Murderous intent

Come let me tell you a tale full of killing opinions, sadistic glee, and an end that won’t be pretty, like those silly little tales you tell your children at night…..

James withers was a man that no one wanted to cross paths with. Ever since withers’s was a child, his life was filled with nothing but misery and woe. His father abusive and his mother gone three weeks after his birth, withers was ultimately raised as an only child. The only comfort he got in his younger years was a small cubby hole that he hid in when his father came home late with the smell of cheap liquor on his breath. Even that was taken away from him at the age of twelve when he hit puberty and sadly grew too big to fit in his only sanctuary. School was no different to the boy than his own home.

Day after day he was constantly teased through verbal torture and brutal beatings from fellow classmates. This onslaught of abuse rendered from both sides of his life left poor withers aloof and constantly asking why. The first break in his hellhole existence took the form of a knife. It was a simple enough kitchen knife that, in James’s utter delight, ended the life of his father. It was an innocent enough mistake his father had, one night, come home again with the odor of spirits on his breath. When James questioned his father if he had gone drinking tonight he flew into a fit of rage.
His father charged at him as James held his fists up in self defense, unaware that the knife he had been cutting vegetables with a moment ago was still grasped tightly in his hand. The police report itself stated that it was manslaughter out of self defense. That the victim had a large amount of alcohol in his system, and a history of drunken brawls. It was ironic that he had died by bleeding to death due to a punctured liver. The case was closed and withers walked a free man due to insufficient evidence.

After his father’s death James joined the army. Just mere days of graduating the academy war was declared and the unfortunate soul was shipped over to Vietnam where death was more common than sand. It was during that time when withers met his first, and last, friend. He was a member of withers’s recon group and went by the name of Samuel p. lantow. Sam was a simple man having to do with being raised in the southern part of the u.s. When they first met each other it was like two long lost brothers come together. The two friends fought side by side in the war for months.

On one miserable day though, their friendship and James’s sanity, came to an abrupt halt. It had been a simple enough mission: scout ahead and make sure the area was safe. What the group didn’t know was the orders were false and an ambush was waiting for them. The only reason James came out of the fray alive was because of Sam. One of the enemy had spotted them both running back for help and fired on them.

Sam jumped into the gun’s firing path which was directed right towards James. Sam collapsed to the ground and by the time James got to him his body hung limp and lifeless. After seeing his only friend perish at the hands of the enemy Withers blacked out. He finally came to three miles away, covered in blood and surrounded by bodies both friend and foe. The report the military gave was the entire squadron was wiped out save for a private by the name of James Withers.

He charged mentally unstable and unfit for service. James giggled loudly and muttered under his breath the list of ways he killed everyone all the way home. Once Withers was back in the states he took what money he had earned from service and bought a small home near the rugged wilderness of North Dakota. For years Withers did nothing but sit in his small house and laugh about how the frightened faces of the soldiers filled his heart with joy. Soon Withers’s little patch of heaven became infested with the thing he had so hoped would come: people. On the day he saw the first family move in, Withers began his macabre plan.

Over the years Withers had saved up his money through doing odd jobs and part-time down at the local video store. This extra income went to Withers’s rather expensive hobby of collecting replicas of ancient armor and weaponry. Many of his blades were sharpened to an edge so fine, they were said to have cut through a pistol barrel. Withers waited and waited for days. Then days turned to months until finally the summer days were replaced with brown leaves, decorative hallows eve signs and the laughter of children as they went from house to house asking for the traditional giving out of candy. Yes it was Halloween and for three little kids it would be their last.

The kids had been out most of the evening enjoying themselves by gorging on already earned candy when it was decided by their leader to go to one more house and turn in for the night. It was rather unfortunate that they had to choose withers’s home. All three bustled up the door laughing and playing the whole way there. The tallest of them got up to the door first and rung the doorbell of James’s old home. Within seconds the ex military man was there, a bowl full of candy in his pale hands.

With a smile on his face withers went through his mind on what he could do to his very first victims since Vietnam. All three kids saw the bowl brimming with delectable goodies and saying trick or treat they raised their bags. Withers just smiled calmly and placed the bowl down. Gazing towards they children, withers asked them if they had seen anything scary this hallows eve which came with a rather quick and usual common round of no’s. The ex military man’s smile grew as he asked if they wanted to see something really scary.

Now normally the children would say no, walk away, and that would be it, but the thought of seeing something actually scary on this night tempted them. One by one the boys shuffled into withers’s garage where he told them that they would see something so scary they would ‘die of fright’. The three kids looked all around the garage hoping to see what the man had promised. What they hadn’t seen was James locking the door to the garage and quietly slipping out a dagger from the sleeve of his flannel jacket. With a well practiced motion, James brought the blade down upon the smallest boy’s neck. He crumpled to the ground quickly and, to James’s delight, quietly not even alerting the other two.

With the second boy James was not so lucky. The dagger’s tip, that was intended for his neck as well, slipped into his shoulder blade due to the kid shifting his weight towards the left moving him ever so slightly. The young lad saw the blade sticking out of the left side of his shoulder and screamed. The wail alerted the last of the trio and, as Withers’s pulled the blade out of his intended second victim, he ran towards where they entered. James quickly finished the second child by stabbing him up through the ribcage in his quick army training manner. The boy was dead before he hit the floor. The third and final unfortunate soul was scrambling at the locked door screaming for help. Withers could not hide his sadistic glee as he walked slowly toward the now crying child. Within minutes he too was one the ground, lifeless as the very blade withers caressed.

After a week of long and tearful searching the three were never found. A month later they were declared dead and a funeral was held for them the following Sunday. What the townsfolk didn’t know was that the man who had killed them sat in the back pew and giggled madly to himself as the mourning relatives took turns paying their respects to the dearly departed.


Over the years withers killed again and again, but those are whole other tales and shall be set aside for another day. In the meantime Come! Let me tell you a tale not long forgotten……