My scream cut off with a gagging sound and I started to choke. I staggered back from my bed, back from the ghastly, horrifying scene I had uncovered.
Mr. Benjamin, my pet bunny, cut to pieces. His body shredded, his blood spread over my sheet, a dark red puddle. My poor bunny . . . poor Mr. Benjamin . . . murdered.
How? Who?
I couldn’t hold it in. I screamed again. Mom and Heather burst into my room. I pointed wildly, my mouth open but unable to speak. I forced down the sour taste of vomit in my mouth.
I watched them approach the bed. Mom uttered a quiet gasp and covered her face with her hands. Heather screamed and spun away, unable to stand the horror she saw.
The three of us backed away from my bed. Mom shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe what she saw. Heather’s chest was heaving up and down. She was wheezing with each shallow breath. “No,” she muttered. “No. No way.”
We huddled out in the hall. An awkward three-way hug didn’t last very long. Mom’s eyes grew wide. “This means someone was in our house,” she said, her voice trembling. “Someone came into our house and did this.”
Heather hugged herself tightly. “I . . . I thought I heard footsteps. In the hall. But I thought I was dreaming it.”
Mom grabbed Heather’s arm. “You heard someone?”
Heather nodded. “But I didn’t really wake up. I was half asleep . . . dreaming.”
I started to sob. “Poor Mr. Benjamin. Who would do that?”
I saw that Heather was crying, too.
“We have to call the police,” Mom said. “Someone very dangerous is out to harm everyone. Someone cruel and sadistic . . . and crazy.”
Keith, where were you tonight? I wondered. I started back to my room.
Mom grabbed my arm. “Don’t touch anything,” she said. “The police won’t want you to touch anything.”
“I just want to change,” I said. “I don’t want to be in a nightshirt when they get here.”
“Just be careful. Don’t touch a thing.”
I wiped tears off my cheeks as I stepped into my room. I tried to avoid looking at the bed. Just being in the room gave me cold shudders.
Who was in here? Who hated me enough to kill my pet rabbit? Who hated all of us?
I reached for the top dresser drawer to pull out a T-shirt. And something caught my eye. A folded-up sheet of yellow paper on the dresser top. I gazed at it. I didn’t remember putting a sheet of paper there.
I grabbed it. Unfolded it. And read the words printed neatly in red ink:
The Shadyside Shade strikes again.
