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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Mystery
- Subject: Drama
- Published: 05/20/2024
Son-in-law
Born 1941, M, from Santa Clara, CA, United StatesI don’t really know why I’m telling you this, but I am at my wits end and I need someone to believe me. I told the police, and they think I’m a murderer. I told my attorney, and he said he believed me. The only problem with an attorney is that they believe anyone who pays them. At this very moment, I am sitting here waiting for seven men and five women to decide my fate; they too didn’t believe me.
This all started with a family vacation. It had been almost five years since my family, and I had any time of our own. This trip would be nothing but six days of being together. There were going to be no alarm clocks, no deadlines, no bosses, nothing but time alone. I got home from work, changed into an old pair of comfortable shorts and a sport shirt, made sure that the car was packed, and the house was locked. Once I was sure that all was in order, all that remained was a three-hundred-mile, drive to a lake in the northeastern part of California. My fourteen-year-old son would do some fishing, my wife would visit with her older sister, and I would do nothing but relax.
The drive was a concern because most of it would be after dark through sparsely populated national forest. With budgets the way they are, I wouldn’t be able to count on a staff of rangers to come to my aid should the need arise. They were probably limited in number and on call after dark. This meant simply, if we got into trouble, we would be on our own. It might take hours before any legitimate law enforcement agency would even know we were in the area let alone arrive to help. I had seen enough of those cop shows and read several books to know what my chances and the fate of my family would be under circumstances like these. The roads we would be on could see a car once every two hours. There was just no way in hell that I was going to subject my family to that kind of potential. I had a .380 cal. Beretta with three magazines. Each magazine held eight rounds plus one in the chamber giving me twenty-five rounds. That plus the remainder of a box of fifty rounds under the front seat, meant that I could handle anything that came my way. The safety of my family was the controlling factor here; besides, I always thought it would be better to be tried by twelve than to be carried by six. And, in the end, what jury on the face of the earth would convict a man defending his family. I didn’t even have to consider the skills of an attorney; hell, I could defend this kind of a case myself.
With the car loaded we were off. At first the ride was tiresome. The after-work traffic was more than heavy, it was oppressive. It seems to me, and I may very well be alone in my thinking, but still it seems that the California Department of Motor Vehicles goes out of its way to insure that every idiot receives a driver’s license. I am also convinced that the term “road rage” was not only conceived, but also the definition for the term was developed here. I am sorry but I have never seen so many stupid people rushing to get nowhere. They have just completed a tedious day at the office and now they are stewing over a mad dash achieved in inches. Why can’t they realize that the same end can be reached with a little patient, and even less courtesy. Instead, they drive bumper to bumper to eliminate any possible space for another car to squeeze into, because by doing so that space would put them one more car length further from a home. Now that the freeway is packed bumper to bumper, they just sit trying to figure why no one is going anywhere. They are closer to home, but it is going to take hours to get there, OH well. Someone once said that the longest parking lot in the United States was in southern California. He obviously has not seen 680 from Milpitas to Plesanton in northern California on a Friday night. It took me just under an hour and forty-five minutes to drive twenty miles, thank you Detroit for air conditioning. As if this were not bad enough, there was the shortcut. By turning off 680 at Livermore you can save almost forty miles, but the road is only two lanes as opposed to eight, no sweat, right? Wrong! Because it is two lanes there is nowhere to go once you are on it, and there was one long line of cars bumper to bumper. I think I saw the exact same thing on the Flintstones once. Still there is the time a father and a fourteen-year-old son must spend idly chatting about father and son things while mom sits and basks in the knowledge that she had a hand in creating this. She also has ample time to say, “I told you not to go this way!” Finally, when I reach the point where I am relaxed and able to speak coherently, they fall asleep and I am all alone.
