The isolation, the echoes of unseen parties, the insidious whispers that clawed at his sanity – it had all coalesced into a single, burning rage. He remembered, with a detached sort of amusement, the day he'd interviewed for the caretaker position. Now, the air was thick with the stench of decay and the only sounds were the frantic thumps of his own heart and the whisper of voices that weren’t there.

The axe felt good in his hands. Its weight was solid, reassuring. It was a tool, a means to an end. He no longer saw Wendy as his wife, or Danny as his son. Things that needed to be corrected.

He found them huddled in the master bedroom. He could hear their shallow, terrified breaths through the thick wood of the door. The bedroom door fell quickly. He swung the axe wildly, splinters of wood flying like startled birds. The door splintered and cracked, as Jack reached through the large crack turning the lock. ”Wendy, I’m home.”

He stalked up the stairs, his reddish-blonde hair matted with sweat and blood, his beard stubble a wild thicket of grey and red. ”Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

He heard a whimper from the bathroom. He knew they were in there. Trapped. He smiled, a chilling, wolfish grin that stretched his lips too wide. The bathroom door was thinner, cheaper. Jack walks up to the bathroom door and tries to open it, only to find that it's locked; he knocks on the door. ”Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in.” he called, his voice a calm taunt, a parody of the loving father he once was.

”Not by the hair on your chinny-chin-chin?”

”Then I'll huff…”

”…and I'll puff…”

”And I'll blow your house in!”

He hefted the axe, the cold steel a familiar comfort against his palm. He swung again, and again, each blow a hammer strike against their dwindling hope. The wood around the doorknob began to splinter, the metal lock twisting and groaning under the relentless assault.

Inside, Wendy was. Danny was pressed against her leg, his small body trembling violently. He could feel the vibrations of the axe through the floor, each impact a death knell ringing in his ears.

With a final, desperate heave, Wendy scrambled Danny at the small, high window. She clawed at the latch, her slender, bleeding fingers fumbling with the cold metal. Finally, with a click, it gave way. She pushed against the window, forcing it open just enough to squeeze her son through. He was out.

Wendy watched him go, a fleeting flicker of hope in her eyes. But it vanished as quickly as it came. She knew she couldn't follow. The window was too small. She was trapped.

The last of the door's wood supports splintered and crashed to the floor with a loud thud. A gaping hole appeared in the door. Jack peered through, his face contorted into a grotesque mask of madness, his eyes glittering with manic glee.

“Here’s Johnny!”