• THUD! The sound reached Allison’s ears as she hid quietly in her large, walk-in, closet. As tears silently streamed down her cheeks, the sound of more blows landing on flesh shot through her ears. Daddy had been drinking again.
    The little blonde girl clung to the stuffed rabbit as she cowered in the closet corner, sobbing silently into the stuffed animal’s worn fabric. It was her special toy, she kept it with her all the time.
    Suddenly another sound rang through the household, a high-pitched screeching sound. A sound that confused young Allison. It was the hysterical screams of her mother as she turned the gun on her husband. More drunken grunts and stomping before a loud bang which made the little girl jump, her eyes open wide as she stared at the closet door. She had never heard these sounds before, it was always quiet when daddy drank. He would hit mommy and sometimes he would touch allison in ways that made her feel dirty, but her mommy never yelled at daddy. The silence after the loud noise seemed to ring in the little girl’s ears before a loud roar that had to be daddy filled her ears. Another scream from mommy, only this time it quickly ended with a strangled cry.
    Allison slipped from her hiding place, afraid, but curious about all these new noises. She peeked out of her door into the hallway and saw daddy with his hands tightly around mommy’s neck. His pant leg was all wet and red, and it seemed to be dripping. Daddy was bleeding, a lot.
    There was a soft thud as the girl’s mother dropped the gun to the floor, the world swimming before her eyes as her husband, her one-time lover, slowly choked the life from her. She gazed down the hall and saw the bright gold of her daughter’s beautiful blonde curls before the whole world faded out into black.
    Young allison watched as her mother’s limp body fell to the floor, and her father turned towards her. Drunk and bleeding, the man stumbled towards her. Allison just stared at him, waiting for her mother to jump up and protect her from the demon that took over daddy when he drank, just like she always did, but her mother didn’t move.
    After several moments and several drunken, pained steps, the little girl seemed to realize that she was alone with the demon her mother always warned her about.
    The warning came to her mind suddenly, what her mother told her a long time ago. If mommy wasn’t around to save her from the demon, she must run away as fast as she can.
    That was the only thought the young girl needed before she darted down the hall past her father. His big hand swung towards her, grabbing her bunny and pulling hard. She didn’t want to let go of her one remaining friend, but she knew she couldn’t let the demon catch her, so she dropped the stuffed animal and kept running, all the way out the front door.
    The roars of her father becoming more and more faint in her ears as she ran as fast as she could across the front yard and out into the street. Suddenly a bright light consumed her entire world. She could see nothing but the light, she could feel nothing but the light, and suddenly it felt as if she was flying, flying far away from the demon, to a safe place.
    ~ ~ ~

    A young man sat on the cold asphalt, crying hysterically, as he missed the entire scene around him. The paramedics lifted the middle-aged man, who was restrained and still bleeding profusely from a bullet wound to his left leg, into the back of an ambulance. A police officer stood trying to calm the young man down and ask him what happened. It was a few minutes before the boy was able to speak again.
    “I…I was driving down the road, g-going up to the grocery store, my m-mom sent me for milk,” he stammered, his voice barely audible, “and she came out of nowhere. Sh-she ran in front of m-my car…I couldn’t…couldn’t even b-brake…”
    The young man proceeded to explain how the little blonde girl had been knocked at least twenty feet with her curls swirling around her and glowing golden in his headlights. Then about how that man had fallen out of his front door, bleeding like crazy, and growling profanities at the little girl, and waving a stuffed rabbit at her.
    The policeman wrote down the young man’s story and information, then sent him on his way. After putting away his report of the event, the officer looked towards the house. It looked like his own house. Simple, yet at the same time wonderful. It looked like a home. The type of home that a happy family lived in, where the dad mowed the lawn every Saturday morning while the mother would clean and bake and the children would play in their rooms. It looked like every other house on this street.
    Why wasn’t there any indication of what this house was really a home to? A sad and broken little girl. A mother who was pushed to her limits by fear of the one man she vowed to be with until her death. A father who worked as hard as he could to support a family that he, for some unknown reason, hated down to the depths of his heart, hated so much that he allowed the alcohol to turn him into some kind of monster.
    Maybe this kind of family isn’t so unusual, thought the officer while he stared at the front porch that was still splattered with blood, Maybe every family has monsters and demons, and this family just happened to shatter tonight.
    The officer turned back to his patrol car and got in. After buckling up, he closed the door with a slam.

    ~ ~ ~
    Slam! The whole truck rattled as the big, burly, black man closed his door. It was quite early in the morning, the ground was covered by fog, giving the four story building in front of him a much more creepy look, and it didn’t help that the words “St. Dymphna’s home for the mentally ill” stood in faded maroon paint on the front of the white-walled building.