Daylight faded into dark and the air-cooled slightly. City freeway gave way to county roads. I watched as the signs flashed by indicating the presents of deer. The sign’s not only stated deer were in the area, they warned that the critters may be inclined to dart out onto the pavement and into the path of vehicles, obviously trying to disprove the law that said two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time. Not the least bit interested in the scientific endeavors of deer, I slowed preventing any possible encounter and adding to my overall travel time. Besides the additional time, I was able to observe more even in the dark. I saw things like bucks and doe’s as well as fawns standing and grazing by the roadside. I also saw four deer and the parts of three others on the highway. All in all, I was happy my wife and son were asleep.
Our destination was a lake in the northern corner of California on the southern edge of the Lassen National Forest. It is part of the high desert and far from a spectacular sight. The forest on the other hand is, but our purpose was not sightseeing, it was visiting. My wife's sister had moved to this location some years before and because of the nerve-racking drive very seldom ventured to the bay area, ergo, if the mountain won’t come to you, you go to the high desert and boredom.
There is much to be said about boredom, however. For example, in my case boredom equated to relaxation, television watching, napping, television watching, eating, etc., etc. etc. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my time while my wife visited. We were both happy. OH, my fourteen son? He would go fishing with a friend of my sister-in-law.
Yes, my son the great fisherman. I have no doubt that some day a noted author will write about his exploits with rod and reel. For example, there was the time he and two friends went to the percolation ponds to fish. They came back with nothing and he, a fishhook in his arm. So as to foster his legend at my sister-in-laws he went fishing and caught four fish. No not the way you might think. Another man on the lake, a friend of the man my son went out with, caught more than his limit. Seeing the luck, or lack of, he maneuvered over to the intrepid twosome and tossed his excess in their direction. Now you got the picture, my son “caught” them. OH, the story doesn’t end there. When the fishing was over, the wife of the partner to my son brought him home. While the young man of the lake told three women his harrowing tale, my sister-in-law’s beagle was dancing around their feet. In his excitement he snagged a hook. One and a half hours, round trip of seventy miles and forty dollars later the vet removed a fish hook from the dogs mouth. Total “catch” of the day, four lake trout and one beaglebass.
There was nothing in anything we had done to this point to signal the horror that was coming our way.
The drive from my sister-in-law’s house to my daughters home took us a short distance into Nevada and then down toward Sacramento. The roads were easy to drive on. Late summer traffic was light. The sun was setting. The temperature was somewhere between warm and comfortable. We arrived about eight in the evening and were met at the door with hugs and kisses. My wife and daughter began to unload the car. As, I had at the sister’s house; I took charge of my automatic. I certainly didn’t want any accidents to spoil the time we were having. If, I only knew then what I know now!
I told my daughter what I had and asked for a safe place to store it while we were there. She took me into a room used by her husband as an office slash den. She explained the door to the room was always locked. Inside the room was a closet with sliding doors. I wasn’t too worried about the fact that the closet couldn’t be locked because the handgun would be on the top shelf and the room itself would be locked. My concern was more for my granddaughter than my son.
With everything secure, there was time to visit before bed.
I am the quiet type. I sat, watched, and listened as my wife chatted away with daughter and my son teased my granddaughter. You can’t begin to imagine how happy the sight of them made me. I guess getting old changes one’s perception of the world and what in it is important. A few years ago, I would have viewed the same scene and been bored. Now, however, it was making my wife happy; that was more than money could buy for me.
After an hour or so, we all went off to bed. We were told that our son-in-law had to work late. He wasn’t expected home until early in the morning. Well, there was always tomorrow.
I don’t know how long I had been asleep when a loud noise woke me. I looked over at my wife as she breathed slowly. For a while I had to look long to make sure she was breathing, but finally I did see her chest rise and fall. Seeing my wife so relaxed made me think that the noise was only a dream, waking so startled I had forgotten. I lay there just looking at her a few minutes more; another of those moments you wish would linger longer. Then I turned on my side hoping to return to the sleep I had interrupted only to be startled once more. The door to our room opened, I turned to see who it was. On past visits our granddaughter would sneak into our room to sleep snuggled up to my wife. This wasn’t the case this time. Back lighted by a small night light in the hall a saw the silhouette of a man. For an eternity the shadow just stood in the door, I guess trying to see if he had been observed. I too lay frozen trying to make out who it was, and what it wanted.
