Prologue

Isaac Browne Junior hadn’t been born a murderer.  To tell the truth, he was born Isaac Ford Herbert Jamie Browne Junior, who was to be known as the most bland boy in town.  But, sometimes, this was how it unfolded, mysteriously and without apparent cause.

In fact, this would be how it appeared to anyone who discovered Isaac’s crimes   the phrases ‘mysteriously’ and ‘without apparent cause’ would be grossly overused.  Isaac had just had a perfect Tuesday; not a good Tuesday, a perfect Tuesday, which started with one word.  How strange that horrors succeeded this.

“Zombie.”  Though perhaps it should be mentioned that Isaac’s life was rather strange despite the fact.

“Anne,” Isaac called.  “She said a word.”  A clatter and a clang were followed by a loud set of footsteps towards the room.

“I missed it?”  Mari Anne Marianne Jones pouted, as she ran in, akin to Snow White   if she favoured platform heels, gypsy skirts and chunky earrings.  “C’mon, Eliza, speak for mommy.”

But all that fell out of the raven-haired infant’s mouth was a gurgle and saliva.  Isaac stifled his chuckle under his sandy moustache and placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder.

“Keep an eye on her, Anne, and I’m sure you’ll hear Beth’s first word or an entirely new one,” he encouraged.  Mari narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips at the, albeit younger, mirror image of herself.  Soft bouncy hair, large brown eyes and a forever reddened, turned-up nose.

“Daddy’s girl,” Mari griped while her daughter, Eliza Beth Elizabeth Jones, grinned.

“Zombie.”  For a few moments, there was stillness as Mari stared at her child, considering it.

“What?  Zombie?  Why couldn’t you have a cuter first word?  After all these months, singing about sheep that sleep on pink clouds, about bunnies that live in fairy fields and about princesses that dance the nights away with princes?  I sang about that rainbow at least twenty times a day!”

“Anne, dear, your first word was ‘eggplant’ so…”  And so, this was the start to the perfect day that preceded the day that Isaac became a murderer.

Fifteen years later, his daughter pressed her back to the door of a room filled with corpses.