House of Darkness House of Light (3 page)

As years passed, a young mother noticed summer vacation becoming a less daunting task as her eldest daughter assumed more responsibility, though it remained a fulltime job. The planning of activities became less of a necessity as the girls grew and began to effectively amuse themselves. A mother could relax and enjoy her children. Less a caretaker and more a playmate, she took great pleasure in the company. Within a few days, a good start to the season, what began as a perfectly fine summer holiday was transformed into a mean season of high anxiety and immeasurable pain.

Roger and Carolyn Perron purchased their house in the suburbs in 1964. It was an adequate, modest “Cape Cod” style house with a generous back yard. They had made the deliberate choice based on the quality of the schools their children would attend. Cumberland, Rhode Island held promise as a peaceful and quiet community in which to raise a family. During the summer of 1970 the changing society around them began encroaching, imposing itself upon their idyllic existence. As a result, a childhood innocence was lost, a sense of security was sadly forsaken and everything was about to change.

Within their first few days of school vacation a traumatic loss struck the whole family. A year or so earlier the children had been gifted with a puppy. She was the sweetest, most magnificent creature they had ever known, a rare and exceptional specimen of canine. Her breed was African Basenji. Carolyn was as delighted by her arrival and told her children that such an unusual dog deserved an equally unusual name. After a thoughtful moment she suggested a unique one, apparently coming from the ether. Though it was an unfamiliar name they all liked the sound of it and it stuck: Bathsheba.

The eldest child, Andrea had fallen so in love with the creature, she hardly went anywhere without her. Though the dog had been intended as a gift for all, Andrea felt a special bond with their pet. One afternoon Andrea asked her mom if she could take Bathsheba for a walk. Only ten years old at the time, Andrea had already displayed maturity beyond her years. Carolyn had no qualms about the request. Sisters suddenly popped out of nowhere and the walk became a group activity. Andrea held onto the leash as her siblings followed. They traveled up Mohawk Street to Diamond Hill Road. Without warning, a car loaded with teenagers drove by at approximately the speed of light. The crew must have been cheerleaders because they were shouting out something in unison while shaking brightly-colored tassels from their open windows. Bathsheba was an obedient dog but the tassels caught her eye and, in an instant, she bolted across the road to chase after the car. Andrea began screaming out loud in panic, calling the dog back; a tragic mistake. Standing safely on the sidewalk at the other side of the road, Bathsheba immediately obeyed a command. The elderly couple that hit her never even saw the dog. Her leash got wrapped around a wheel well and the damage to her skull was so extensive, there was no question…no saving her. A passerby drove to the police station about a block away and within minutes a police officer was on the scene. He yelled at the girls to return home and as they ran back toward the house they heard the gunshots, two of them, enough to mercifully finish the dreadful deed. Hysterical, all the girls ran to their mother who soon began sobbing with them; not only was she grief-stricken by the loss, she knew Bathsheba had suffered…and her girls had suffered the sight of it.

The entire family caved in; succumbing to a deep despair which had, at its core, their unspoken pain. The silence on the subject was almost unbearable. Though it slowly passed for the others, Andrea withdrew into a kind of grief reserved only for a guilty conscience. Believing she alone was responsible for an unspeakable loss, no one, not even mom could convince her otherwise. Sadness consumed her. Andrea stopped playing outside, barely interacting with her siblings. Carolyn became very concerned; doing her best to distract her eldest daughter, giving time itself the time to do what it does best. Heal. Meanwhile, during the first few weeks of July, a series of events transpired which would cumulatively become the catalyst for an abrupt and a unilateral decision made by an anxious mother on behalf of her children.

There were many adolescent boys in the neighborhood. That summer they formed a pack. Wild dogs had nothing on them! Evil does exist in the world. As individuals they all seemed to be acceptable but, as a group, they became the personification of what is ugly and mean-spirited in society. Classmates became hoodlums. A number of these boys were familiar to the Perron girls and some of them were considered friends, including the boys who lived next door. As incidents began occurring, no one ever suspected the problem child, the leader of the pack, was lurking so close to home; a wolf in the woods.

