In The Night

"Captain?" John looked up from the reports. "Yes, what is it?" "There was another incident last night," the soldier told him. John was the captain of the town guard in Ashville. Over the last few weeks many people living around the edges of the town have been murdered in horrific ways. He spent all the previous night looking over the reports from the incidents. He was so tired. "Where?" "Sarah Oldsan and what we think is her children." "(Sigh) Alright, ill ride out there shortly." John looked back to the reports as the soldier left. Not another one, he thought. Her farm was not a long distance from town. He rode out to see if he could help to find any indication of who had done this. Never had he found anything at any of the others. When he arrived, he saw the stable had burned to the ground and was still smoking. He went into the house and addressed the soldier by door. "Who reported it?" "I did sir." "And what is your name?" he asked as he examined the outer room for anything out of the ordinary. "Hayes Sir," he looked very pale. "Well, what do we know so far?" "I was out making rounds this morning when i saw the smoke from along the road. I saw the barn much as it is now and i went to the house to make sure no one had been hurt. The door was open and there was no one in the main room, so i checked the bedrooms..." he seemed to turn even whiter at remembering what he had seen. "And?" John pushed. "I've seen dead bodies before, some of them pretty grizzly, but what i saw in there was enough to make me vomit." "Alright, just stand at the door and ill have a look myself." He paused as he started pass Hayes and put his hand to his shoulder, "It's that bad is it?" he asked with a sorrowful voice. "Yes sir." John continued on to the children's room. Before he was even through the door he was walking through a pool of blood. He now understood the solders why the soldier had said 'What we think is her children'. There was nothing left untouched in the room. The were indeed two bodies in the room, but whose he didn't think they would ever be able to recognize again. It was as the others were. One body had no limbs left. It seemed to have been held down on the bed by a long knife driven through its right collar bone. The arm and legs had be severed but not removed from the bed. Neither arm's hand had fingers attached to them, meaning it had not be a short ordeal... whoever it was had taken their time with this poor soul. The other body was still intact but had uncountable stab wounds. Many were cuts in the legs and arms telling him that this one had also not had the mercy of a quick death. Sarah's body was not in here. Hers must be in the other bedroom. He left the children's bedroom and made his way slowly to Sarah's room. What he found there shocked him more that any of the others had.