He took a breath, tried again, only slower, with more care, pressing down each digit before pressing the ENTER button.

The signal clicked and the doors rose.

Ducking under the rising door with Fran, he rushed through the garage, opened the door to the utility room of the house, which led to the kitchen.

“Roy? Connie?” Marv called.

Racing through the kitchen his mind hurled questions. Did someone fall down the stairs? Did they have some sort of seizure? Hurrying around a corner toward the stairs at the front of the house Marv’s foot caught on something, throwing him to the floor.

Fran screamed.

Marv had tripped over Connie Tullock.

She was lying on her stomach, blood pooled and webbed around her.

A muscle, an electrode, or some neurological switch spasmed in Marv’s brain, and his mind went numb, thrusting him into shock, failing to convince him that what he was seeing was real.

Everything moved in dreamlike slow motion.

Fran shouted something about getting a towel for Connie as Marv went to the stairs. Roy was lying on the floor, eyes open wide, fixed on the ceiling. Marv shouted his name, taking stock of his polo shirt encased in blood, shredded, as if repeatedly slashed. His face, arms, hands were laced with blood. The floor was covered with splatters and ribbons of blood.

Marv saw suitcases near the front, opened, clothes and toiletries spilling from them as if someone had rifled through them. Two of the smaller suitcases had colorful cartoon patterns and he suddenly thought of the children.

Neal and Linda.

Marv’s focus shifted up the blood-splotched stairs. Fran’s whimpers as she got on her knees next to Connie filled the house. Marv followed the blood marks up the stairs. Taking one step after the other he moved into a bedroom that belonged to one of the kids.

He turned to the open doors of the closet and froze.

Six-year-old Neal was facedown on the floor. His face was turned sideways, eyes and mouth open as if he were crying out. Blood haloed around his head and fanned from his body, making Marv think of a snow angel.

Blood angel.

Neal’s body lay, almost protectively, at the feet of his little sister.

Linda was sitting on the floor, her back against the closet wall, head bent down, hair covering her face, her T-shirt, soaked in blood, a stuffed toy polar bear on her lap, smudged with blood.

A throaty harsh sob shot from Marv as he fell to his knees and took Linda’s small, cold hand in his. His chest heaved, releasing another guttural sob, as he reached out with his trembling hand to stroke Neal’s hair and whisper a prayer.

Marv stayed that way, unsure if seconds, or minutes, or all time had passed, his heart hammering as he searched the room, the ceiling, the heavens for an answer to the horror.