They say a man will do anything for his family

This is a rewrite of a story i posted previously, titled "A Letter Home." this is still an unfinished piece, critiques are welcome!

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They say a man will do anything for his family. I always wondered about that, about what I’d do for mine. One day I found out.

It all started when I began noticing a strange guy poking around my yard at night. He would peek through the windows. Sometimes he would just sit in the middle of the grass, staring at the house. This continued for three nights, and on the last, he dug through our trashcans.

My wife, Kate, wanted me to notify the police but something about his demeanor gave me the impression that he wasn’t right in the head. That he was most likely just some mentally challenged man getting away from whoever takes care of him. The glasses that enlarged his eyes to twice their size didn’t help. Neither did the way he wore his clothes - an all gray outfit consisting of a hoodie and sweat pants that didn’t cover his bulging stomach. If mental illness were the case, calling the cops would only cause unnecessary harm and embarrassment to him and his family. I figured he was harmless.

Then one morning I was sitting in the kitchen making some coffee, and I look up to see his face pressed up against the glass of the front door.

He tried to jiggle the door handle but when he saw me staring right at him he ran, and tripped coming off of the front step. When I opened the door he got up.

“Can I help you with something?

“N-n-no, no. I just w-wanted to see the inside of yer house.” He was crouched over, clutching at his sides as if he was stuck in an arctic wind.

The level of fear within him unnerved me, and when he continued walking away I ran into the house and grabbed a pocketknife from the kitchen drawer. I wanted to see where he was going, what he was doing, and if he was creeping around any other homes.

I got outside to find he had only made it midway down the street. He was stumbling over himself, murmuring and playing with his hands.

It turned out he lived on the same street as I. When he got to his front door he snapped his head in all directions, breathing so loudly and rapidly that I could hear him from behind his neighbor’s hedges, where I hid, as he hastily pulled out his keys and shoved them into the lock. Through the windows I could see that the inside of the house was dark. When he went in I lost sight of him, but then through another window I saw a door open. A fluorescent light poured out as a silhouette hurried into a basement stairwell before slamming the door behind him.

I snuck to the front door found that he was too quick and careless to close his it all the way. I pushed it open, and I was suddenly hit with an intolerable smell. It was as though he had left a decomposing body in the house; and for all I know there could have been one. My heart was pounding as I advanced further in. I couldn’t see any furniture in the darkness; only bare, chipped walls, and a cracked white tile floor.

Squeals could be heard. I couldn’t steady my hands as I opened the door that had been opened by the silhouette. None of it felt right, the house, and the constant creeping. This had to be bigger then that. As I was halfway down the steps I was able to peer below the basement ceiling and I saw him pacing back and forth, snarling and shrieking. He was yammering about the fact that I had seen him. He was a hideous, deeply troubled creature. His face was covered in sweat and grease, his stomach still spilled out of the clothes he wore. I looked around and what I noticed next will deeply haunt me for the rest of my life.

Every wall was lined with dozens of photographs of my home, my family, going about our lives not knowing that the light that surrounded us was being captured through a lens. There was even one of Kate taken through the window as she stood in the master bathroom while she was changing. This creep must have climbed a tree to get that one. There were pictures of my daughter, Sarah. My fucking daughter.

Everything went white, my thoughts started racing, why did he take these pictures? What was he doing with them? Oh god what kind of perverted shit was he doing? That’s when he saw me. His eyelids widened and he stood frozen, unable to move or speak. His lips quivered as spit glistened on them.

Before I knew what I was doing I closed the distance between us. I shoved him hard against the wall and he screamed as he fell to the ground. The knife had made its way from my pocket to my hand.

This man, this freak, had been spying on my family. He breached our privacy, who was to say he wouldn’t do more? How long would it have been before he broke into my home? Hell, he just tried that! What if he tried to hurt Kate? To hurt Sarah? The cops were not an option. In that moment, I only saw one clear resolution to this horror.

My eyes glazed over and I plunged the blade into his blubbery chest, yanked it out, and then shoved it back in again; and again. With each thrust, blood came spraying out. Then I took the knife to his neck. If I weren’t so distraught I would have been truly haunted by the image of his torn body lying there. Blood was leaking from his wounds like water down a stream, pooling around the motionless lump and slowly creeping outwards across the floor. Suddenly the ground beneath my feet was flying past me. The wood floor turned to stairs, then to tile, which gave way to the cement of the sidewalk.

I ran until I couldn’t breathe anymore, finally stopping in the middle of the road a mile from home.

After finally pulling myself together I realized what I had actually done, I could go to jail for the rest of my life. I should have just knocked him out and called the police, but what would any father, any husband do? Pigs like that shouldn’t be allowed to live. I just did it; I am no murderer.

I couldn’t bring myself to go in the house, so I went to the garage. After rummaging through some of the drawers at my woodwork table, I found a long abandoned pack of cigarettes.

The trembling of my hands made it hard to raise the cigarette to my lips, and when I succeeded the smoke labored to keep from being coughed out in a hysterical fit; Id given up smoking years ago.

For hours I sat on the stool in front of the table. I went through what was left of the pack as the smoke began to fill the garage. The pale yellow light from the ceiling washed through it as I stared down at my hands, and thought about what they’ve done. Then my eyes travelled towards a gas can that was perched on a shelf above the lawn mower. I thought about what I could possibly do to rid me of this horror. Only one thing was for certain, my family could never know.

Something evolved within me, and now I can never be the same. I played God for somebody. These hands cut their consciousness from existence, only a torn and bloodied shell left behind. Each morning he rose and each night he would go to sleep. He ate throughout the day, He was human, and a human life has always been taught to be sacred. But do the circumstances not change the morality? If the thought had crossed my mind a day ago I would have said fuck the morality, kill the monster. Now I do not know what I think. Images flashed in my mind of the man going about regular activities… I tried to push the thoughts from my mind.

