Chapter 1
Storms are often misunderstood. Too many people fear them. They fear the violent boom of the crashing thunder. They fear the dazzling lights of a lightning strike. They fear the fierce power of a torrential rain. I have always loved storms. They prove the awesome power of the unknown, and when it’s over everything is clear, crisp and clean. After the storm everything in life gets a second chance. Second chances are always welcome, but not always taken. That’s all I wanted: a second chance. A chance to prove that it was not my fault. However the storm that came upon me offered no renewal, no second chances. I had to take a stand and live with whatever consequences came. My storm began in the wake of the most devastating experience of my life.
The murder of my family.
My husband, Charlie, was probably the sweetest man alive. He was the only person I had ever known that would pull the car over to help an injured animal. He often bought several bags of groceries for homeless people and could be seen taking our little old neighbor Alma to the drugstore. I thought guys like him were a myth.
Yet even with his kindness I felt something missing. I had always been a little more impulsive. “Slow down Kris,” He would say. “Can’t you see the thrill of the people around us? Why is your head always five miles down the road searching for an adventure?”
Not many people could handle my impulsiveness when I would suddenly want to road trip to Vegas at 2 am on a Friday. Charlie thought I would change when Sarah was born. To a degree he was right. I no longer drove twenty miles over the speed limit. The frequency of my base jumping trips lessened. Yet there was still a part of me that was still five miles down the road.
Then Michael was born. His birth was difficult to begin with. Soon after the dreams began. Horrible nightmares of blood and violence. Images of my children, covered in blood. Every night these visions would haunt me. Just the thought of anyone harming my babies began to wear down my very soul. I started keeping them within a close distance to me at all times. They were almost always within my sight. I stopped endangering my own life with my thrill seeking adventures because I was afraid of what might happen if I wasn’t around to protect them. It got so bad I hardly ever left the house anymore. My home was the only sanctuary I knew. Charlie watched as the vivacious woman he fell in love with withered away before his eyes. It was like the nightmares had broken me. I tried seeing doctor after doctor to rid me of these dreams. All I really wanted was a sense of peace again. None of them were any help. Just prescribing me medicines that only seemed to fuel the feelings. The dreams haunted me.
When Michael was three, I finally let Charlie talk me into a weekend away to relax. I was supposed to be gone for three days. I was only gone for two hours. The dreams, the horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach was gnawing at me like a caged beast. I got to the border and turned around. Nothing could prepare me for what I walked into.
It was one of those gorgeous California mornings, the air clean and crisp like after a storm. We lived in an upscale area of Los Angeles, mostly suburban homes. The door to our two story subdivision home was unlatched and slightly open. This was warning one for me. Charlie was almost as paranoid as me at times. He always had the door shut and locked. After seeing one too many news stories of home invasions, Charlie didn’t want to leave anything to chance. When I walked into the front room, everything was quiet. Lifeless. I was looking around the living room when I noticed the blood stains on the stairs. Frantically I ran upstairs.
“Charlie?!? Sarah?!? Michael?!? Answer me please!!” I yelled for them as loud as I could to no avail. And then I saw the pool of blood in the doorway to Michael’s room. My feet didn’t want to move. A vice like grip tightened around my heart and I could feel the air in my lungs being sucked out. My eyes didn’t want to see what I knew I was about to see. My nightmares had become a reality.
As I walked around to face the doorway I began screaming at the sight of my husband and children, lying in a circle, ripped to shreds and covered in blood. Shaking violently, I stepped tentatively towards them, praying that maybe they were only injured. I couldn’t even look at Charlie’s face, or what was left of it. It was almost as if it had been torn through and nothing was left but bits of bone and brain matter. It reminded me of tenderized meat, pounded and ripped to shreds. My finger softly traced down his blood spattered arm to the scar on the back of his right hand from the time we tried to learn fire dancing. He got that scar the night he proposed, bandaged and in pain, in the hospital. Michael and Sarah both had three large gashes across their faces and several stab wounds to the chest, whereas Charlie looked like he had been gutted. Just seeing what was done to him I knew there was no way he could have survived. I knelt down, my pants soaking up the blood that was all around me. I bent to check Michael’s pulse first, softly stroking his blood matted hair. There was nothing. I began weeping, my fingertips resting on his angelic face, covered in such horrible gore. With the knowledge that my youngest, my baby, was gone I moved on to his sister. I started chanting a silent prayer to God to please let her have survived. As I knelt over Michael’s body, I lost my balance and fell into the pool of blood, covering me from head to toe in bits of sliced flesh. Trembling I felt for her pulse. None. I screamed again as I scrambled away from the bodies, backing towards the door. They were gone. My entire life had been ripped out from under me.
Next thing I knew was blackness. The dark pulled me under and I did not know when or if I would emerge.
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