"Me, my Mom and my Dad lived in a shitty apartment in New Jersey. It was run down..." It was disgusting. He wasn't going to tell Glenda about the beer stains and peeling wallpaper, the ever present smell of cigarettes and vomit... even though he remembered it all perfectly. There was a lot of this story, Chucky decided, that he wouldn't be telling Glenda. The kid didn't need to know all the gory details... but that wouldn't stop him thinking about it. "It was a crap-hole, but it was cheap, which was what we needed. Mom was supporting us with a job at the local Walmart and a business she ran from home, laundering people's clothes for them... but Dad was a lazy drunk. He was never around, unless he was completely drunk€ off his ass. He used to hit me a lot. I didn't mind, I could take it. I mean, it hurt like shit, but it was the only attention I ever got from him. I thought it was normal. Once I started school, he got worse. He'd make me run errands for him so I'd always be late, and then if I came home early and caught him doing something... or someone he shouldn't, I got another beating and wasn't allowed to go to school because I was covered in bruises. Mom would get so mad at him. That was what pissed me off, when he hit Mom. I could take it, because half the time I deserved it, plus I knew I could get better. But Mom was fragile, tired... and she worked so hard to give us a somewhere decent life..."

Chucky remembered the nights where he'd lay on his mattress, listening to the yelling, to the muffled cries, waiting for the door to slam so he could crawl through to his parents' room and lie there with her, in the dark, on the beer-stained bed, just feeling her breathing.

"And... one day he went too far. It was the same old shit, arguing about his drinking, her job, the general loveless marriage... and I could hear him yelling about why she'd spent all his money... and..."

And his mother had a good reason for spending the money she'd earned. His father hadn't known she was pregnant. The young Charles had yet to understand that the drunken lout of a father often forced himself upon his beloved mother. To a young child, right is right, wrong is wrong, and violence is violence. When his mother had found out about the unexpected, unwanted pregnancy, she'd marched straight down to the nearest clinic, on her own, and paid for the nurses to terminate it, more for the baby's sake than her own; it broke her heart to see Charles living in such filth, she couldn't bear to see another child in that apartment. By the time she got home, she was still feeling weak, and drained, both mentally and physically. When she wasn't forthcoming with information on where that week's booze money had gone, it was all she could do to curl up in a ball as her husband hit and kicked. Charles hadn't known any of this. He had just heard the yells and crawled out after the door slammed, not prepared for the bleeding cuts or broken bones that now lay in place of his mother.

"I went into their room and found her, bleeding... dying..." Her eyes had swum in and out of focus as she'd gazed up at her son, and reached out for his hand.

"She just looked at me, and said "don't let him get you". Then she closed her eyes. I wanted to..." curl up and sleep beside her... die right there with her... "Help her. But... she stopped breathing. She'd died." She'd left him. She'd left him alone with the monster of a man, the man she'd promised to keep him safe from.

"Mom had been saving up money so me and her could leave Dad. I knew about it, but Dad didn't. Now, you'll realise this when you grow up, but... kids have a weird sense of logic. Once a kid gets an idea, they don't let go of it." Right is right, wrong is wrong, revenge is fair play. "They can't think of any other way to see the world. And I was only about six at the time, so it really kinda fucked with my brain. So I figured, if he'd killed Mom, then I had to kill him. It was only fair." Glenda was nodding, but Chucky knew she could only vaguely sympathise. "After the funeral, no one even thought that they should take me away from Dad. I guess everyone just thought he was sad, not drunk... so I was left in the rat-hole, with the vicious bastard... and I knew it would be easy."

Chucky's eyes turned steely, with a glint of menace as he started to recall the thick, dark night that it had happened. He couldn't think of a better word to describe it. Heavy with silence, saturated with the smell of beer, stale sweat and piss, and just warm enough to be uncomfortable. He had always felt those nights were "thick" nights.

"I took a knife from the kitchen... the long, sharp one Mom had always used for cutting my sandwiches in two." He chuckled, eyes sparkling. "I guess I was already fucked up by that point. I went through to his bedroom and sat on his chest while he was passed out drunk. I kicked him in the face to wake him up, because I wanted to see his eyes when I killed him." Wanted to see the recognition, the surprise... wanted to know that the rat bastard felt pain. "And when he woke up, he looked at me, and as he started to yell, I reached forward and slit his neck open, from ear to ear." Chucky remembered the simultaneous intrigue and disgust he had felt as the thick, clotted blood gushed out, over his hands and legs, staining his shoes.

"I took Mom's money from her bedside cabinet, and left him sputtering on the floor. I lived on the streets for a while, after that. Learned how to look after myself pretty quickly, and ended up hanging around with a group of guys. One of them used to be a philosophy teacher..." until he lost his job for fucking his students, and got kicked out by his wife. He was the one who had driven Chucky to leave behind the name "Charles". When a homeless drunk who was into barely legal teenagers tells you he always found your name to have a "romantic resonance", you tell him to go fuck himself and start using a nickname. "I'll always remember, he told me a quote from... Plato, or Socrates or something, after I'd been on the streets a while. He said "Give me a child until he was seven, then I'll give you the man". And I just remember thinking, if I'd killed someone at age six, was that all I was gonna be for the rest of my life? A homeless runaway?"