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The next day I did what everyone knows not to do. I went back to the crime scene. Logic couldn’t beat curiosity, but as I walked down the sidewalk my stomach felt like a shallow pit and anxiety filled every open spot in my body. Then I saw the house.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Cops, maybe? An ambulance? Or at the very least a crowd of gawking neighbors spilling into the street as they a certain number into their phones. Yet all was quiet along the street. The house stood still, not a thing seemed out of place. I eyed the front door. There was still time to clean up, to erase the event. No one would have to know. I began to cross the street towards the house.

Before I could get more than halfway, my feet became cemented to the ground. My heart was sending shockwaves throughout my body. I turned back towards home and my feet were freed.

Staring into my daughters eyes use to be my favorite thing in the world. Now the shear thought of it makes me feel sick. Mine have seen terrible things, and I fear I may spread those images like a virus to my little girl. What would she think of her father if she knew?

“Daddy!” Sarah stood there looking up at me…into my eyes. I quickly turned my gaze to the floor. “You stopped paying attention!” that’s right, she had been telling me about her drawing for class.

“I’m sorry sweetheart, go on.”

“No, its okay.” Her little face scrunched sourly as she walked out of the living room where I had stood and stared out of the window for a while until she had found me.

The house rumbled and groaned as the garage door opened. Not a second later Kate was in the house screaming my name.

“Why the hell does the garage smell like smoke?” the disappointment was barely hidden. “I thought you were finally done with that, you worked so hard to kick it.”

I couldn’t think of what to say, but I wanted to tell her smoking was the least of my worries.

“Are you okay? You’ve been acting weird, what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry, I’ve just been in a funk recently. Its nothing to worry about.”

“It better not be a midlife crisis, we can’t afford a sports car.” And she kissed my cheek, then her mouth came to my ear and she used her sweet and soft motherly voice that had been a major player within the reasons I married her. “It’ll be okay sweetheart, we’ll talk later; I need to get to work.” And she kissed me again.

Before walking out the door, leaving me at home to worry about my fate, whether it is in prison or hell, she turned to me and said, “By the way, have you seen that guy running around recently? Id love for you to get on that before he kicks our door in.”

“Good one, no I haven’t. Maybe its over.”

“Doubtful.” She smiled sarcastically, before walking out of the door.

            The warm soothing water washes over my body as I listen to the drumming of the showerhead. I watch as the water streams down my body, making pathways around my nipple before going down my stomach.

            Suddenly, the temperature of the water begins to rise. The showerhead begins to whine and shake like a teapot well past done. The water spewing from it turned red. Trying to wipe it away from my body just made room for more. I turned to escape but the shower curtain has changed to solid glass. Slowly, the red pools around my feet.            Wiping turns to clawing. My flesh tears under the assault and that only adds more red to the mess. The pool comes to my knees, then my waist, before finally making its way to my neck. I take a deep breath as the read comes up to my mouth, then my eyes. The last thing I feel is the liquid filling my lungs.

I sprang awake in a cold and furious sweat. The sun had begun to fade behind the horizon. My nap was longer then originally planned. I guess I was catching up all the sleep I had missed the night before. I got up and felt the moistness of my sweat on a good portion of the mattress. That was the first nightmare Id had in a while, well, asleep that is.

Through the mirror I eyed myself up and down. My skin was a pale green and sweat lined my forehead. Soon my thoughts are racing.

The cops could be arriving any second. All it would take is someone discovering the mans body. They would surely call the police, who would then find the knife. From the knife they could lift prints that lead to me, thus destroying my family.

But then again, who the hell would be meeting with that man? The house was derelict. No mother would visit that house, that creature. If the house survived that long with that smell then it could get away easily with the scent of rotting flesh.

If I hadn’t waited so long, if I had just gone to the police, maybe they would have given me a break, seeing as how he could have posed a serious threat. Now it’s been too long, they might not believe my story, and that still changes the way my family looks at me. I couldn’t think like that though, what’s happened has happened.

I turned my gaze to the shower and my felt like I had a Taser in my back. It was then and there that I decided I couldn’t sit around in a paranoid frenzy anymore. Something had to be done before the body was discovered.

As the Sun finally fell and was replaced by the faint starlight I made my way to the garage. I grabbed the gas can and made sure it was full, and then grabbed some lighter fluid out of a cabinet.

I hurried down the street, sticking mainly to the dark spots in the road. My hood was up and I had a black scarf wrapped around my face. All was still quiet at the house. And no one seemed to be around.

As I approached the front door my body was pleading with me to change my mind, I couldn’t, not now. Slowly I pushed it open, the house was pitch black except for the pale light coming from the open basement door in the back. The smell was worse now.

I walked to the basement stairs and looked down the stairwell. On the wall I could see the pictures. If I didn’t have the scarf around my face I would have puked. The smell was way too much.

There was no way I could go down there and see him, so I just took the gas and poured some down the stairs until it pooled around the base of the last step.

Then I spread the rest across the first floor. The lighter fluid was used on the walls, and whatever drapery was present. This was it. If I got caught now, I was fucked either way.

I led a trail of gas to the front door, and I stood there with a match in my hand. Id never would have thought I would end up in a situation where I would have to drop a match into a trail of gas like in the movies.

In movies, it seems romantic. In real life, the entire situation is terrifying.

The house was set ablaze in seconds. Inside the body of the man burned, the pictures on the wall were destroyed. No one would ever have any idea of what happened here.

I stood in the street watching my destruction play out. Flames licked the night sky, and the only sound to be heard was the crackling of the house in its throes of death. I thought of Sarah, of Kate, of what I’ve been driven to do. All of this was for them.