Sweet Children

This is a short story that I wrote for a college writing course. It's a modern twist on Hansel and Gretel.

“When dawn broke, they started to wander about the forest, seeking a path, but all hope soon faded. They were well and truly lost.”

​~Hansel & Gretel by the Brothers Grimm
 
​The year is 2008 and a family of four living in suburbia is struggling to make ends meet. The family of four who once had a lovely home, now live in a small cramped house a little ways outside of town. The family of four consists of a father, step-mother, and two children. The eldest child’s name is Travis and he’s 12 years old. Travis has a younger sister whose name is Anabel and she’s 8 years old. Although the children loved their father, he completely ignored the fact that their step-mother abused them both physically and mentally. She would abuse the children for the smallest mistakes and misunderstandings. She often called them weak and stupid and she wanted nothing more than to never see them again. One night the step-mother actually got her wish after abusing the children for what would be the last time.
​Travis, being the extremely cunning and smart child that he was, concocted a plan the previous night during one of his daily beatings. After his father and step-mother were asleep, Travis and Anabel quietly crept out of their room and went downstairs. Travis instructed Anabel to grab a knife from the kitchen and to keep a look out while he went out to their father’s woodshed to grab his axe. A few moments later Travis appeared back in the house. He quietly crept back upstairs with Anabel following behind him. When they reached their parents room, Travis made sure that he was quiet when he entered. Anabel and Travis went over to their step-mother’s side of the bed. He shook his step-mother awake. She looked up at him and noticed the axe in his hand. Before she could even speak or scream, Travis raised the axe above his head and then casted it down slowly near his step-mother’s neck. She opened her eyes and realized that she lay untouched. She glared at her step-son and then uttered the words, “You’re just like your father, weak and stupid.” Travis looked down at his step-mother with an evil look that would make God tremble in fear and the devil proud. Travis uttered the word, “Goodbye,” and then casted the axe down upon his step-mother’s stomach, killing her instantly. The screams that were heard before she died were enough to alert their father who came running into the bedroom in sheer panic. A look of horror came across their father’s face as he looked over at the bloody mess that Travis had made. His marital bed was now stained and soaked with his now dead wife’s blood. “What have you done?” Their father screamed. “You did nothing! You just sat there and did nothing! Day after day you did nothing to stop her! Day after day you let her abuse us and day after day we sat there and took it like little sheep. She won’t ever hurt us again. I killed her!” Travis said. His face and clothes were covered in blood spatter and he was hysterical and crying. Their father looked at them in disgust. He couldn’t let them go unpunished. He told his children that he was going to call the police. But before he could even exit the room, Travis instructed Anabel to hold their father at knife point. She did so and their father stopped dead in his tracks. “If you call the police we’ll kill you too.” Travis said. Their father just looked at his children and then ran into the next room to grab the phone. That’s when Travis and Anabel started to panic. They couldn’t stay in the house, they had to flee. And flee they did. Hand in hand they ran out of the house and into the woods near their backyard.
​They walked through the woods the entire night. They didn’t even stop once and all the time they walked Anabel would let go of pieces of her shell necklace so that if something happened she would remember her way back home. When day finally broke the children were slightly happier than they were before. They had come upon an old decrepit house. Travis walked up to the front door of the house with Anabel clutching the back of his blood stained shirt. He knocked on the door three times hoping that someone would be there and open it up. To his surprise there was someone there. The door opened and all that could be seen was a woman’s hand coming out of the darkness and motioning for them to come inside. Once inside the door closed behind them. There was a slight chill in the air and the children didn’t have a good feeling about the situation, but at that moment they didn’t really care. They were just happy to be inside.
​A dim light came on and the children found themselves face to face with a beautiful woman with flowing blonde hair. The woman looked down at the children and surveyed their attire. She led the children upstairs and into a room where there were clothes laid out on a bed for them. “It’s like she was expecting us.” Anabel said once she saw the clothes. The woman left the children in the room to get dressed and once they were done they met her out in the hallway. “Now that you’re both dressed I’m guessing that you’re hungry as well.” The woman said as she led the children downstairs and into the kitchen where there were two plates of food waiting on the table. Travis and Anabel sat down at the table and without any hesitation at all they started shoving the food into their mouths. When they were done the woman sent them back upstairs to get some sleep.
