@@DESCRIPT="God Bless America by TS" 

                        God Bless America

 "A well regulated Militia,


     The moment Jack's mind returned from the heavy glaze of sleep
he knew that something was wrong.  Far away behind his eye 
lids that hid him from the darkness of his bedroom he heard 
a noise.  A tiny twist of metal like a kitten scratching on a 
window.  He kept his eyes closed and his ears awake listening for
the noise once again.  He thought it could be the trees blowing in
the wind and rubbing up against the side of the house.
     But again the noise came, this time louder, closer, and this
time from the inside of the house.  His eyes opened suddenly as the
noise echoed in his head.  Something was wrong.  He listened for
his wife's breathes and heard her inhaling the air and exhaling it
back out.  "Are you awake" he whispered so quietly he could barely
hear it himself.  Her chest fell and rose but no other reply came. 
     This time the noise was recognizable, it was a bang, a loud
thud that Jack recognized immediately as the downstairs window
closing.  He pushed the sheets down off of him and slowly moved his
feet down on to the floor as quietly as he could.  He started
thinking about his next move.  It was obvious someone was breaking
into his home.  No, it was obvious someone was already in his home. 
He could hear their footsteps below but only slightly as he or who
ever it was, was trying to be just as quiet as Jack.  He picked up
the phone and dialed 911. 
 
  being necessary to the security of a free State,
     
     He put his hand over her mouth and placed his mouth so close
to her ear that he could easily have licked it.  "Wake up" he said. 
He poked his elbow into her side at the same time and he felt her
heart begin to beat rapidly as her eyes opened and searched the
room for clues of what was going on.  He placed his hand too his
lips and raised one finger to signal her to be quiet.  He released
his hand from around her mouth when he felt she understood what he
was saying.
     "They're is someone downstairs" he whispered.  Her eyes grew
big and a groan escaped her lips.  He held onto her mouth once
again and could feel her warm breath on his palm.  "Just stay
here."
     She reached out and grabbed his wrist and squeezed it tight. 
"No" she whispered.  Jack took her hand from around his wrist and
placed it back down on the bed.  He looked into her eyes trying to
tell her that everything would be alright.  She watched him trying
to plead with him to stay in bed and just let their intruder do
whatever he wanted and then he would leave them alone and go on his
way.  But he got up from the bed and was kneeling on the floor
trying to open his dresser drawers as quietly as possible so he
could get to his revolver. 
  
  the right of the people to keep and bear Arms
     
     He stood up beside the bed, his bones sounding like
firecrackers in his head as he took small steps towards the 
bedroom door.  Outside the room he could hear the footsteps of the
stranger, he could trace them in his mind, they were coming towards
the stairs.  The cold piece of iron trying to slip out of his
sweaty hand and he kept hearing every step he was making echo twice
as loud in his head.  
     Behind him he could hear the quick breathes of his wife as she
tried to lie like a corpse but was finding her heart not wanting to
play along.  The stranger outside of the room was slowly taking
each step one by one, never stepping down harder then he needed to. 
The air was growing thick all around, Jack couldn't hear any other
sound in the world except for the movements of himself and the man
who had invaded his home.
     He stood behind the shadow of the darkness staring out through
the open doorway into the hallway from which the staircase entered. 
Along the wall he could see a shadow being tossed by the moonlight
that entered from the front windows.  The shadow stretched across
the wall in the shape of a very large man, who carried and equally
as large bag that he carried with two hands.  Each step closer to
the landing made his shadow bigger, and each step that brought him
closer to Jack was louder than the last.  And before Jack knew what
he was doing, his hands were rising in front of him, pointing the
gun at the top of the staircase.
  
  shall not be infringed."

     His wife watching with one eye hiding under the covers and one
eye daring to look.  She could feel the scream building inside her
waiting to get out like the bullet that rested in Jacks gun. 
Somewhere behind her window glass she thought she could hear the
far away sounds of sirens making their way closer to her house.
     The gun was leveled, he wouldn't need to aim, he would just
fire.  His hands smuthering the gun, the trigger coming back
towards its final destination.  This is what the gun is for, he
thought, trying to make sure his mind didn't suddenly become afraid
of what he was about to do.  
     The head topped the staircase, a black cloud of hair without 
a face because of the darkness.  His muscles tightened and
the trigger came rushing back under the pressure.  The guns front
end exploded in light as the bullet ripped through the air.  The
recoil of the gun sent him back a few steps as behind him he heard
his wife scream into the shadow of the night.
     And the figure standing on the staircase stood for a second
infront of Jacks eyes and then its head exploded into a cloud of
mist.  The body dropped the bag it was holding and began floating
almost in slow motion in front of his eyes as it fell backwards
down the stairs.  An image, very much like the shadows of dead
people they would find at Hiroshima, was blasted onto the staircase
wall, a black and red mixture of blood.
     The body went down the stairs in the opposite way it had come
up, hitting every step hard and making a horrible thudding 
noise and an even worse cracking noise as the bones began to break. 
The body landed at the end of the stairs, a final moist thud to
complete the fall.  
     Jack came back to reality after watching the body fall in
front of his eyes.  He could hear his wife behind him start coming
towards him and he fixed her with his eyes and put his hand up in
a stopping fashion to tell her to stay here.  He stepped outside
the doorway, the smell of the guns fire completely engulfing the
house.  He flipped on the lights that lit up the hallway and the
downstairs area.  Outside he heard sirens closing in on the house. 
     Jack looked at the spot on the wall but only for a moment as
he could feel his stomach begin to shake and become uneasy.  He
followed a stream of blood down the staircase, watching its dark
red river flow down the marble staircase.  He stood near the bottom
of the stairs when he looked at the body below.  All that was left
of the head was a large piece of flesh with hair hanging on where
ever it could.  But it was the clothes he looked at the most.  It
was the clothes he recognized.  It was the clothes he recognized
that made him begin screaming a scream that would never stop
ringing in his head for as long as he would live.  
     And then he fell down the staircase until he was on top of the
body of his son.  His pajamas getting soaked from the boys blood as
he in turn soaked the boys with his tears.  He lied on him trying
to feel life inside the boy but finding none.  Only the cold burn
of death that dripped out through the hole in his 
head and washed across his fathers skin.
     His wife stood at the banister above, coming out of her room
the moment she heard him scream.  Her husband lied over the body so
at first she couldn't understand why he was lying on the corpse. 
But then she recognized the shoes that she helped buy, and then
even the hair that barely hung on to the skin was recognizable and
she began her own screaming that would never end until the day she
died.  
     Moments later the police busted into the house and within
seconds they knew what had happened.  The boy had sneaked out after
hours and was now sneaking back in.  No one had to tell any of the
police what had happened.  They had seen it so many times before... 

  God Bless America.....
