Jared's Little Playground

by Ed Petty

A novella of horror that will keep you on the edge-of-your-chair.

ISBN 1-59431-699-6

Cover Art by Maggie Dix



Evil’s a sickness. There’s only one cure when murder plays a part in it: revenge!

— Author

I sat down inside a holding cell and felt cold from fear. I couldn’t describe it better. Everything seemed jumbled up then. I could only sit and look at the cell’s gray walls. Someone marked out the days he spent there with a crayon. I saw a row of 114 red vertical lines. It was three months and three and a half weeks. They were lucky to share one another’s company. I was locked up for killing someone. I was being punished externally, by the walls that surrounded me, and internally, as I struggled to understand what happened. I paid the proverbial price for killing Jared. I wavered on condemnation’s edge, but felt strangely pleased. I told the two men who arrested me it was done in self-defense. One of them was a fat sheriff who smoked cigars. His name was Glen Dougherty, and he liked to read nickel-and-dime store crime novels. Dennis Kent, who was his overzealous and sanguine deputy, was perfection wearing his neatly ironed uniform with its badge that was his symbol of pride and courage in the line of duty. It was pinned onto his shirt’s left pocket. It had a starched collar and cuffs. He stood there at his boss’s side, saw him turn a key inside the cell door’s lock and gave me a contemptuous look. It was hard to get them to believe in my innocence. They wanted to throw questions at me instead. My answer to their questions was another question: “Why don’t you let me figure out things before you push yourself onto me, Mister Prosecutor?” Doctors were paid a lot of money to say how therapeutic it was to tell traumatic things to someone. Although I wanted to recount that day and what led up to it, I didn’t think it’d help me.

***

I drove through town inside my pick-up truck three days earlier. A newscaster read a bulletin over the radio after Dream Lover by Bobby Darin and before Sleep Walk from Santo and Johnny:

“Jared Underwood, who killed 12 people in a lake massacre almost six years ago, has reportedly escaped from Cooper County’s Institute for the Mentally Disturbed and Criminally Insane. “The institution, along with Federal, Local and State authorities, has started an area-wide search, but hasn’t recaptured Jared. “Local residents are strongly advised to stay indoors. Don’t go outside unless needed, and keep your doors and windows locked. Underwood’s thought very dangerous. “Stay tuned to KLAS — we’re your 24-hour classic-wax gold mine — for further information.”