CHAPTER FIVE
The darkness in the corner of the room felt like a physical weight. Lily's small, innocent finger remained pointed at the black, thick shadow.
"Where did you learn to play this, Lily?" I repeated, my voice now a raw, desperate whisper.
She simply giggled, a sound of pure, untroubled childhood. "The quiet man showed me, Daddy. He showed me how to make the bad man sleepy." She swung the little plastic figure gently. "It was a fun game!"
I stared at her, then at the corner, my blood turning cold. The shadow was just a shadow, but I felt the presence of the Quiet Man as keenly as a blade at my throat. I forced a shaky, desperate smile, pulling Lily into a tight hug.
"It is a very clever game, baby," I managed to say, scooping up the flour-dusted figurine. "But how about we play with your puzzle now? This man needs a long nap in the toy box." I tucked the figure away, my mind racing. A link. That was the only word. A horrific, unspeakable connection between my violence and my daughter's imagination.
She was easily distracted by the bright colors of the puzzle, and soon the dreadful kitchen scene was forgotten. I stayed with her until her initial excitement wore off, then kissed her forehead and retreated, the cold dread clinged to me.
In the hallway, I leaned against the wall, trying to breathe. If I killed, the darkness bled into Lily. But if I didn't kill, the Quiet Man had made his promise: "Kill, or she's mine." The threat felt absolute, not a bluff. It wasn't about revenge; it was about possession. And what the hell did he mean by "she's mine?"
I didn't know what the Quiet Man was—a demon, a fragment of my broken mind, or something far worse—but I knew I couldn't risk Lily. The thought of losing her, or of her being tainted by whatever this creature represented, was paralyzing. Yet, continuing to kill meant pushing Elara past her breaking point. She was already watching me, the silent interrogation in her eyes growing sharper with every lie. If I kept killing, I'd lose her, and quite possibly, my freedom. I was trapped in a cage of my own making, with only two impossible choices.
The following morning, Elara, trying to maintain a semblance of normal family life, was tidying Lily's room. Her eyes snagged on the remnants of the 'game'—the light dusting of flour, the few stray beans, and then her gaze settled on a small, red smear of juice on the wooden floor. She opened the toy box to clean up and her fingers brushed against the little plastic man, tangled in a piece of string.
She pulled it out. The miniature suit, the faint line of string around its neck, the whole image was a grotesque parody of Silas Thorne's death, a scene she knew nothing about.
When did she start playing these demonic games? The thought was a cold spike of fear. It didn't feel like a child's game at all. She snatched the toy, ripped the string away, and shoved it deep into the trash can under the sink. No. I will not let this darkness touch my family. She would watch David. She would protect Lily. She would patch this family back together, brick by brick.
But the promise of the Quiet Man had shattered my control. The need to act—to kill—was no longer a calculated decision but a primal, desperate urge to save my daughter. I couldn't plan. I didn't have time to.
I simply walked out of the house, no note, no target, just my mask pulled tight and the cold steel of my knife in my hand. I was a broken man on a broken mission.
I moved through the city's underbelly, the rain-slicked alleys and shadowed backstreets. The first person I saw was a man staggering out of a dive bar, late middle age, suit jacket stained. He looked up, his eyes bleary with drink, and saw the masked figure racing toward him. He tried to run, a clumsy, pathetic stagger.
I caught him in a dark alleyway. I didn't say a word. I didn't need to hear him beg.
The first stab was swift. The world narrowed to the sound of the blade sinking in and the man's choked gasp. Then, I lost all sense of surgical calm. I stabbed, and stabbed, and stabbed, again and again, a frantic, desperate prayer that each thrust would buy Lily another moment of safety. Twenty-seven times, the life drained out of him.
When I finally stopped, the body was a ruin. I dragged him to a dumpster, tossed the corpse inside like a piece of refuse, and walked away, the blood not yet dry on my gloves.
The adrenaline was like a roar in my ears, but the fear of the Quiet Man still gnawed. One is not enough. I kept moving. The city became a hunting ground, and I was a cornered animal striking out. A drug dealer in a stairwell. A petty thief on a fire escape. A police officer who saw my reflection in a store window and reacted too slowly. I was a machine of violence, driven by the chilling whisper: Kill, or she's mine.
Back at the house, a different kind of horror was unfolding. Elara was sitting at her kitchen table, looking through legal briefs, but her attention was on the soft clicking sounds coming from Lily's room.
Lily was in her room, wide awake. She was stacking her brightly colored building blocks, not in a tower, but in a sprawling, chaotic circle on the floor. In the center of the circle, she had laid out her set of toy plastic men. With her crayon, she was drawing jagged red lines across their chests.
As she worked, she was humming. But the humming had a strange, manic quality. Her eyes were unfocused, her tongue stuck out in concentration, and she looked up only when the front door of her block circle—a piece of painted wood—suddenly toppled over.