As I watched, the shadow raised its arm. At the end of it there came a sudden bright flash of light and an ear-piercing noise followed closely by a soft thud like a finger testing the ripeness of a watermelon. I looked at my wife. There was a single sigh and then nothing. The shadow turned slightly adjusting his position in my direction. He raised his arm once more. All I could think of was to roll off the bed to the floor. If I was to escape alive there was no other alternative. There came the blinding flash and the loud noise, but this time it was followed by a louder and harder thud as my body hit the floor. Nothing moved, not me, not even the shadow.
There was only the silence caused by fear on my part, and confusion on the part of the shadowy figure seeing just one form in the bed. When we both regained our, I almost said sanity, how could this be sane? He needed time to assess the situation and devise a plan. I needed that time too. I had to control my emotions, if I had any chance to get out of this alive. I could be of no use to anyone dead. Then, I saw the feet start to move slowly to the foot of the bed. I knew he was coming to see if I was on the floor. He was coming to see if I was dead. I knew that if I continued to lie there, he would see I was still alive and finish what he had started. I squeezed under the bed watching the feet as I moved. He stopped at the foot of the bed, maybe trying to listen for sounds, or because I was making noise that would give my position away. At any rate, I froze. I was below my wife. Her body was right above me and I couldn’t help her.
The feet began to move again. I had to get out of there. He was on my side of the bed looking for the body he must be hoping was at least wounded. I edged my way clear of the bed and darted for the door to the hall. The hall led to stairs, and the front door to the house. I could hear heavy footsteps not far behind me.
Now, I have no reason to try to fool anyone. I am not Harrison Ford. All anyone would have to do is look at me to see what shape I’m in. Anyway, when I reached the corner of the house, I was on the verge of a heart attack. My chest was heaving. My breath came in pathetic gasps. There was a serious pain in my right arm. Hell, he didn’t have to shoot me I was dying where I stood. If didn’t quiet down and quickly, he would find me. I choked back my panting as he stopped in the front door. Again, he was giving me time. No, not out of the goodness of his heart. He didn’t want to be surprised by me. He was listening for me.
The light above the door also lighted the walk down which I had just run. As the shadow stepped of the porch onto the walk the light cast a shadow. It was the shadow that told me right where he was. It was long at first and with each step grew shorter until he was at the edge of the building inches from me. My eyes were fixed on the ground at our feet. I was watching the shadow. Slowly, its arm came up. At the end of it was the automatic. Inch by inch it began to move again toward me. The form moved to the edge of the building and now I saw the hand coming around the corner, it was holding my gun. I had one shot at staying alive. I had no choice, or at least none, I could think of at the time. I grabbed the wrist and pulled it around the corner. As the frame of the person holding the gun came into view, I raised my knee between his legs.
The shadow crumpled to the ground with a blood-chilling wail. I stood holding his wrist. He was kneeling at my feet. The pain must have been so great that as my hand slid to his, the gun dropped out. There it was resting in my palm. Reason vanished replaced by rage. Before I knew what happened there was a loud roar and blinding light. When the noise died away a lifeless body lay on the ground in a pool of blood. I pulled at the arm still firmly in my grasp to see his face. The body yielded and rolled over. There with dead eyes staring back at me was my son-in-law.
Lights in the houses around me came popping on. I heard a woman scream. My mind raced, not with what I had done but with the fact that my family was still in the house, and they needed me. I dropped the gun and ran inside. Once more to the stairs and into the bedroom I had shared with my wife. There was nothing I could do. The bullet tore through her head. I checked the other rooms and found the same sight repeated. My daughter, my son and my granddaughter, all dead.
When the police arrived, I told them just what I told you. What they had in addition to what I told you was the woman who had screamed. She told the police how she saw me standing over my son-in-law emptying an eight-round magazine into his back. The police did determine later that my son-in-law had been stealing from his company, but I was the only one in the house alive.
