A chill, sharper than the night air, raced down my spine. “ETA three minutes.”

I flipped the siren on, the wail piercing the suburban quiet. As I drove, Mark patched the audio of the call through to my earpiece. I needed to hear it. I needed to know what I was walking into.

“Uncle…” The voice whispered in my ear. It was small. Fragile. It sounded like it was coming from inside a closet, or under a blanket. “Uncle… can you tell my dad to stop playing? He’s fixing Mommy. He made the water red. Like strawberry syrup.”

Strawberry syrup.

The description hit me like a physical blow to the chest. It was the innocent vocabulary of childhood applied to a scene of carnage. It was the uncanny valley of horror—a juxtaposition so wrong it made my stomach turn.

“I’m sitting by the door,” the boy continued, his voice devoid of panic, filled only with a confused, hushed curiosity. “Daddy said to wait here with Mr. Bear until Mommy is fixed. But… it smells funny. Like the swimming pool water.”

Bleach.