At work Alastor had just finished making an impressive taxidermy of a black bear when his coworker Bill informed him that his wife had called. He accepted it immediately without hesitation.
"Hi honey." He greeted with a bright smile. "Not it's not a bad time. It's never a bad time when you call. What's on your mind?...I can try to ask if I can come home early but why? Is something wrong?...Can't you tell me now?...Alright I'll be over there as soon as I can and until I am keep the doors locked. Are the kids with you?...Good. Don't let em outside til I get home...I love you too...Bye."
He hung up and hurried over to speak with his boss Mr. Gutenberg. He knew something was wrong. He could hear it in his wife's voice. That's why he told her to lock the doors and to keep the kids inside. Now he could only hope that for once his boss would be just a little considerate.
"Mr. Devalcourt how long have you worked for me?" Mr. Gutenberg asked his employee.
"Oh boy here we go." Alastor thought when he knew that his boss was going to re-tell that same lecture for possibly the millionth time.
"Eleven years." Alastor answered.
"How old were you when I hired you?"
"I was eighteen. An inexperienced kid with no history of a steady job."
"Right. So it wouldn't have been wise of me to hire you back then, would it?"
"No sir."
"But when I heard that you were expected to become a father at such a young age I opened up my heart and gave you a job."
"Yes and I am very grateful for that sir."
"If you're so grateful than why do you have the gall to ask me if you can leave work early? When you know perfectly well that I do not allow any of my employees to leave early. Especially when we have such large orders."
"Mr. Gutenberg you don't understand, my wife is afraid. I think there's something very wrong. I have to go home now. Please."
"Alastor do you love your wife?"
"Yes."
"Do you love your children?"
"Yes."
"Well then you might want to avoid getting fired! Leaving them absolutely nothing to eat!" He shouted.
"But sir-"
"We have a client who is willing to pay half a fortune for someone to stuff a Bengal tiger he killed while hunting in India!"
"Uh sir isn't it illegal to hunt Bengal tigers? Last I checked they were an endangered species."
"Who cares? The point is you are not going cost me this opportunity! And if you do then you and your family can just check yourselves into the nearest homeless shelter because not only will I fire you but I'll see to it that you never work in this town again! Is that clear?!"
His face was swelling with inexpressible anger. In truth Alastor always found Mr. Gutenberg's face to be just as awful as he was. Beady eyes, puffed out jowls, an over sized mouth, gnawing rat lie teeth, truly it was the face of a greedy miser which is exactly what he was. A greedy, stingy, loud, self-centered, and repulsive miser who Alastor would love nothing more than to carve up and stuff just as he did to animal corpses.
In his hand he still held his scalpel and for a moment he briefly wondered how many slashes to the throat it would take for that oaf of a man to bleed out on to the floor and die. To finally silence his incessant demands and excruciating squealing. One slash would probably do it. Just one slash and then...
"Is that clear Mr. Devalcourt?" His boss repeated.
"Crystal." Alastor replied with an almost smirk.
No he couldn't kill him. He couldn't even tell him off. He couldn't get angry at all. If he did then that part of him to which he always feared would get out.
So he left the office without a another word.
"I heard what happened." His coworker Bill said. "Tough break."
"Now what am I going to do?" He asked. "I have to go home. My family needs me but if I don't do this damn order for Mr. Gutenberg he'll-"
"I'll take the order."
"I don't think he'll allow that."
"He'll allow anyone to do it as long as it's done right and I'm just as talented at taxidermy as you are. Go on home to your wife and kids. I'll take care of everything."
"Thanks Bill. I owe you."
"Forget about it just go."
Alastor quickly grabbed his keys, bolted for his car, and started to drive home as quick as the law would allow. At the house Charlie was anxiously waiting for her husband to arrive. She told herself that she probably imagined everything that happened earlier today it did nothing to calm her fears. She checked on her children about six times and each time Aaron was doing his homework and Carrie was drawing a picture.
"Everything is fine." She said. "Everything is fine."
