“fuck” thought Stephen, on his way home from work, after a strenuous day. “I really hope Ellie has had a better day than I, I guess we’ll see, only god knows.” He grabs his briefcase out of his car, walks up to the front door pauses for a moment and mutters under his breath, “here goes…” He opens the front door to disaster. He slides his shoes off as he drops the briefcase down and walks into the living room looking like a tornado had just flown through.

“I’m home,” hey yells, though to no one in particular and the sounds of a stampede like wild elephants comes to his ears, and soon reaches him. A young boy and a young girl come flying down the stairs and are diving into his arms nearly knocking him down screaming, “Yey Yey! Daddy’s home!!” Stephen grabs them and picks them up one in each arm as he gives them hugs and kisses each one on the forehead, asking them about the latest discoveries they’ve found.

A young mother enters the room and Stephen notices the tiredness on her face, as if she’s just run a marathon, she enters picking up the train of mess that the kids in their rampage to welcome their father home have destroyed. She gets to the couch and falls down into it with a sigh of exhaustion, looking towards her husband, feeling pretty jealous.

“Stephen, will you please put the kids in bed, before you eat anything? I’m exhausted and I’m going to bed. Goodnight.” And with that she leaves going up the stairs.

“I guess your mother has had a brilliant day today, eh kids?” Stephen says in a sort of sarcastic whisper. He puts the kids down and pats them on the head, “now run along and get your pj’s on and I’ll be in to tuck you in and tell you a story.” The children still nearly ecstatic, take their stampede out through the living room and the sounds of them tumbling all over one another, “Yey, I hope daddy tells us a real good story tonight, he’s the best story teller ever!!” and the giggling and noise of them falling all over each other float back to Stephen standing thinking about his day.

Stephen stops in the kitchen, knowing that if he doesn’t get water for the kids now, he’ll be back with them asking, so he proceeds to get two glasses of water, one for each child, thinking, “What’s going on with Ellie tonight?”

As he comes into the kids room, there they both lay, giggling on the floor faces all red from their laughing and tumbling, without a care in the world. “You kids aren’t in bed yet? Come on lets get you both under the covers already.” He pulls back the covers and slides both children under them, and then neatly puts the blankets back up to their chins.

“Okay kids, this story is about a little boy Ardel, who was a really rowdy boy that didn’t listen to his parents, because he was really bad. Well one day, when his daddy was tucking him into bed he didn’t want to stay in bed so he waited till his daddy left and then he snuck and went to get a cookie from the cookie jar. He didn’t know but there was this big ugly monster in the kitchen and…”

Stephen makes a really scary face and with his hands “…and with one big gobbley bite he ate up Ardel. Now kids, don’t get out of bed, unless you need to use the potty, ‘cause the monsters don’t get you there or in bed.”

Stephen gives the kids each a big hug, and flips the lights out on the terrified faces of the kids. He leaves and heads up the stairs to the bedroom.

As he gets to the top of the stairs, he notices all the lights off, so he takes his pants off and starts to get into bed next to Ellie. “Ellie baby, what’s going on? Are you mad at me? Ellie?”

Ellie rolls over to face Stephen, “Uh yes I’m mad.” She nearly yells as she begins to cry, “Stephen where are you? Where have you been all night? Why do you leave me here with these kids every day who hate me and love you, and you’re gone day after day?” She turns back over, quietly crying. “Ellie, Ellie, wait wait, I’ve just been gone tonight, I come home every day and help you out with the kids, it’s just we had a really big project at work tonight, and you knew that. Ellie, stop this right now, gosh, I go to work every day, and work my butt off so you can have your pretty little navigator, so you can drive to the mall and get your little nails done, so you can have a beautiful house. Ellie, what do you expect, that money grows on trees?”

Ellie turns back over and looks Stephen straight in the eyes, “Stephen, what do you expect, with all this pressure on me to be your perfect little wife and mother, especially when you don’t even look at me, cause you’re too busy making everything wonderful for your new receptionist, are you having an affair?”

“Oh my gosh Ellie, never! Where in the heck did that come from? What kind of drugs are you on right now?” Stephen makes to get out of bed “You’re not even being reasonable, I’m going to sleep on the couch.” He throws himself out of bed pulls on his pants as Ellie cries, “You see, you don’t even care about this marriage anymore!”