"So what happened next?" Glenda was gazing up at him, enraptured. Chucky turned to look at her, her eyes wide and sparkling with wonder, her body so small, and her mind so fragile. It was the first time he had really looked at her. A slow smile twisted itself across Chucky's mangled face, as he looked away for a moment.

"Well..."

A shrill, ear piercing scream cut through the mid afternoon, shocking both of them out of the story and back to the present with a sickening bump. Jennifer's car was back in the driveway. Screams and yells were resonating from inside the villa. Chucky flashed Glenda a twisted grin.

"I'll tell you the rest some other time. Right now, we have to get on with stage two."

Glen was stood paralyzed, staring at the sofa. The front room had been ransacked, the furniture was ruined, and there, her head in the middle of a scarlet bloom on the hardwood floor, was Liza, her eyes staring into the distance, glassy. Glen could do nothing but scream as this horrific scene danced before his eyes in the flickering light of the fireplace. His legs were weak and wobbly, but his feet were frozen to the floor, meaning that he couldn't fall down, as much as he wanted to. A myriad of traumatic images burst through his brain, giving him another look at every repressed memory and nightmarish face, making him scream all the more.

It may have only been five seconds, but to Glen, it felt like a life time before his mother swept into the room and lifted him from the floor, burying his face in her shoulder as she ran from the room, face pale, eyes wide.

"Hush sweetie... hush, it's ok, just don't think about it. Mommy's going to call the police, you hear? First thing we're gonna do is call the police so they can figure out what's going on." Glen was wailing wordlessly, tears streaming down his face, chest twisting and fist clenched as Liza's deathly face loomed into his memory. The police arrived in good time, but by that time Glen was still in shock. He had fallen silent now, refusing to talk to, or even look at, the nice young officer who was wrapping a blanket around him and trying to get a statement. He just hugged his knees to his chest, his big blue eyes staring into nothing. Amidst the flashing lights and chatter of policemen, people asking for witness statements and trying to keep the neighbours away from the property, no one seemed to notice Glen, curled up on the porch, under a police blanket, his warm juice going cold as evening began to set in. With all the hassle and hubbub, no one noticed his eye twitching as he stared out into the dim light of the street, and whimpered for his mother.

"Please, you've got my statement, I need to go and speak to my son." Jennifer was close to tears herself, confused and scared. She had to look brave. She had to look brave for Glen, but there was a little voice at the back of her mind, the little voice that whispered every time the power went out, or every time she watched a scary movie. The voice that whispered; "I'd never die that easy. I know your secret, Tiff." She shook her head, trying to lose the voice, but just succeeded in looking more tired and scared. "Please. Let me go and see my son." The officer took a long time going through his notes. Eventually, he just nodded, and Jennifer ran to the front of the house. There she found Glen, staring into nothing, so small; she almost could have missed him. She sat down next to him, knowing she had to be careful.

"Glen, sweetie. Are you alright?"

Slowly, Glen turned to face her, looking at her with those big, soulful eyes. He licked his lips, but he couldn't say anything. He just whimpered. Jennifer wrapped her arms around him.

"It's ok. It's going to be ok."

"Mummy..." He whispered, his bony fingers tightening as he hugged her, gripping her tight. "What if... it was..."

"Shhhhh." Jennifer stopped him. They hadn't said that name in a long time. It had been years since they'd last talked about him, aside from Glenda's bizarre fascination with the urban legend. Even she knew better than to say the name in her mother's presence, although apparently she couldn't remember why. "It's not him. It can't be him."

"But... what if it is?"

There was a pause.

"Then we move again."

"But... Glenda..."

"She's not coming back, sweetie. Not for a while."

The silence fell on both of them, sat on the porch, surrounded by police tape and flashing lights. Eventually, someone came out of the house and told them that he was Lieutenant James Grady, and, although he couldn't say too much at this time, it appeared to be a burglary gone wrong, rather than an act of premeditation. It was settled that Jennifer and Glen would go and stay at Neil's house, contact numbers were exchanged, and a few more condolences uttered. They were allowed upstairs to pack a few bags, and then ushered into the squad car. Glen was so tired; he could barely keep his eyes open, and lay with his head on his mother's lap, as she absent-mindedly stroked his hair. Neither was alert enough to notice the curtain twitching slightly in the house over the road.

Behind the curtain, Chucky looked down at his daughter.

"You know where this "Neil" schmuck lives?"

Glenda nodded. "We went there at Easter."

"Well get your shoes on and pack your bag, kid. We're moving out."