The stench of blood fills my nostrils as I traverse the kitchen. I go through the doorway into the next room. The first thing I see is the yellow-white slash of Skid’s flashlight beam. We’re standing in a large room backlit by two tall, narrow windows. I make a 360-degree sweep with my flashlight. “What happened?”

Even as I ask the question, my beam lands on the first body. A middle-aged Amish male lies facedown in the center of the room.

“We got two more over there.” Skid’s voice seems to come from a great distance.

My hand threatens to shake as I run my beam along the floor, but I hold it steady as the light reveals two more bodies. My vision tunnels when I realize the victims are children. The first is a teenaged boy. Gangly arms and legs. Bad haircut. Lying prone, he wears a faded work shirt, suspenders and trousers that are slightly too short from a recent growth spurt. His hands are bound behind his back. I see the black shimmer of blood at the back of his head.

A few feet away, a younger boy lies on his side in an ocean of blood, some of which has soaked into a homemade rug. I guess him to be nine or ten years old. He’s wearing a nightshirt. Like the other boy, his hands are bound. The soles of his feet are dirty, and I know that just scant hours before he’d run barefoot and carefree through this house. From the pale oval of his face, cloudy eyes seem to stare right at me. I see blood on his cheek and realize the bullet exited through his mouth, tearing through his lips, blowing out several teeth.

It’s a surreal scene and for the span of several heartbeats, I can’t get my mind around it. Shock is like a battering ram, assaulting my brain. Dead kids, I think, and a hot bloom of outrage burgeons in my chest. The urge to go to them, perform CPR, try to save them, is powerful. But I know they’re gone. The last thing I want to do is contaminate the scene.

I shift my beam back to the adult. A hole the size of my fist mars the back of his head. I see bone fragments, flecks of brain matter and blood in his hair. Exit wound, I think, and realize he was shot from the front.

“Did you check for survivors?” I hear myself ask.

Skid’s silhouette looms against the window. Even in the near darkness, I see him shake his head. “I checked pulses. They’re DOA.”

I look around, and it strikes me that the son of a bitch who did this could still be in the house. “You clear the place?”

“Not yet.”

I hit my radio. “This is 235. Mona, I’m 10-23.”

“What’s going on out there, Chief?”