Stephen semi half laughs and then leaves the bedroom grabbing a blanket from the hall closet. He makes his way down the stairs and throws himself on the couch thinking of the stupidity of the situation. He lies in bed for a while, and when his eyelids begin to droop, he hears noises in the kitchen. “Ugh, those darned kids, and I thought I scared them good with my story.” He thinks, then gets up expecting to find the kids in the cookie jar.

He hears men’s voices, and instantly darts behind the closest wall hiding in the shadows. He hears whispers, “Yo, Billy, what do I have to steal for this? I don’t know why I have to do this assignment to get into vice, what if they wake up and call the cops?” Stephen sees a young white boy, dressed in overly large black clothes wearing a skull cap and another man, in mid twenties, dark clothes as well looking around the kitchen in the dim overhead stove lighting, for something of value. The middle aged man pipes up, “Dude, fo why you wanna join den Dodge? This is how it’s gotta be, you’re gonna have to steal something to get in.”

Stephen quietly peers at the men knowing of then danger, and then steals away into the dark, quietly tiptoes up the stairs, gently shakes Ellie, “Ellie, honey, wake up there’s robbers in the house. Honey.” Ellie, turns over again, and mutters, “Get out damit. I don’t really care, let them burn down the house too.” Stephen shakes Ellie and quietly whispers, “Delphine, get up now.” He runs to the closet, slides a cigar cutter into his pocket, and pulls out his shotgun and quickly unlocks the gun and nearly flies down the stairs, as quiet as a mouse. He runs into the kitchen, pulls the gun up to his shoulder and points it at the nearest man, Billy, who yells, “Awh man, this isn’t what you think…” The two men stare at Stephen as he says back, “This is my house, my stuff, and as long as you’re on my property, I can think whatever I want.” Dodge tries to think fast and decides to jump and try and knock down the gun, and manages to do so, but not before Stephen gets a shot off, hitting Billy straight in the shoulder knocking him back on the ground blood spraying everywhere.

Billy yells like a mad man as he writhes in pain, “Ahh noo! I’m shot, Dodge get me out of here!” As Stephen and Dodge fumble over possession of the gun a girl enters the room, in white clothes, nearly shining bright wielding a sword in the right hand, “Back away from the gun.” She says, in near brilliance. Dodge backs up and mutters under his breath, “Man oh man, I knew we should have gone to the next house…” with moans of Billy from the floor.

Stephen gets Dodge, in a chair, and begins to tie him down, with duck tape, at sword point from Ellie, dressed in something unnatural. “Now, what are you doing in my house, and who are you working for?” Asks Stephen. Billy answers, “Man, I don’t know anything, I’m just taking this boy out for a trial run to see if he can get into our gang.” Ellie laughs wickedly, “Ha! Yeah right, look where you’re at right now, bleeding your brains out. Maybe next time you should think before you go messing through someone’s stuff, the world isn’t yours.” She points her sword into Billy’s wound and as he moans she yells, “See!! Maybe now you’ll learn, now that you’re dead.” And as if sucking the energy out of the dying body she turns into a frenzy, slashing at the moaning body of Billy who writhes, and then falls silent as Ellie slashes over and over cutting the body into chunks, with blood spraying everywhere.

Stephen gives a little laugh and says, “Now boy, what are you doing in my house?” and Dodge who’s pretty much crying hysterically says, “I don’t know sir, please don’t whack me…” Stephen, decides that’s not a good enough answer so he pulls the cigar cutter out of his pocket and says, “Give me your thumb boy.” And with a quick snap he slices the thumb clean off, blood spraying everywhere, dripping all over his clothes.

Dodge yells and cries for mercy, at sword point from Ellie. Then passes out from loss of blood, and sinks down into the duck tape.

“Baby I love it when you get bloody, I’m sorry for being a jerk earlier. We need to get back to our roots more often, this is quite fun darling.” Says Ellie, as she wraps her arms around her Stephen and gives him a big kiss. “Oh Ellie baby, don’t worry about it anyways, I would never pick a receptionist over my baby anyways. Now what are we going to do with this one? I don’t think the kids would like it to wake up and find jars of body parts in the fridge even though it would be fun to can some fingers like old times.” Stephen giggles, as Ellie says, “Let’s can clean this up in the morning, before the kids get up, let’s hop in bed…”