something in the way.
When under levels of stress and flight instinct the human brain is less logical and more impulsive. I ignored the windows near me and the backdoor, opting instead for the basement. The hiding spots sounded good at the time. My motor skills were delayed and as a result I wound up clearly marking where in the house I was to the intruder. If that didn’t do it, the creaky wooden stairs going down did. My house was getting renovated, and as a result the basement was unfinished. We mostly put boxes down there for storage. As I made it to the bottom of the staircase I noticed a cool breeze on my neck. It was dark and dank in the basement, and the darkness of the outdoor air was hard to spot at first. But upon second look it was made clear that the window was open and glass was on the ground. This was how the man got into our house. It could be a viable escape option but the window was about 3 feet above the ground, and not something that can be done while I was being pursued. When the wooden stairs announced the second visitor I ducked behind some old boxes. There were three boxes stacked up to the left of me, three to the right, and two in front of me. I was not covered from the back and felt very exposed. The basement was extremely dark, but occasional light from a streetlamp outside would cause the weapon in the man’s hand to glint, and I knew how to move away from him. I was barefoot, and the ground was incredibly cold. I instinctively shuffled and he heard me. But I had superior knowledge of the layout and managed to maneuver myself under the stairs. The man somehow didn’t hear my labored breaths.
Have you ever been sneaking up on a sibling or a friend to scare them and you yourself grew paranoid and scared? I could sense the same thing from the heavyset man turning 360 degrees every few seconds and swinging his axe around. The whole night he was the hunter. He had the carnal instinct and sick satisfaction of being the one in pursuit. He was getting gratification and all humans crave deep down. But now I was the hunter. He didn’t know where I was and was panicked and angry. He had lost control and was now trying to remove obstacles around him with wide arching swings. In the ruckus he didn’t hear me maneuver to the front of the stairs. He should consider himself lucky I didn’t go for the steak knives I knew to be in a box near me. I bounded up the stairs as fast as I could, knowing he heard me hit the first step. Light flooded around my body as I reached the kitchen, still hauntingly and ominously light up. Normally light meant salvation from the monsters in the closet. But this time the monster was downstairs, and horrors beyond my imagination existed just above me.
My tear ducts were filling up from pressure. The sheer amounts of fear I felt shredding my entire body was the only thing that kept my legs going. I had so much adrenaline my body was shaking and my bones were about to be ripped out. I approached the backdoor in the kitchen and pounded on it. A familiar glassy atmospheric sound filled my eardrums. I collected myself and fiddled with the lock, managing to open it up.
The cool night air hit me like a truck. The world would not awake for a couple of hours and despite the danger I felt a little serene. The large shadow I felt creep up my peripherals reminded me otherwise. I was outside now. Outside in salvation? The deck was stacked in morning dew. I almost tripped getting to the fence keeping me from the front of the yard. I didn’t notice much as I opened the gate but I noticed the missing tool from its usual resting place beside the house. Disturbed grass with clear footprints confronted me when I stepped into my front yard. The man followed. I tried to scream, to yell for help, to say anything but my vocals were tightened shut. I made it onto the driveway and felt myself slow down. The rocks were stabbing into my bare feet. My pursuer with boots had no such impediment. I didn’t understand. I beat him. I escaped my house and everyone can see me. I see ten houses in my left eye alone. Why was no one helping me? Does no one care? Am I alone? He caught up to me and put his arm around me. The arm shocked me more than a bullet. A million emotions ranging from dread to terror to pure adrenaline danced across my body. Hope was gone. It didn’t matter if everyone saw what was going on because he’d kill me and run away in time. I was frozen by his embrace and barely summoned the courage to look my murderer in the eye. I saw no humanity behind the pupils. This wasn’t a crime of passion, I’d be surprised if he ever felt that in his life. His look scared me more than the whole ordeal. I was looking at a killing machine, one who has taken life before and saw me as just another victim.
I kicked and punched but it was fruitless. The lone streetlight illuminated the scene but it didn’t matter. He was dragging me towards the street and his car, it being eerily still running. The unpaved road stabbed my feet and the lack of non-yellow light burned my stinging eyes. Then I got lucky. A car bounded across the road at full speed. A speeder would normally piss me off but this was a godsend. He barreled right into us and kept on going. He didn’t want a hit and run charge. I was spun like a ragdoll away from the house and he was spun towards it. It had given me precious meters to use in an escape. He had been hit way harder than me and couldn’t get up. I was still hit by a speeding car that didn’t slow down but the pursuers embrace sheltered me. I pushed past the many broken bones. I didn’t notice them as the adrenaline provided all the morphine I needed to push on. His morphine was the thrill of the hunt. Somehow he wasn’t killed immediately and hobbled towards me. I staggered towards a friend’s door. We were both moving like snails, respective injuries being completely ignored.
Many times that night I felt the wrong sense of salvation. But I was right this time when I made it to my friend’s house with him being meters behind me. I slammed on the door and rang the doorbell over and over again. It was still 4 and I knew she was asleep. But I persisted and I saw a bedroom light turn on. By the time the man caught up to me by the door I regained my ability to scream. Other bedroom lights flickered on one by one. Hope kept me going past the first strike.
The hilt of the axe was brought down hard on my left shoulder. The pain echoed about but I felt little compared to the anger boiling in me. I recruited my right arm and punched him square in the jaw. It caught him off guard and I went for the axe. A kitchen light switched on in my savior’s house. I didn’t get the axe and was pushed away. The hallway light now. He raised his axe again and swung. The lobby light now. I dodged his swing, it was weak and he was clearly injured and desperate. We ended up in a tangle and I was losing. He may have been injured but he was bigger and stronger as I was also injured. I thought of my toddler and husband as I took another axe swing this time to the shin.
Eventually the door opened. My friend stepped outside in her nightgown and helped me defend. This turned the odds and when we batted the axe from his grip we were roughly equal. Eventually blue and red lights fought with the yellow streetlight for attention. The man noticed and tried to run away. He was no match for the bullet’s that landed in his back. 9 shots later he was out and twitching. 4 more and he stopped. That was it.
I was hospitalized with multiple concussions and broken bones, and will never fully recover. My legs are forever and my shoulder will remain in a sling for a long while. I didn’t pay any mind to physical injuries as my brain began to wander. I thought about what I had lossed. My husband and my child. Every night as I go to bed I hallucinate my toddler being splattered all over my room. I see my husband fighting every nurse I see and succumbing to his injuries. The coroner’s official report said that my child’s cause of death was decapitation. Thank god they did not feel long pain. My husband’s was a puncture of the heart and blood loss. The house was sold by my in-laws. The killer was never identified. His body was never claimed and his fingerprints and DNA were not found in any databases. I still see his cold eyes whenever I look in the mirror. After what I’ve gone through I would have no qualms about killing like him. I wonder what made him the way he was. Why us? Why was our family’s life destroyed?
I’m writing this note to justify my decision to take my own life like he took my family’s. I don’t want my family to feel sad for me. I’ll be in heaven soon with my family and the pain will be gone.