"Here's another one!" she declared, happily coloring the final policeman red. "A policeman this time!"
Elara heard the strange, excited proclamation and walked into the room. "Lily, baby, what are you doing?" she asked, her voice tight.
Lily looked up, her bright, innocent face beaming. "It's for Daddy! When he comes back! He likes it when I draw the red lines!"
Why does this happen only when my husband is not around? Elara felt a chill, her suspicion metastasizing into cold dread. Her eyes flickered to her computer screen, which suddenly glowed, alerting her to breaking news. She rushed back to the kitchen and stared at the headline flashing across the screen: "Bloody Night of Unprecedented Violence: Multiple Homicides in Downtown Spree. Police Overwhelmed."
A reporter's panicked voice spilled from the speakers: "...unseen brutality, folks. The perpetrator is still at large. We are getting reports that even officers responding to the scenes have been targeted. The city is locking down..."
Elara's gaze snapped from the frantic news report back toward Lily's room. She saw the bright red lines on the plastic toy policemen, the strange, happy detachment in her daughter's face. It can't be. It cannot be. She stared at the blocks, at the news, and at the horrifying evidence of her daughter's mimicry. David wasn't just hiding something; he was a monster.
The key clicked in the front door. Elara quickly rushed back to the living room as I stumbled in, the remnants of the night's frenzy still clinging to me. I walked in, exhausted, my mask bagged. The sight of my wife, standing motionless in the middle of the room, was the only thing that cut through the haze.
"I need a shower," I mumbled, trying to walk past.
"Where have you been, David?" Her voice was low, devoid of emotion, more terrifying than a shout.
"Out. Walk."
"Don't. Lie. To. Me." She punctuated each word with a step toward me. "I know about the bag, the walks, the secrets. I saw the news, David. Look at me!"
I turned, my face a carefully constructed mask of irritation. "You're being hysterical, Elara. You're overtired. I'm just tired, too. Stop this."
"Stop?" Her voice cracked, the controlled facade finally splintering. "My husband, the man I married, is out there murdering people, and you want me to stop? Why, David? Is this about Nathan? Is this your justice?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," I denied.
The serious argument began. She slapped me. It was a vicious, open-handed blow that snapped my head back. I didn't hit her back; I couldn't. Instead, I grabbed her wrist, my fingers tight, and pushed her away, out of sheer exhaustion and dread.
"Don't touch me!" she screamed, tears finally flowing, her face a mask of grief and fury. "I don't know who you are! Get out of my sight!"
I retreated to the bathroom, the fight over before it began. When I came out, Elara was gone from the living room. She was silent, but her anger filled the house.
Lily, however, was waiting. She ran to me, pulling my hand. "Daddy! Look what I did for you!"
She led me back to her room. The circle of blocks was still there. The toy figures were stained red. And resting neatly on top of the tallest, central block, was the small, plastic man I had tucked away the day before—the one Elara had thrown out. It was hanging again, the piece of string wrapped tight around its neck.
I looked down at the gruesome, innocent display.
The next morning, Elara's demeanor had shifted entirely. She was calm, almost unnervingly serene. She made breakfast, humming a tune. She acted as if the fight, the accusations, and the violence had never happened.
"Lily and I are going out for a while," she said, kissing me briefly on the cheek, a soft, final press of her lips. "I need to drop off some paperwork at the firm, and I thought we could go to the park afterward. Enjoy your quiet time, darling."
"Have fun," I replied, relieved by the return to normalcy, yet wary of the quiet in her eyes. It was a perfect morning for a kill. With both of them gone, I could focus entirely on protecting Lily by satisfying the monster's demands.
I waited until I heard the car pull away. I quickly pulled my mask on and grabbed my knife. I reached for the front doorknob—and turned.
It didn't open.
I tried again, twisting hard. Locked.
She must have hit the deadlock. I walked to the kitchen, trying the back door. It, too, was locked. I checked the windows—all sealed, the panes were thick and unbreakable. Elara had locked me in. The full, terrifying realization of her fear hit me: she believed I was the killer, and she had trapped me to save her and Lily.
I began to struggle, hitting the door, yelling her name. The house was silent.
Then, the air grew colder.
A slow, rhythmic tap-tap-tap began above me, coming from the ceiling of the hall. It was not a normal sound.
I looked up, my pulse frantic. In the sudden, profound silence, the tapping stopped. And a whisper, cold and flat, permeated the air.
"The killing is over for you, David."
I turned slowly, toward the living room. The shadow that was not a shadow solidified in the corner. The Quiet Man was very tall. Featureless. And his wide, unnerving smile was directed straight at me. He raised one long, pale hand, not a threat this time, but a farewell.
"You did not keep my promise. I guess she's mine now."
The last thing I heard before the lights flickered and died was the faint, happy sound of Lily's giggle. She was already gone, and the hunter had become the prey.
The silence that followed was absolute, leaving me alone in the dark house.