So, there you have it. What do you think?
Son-in-law(Anthony Colombo)
I don’t really know why I’m telling you this, but I am at my wits end and I need someone to believe me. I told the police, and they think I’m a murderer. I told my attorney, and he said he believed me. The only problem with an attorney is that they believe anyone who pays them. At this very moment, I am sitting here waiting for seven men and five women to decide my fate; they too didn’t believe me.
This all started with a family vacation. It had been almost five years since my family, and I had any time of our own. This trip would be nothing but six days of being together. There were going to be no alarm clocks, no deadlines, no bosses, nothing but time alone. I got home from work, changed into an old pair of comfortable shorts and a sport shirt, made sure that the car was packed, and the house was locked. Once I was sure that all was in order, all that remained was a three-hundred-mile, drive to a lake in the northeastern part of California. My fourteen-year-old son would do some fishing, my wife would visit with her older sister, and I would do nothing but relax.
The drive was a concern because most of it would be after dark through sparsely populated national forest. With budgets the way they are, I wouldn’t be able to count on a staff of rangers to come to my aid should the need arise. They were probably limited in number and on call after dark. This meant simply, if we got into trouble, we would be on our own. It might take hours before any legitimate law enforcement agency would even know we were in the area let alone arrive to help. I had seen enough of those cop shows and read several books to know what my chances and the fate of my family would be under circumstances like these. The roads we would be on could see a car once every two hours. There was just no way in hell that I was going to subject my family to that kind of potential. I had a .380 cal. Beretta with three magazines. Each magazine held eight rounds plus one in the chamber giving me twenty-five rounds. That plus the remainder of a box of fifty rounds under the front seat, meant that I could handle anything that came my way. The safety of my family was the controlling factor here; besides, I always thought it would be better to be tried by twelve than to be carried by six. And, in the end, what jury on the face of the earth would convict a man defending his family. I didn’t even have to consider the skills of an attorney; hell, I could defend this kind of a case myself.
With the car loaded we were off. At first the ride was tiresome. The after-work traffic was more than heavy, it was oppressive. It seems to me, and I may very well be alone in my thinking, but still it seems that the California Department of Motor Vehicles goes out of its way to insure that every idiot receives a driver’s license. I am also convinced that the term “road rage” was not only conceived, but also the definition for the term was developed here. I am sorry but I have never seen so many stupid people rushing to get nowhere. They have just completed a tedious day at the office and now they are stewing over a mad dash achieved in inches. Why can’t they realize that the same end can be reached with a little patient, and even less courtesy. Instead, they drive bumper to bumper to eliminate any possible space for another car to squeeze into, because by doing so that space would put them one more car length further from a home. Now that the freeway is packed bumper to bumper, they just sit trying to figure why no one is going anywhere. They are closer to home, but it is going to take hours to get there, OH well. Someone once said that the longest parking lot in the United States was in southern California. He obviously has not seen 680 from Milpitas to Plesanton in northern California on a Friday night. It took me just under an hour and forty-five minutes to drive twenty miles, thank you Detroit for air conditioning. As if this were not bad enough, there was the shortcut. By turning off 680 at Livermore you can save almost forty miles, but the road is only two lanes as opposed to eight, no sweat, right? Wrong! Because it is two lanes there is nowhere to go once you are on it, and there was one long line of cars bumper to bumper. I think I saw the exact same thing on the Flintstones once. Still there is the time a father and a fourteen-year-old son must spend idly chatting about father and son things while mom sits and basks in the knowledge that she had a hand in creating this. She also has ample time to say, “I told you not to go this way!” Finally, when I reach the point where I am relaxed and able to speak coherently, they fall asleep and I am all alone.
