The Older

The Murder

On the night of Noah's 3rd birthday, October 22st 1991, at exactly 5:00am in the morning , was when the world ended for Fate. This night defined all most the rest of her life. And although she didn't understand it, and because she couldn't comprehend it or ever come to terms with it, This was the very night, that time would stop for Fate.

On the day of, they had just came home that night, from celebrating Noah's birthday. He had just turned three. The family had spent the whole day at the zoo together, along with their closest friends. It was a really fun day and when they arrived home, they were all super exhausted from the trip. The kids got their nightly bath and Fate and Stephen together read them their nightly story before bed and all seemed well, Or so they thought.

Fate and Stephen ended up in bed by 9:00pm that night and they both said their nightly prayers to themselves and fell asleep. They were both awoken though to Stephen's daily alarm clock that went off every morning to wake Stephen up for work. He always got up early for work because it took him about two hours to get their with traffic in the city being heavy in the mornings. This was something Fate was never truly comfortable with. Their home was the first house on the side of the street, right next to the corner store. She always got a little nervous on the days Stephen left early because she didn't really like being alone.

Stephen assured her though that everything would be fine on those days, and for emergencies, and safety reasons. he left her a gun inside of the safe in their room. That way she could protect herself from any harm and the kids too. She also normally had her cell phone charged and right beside the bed, so she could easily call 911 if something were to alarm her.

This morning things played out as they usually did, the only thing that she had forgotten was that her phone wasn't charged when Stephen awoke that morning. So she left it in the living room on the dining room table, to charge, right after he got dressed and left for work. It was Stephen's job to make sure all the doors were locked before he left and on that morning he doubled check and everything looked fine.

Fate ended up going back to her bedroom and falling back asleep, right after checking on the kids in the kids room, which were both fast asleep themselves. She felt a bit eerie in her stomach but she really didn't understand why, but that didn't stop her from going back to bed. She just figured nothing was wrong and tried not to really think about it. It was all apart of the daily routine and seemed so normal until suddenly it wasn't.

There was a neighborhood teen, His name was James, who lived down the way, who would watch and scout out the other neighbors normal routine. He did this because he was a thief and him and his thug friends liked to steal and break in to homes when people were gone. He learned when people came home and when they left, and he knew that Stephen would go to work around 4:00am because he did so every week day that he had lived there.

He was up extra early that morning along with some of his teenage friends who were spending the night with him, and they were eagerly waiting for Stephen's truck to leave his driveway. They in their minds had everything planned out, all they were going to do was sneak in under the garage door, break in, by jail-breaking the locked back door, steal whatever they could find which was valuable, and then quietly sneak back out. They knew the kids would be sleeping as they usually did and they saw that Fate had gone back to bed because she turned off her light as she usually did. They didn't expect the whole ordeal to last longer than thirty minutes and they were pumped up and excited about bringing home the new loot. What could go wrong? Their plan seemed easy and do able and it's not like they hadn't ever stolen or broken in to someone's house before?

Well, One of the boys, his name was Tommy, had been hiding a secret though, from his friends, that night, which was that he was carrying a nine mill hand gun, loaded, in his pocket that night. The other boys including James had no idea Tommy was carrying a gun on him. Tommy also didn't believe he would really use it, it was just in case shit happened, and that's how he justified it in his mind.

So at 5:00am the boys began their ordeal, and Tommy and James both snuck into the garage under the door as planned and began jail-breaking the back door, while the other two boys who were with them that night stayed back on the other side of the street, to be on the lookout. Fate was fast asleep herself by this time and they were so quiet and experienced she didn't hear a thing. Until she did.

But it was Noah that she heard, not the neighborhood boys, he was crying for her. "Mama, Mama." He whined. She awoke and for a moment she thought she should just get up and go check on him, but he only said it once and since she didn't hear him again, she decided it would be okay to go ahead and lay back down.

Little three year old Noah was just a little thirsty, and since mama didn't come when he called he also decided he would go and try to get himself a drink from the kitchen. All he wanted was a water bottle and his momma had lots of those sitting on the floor underneath the dining room table.

When Noah walked into the front room he heard something going on down the hallway in the spare bedroom in the back. Suddenly his thirst for water changed into pure curiosity and he began his walk towards the door. The light was on and that wasn't normal and he wondered to himself, what's going on in there, maybe mama was up early and she would get him something to drink.

But that's not what he saw when he opened the door. It wasn't' this momma, but instead he saw Tommy and James, staring at him in a shock like horror.
Noah was terrified and he began to scream.

"Mama!Mama!Mama!..." at the same time as he did so, Tommy pulled out the loaded gun from his pocket and There was a loud Bang.

Fate heard his screaming and the gun shot sound and as she scrambled out of bed to get to her son, she could hear the breaking of a window and some muffled voices disappearing out of it into the distance. By the time she reached Noah, it was too late. Everything that happened after that was like a big blur to Fate. Fate picked up her bleeding son of the floor, and in a rush, while she held him, found the phone she had left on the dining room table and called 911 as quickly as she could.

"911. What's your emergency?" She heard an operator say as Fate was stumbling to get the words out of her mouth.

" It's my son, he is only three, he is bleeding, he was shot, someone was in my house, he is not responding , what do I do? What do I do?" She cried out hysterically.

"What is your location and address mam? I am sending out an officer and an  ambulance are on the way."the operator said calmly.

" I live at 1800 Jacky St in Pearland Texas. What should I do, he won't stop bleeding, I think he is dead, he won't respond to me." Horrified and terrified Fate was crying out for help.

After what seemed like an eternity, the police arrived along with an ambulance and they found Fate inside crying on the living room, covered in her son, Noah's blood, rocking him like a baby in her arms. She was singing him his favorite lullaby. For she knew he was already gone and it was too late, he was Already dead.

The police then searched the whole house for the intruders but they were long gone by then. While searching they found five year old Anna Lynn who was hiding under her bed terrified for she had also heard the loud bang and her brothers cry for help.

By the time Stephen got home after receiving the call from work, the EMT had already placed Noah in a body bag and they were loading him into the ambulance to take to the city morg. And when he found Fate and finally got to her, she was still sitting on the floor in shock but this time she was holding and rocking her daughter, Anna Lynn, who was crying only because her mama was.

After that Night, for a few weeks, Fate tried to go back to the way it was before. She put on a fake smile and insanely pretended as if nothing had happened. Stephen tried to talk to her about it often, wondering why she was acting so well, when he was devastated
himself and barely moving on. But Fate wouldn't discuss it with him and she became very irritated and spaced out when he tried bringing up that Noah was gone.

But Fate's optimism only lasted a month, and then suddenly she became very ill with a flue like cold. She stayed locked away in her bedroom for four days. And on the fifth day when he awoke her from sleep to check on her it was as if she was gone.