I said to my kid, who’d known none the wiser, like me. Aidan smiled, I nodded and smiled back. When we got this in the mail, it was a few months after Aidan did his photo shoots for school, and me and my wife, Theresa, were excited that we got his 1st grade school photos, and we were cautious to put his photo up on the wall, near our fridge, so when we saw his smile, it would be as bright as a star and we would have seen his big, green eyes, sparkle like a new universe coming into play, however, that is not what we got. We got the package in the mail, and the yellow manila envelope was stained with what seemed to be a sort of watery, clear liquid. The envelope said “School Photos” in a thin, red sharpie, squiggled quickly and unnervingly. When I flipped it over it said it was addressed to “Canaan and Theresa Walker” , our names. I smiled as I spoke out “Our kids school photos!” I looked more closely at the package, and there didn’t seem to be an address addressed to the person who sent this, nor a school. “That’s a bit odd” Theresa said as she looked more closely to try to find a school. We didn’t care. We quickly went inside and I told Aidan the news. “Hey, we got your school photos!” “Ok!” Aidan replied, “I am going into my room!” He ran up the stairs, and turned left into his baby blue room. We quickly, yet cautiously ripped open the top of the envelope, and sat down on our couch in the living room. We picked up the Saran Wrap wrapped photo, and looked at it. It was our house. We both looked at it in shock, but we were curious, maybe it was “just a project Aidan did at school that they mailed us that he did at school about his house, with the headshots in there.” I thought. We looked at the next photo, it was a photo of Aidan, in his bedroom, playing on his tablet, from his window. We rapidly stared at each other, mouths gaping, nodded in unison, and then back we went to the envelope, we didn’t want our son to be harmed. We got some gloves from the garage, and put them on. It could’ve been an anthrax letter, and we didn’t want to be harmed as well. Once we got our gloves on, we looked at the next photo. The photo was a photo of him (again) playing in the backyard, (he does like to play in the backyard sometimes.) but this time he was looking at the camera, with his face crossed out frantically with a thick, red marker. We quickly set that on down, and looked at the next photo, or piece of paper. It was what seemed to be a list of kids, with their age, full name, parents full names, their house addresses, and a date. All the kids and parents names were crossed out.
| [ Ava Gayles | 9 | Matthew and Dolores Gayles | 3107 W Elmwood Blvd, Ames, West Virginia. | 04/04/10 ] |
| [ Winifred Smith | 10 | Ishmael and Jada Smith | 1901 W Kilkenny Ave, Ames, West Virginia. | 04/05/10 ] |
| [ Arcadia Berger | 6 | Karl and Nikki Berger | 2714 E Rowley St, Ames, West Virginia. | 04/07/10 ] |
| [ Lorenzo Carmichael | 5 | Nigel and Frida Carmichael | 1998 Jameson Dr, Ames, West Virginia. | 04/08/10 ] |
Then, finally, my son appears, but something is off.
| [ Aidan Walker | 7 | Canaan and Theresa Walker | 1413 N Enoch Ave, Ames, West Virginia. | 04/09/10 ] |
I shed a tear. He crossed out my kid and wife’s name, but not mine, and the date was today. No. It couldn’t be. I stopped crying when I heard my son’s screams upstairs. The man was here. He ran down the stairs and we tried to run out. I survived, and Theresa almost did, but she tripped over the rug as we were running out and in one slash, she was gone. It has been a year since then, and my therapist said it was ok to rant about online. I am currently in a mental facility, and I am healing mentally and emotionally. I am writing this in the facilities library, and they’re going to release me next month. Thanks for any attention this post gets, and I’m signing off, thank you. - Canaan Walker.