Daylight faded into dark and the air-cooled slightly. City freeway gave way to county roads. I watched as the signs flashed by indicating the presents of deer. The sign’s not only stated deer were in the area, they warned that the critters may be inclined to dart out onto the pavement and into the path of vehicles, obviously trying to disprove the law that said two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time. Not the least bit interested in the scientific endeavors of deer, I slowed preventing any possible encounter and adding to my overall travel time. Besides the additional time, I was able to observe more even in the dark. I saw things like bucks and doe’s as well as fawns standing and grazing by the roadside. I also saw four deer and the parts of three others on the highway. All in all, I was happy my wife and son were asleep.
Our destination was a lake in the northern corner of California on the southern edge of the Lassen National Forest. It is part of the high desert and far from a spectacular sight. The forest on the other hand is, but our purpose was not sightseeing, it was visiting. My wife's sister had moved to this location some years before and because of the nerve-racking drive very seldom ventured to the bay area, ergo, if the mountain won’t come to you, you go to the high desert and boredom.
There is much to be said about boredom, however. For example, in my case boredom equated to relaxation, television watching, napping, television watching, eating, etc., etc. etc. I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my time while my wife visited. We were both happy. OH, my fourteen son? He would go fishing with a friend of my sister-in-law.
Yes, my son the great fisherman. I have no doubt that some day a noted author will write about his exploits with rod and reel. For example, there was the time he and two friends went to the percolation ponds to fish. They came back with nothing and he, a fishhook in his arm. So as to foster his legend at my sister-in-laws he went fishing and caught four fish. No not the way you might think. Another man on the lake, a friend of the man my son went out with, caught more than his limit. Seeing the luck, or lack of, he maneuvered over to the intrepid twosome and tossed his excess in their direction. Now you got the picture, my son “caught” them. OH, the story doesn’t end there. When the fishing was over, the wife of the partner to my son brought him home. While the young man of the lake told three women his harrowing tale, my sister-in-law’s beagle was dancing around their feet. In his excitement he snagged a hook. One and a half hours, round trip of seventy miles and forty dollars later the vet removed a fish hook from the dogs mouth. Total “catch” of the day, four lake trout and one beaglebass.
There was nothing in anything we had done to this point to signal the horror that was coming our way.
The drive from my sister-in-law’s house to my daughters home took us a short distance into Nevada and then down toward Sacramento. The roads were easy to drive on. Late summer traffic was light. The sun was setting. The temperature was somewhere between warm and comfortable. We arrived about eight in the evening and were met at the door with hugs and kisses. My wife and daughter began to unload the car. As, I had at the sister’s house; I took charge of my automatic. I certainly didn’t want any accidents to spoil the time we were having. If, I only knew then what I know now!
I told my daughter what I had and asked for a safe place to store it while we were there. She took me into a room used by her husband as an office slash den. She explained the door to the room was always locked. Inside the room was a closet with sliding doors. I wasn’t too worried about the fact that the closet couldn’t be locked because the handgun would be on the top shelf and the room itself would be locked. My concern was more for my granddaughter than my son.
With everything secure, there was time to visit before bed.
I am the quiet type. I sat, watched, and listened as my wife chatted away with daughter and my son teased my granddaughter. You can’t begin to imagine how happy the sight of them made me. I guess getting old changes one’s perception of the world and what in it is important. A few years ago, I would have viewed the same scene and been bored. Now, however, it was making my wife happy; that was more than money could buy for me.
After an hour or so, we all went off to bed. We were told that our son-in-law had to work late. He wasn’t expected home until early in the morning. Well, there was always tomorrow.
I don’t know how long I had been asleep when a loud noise woke me. I looked over at my wife as she breathed slowly. For a while I had to look long to make sure she was breathing, but finally I did see her chest rise and fall. Seeing my wife so relaxed made me think that the noise was only a dream, waking so startled I had forgotten. I lay there just looking at her a few minutes more; another of those moments you wish would linger longer. Then I turned on my side hoping to return to the sleep I had interrupted only to be startled once more. The door to our room opened, I turned to see who it was. On past visits our granddaughter would sneak into our room to sleep snuggled up to my wife. This wasn’t the case this time. Back lighted by a small night light in the hall a saw the silhouette of a man. For an eternity the shadow just stood in the door, I guess trying to see if he had been observed. I too lay frozen trying to make out who it was, and what it wanted.
