In a nice suburban environment, amongst the treed boulevards and leafy cul-de-sacs, you could be excused for a sense of security. A good career, decent savings, and youre away. Crime is away yonder, we could agree. Nobody commits crime around here, they live too far away and none could ever afford to actually dwell here.
Around the first world the feeling would be mutual. But not today. Not on this street.
The screams of a human voice could be heard in every house. They shrilled the air.
The police were called immediately, yet for a good twenty minutes none arrived. The crime rate in this particular area was so low that they had no reason to man a patrol every few blocks.
By the time the police arrived, it was a single car. The onlookers in the street watched as a fat officer staggered out of his car and waddled over to the house. His young deputy, six feet at least and no more than 10 stone, stalked behind.
The door was open, that is to say unlocked. After knocking twice, they took the initiative and entered the house.
Looking down the passage they could see straight down to the other side of the house.
The elder officer nodded to his deputy to check out up stairs, as he headed towards the kitchen, his hand ready on his pistol in its holster.
Slowly, if he had any other pace, the officer stopped at the kitchen doorway, and pushed the half closed door open.
The stench was overpowering. But the senses when overcome with one challenge are oblivious to others.
The officer, Sergeant Tubbs would you believe, was aghast. He reached for his pistol faster than he could gather any object, save a spoon for desert.
"Good morning, my friend. Would you care for a seat or a refreshing glass of water?"
His hands shaking, his gun held up at the man sat at the table, Tubbs backed off.
He caught sight of a photo on the table. A man dressed in a blue top, not this man, and a woman were kissing on a desk.
Not reknowned for his detective skills, a quick look around showed more pictures on the walls and shelves of this man at the table and the woman in the photos. He surmised the two were a couple, and she had been unfaithful.
As slow and clumsy as Tubbs was, he was not without courage. Gathering his senses and becoming a police officer once more, he looked at the maniac sat before him.
The scene before him was grotesque.
The man, tall and handsome, had cooked an animal. Too big to be a fowl, too small to be beef. The melted remains of a plastic collar showed around the animals neck. The eyes had burst in the intense heat and the hair had singed away, he thought.
"What have you done, sir?" inquired Tubbs. "Surely you have not just killed a poor cat or small dog?"
"Yes, officer," replied the man, "That is exactly what I have done."
Before reply came from Tubbs, the skinny deputy burst in the room.
"Boss, boss, upstairs quick." He said, green with shock.
"Theres a woman hanging from the loft-door. Shes dead!"
Tubbs put his gun up once more, wondering what in gods name happened in theses middle-class houses behind closed doors and what horrors awaited elsewhere.
"Oh yes," the man at the table said, his eyes a raging blue mist.
"Also I think my wife may be home."
