This is from the point of view of Peter Hayward (in third person), one of the workers at the orphanage in The Devil's Footsteps. I know that there are at least a couple differences between the American and English versions (the age of Bryan, for one), so I'm sorry if there are any others I don't know about that are important.

Just in case they changed the name of Peter Hayward, he was the man that lived and died on the haunted house on King's Hill.

Disclaimer: E. E. Richardson rocks all, and he owns the town of Redford, the orphanage, the children, the Dark Man, and, of course, Old Pete. I, however, own the little details in this plot, so there!

Pete yawned, and gazed wearily at the small child standing in front of him, eyes wide in anticipated fear. Jimmy Hooler, eight years old, with the sandy blonde hair and green eyes his mother had had before she died. It was his skin, however, that really got on everyone's nerves. Margaret Hooler, his mother, had run away to London or another big city, and returned with a coloured boy in tow. It was rumoured that the dark father of the boy had passed her a disease, and that had caused her death.

But Pete wasn't worried about catching diseases off little Jimmy. He just wanted to punish him, and get home to his family. "You hit Jane Goodwill?" It wasn't a question.

Jimmy nodded and bit his lip, shaking faintly. "I had not meant to, sir. She was taunting me, sir. She said she would-"

Pete raised a worn hand, and Jimmy saw age-old rivets lining it, from the handle of a stick, a whip, or some other item of torture. He half-saw the dents and shapes that the faces he had hit were imprinted there. "You were warned. Time and again we have heard complaints. We put you into the chamber, but to no avail. We have hit you, by the lord we have punished you in every way we deemed humane."

Jimmy nodded solemnly as Pete spoke, unsure of what this would lead to. Would they really kill him? He had, with the other orphans, seen the other children that had lived in the orphanage buried, in a hidden clearing in the woods, but he had not believed that they had been killed intentionally. Yes, the workers at the orphanage were cruel, but they were not murderers, surely?

He was dragged out of his thoughts as Pete grabbed him by the ear, and pulled him to the washing room. Pete gave him no more time for thinking, and ducked him into the cold tub of water.

Pete watched through the water, saw the bubble of air rise as Jimmy gasped for breath, and found only water. He let Jimmy lie there, at the bottom of the tub, and watched solemnly as the bubbles stopped coming, and Jimmy lay limp in his hand. Still he held the boy under, watching, his features contorting.

"Hayward? Sir? I have come to fill the-" Pete turned his head from the tub and saw Anne, a young girl that had just outlived the age of the orphan life, and had been forced to stay at the orphanage because that was the only work she could find.

Pete's eyes bored into hers, watching the disbelief be washed from her eyes by fear, which was, in turn, replaced by a complete sorrow only found on an innocent child that had been told that Santa Claus didn't exist.

"What?" Pete moved his eyes, and saw that she was carrying a large bucket full of water. He got up, leaving the body lie in the water. "Honestly, you stupid child, you did not believe none of the children were killed intentionally? You, who has lived here for so long, and has sent so many of your 'kin' to their graves?" He took a step towards her. "There is, as you can see, water in the tub. Is the girls bath filled?" Anne nodded. "Well, why not take it to the kitchen, see what use they will have for it down there?"

He watched the girl scurry away as fast as she could, water slopping over the sides of the bucket. He would have been amused if he hadn't been so tired. He turned back to the tub, and frowned. Something was out of place. The face. The eyes had been open before, hadn't they? Then he realised.

What had been fear before was now anger.