A list of minor and major infractions included a number of petty thefts then the gangland assault on their schoolyard playground; from vicious pranks to more threatening encounters with rumors of weapons involved. For the most part bad boys were fighting amongst themselves resulting in a series of black eyes and fat lips. When they began aggressively targeting several girls in the neighborhood, Carolyn disdainfully announced they were toxic; testosterone poisoned. A vigilant mother forewarning her own away from all of them, on the day she was informed of an attempted sexual assault on a young girl who had been gagged, bound to playground equipment at their elementary school, they instantly lost their freedom. Once relegated to the back yard the children began wondering what was going on around them in a place where they once felt so safe. Not one considered they might be the next victims of the sinister souls doing the devil’s footwork.

A family vacation had been planned well in advance. Everyone was excited by the prospects of a big field trip. It meant restaurants and swimming pools at motels. It meant shopping for bathing suits and ice cream cones at roadside stands. For all six gals, it meant quality time spent with the man of the house. Most importantly for Carolyn, it also represented a necessary distraction. She enlisted Andrea to assist her with their many preparations. As packing began, Carolyn made arrangements with her mother-in-law for the care of the house and what cherished pets remained. There were four kitties: two very loud but lovely Siamese and two strays which found their way into heart and home.

It was late afternoon when the family returned from what was a thoroughly enjoyable, relaxing trip together. It had only been a few days away, yet the healing effects were remarkable. The Perrons had been restored to a one-big-happy-family status. Andrea started smiling again. When they pulled into the driveway Roger immediately noticed that the door to the sun porch was wide open. His mother had been watching over their house and he assumed when she last came, had forgotten to close or lock it. Then Carolyn saw something lying limp on the picnic table. By the time she could intervene, Andrea was already out of their car, running to greet her normally frisky kitty, Scrunch. Andrea called her by name. There was no response. No movement. The child could not believe her eyes; the gruesome discovery dropped her to the knees. Her precious cat had been brutally killed…murdered. Her skull was crushed; every bone in her body, shattered. It is unnecessary to describe what ensued. Carolyn comforted her while Roger removed the stiffened carcass. He then entered their house to find that it had been thoroughly ransacked; food from the kitchen cupboards poured all over the floor, their furniture overturned, mirrors shattered. A freezer full of food was open, provisions saturated with motor oil. All the cats were missing. With a frantic phone call Roger learned that his mother had been there only a few hours before their arrival and had indeed locked the house. She left their Siamese cats inside and let the other two out to play, as the weather was fine and her son was expected home later in the day. As Roger searched their house, utter despair turned into wild rage. The freezer in the basement, fully stocked with meats, was destroyed beyond repair. Nothing could be salvaged. He peered inside at all the food intended to feed his family, trembling with justifiable anger. The police were there for hours, surveying and documenting extensive damage done; a loss sustained. Their normally rambunctious neighborhood fell eerily silent; a conspicuous absence of movement and sound from the three boys who occupied the house next door. One peered reflectively out his bedroom window.

Carolyn later found Juliet, mother of Scrunch, hiding beneath thick shrubs. The cat had been brutalized but apparently escaped her captors; surviving the ordeal she’d obviously endured. Both Siamese cats were gone. Within a few days a tortured soul arrived at their door. A boy from the next street over had witnessed, if not participated in this horrific attack. With tears in his eyes as the tremendous burden of some unspoken guilt weighed too heavily for the youngster to bear, a conscience dictated this confession. He told Mrs. Perron what had happened and who did it. Apparently it was a twelve-year-old boy who lived next door. He had planned the scheme then initiated the break-in, and when he and his thug buddies were finished destroying their house, they held Scrunch down inside a pothole in the road then beat her to death with a baseball bat. Juliet fought back and finally escaped. One of their cohorts stole then sold the Siamese cats to an unscrupulous woman who never bothered to ask any questions. Carolyn called the police. They went directly to the house and confronted the mother of this boy. She denied everything; lying to cover for her mini-criminal. The officers seemed unwilling to pursue the matter any further then discouraged Carolyn from acting on her own, but she refused to let this rest in peace. She later went back to their house, against the advice of law enforcement, speaking firmly with a woman hell bent on protecting her own. The terse conversation deteriorated into argument and accusation as the responsible party emerged from his bedroom; both arms visibly scarred with scratches, evidence of a cat fighting for her life. His mother instantly ordered him back into his room, wedging her bulbous body between the door frame to block the view but Carolyn was convinced of his guilt; there was as much metaphorical blood on his hands as residual scars on his serrated arms. The next day she and Roger went to the Cumberland Police Department, there to file charges against that juvenile delinquent; an assault addressed as animal cruelty. In spite of the ample evidence these assailants remained on the loose.
Breaking and entering; Destruction of property
: Demon seeds. Andrea was unwilling to wait for the court or an act of divine retribution. Distraught, she began quietly plotting a vigilante attack on someone who deserved the full weight of her ungodly wrath; a lesson in smiting she learned the hard way.

