In The Shed

The number of dark places Lawrence owns, who knows, but Lawrence and the carriage driver step inside the backyard shed where they place a puppet without strings in a chair.

*Squeak*

A mouse runs past Lawrence.

*Squeeeak-*

Lawrence kicks the mouse, leaving it to squeal before it takes its last breath half across the room.

"How long does the drug last?" Lawrence asks.

"The drug is made to dissolve within 24 hours of use." The carriage driver responded.

"I see, so as long as we keep it on schedule, he'll be an obedient little thing without trouble."

"That's correct sir."

"Good, keep him in here until I come back, I have a bitch of a wife to deal with."

"Understood sir, but if I may add, why don't you use the drug on your wife Vivian? The drug was created for obedience." The carriage driver arrogantly asked.

*Sigh*

"If I wanted to, but even I have to be careful of her family name."

"Of course sir, I apologize for my greedy comment."

"It's fine, just wait for me to come back."

Lawrence exited the dark shed to head inside his mansion.

As he approaches the back door he is met with the door swinging open so suddenly and face to face with his wife who squints her eyes in disgust at the mere sight of him.

"What do you want?" Lawrence asks with an annoyed face and tone.

"Was that a child that you just brought back there?" His wife asks with the same disgusted face.

"That is none of your business, I thought we had agreed to stay away from-"

Interrupted mid-sentence, Lawrence's wife starts to yell "ARE YOU JOKING ME? YOUR BUSINESS IS MY BUSINESS WHEN IT IS DONE AT OUR HOME WHERE OUR CHILD SLEEPS!"

"I get it, I get it, just calm yourself" Lawrence hushes his wife.

"What I'm doing is all for our daughter, in my line of work, she needs someone to protect her if there ever comes a time when I'm not around," Lawrence explains.

"I can't with you right now, I want you gone! Leave and take whoever you brought with you!" His wife demands.

"... Very well." Lawrence heads back to the backyard without expression.

As Lawrence makes his way to the shed, he is suddenly interrupted by his daughter yelling.

"Dad!" Katrina yells for his attention.

"Katrina get back in the house!" Heard from a distance, Katrina ignores her as she runs towards Lawrence.

"What is it, my little princess?" Lawrence puts on a smile.

Katrina once again jumps up on Lawrence hugging him, well, from behind that's what it seems like but from their point of view, Katrina is slipping a note into Lawrence's suit pocket as she wishes him goodnight then jumps off of him running back inside.

"Katrina, when did you wake up?" The wife is heard asking.

The voices of Katrina and the wife become softer as the wife shuts the door leaving nothing else but crickets to be heard.

Taking out the note from his suit pocket, curious as to what the contents could be.

Lawrence looks at the drawing that looked like him and her holding hands.

Lawrence chuckles as if he thought it was cute, but just a moment later, he takes out a match and burns the drawing while keeping a smile on his face.

Letting go of the paper as it slowly became charcoal black he headed back to the shed without looking back.

Lawrence lights a lantern in the dark engulfed shed.

"Zac, stand up," Lawrence commanded.

Zac stands up in a very neat manner doing exactly as he was told.

"Zac, jump up and down." Lawrence continues to test the drug's effects by commanding Zac to do very simple things.

It was only after those two commands that he finally asked Zac to do something horrific.

"Zac, kill that man standing beside you." Lawrence points at the carriage driver.

"Wait what?" The carriage says with a frightened face.

Without hesitation, Zac takes a rusty fire poker that has collected dust from being in the shed for very long.

While the carriage driver starts to step back in fear, Zac calmly walks toward him with the fire stick, gripping it as if he were holding a sword.

The driver snaps back with a fierce look, remembering that Zac is just a kid.

Thinking he can take Zac on, he brazenly holds up his fists in defense, ready to punch Zac at the moment Zac comes closer.

Lawrence stands in the background waiting for the fight to unravel.

"Sir, why are you doing this to me?" The driver asks.

"Don't tell me you're afraid?" Lawrence smirks at the driver.

Without any response, the driver decides to take the offensive and throw in a punch, but to no surprise, Zac's reflexes kick in from his training, then Zac decides to become more forward with his approach by kicking himself forward to gain speed.

Flying at the driver, the driver hurries to find something to defend himself with to try and end it more quickly.

Finding a thick piece of wood, the driver uses it to shield himself as soon as Zac was so close to stabbing him in the eye with the poker.

Holding their stance as Zac struggles to take out the poker, he eventually lets go and goes beneath the wood making the situation for the driver more and more disadvantageous now that his wood had a poker in it, but he knew letting down his guard now that he has seen what Zac is capable of, the driver also hurries to let go of the wood to try and defend against Zac's next attack.

Found it more and more difficult to take the child on due to how small of space they are in plus Zac was smaller, and the driver has no choice but to blindly hope to hit Zac with random attacks such as kicking and moving his body around as much as possible to keep Zac from getting the upper hand by getting behind him.

While the driver was backed up into a counter, his hand slips back only to feel his hand hit something solid.

Looking as quickly as possible, he finds a brick laying there, feeling lucky as soon as he's about to grab it.

*Ugh*

The driver's fingertips are at the brick but he looks back from sudden pain, revealing that Zac decided to pick the wood up with the poker in it, driving it through the driver's waist.

*Crash*

The driver falls to the ground leaving him to bleed immensely.

"Sir… Please... Save me-"

*Shink*

A screw is driven right through the driver's eye without notice, leaving him to take his last breath.

That was it, Zac's first kill.

"Zac, come here,"

Unaware of what he's done, Zac is suddenly called back by Lawrence.

"How did it feel? Did it feel good?" Lawrence grins while asking Zac.

*Silence*

"Ah right, You may speak." Remembering that Zac must be told to do everything leaves Lawrence irritated.

"I don't know," Zac responds with a blank stare.

"Are you saying you didn't feel anything? Respond." Lawrence tries to nudge a more sufficient answer out of Zac.

"I don't know." Zac proceeds to respond with his blank stare.

*Sigh*

"I guess this will have to do."

"I want you to clean up this mess and hide the body," Lawrence commands him.

Without a response, Zac blindly responds to his exact commands without any restraint.

"Though Katrina whines about how you look, I think she'll come around once she's played with you. Oh that girl, so greedy, she's always wanting perfect, though I guess that's how I raised her to be." Lawrence complains.

"Well, enough about that. Let's get you to a more secure location until I can give you to Katrina." Lawrence says.

"Once you're finished, meet me outside."

~ [3 hours later]

Leaving the dark shed, Zac comes outside before sunset.

Though cleaning up would be very tiresome to most, Zac steps out with no change in how he feels.

"Done? Good! Let's get going, I have another driver waiting for us, let's go." Lawrence says as he throws down a half-burnt cigar, stomping the flames out on the grass.

While Katrina and Lawrence's wife are fast asleep by now thinking he had left sooner, Lawrence leaves quietly to his carriage, fading down the road.

~ [2 Years Later]

Inside a beautiful mansion with long staircases leading up to the second floor, a marble floor with a ruby red carpet covering half of it, and white silk drapes that hang over the long and curved windows.

A boy in a tuxedo is shown walking up the long stairs heading towards a beautifully stained wooden door.

*Knock Knock*

"Come in!" A lady shouts from the room.

Entering with a silver serving plate in his left hand, a silver spoon, and a white bowl filled with steaming hot soup.

The boy enters only to crash into the lady who let him inside.

Revealing the boy in the nice tux to be Zac, he looks up to Katrina.