The Ongoing Picture Challenge

Snatched

Pure silence pierced my ears like a needle into fabric. It was dead, as though Father Time had allowed his work to pause. Not even the crickets dared make a noise. I stared at the looming house on the steep hill in front of my eyes. Three stories, one side entirely covered in windows. It was perched on the edge of the grassy green hill as though it might topple over the edge any second. Its sides were coated in a light brown mahogany wood paneling. The whole house seemed to scream sophistication and cleanliness. I didn’t notice anything out of place, no scratches, nothing.

Why, you might ask, was I observing this house? I suppose I should start by introducing myself. I’m Madeline Krowsk, former CIA agent. Now, I run a book store out of my apartment and make next to no money off of it. People used to come, to visit my home book shop, until they heard the rumors. People tend to not want to visit the certifiably insane.

I joined the CIA in the first place for one reason and one reason alone. I got to plot to kill, to inflict pain, to steal. It was committing illegal crimes for federal legal purposes, so I was paid to do the horrors I loved the most. Whether I was always insane from the start, or the CIA created me as a monster, I have no idea. All I know is one day I got a little too carried away, killed and kidnapped a little too much, and so this is what I was reduced to. I was made into an unsuccessful bookkeeper in suburbia. However, being fired did not stop my thirst and intense craving for blood, crime, and thrill.

I chose to return to a life of illegal crimes, and just hope I’d never get caught. I’d never been caught before, after all. My next target was inside this perfect little house, and I wasn’t going to stop at anything to reach my personal objective. I stalked around the other edge of the house so I could face the side with all windows. Inside, plush furniture lined the walls carrying fifty two inch flat screen TV’s that faced long leather couches. Leather, silk, and other expensive materials rested in every room where technology coated every room.

Not a single light illuminated any of the above rooms. I looked down to my blinking royal blue watch that read ten passed midnight. The houses audience was likely resting all in bed. There were twin ten year old girls, a husband and a wife, and a newborn baby boy.

I decided it was enough waiting, enough watching around, it was time for action. I began my ascent up the steep hill in the dark of night with only the moon’s luminescence breathing down onto the Earth below as a guide. My sleek black boots made slight squishing noises in the dewy grass and left human foot prints in my wake.

I snaked along the bottom floor of windows, deciding where my entrance should be.  I stepped back to observe the next floor, when I saw it, a sliding glass window. I tossed my rope with the stone attached to the end up onto the second landing, and I began my quick climb. I tried the door, and it was locked. I cursed to myself for being so stupid as to think the window would be unlatched. It was going to soon be too late, I knew, so I would have to do something rash. I stepped back a few feet, before bolting toward the window I deemed the weakest and heard the satisfying crush of a million glass shards falling to pieces. I waited on the interior of the family room, waiting for some high tech alarm system to blare or for a sleepy person to awake. None of my predictions happened, thankfully. These people were heavy sleepers. I smiled to myself, for that would make my objective all the more easier.

I stealthily sneaked around the perimeter of the room, creeping down a darkened hallway with one door at the end of it. I wrapped my delicate chalky fingers around the brass door knob, wrenching it open quietly, attempting to muffle any creak. Inside rested two fair blonde headed girls, their eyelids closed, snuggled in under twin princess bed spreads with a castle night like plugged into the wall. Their pale pink lips twitched up at the ends, giving them a faint smile in their slumber. I shut the door behind me as I left the room, for it wasn’t the girls I was looking for. I continued my stride around the house, until I finally found the room I was looking for on the upper floor. The baby rested peacefully in a high white crib, but he wasn’t alone. Stupid, I murmur, annoyed for again leaving out one crucial detail. The baby would be in the master bedroom, the same room as both of his parents.

I placed one hand on the knife attached to my belt, and approached the baby. I reached down to lift it into my arms carefully and slowly, so hopefully it wouldn’t notice it was being moved and awake to wake up his slumbering parents.

No such luck.

The baby was good for the first few inches into my arms, but by the time I started walking, his little pearl blue eyes opened and he starting struggling against me, crying and screaming bloody murder.

“I’m coming, Tommy, don’t worry…” his father said. He had not yet realized where the crying was coming from, or the strange figure of me standing just feet from the crib, or the fact that the baby was screaming in fear, not just typical baby cries.

The man stumbled out of bed and began slow confused steps toward the crib as he wiped the sleep from his eyes. The mother had not yet awoken or moved.

“What the-“

I lunged forward, holding the baby tight, and threw my fist into the man’s stomach to knock the air out of him. He stumbled backwards, clutching his stomach, but I knew he wasn’t going to give up. He stumbled forward and made a quick un-thoughtful grab for his baby, causing the baby’s wails to reach an even higher altitude. I elbowed him back and lunged forward to kick him down, targeting the back of his knees. He was faster though, and he swiped me down to make me lose my footing. I squeezed the baby tighter and landed with a thud on the floor.

This noise made the man’s wife awake. “Honey?” she said, sitting up in bed trying to place her surroundings. She was quicker at waking up though, and she bolted out of bed. “Oh my God…Honey? W-what should I do?”

The man didn’t answer, only made another fail attempt to steal his baby away from me. The woman stood idly by the side of the bed not knowing what to do. I couldn’t do this all night, so I searched for an escape. The man fought for my knife, causing me to knick my fore head and drawing blood. I kicked his stomach, and he coughed a bit of the red liquid onto me. I stood up and ran, ran straight out of the door I came from. I heard the thumping footsteps of the parents behind me, the thudded down the stair case. They would catch me soon enough I knew. I ran head first through the window, crashing yet another window, shards of glass sticking into me and drawing more blood. The baby screeched louder in my arms, and I fell from the second floor window.

My grape green eyes reflected back at me in a shard of glass harmlessly resting on the baby’s stomach. Blood streaked my face in odd inklings and blots and blurs. I smiled at the screaming child as I disappeared away from the house.

Mission accomplished.