Andrea had not yet really recovered from the tragic death of her beautiful Bathsheba when a sadistic execution of her precious cat occurred. These two traumatic events prompted a metamorphosis in the child, one nobody would have ever expected or predicted, effectively transforming her from a demure little girl into someone angry, vengeful; she suddenly became as evil as those who had committed a heinous crime. Carolyn had divulged the identity of the culprits as she explained to her girls that they must not have anything to do with those boys anymore. Andrea blatantly defied mother’s order, devising a plan of her own when she knew who was responsible. She couldn’t get to all of them at once, but truly believed she should punish the leader of the pack. Enlisting the assistance of friends sworn to secrecy she used the telephone to track the whereabouts of her intended victim. It took three days to carry out her plan as she stalked him throughout a neighborhood; poised, knowing the moment opportunity presented she would confront the criminal, causing him to suffer as much as her cat did for the duration of her torturous death. When she located him near the corner of Mohawk Street and Diamond Hill Road, unaccompanied by his bodyguard brother she pounced in a way which would have made her feline proud. Though both youngsters were roughly the same age and size, his was no match for her intensity in the revenge-driven assault. Then there was the infamous element of surprise. He never saw it coming.

Not once in her life had Andrea displayed any type of violent behavior, yet there she was, on the side of the road, beating this culprit bloody. Though her physical strength was equivalent to his, an emotional outburst was something supernatural. Adrenaline coupled with pure, unadulterated hatred: dangerous in combination; a lesson the recipient of her self-righteous rage soon learned. She broke his nose, punching him repeatedly. Once his eyes sealed shut she throttled his scrawny neck, muffling his pleas for help then took aim at every vulnerable part of his body; ribs to groin. After several minutes of relentless, inexhaustible brutality, no mercy bestowed, the witness to this vicious attack came to his rescue, pulling the girl from her prey. “Go! Home!” Reluctantly, she did as he ordered. It was over. Andrea failed: her evil intention had been to commit
justifiable
homicide; planting the demon seed six feet under.

The police officer was sympathetic. He had no choice except to file another report. Roger had to handle this problem. Whatever he said on her behalf in a courtroom was sufficient to fully explain and likewise excuse her behavior. Though the charges were dropped, much animosity remained. No longer the quiet and placid neighborhood in which to raise her family, Carolyn began to press her husband about relocation. It was her fervent hope, in fact, adamant intention to remove her children from the negative and unstable environment. She became watchful, distressed by what was happening to her eldest, a child transforming…increasingly sullen and withdrawn. She knew the only way to mitigate an adverse impact on all the girls was to extricate them from such an increasingly volatile place. Their anxious mother decided and then
insisted
her children be raised surrounded by wild Nature instead of wild criminals. She wanted them to have a place in the country.

Roger did his best to placate his wife. He knew they were in no position to afford the expense of moving at the moment. There was hardly any equity in their current home. Likewise, he realized an agitated demeanor complicated matters; disturbing what peace lingered amidst turmoil. Timing is everything in life; though he regretted having to do so, especially considering the events occurring all around them, Roger announced his plan to leave on business for several days, effectively abandoning his spouse to deal with the dilemma: an emergence of a theme. Stress spiked. The man had no choice. He had clients waiting, appointments pending. An astral convergence began as a Universal plan began spinning in perpetual motion, stirring up the cosmos. Change was inevitable; the only constant. There’d be no predicting what was to come.