Calm; Decay Volume 1: Who Killed Cock Robin?

PROLOGUE

Peter Gloom ought not to have wandered. Being a precocious child, he was forever inclined to believe that whatever hid around the next corner must be far more exciting than the mundane view from his parents' periphery. His mother, Carol, would have done well to keep a better eye on Peter. But this was her own street, barely a minute's walk from their front steps, and nothing so terrible could happen this close to home.

Mrs. Gloom would later omit that she had been in rapt conversation with the handsome Mr. Siegfried when Peter toddled out of sight. Over the coming weeks, as journalists and investigators placed Upton and Carol Gloom under the limelight time and again, there were many details of their lives they wished could have remained private. These same journalists, happily acting as oil in the machine set in motion, posed unanswerable questions to the public, leaving the democracy of justice to a uniformly uninformed world.

How could a parent let their child wander away?

These headlines would circle the drain of public attention, tapping readers' desire for tragedy, scorn, and questions of integrity before finally settling at tragedy once more.

Peter Gloom would never see those headlines, not that he could understand complex words like tragedy in any case.

The alleyways of upper Franconia were clean, but possessing enough shadows to send shivers of excitement down six-year-old Peter Gloom's tiny vertebrae. Peter knew he would be scolded for dirtying his leather afternoon shoes, but freedom was intoxicating, and the happy splashes his feet made in the alley's trickling stream were too enticing for his little mind to resist. The water wound up the alleyway, making a hard left where the bricks turned from dusty orange to an obsidian made gray by a fine fog.

Though it was barely past five in the afternoon, almost time for supper, the dark buildings and unreflective metal sheets hanging from the looming lofts gave Peter the impression that nighttime had snuck upon him unaware. The windows of the alley stood unlit, and the small stream of water beneath him crept into his socks with an ice-cold wetness. A single sign waved in the chilly breeze at the alley's cross-section, its neon glow winding into unreadable symbols.

Some grown-up part of Peter Gloom decided that now would be a good time to turn back. He had failed to bring a coat, and could see that the alleyway would continue to branch off indefinitely if he allowed his curiosity to carry him any further. After all, an adventure was only well and good so long as he had the certainty of returning to his mother. Besides, Peter knew he was no coward, but there was a flavor to the mist settling around him that did not agree with his stomach.

Peter turned his back on the violet glow, steeling himself to face whatever talking-to his mother surely had in store for him. He would follow the stream back to his home, and all would be well. Dismay settled in Peter Gloom's throat, however, when he found that the trickling water path did not follow a singular route back. The violet light illuminated no less than six paths the way Peter had come, none of which stood apart from the rest. Peter hurried past first one street, then a second, the splashing of his feet in cold water no longer kindling the glee it had only moments ago. Every path disguised itself as the next, dissolving into a winding white mist maze.

Peter's panic was swelling past what he could take. His ears strained in the silence, listening for anything that would lead him towards safety and warmth. How far from his mother could he be? The answer was unclear, every step either taking him closer to, or further away from the smells and sounds he so desperately needed.

"You've wound up far from home, haven't you?" The cool voice punctured the quiet of the alley. Peter came to a stop, relief filling his heart at the sight of a tall shape leaning in the frame of an open door. Grown-ups meant safety, they meant warm food and fresh clothes unstained by dismal alleys.

"I got lost. My name is Peter Gloom and I live on 13 Knightpawn Street," recited Peter. His father had trained him to repeat those words if they ever became separated. Upton Gloom had more than likely hoped the words would be spoken to a policeman.

But this figure was no policeman.

For one, a policeman's uniform did not include long, rough-hewn robes, tarnished by the dampness of the early evening's fog. For another, policemen did not wear masks covering the majority of their faces, this one, a white cotton drape that hooked around the nose to hang loosely past the chin.

"Well, Peter Gloom, I am very sorry that you have become lost," said the masked figure.

In later reports, actual police officers would struggle to identify normal tools that could recreate what had been done to Peter Gloom. The best estimation by the coroner was that claw-like hooks had been used, too sharp to belong to any wild animal.

"Can you help me find my way home?" Peter asked the stranger. He surmised that it must be a woman, its hunched back and narrow shoulders too small for any grown man. Its voice was too shrill for a man as well, trembling with some rustling emotion Peter could not identify.

"You must first tell me something," said the figure. Her eyes shone from beneath a matted hood, two shards of ice that sparkled with an excitement out of place in the dead alley.

"If I can," said Peter, uncertain.

"Do you think I'm beautiful?" The ice waited expectantly.

Peter realized he had been retreating with each breath, his back now pressed against the blackened wall. "I don't know. I cannot see your face."

The ice crinkled in response to her grin beneath the veil. Slender fingers reached from the robe to pull at the loose cloth.

Peter Gloom's scream reached his mother, only a block away. Both adults sprinted towards the wail, terror painting pictures in their minds as the world funneled into a single note of agony.

Mr. Siegfried and Mrs. Gloom rounded the corner, stopping in the red-touched water at the scene before them. Peter Gloom had died before the scream finished echoing. There was no hope, no wish that Peter could be saved, because there could be no return from what found him in that dark place.

The woman beneath the robes smiled at Mrs. Gloom and Mr. Siegfried, her mouth one long slit stretching from ear to ear. That same smile had been lovingly carved into the face of Carol Gloom's only son, an afterimage of his own final view before he was mercifully allowed to fade to black.