Steve was quickly awoken by his son’s screams. His entire room was shrouded in darkness, and he struggled to reach onto his nightstand to find the lamp. Turning it on momentarily blinded him with the flash of light, but his eyes soon adjusted. He carefully climbed out of bed, trying not to wake the dog, who was fast asleep on the matress. As Steve passed through the door, and entered the hallway, he could start to hear a light rain. A rain like tiny needles falling and poking the roof of the house. The hall was a balcony overlooking the living room below. The moonlight lit up the hallway just enough to cast a light blue tint on everything. Steve could only see up to Tommy’s door.

He slowly shuffled over to Tommy's room, not quite awake. Once he finally got to Tommy’s room, Steve slowly opened the door to find Tommy awake, with his nightlight still on, crying in his arms.

“Hey buddy, what’s wrong? Did you have another nightmare?”

Tommy quietly nodded his head without lifting it up from his arms. Steve sat in the room with him for a moment, then he lifted his head up, looked him in the eye, and said “The scary man is gonna hurt me, daddy. Don’t let him hurt me.”

Tommy started to recall in his mind what had happened all those nights ago. He had tried so hard to forget, but he couldn’t shake the memory. The nightmare. The pain. Forced to relive it every night. It was a dark, stormy night, much more so than this night. Bullets hitting the roof instead of needles. Tommy couldn’t sleep that night, and went downstairs to have a glass of milk. Right before he got to the staircase, he heard a scream. Mommy’s scream. He ran down the stairs, into the kitchen, almost slipping on a little puddle of saliva from the dog’s mouth. Once he caught his balance, Tommy, finally saw what was happening. Mommy was cowering, trying to move backwards, but her back was already on the counter top. Cowering from The Scary Man. Her face was a mess of makeup streaking down her eyes and blood from some cuts. She saw Tommy out of the corner of her vision.

“Tommy, go back to your room, now!” Her voice trembled.

“Mommy, I’m scared.”

The Scary Man drew a large blade from his jacket, and jammed the butt of the knife into her nose, breaking it, blood dripping onto the counter behind her. A blood curdling scream finally made Tommy run, but he didn’t go all the way back upstairs; he only went to the living room, where he had a view of what was happening.
The Scary Man’s knife pierced her torso, right in the heart, twisting the blade around. He removed the knife, and stabbed her again. And again. And again. Each time the blade punctured the skin, the area around it became raw. Mommy was long dead, but the Scary Man kept going. He found enjoyment in it. A squirt of blood became a river. Dripping down her torso like rain down a window. She finally fell to the lifelessly, but he wasn’t done. He took the blade to her face, cutting off skin, inch by inch, blood spilling out onto the floor beneath her cold, lifeless corpse, until it no longer had a face. The corpse more resembles carrion than a person. The Scary Man placed the mass of meat into a Ziploc, which was placed in a duffle bag. The Scary Man ran off, and when the cops finally arrived, they took Tommy away.

He stayed with them for three more days. They told him that daddy was away on a business trip. They finally got to go home, but Tommy couldn’t enter the kitchen for at least another year without breaking out into tears. All he could think about is mommy. I want to see mommy again. That’s all he thought about now.

Steve responded after a couple of seconds. “The Scary Man is far away, now. He won’t hurt you anymore.”
“No, he’s not. He’s here.”

“I’m confused, Tommy, where is The Scary Man?”

Trembling, Tommy lifted his arm, and pointed at his father.