Monday, January 09, 2006

Be Ready for Evil When It Comes

Two men. One let out of prison in late October. Ten days later the man’s wife turns up dead.

But you don’t know about it. It’s just another statistic in another state. You’re too busy getting ready for Christmas and New Years for your wife and daughters age 9 and 4. This is a magical time of year for families with small children.

But Evil is headed your way.

The two men head toward your home in Virginia from Pennsylvania. You don’t know them, they don’t know you. But you’re on a collision course nevertheless.

And they come on New Year’s Eve. They are looking for cash, weapons and a car. For whatever reasons, your house looks appealing to them. The two 28-year old thugs look around to see if anyone might witness their crime. They nod to each other and stride up to your front door.

The knock on your front door does seem a little strange on New Year’s Eve, but your 39-year-old wife Kathryn goes to open the door as your two girls rush behind her brimming with curiosity. You hear the door open, a brief murmur, and then a shocked shriek from Kathryn!

As you jump up from the living room couch you can hear the loud booming voices of men! You slide around the corner of the foyer to seen two tough looking men pushing their way past the flung-open door with one of the men brutally pulling Kathryn’s hair while holding a knife to the side of her neck!

You instinctively rush toward Kathryn – only to be greeted by a blinding white light which flashes behind your eyes just before you feel an impossibly hard hand cracking your jaw…

You can’t stop…yourself…from…falling…

The screams of Kathryn and the girls are pushing through the haze in your skull as you feel yourself being roughly bound with – what’s that familiar noise? Is it duct tape? Your wrists are bound together. One of the men pushes you to your side on the floor and wraps the silver duct tape around and around your ankles. Your nostrils are flaring as you try and suck the oxygen in, but it doesn’t seem like enough. You’re a 49-year-old guitar player -- your heart and mind are racing. You’re so scared, you’ve never, ever been remotely close to something this violent. You’re not sure you could move regardless of the tape.

The fog in your brain is beginning to clear a little bit and you realize that one of the men has yanked your head back and is screaming, “WHERE’S THE MONEY! GIVE US THE MONEY NOW! NOW OR YOU’RE ALL DEAD!”

Your mouth weakly voices, “take it all, take whatever you want, just leave my wife and daughters alone…”

“THE MONEY! I WANT THE MONEY AND THE CAR KEYS!”

“In the drawer…in the hallway,” is all you can get out. You feel like you are going to puke, the bile is rising in your throat as you crane your neck trying to see Kathryn and the girls. It looks like they are sloppily bound with the same tape. Kathryn’s eyes are wild, her breath is coming in short sharp gasps. Your nine-year old daughter is crying hysterically, but the four-year-old seems strangely quiet and detached.

The other man bursts back into the foyer from the hallway. “Okay, I’ve got some, I’ve got some, let’s GO!”

“Not yet”, says the strong man with the knife.

The tone of his voice makes your stomach turn to ice. “NO!” you scream, but another punch knocks your head back against the floor. You vaguely feel a pulling and tugging on your throat as you hear yourself gurgle a bit. The blackness engulfs you. But you know – you know that he has slashed your throat, you can hear your blood splashing on the floor. And you know your family is next – but you can’t do anything to stop it.

In moments, you’re gone.

You were spared the sight of watching your wife and two young daughters have their throats slit.

You were spared feeling the scorching heat as the fire they set burned your house down around you and your family.

You were spared knowing that the same two men attacked another family in your community a week later, similarly killing the husband, the wife and their 21-year-old daughter.

But you could not stop it. You were not ready for Evil when it came. You thought it would never touch you. And, frankly, who could know?

If you could, you would tell the rest of us -- "just know that Evil is out there and it can touch you. Be ready."

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