BUILD A BETTER BOY TRUISM #10: Don't allow him to sleep in your bed, even if he is sick or scared. To comfort him, sleep in his room on the floor.


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Last Time: A closet with two custom-made sliding doors offered the only possible place someone could be concealed. They would readily become target practice for the sharpshooting detective. With his pistol in hand, Darden reached for the egress. Inside were sheets, towels, washcloths, and a couple of cardboard boxes stacked on a wooden shelf.

Ting-a-ling! Ting-a-ling!



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Darden reholstered his revolver and returned to Dorothy Larsen's bedroom. From his viewpoint, he stared at the room adjacent to where he was located. The expanse was the only bedroom in the house without a deathbed. Desperately searching for answers, he would scrutinize Drew Larsen's room last.

Inside the confines of the little girl's bedroom he witnessed a shrine. Her mattress looked like the altar of an abattoir religion. Darden knew these sects sacrificed animals in their rituals. The scene filled the detective with nausea. His abhorrence with the abomination brimmed with anger and raw emotion.

In his mind's eye, Darden recalled the mutilation of Dorothy Larsen. It wasn't difficult for him to see the boy stripped naked as he burst into his sister's room, his knife in hand. Terror, pain, and surprise must have robbed Dorothy of her ability to energetically avoid Drew's advancements.

Darden could hear Dorothy plead for her life. She must have cried with the shame of being defiled. However, the beast that barraged her was unmerciful.

Several display shelves housed trinkets the little girl treasured the most. There was an accumulation of ceramic kittens and cats, as well as an assemblage of dolls and stuffed animals. He also pinpointed copies of Girls' Life and BYOU magazines.

Upon closer survey, Darden discovered miniature silver bells hanging on a string. Uniquely shaped, each one of the chimes contained a small clapper. Crimson covered the cord. Affixed to the ligature was the word "REVENGE".

The detective extricated a white handkerchief from his shirt pocket. He carefully folded the finely woven square in half. Then, he picked up the string of bells in a manner that allowed him to do so without contacting the blood. Slowly, he shook them. The bells produced the ting-a-ling sound he'd heard upon entering the residence. He stuffed them into the pocket of his slacks.

Twenty years earlier, the obsessive-compulsive psychopath Otis Jackson rang three bells over the slain remains of each one of the Lancasters as he aborted their lives. The word "REVENGE" was engraved on Jackson's bells.

Shaken by the scene he imagined, Darden pivoted from Dorothy's bed and recoiled to the hallway. He careened against the wall and sunk down to a seated position on the linoleum floor. Because his parents were authors, he possessed an avid, persistent, memory book full of graphic depictions. Realizing the Lancaster and Larsen family murders were unchangeable, and connected, he trembled in silent desolation.

Darden remembered Drew Larsen's calculated reaction when asked why he committed the heinous crimes he was arraigned on?

One word uttered out of the boy's mouth, "Revenge!"

There in the hallway, Darden listened close to the structure he was encompassed in. No floorboards groaned. No shadows actuated. And, no bells echoed a ting-a-ling. Darden knew his past was now his present. Mustering all of his strength, he forced himself to enter Drew Larsen's bedroom.

Cast of Characters:

Detective Sean Darden - Lead Investigator of the Larsen family murders.

Drew Larsen - Thirteen-year-old boy who confessed to the brutal slayings of his family members. The question remained, did he?

Dorothy Larsen - Drew Larsen's ten-year-old sister.

Otis Jackson - Murdered the Lancaster family twenty years before this story occurs.

Lancaster Family - Victims of the monster known as Otis Jackson.