Maybe she just needed rest. A lot had been going on since her father's death so maybe she just needed to take a lie down and breathe. She went to her bedroom and laid down on her bed. She breathed in and out about five times which seemed to work a little bit.
She noticed her father's bible lying on Alastor's shelf. She smiled and went to pick it up. There wasn't a time when she couldn't recall her father not having that bible. He always said that it was the manual to life which is why he never parted from it while he was alive. She opened the book. It still had his smell. The unforgettable smell of oak wood, pipe smoke, and her mother's peppermint oil that he would occasionally use on his hands. She never thought that she would miss those smells.
He had left a few marked verses in the bible. She turned to them and read them to herself.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when perfection comes, the imperfct disappears.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. - 1 Corinthians 13.
Charlie's father had read that entire verse on her wedding day because he wanted her and Alastor to never forget what love really was. How powerful, amazing, and selfless it was. He wanted to be sure that the two would love each other always.
She closed the bible, put it back on the shelf, and turned to leave the room so she could check on her children for the seventh time.
Suddenly she something flash into her mind. Something that made her body tremble and fall to the floor. She was on her knees. She tried to stand up but a pounding in her head prevented her from doing so. An image appeared, one that shook her to her very core.
She saw a great figure, a tyrant slam his staff down in command. His eyes were so full of cruelty and they lacked any empathy for others. The sight of him frightened her but at the same time the sight of him angered her too.
"Get them all!" She heard him say an inhuman voice demand. "Leave no survivors! I want each of them destroyed! Don't rest until you've ended their entire existences!"
With those words spoken she saw other figures attempting to fight or flee for their lives but their efforts proved to be useless. She heard screams. She heard cries. She saw bodies. Dead bodies lying all around. Scattered and bleeding with blade weapons embedded into them. Two were dismembered and one of them had died screaming because their mouth had been left open so wide.
The last one to die was a crimson man with antlers. His death was the most vile of all. The tyrant himself plunged countless blades into the poor man's body. His arms, his legs, his pelvis, his chest, and with each strike he released a tortured howl that made her feel as if a knife had pierced her heart.
"NOOOH!"
A tragic scream was heard next and Charlie saw a woman running. A woman she recognized from her childhood dreams. The ivory woman with white feathered wings. Although in the dreams that woman was always seen smiling or laughing. This time she was crying. Tears of agony stained her cheeks as she threw herself on to the body of the antlered men. She desperately searched his face for any sign of life. His gaze lingered at her and he whispered something to her before he became just as lifeless as the others.
"No! No! No! No!" She kept screaming that word over and over again. "No please! Please come back to me!"
Charlie felt her body tremble even harder when she heard the woman let out another scream of grief.
"No! They can't be gone! They just can't be! They can't!"
Charlie's mind was spinning and becoming dark. She tried to think. She tried to make sense of what she was seeing but it was all happening so fast.
"I can't live like this anymore! Not without them! Not without him!"
The winged woman's body now lay lifeless upon that of the antlered man. Their dead hands still intertwined as one as if it were to symbolize how they would be together even in death.
"Mom!"
Her head finally cleared when she heard son's voice. She found him looking at her concerned.
"Mom what's wrong?" He asked.
"Nothing." She fibbed. "Everything is fine."
"Mom don't lie to me. Something is wrong."
"I'm just tired Aaron. That's all."
"Then why are you crying?"
"Huh?"
"You have tears in your eyes."
She pressed a hand to her cheek and when she felt the wetness she realized that she had been crying.
"Mom what's going on?"
"I...I'll tell you later sweetie. When your father comes home. For now can you just keep an eye on your sister?"
"Okay."
He hesitated before leaving but her assuring gaze made him comply. Alone again she stood up from the floor and went into the bathroom. She looked into the mirror and tried to see if she could find anything that inferred she was coming down with something. That's when her reflection briefly changed into the image of another person. She jumped back and blinked only to find the image gone and her reflection returned.
"What's happening to me?" She shivered.