​When Travis and Anabel awoke that afternoon they found that they were locked in the room. They kicked and screamed and a few seconds later the woman was there and opened the door. “Why did you lock us in here?” Travis asked. “I didn’t want you wandering around my house unattended.” The woman said. The same routine as the morning happened in the afternoon. Travis and Anabel woke up during the night to find that the door was now unlocked. They peered down the hallway and found that no one was there. They crept downstairs and still there was no one around. Travis and Anabel were feeling a bit adventurous so they decided to go exploring around the house. They ventured to the basement first. Everything seemed normal down there that is until Anabel opened the red door. A look of shock and horror came over her face. She couldn’t help but scream. Travis came running over to her and what he saw caused him to scream as well. They were staring into a closet full of children’s organs and bones. There were recipe books on how to cook children, the proper way to eat children, and a guide to killing children. Travis quickly closed the closet door. He then looked at Anabel and said, “We’ve got to get out of here.” “You’re not going anywhere!” A voice called out of the darkness. Travis and Anabel turned around slowly. The woman that was once beautiful and hospitable was now grotesque and horrifying. She glared at the children and then quickly went after Travis. She grabbed Travis by the hair and pulled him upstairs and into the kitchen. “You and your sister shouldn’t have gone snooping around my house.” The woman said. Anabel then entered the kitchen. She surveyed the situation that both she and her brother were in and then realized something very important. “Travis, this is just like Hansel and Gretel. She’s a witch, we have to do something to stop her!” Anabel said. “It’s true, I am a witch. In fact I am the witch from Hansel and Gretel. I’ve been living for hundreds of years now. I feed off of the lives of dead children to stay alive.” The witch laughed an evil laugh.
​There wasn’t a way out of the situation, or so it seemed. The tables were turned, and instead of Travis being the one to save Anabel, Anabel had to save Travis. Anabel became hysterical because she didn’t know what to do. She looked over at Travis as to say, “What should I do?” Travis just stared at Anabel’s pocket. Anabel looked down at her pocket. Inside her pocket was the knife that she had taken from their father’s kitchen. As soon as the witch’s back was turned Anabel ran up behind her and stabbed her in the back. This caused the witch to let go of Travis and to turn and face Anabel. The witch let out a small cry of pain. “Did you really think that you could kill me with that deary?” The witch asked. Travis frantically looked around the room for something to kill the witch with. His eyes set upon the open fire place. He looked over at Anabel and instructed her to lead the witch over to the fire place. Anabel did just that and when the witch went to grab for her, Travis knocked her over the head. The witch fell instantly to the floor with a loud crash. Anabel and Travis wasted no time in getting the witch into the fire place. Once she was in the children watched as the witch’s body burned. “Let’s get out of here.” Travis said to his sister. He stretched out his hand and Anabel took a hold of it. Together they walked out of the witch’s old decrepit house. “What if she comes back?” Anabel asked. Travis looked at Anabel and then reached into his pocket. He pulled out a set of matches. “We’re going to light this old f****r up.” Travis said as he struck a match. He threw it against the house. The children watched as the house caught on fire.
​Off in the distance sirens could be heard. The police had finally caught up to the children and when they reached the burning house they found Travis and Anabel in each other’s arms. Seeing the police sent Anabel in to a crying fit. She clutched her brother’s once again blood stained clothing. Travis looked down at his sister and saw that her clothes had changed back. He then looked at himself and found that his clothes had changed back as well. The police surrounded the now frightened children. They instructed the children to let go of one another and to put their hands behind their backs. The children did so and handcuffs were slapped on them. They were shoved into a police car and soon found themselves down at the police station. Once inside they were put into separate rooms. They screamed and hollered for one another, Anabel eventually started throwing a fit. She didn’t understand why she had been taken away from her brother and why she was in a room by herself at the police station. Outside of the rooms two police officers could be seen talking. Neither of the children could hear what they were saying. “The boy killed his step-mother in cold blood and then dragged his sister into the woods where he had her help kill an elderly woman.” One police officer said. “He claims that the woman was a witch from a story that his father used to tell him. He’s suffering from severe visual and auditory hallucinations.” The other police officer said. “What are we going to do with them?” “The boy will most likely be tried as an adult in the murder of two people. And the girl….I have no idea what’s going to happen to her.”
​Both children sat against the walls of their rooms crying. Each had a hand pressed against the wall as if they were trying to reach out to one another.
​Travis’ mind was always playing tricks on him and he could never really distinguish fantasy from reality. He believed that people were always out to get him and his sister and one night he did the unthinkable and murdered his step-mother in cold blood. He took his sister and fled into the woods where he then came upon the house of an elderly woman. When threatened with the idea of going to jail by the elderly woman, Travis killed her and then burned her house down. Travis and Anabel awaited the arrival of the police and when they arrived they were both placed in handcuffs and taken down to the police station where they were put in separate rooms. Travis now spends his days locked in the prison’s psychiatric facility while Anabel makes regular visits. Just like Travis, Anabel is haunted by the memories of murders and she spends most of her time going in and out of her therapist’s office and taking medication. Two children once sweet and two murders so obscene; no one could ever figure out what Travis’ illness was and to this day people say he’s still that way. Scared, alone, and stuck within the walls of his disturbed mind.  
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Author's Note

This piece holds a special meaning to me. It was an assignment given to me by one of my favorite college professors. I enjoyed tackling, destroying, and rebuilding this fairy tale and turning it into something utterly suspenseful and horrifying. As always, constructive criticism, feedback, and critiques are most helpful.