As I watched, the shadow raised its arm. At the end of it there came a sudden bright flash of light and an ear-piercing noise followed closely by a soft thud like a finger testing the ripeness of a watermelon. I looked at my wife. There was a single sigh and then nothing. The shadow turned slightly adjusting his position in my direction. He raised his arm once more. All I could think of was to roll off the bed to the floor. If I was to escape alive there was no other alternative. There came the blinding flash and the loud noise, but this time it was followed by a louder and harder thud as my body hit the floor. Nothing moved, not me, not even the shadow.
There was only the silence caused by fear on my part, and confusion on the part of the shadowy figure seeing just one form in the bed. When we both regained our, I almost said sanity, how could this be sane? He needed time to assess the situation and devise a plan. I needed that time too. I had to control my emotions, if I had any chance to get out of this alive. I could be of no use to anyone dead. Then, I saw the feet start to move slowly to the foot of the bed. I knew he was coming to see if I was on the floor. He was coming to see if I was dead. I knew that if I continued to lie there, he would see I was still alive and finish what he had started. I squeezed under the bed watching the feet as I moved. He stopped at the foot of the bed, maybe trying to listen for sounds, or because I was making noise that would give my position away. At any rate, I froze. I was below my wife. Her body was right above me and I couldn’t help her.
The feet began to move again. I had to get out of there. He was on my side of the bed looking for the body he must be hoping was at least wounded. I edged my way clear of the bed and darted for the door to the hall. The hall led to stairs, and the front door to the house. I could hear heavy footsteps not far behind me.
Now, I have no reason to try to fool anyone. I am not Harrison Ford. All anyone would have to do is look at me to see what shape I’m in. Anyway, when I reached the corner of the house, I was on the verge of a heart attack. My chest was heaving. My breath came in pathetic gasps. There was a serious pain in my right arm. Hell, he didn’t have to shoot me I was dying where I stood. If didn’t quiet down and quickly, he would find me. I choked back my panting as he stopped in the front door. Again, he was giving me time. No, not out of the goodness of his heart. He didn’t want to be surprised by me. He was listening for me.
The light above the door also lighted the walk down which I had just run. As the shadow stepped of the porch onto the walk the light cast a shadow. It was the shadow that told me right where he was. It was long at first and with each step grew shorter until he was at the edge of the building inches from me. My eyes were fixed on the ground at our feet. I was watching the shadow. Slowly, its arm came up. At the end of it was the automatic. Inch by inch it began to move again toward me. The form moved to the edge of the building and now I saw the hand coming around the corner, it was holding my gun. I had one shot at staying alive. I had no choice, or at least none, I could think of at the time. I grabbed the wrist and pulled it around the corner. As the frame of the person holding the gun came into view, I raised my knee between his legs.
The shadow crumpled to the ground with a blood-chilling wail. I stood holding his wrist. He was kneeling at my feet. The pain must have been so great that as my hand slid to his, the gun dropped out. There it was resting in my palm. Reason vanished replaced by rage. Before I knew what happened there was a loud roar and blinding light. When the noise died away a lifeless body lay on the ground in a pool of blood. I pulled at the arm still firmly in my grasp to see his face. The body yielded and rolled over. There with dead eyes staring back at me was my son-in-law.
Lights in the houses around me came popping on. I heard a woman scream. My mind raced, not with what I had done but with the fact that my family was still in the house, and they needed me. I dropped the gun and ran inside. Once more to the stairs and into the bedroom I had shared with my wife. There was nothing I could do. The bullet tore through her head. I checked the other rooms and found the same sight repeated. My daughter, my son and my granddaughter, all dead.
When the police arrived, I told them just what I told you. What they had in addition to what I told you was the woman who had screamed. She told the police how she saw me standing over my son-in-law emptying an eight-round magazine into his back. The police did determine later that my son-in-law had been stealing from his company, but I was the only one in the house alive.
So, there you have it. What do you think?
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