It was late one night. Raining. The kind that comes down in harsh sheets asking for your repentance. I was five and inside my parents old station wagon, watching the rain obscure the outside world. They had left the heat on but my body remained ice as I took uneven gasps of air. My parents said everything was going to be fine. But parents lie, even at the age of five I knew something was amiss. The way the cackled and blasted the music. How the car swerved as if it wanted to get away from them too. Mom whipped around to see if I was joining in and headlights from a passing car illuminated the wicked gleam in her eye and cast shadows in all the wrong areas; a carricature from your worst nightmare. Something was deeply wrong and I knew that to my bones but my naive self still believed in the innate goodness that all parents have. I thought about soaring above and away, free, as I clutched Mr. Jenkins tighter. The car came to a screeching halt and my parents jumped out of the car as if they were running from themselves. They hustled each other as they approached an unassuming house, all occupants well and truly asleep. I squeezed my eyes shut and let the rain and my imagination be taken away. All too soon they exited the house. They jostled each other like two broken marionettes. They launched back into the car and the smell of Pennie’s was so overwhelming I gagged. My dad turned and looked at me,

“ Look at what your mom and I got as payments from the Harold’s; aren’t they so generous?” His question sounded like a threat so I bobbed my head in reply.

“Th-they gave you all that,” I asked.

“ Hey we got what we were owed from them,” the warning in my moms voice didn’t go unnoticed.

“ that was real nice of them.” I pressed further into the seat to put more distance between us. It wouldn’t be until much later in life and a few docu series later, that I truly understood, my parents were serial killers.