TLT: Till Malevolence Reigns…

 

Credit: Wynand von Poortvliet

He knew the department had a surprise party planned for his retirement and he appreciated the gesture, duly feigning ignorance, but glancing hopefully at the darkened sky scowling down upon them as his means of escape from the finality of giving up his badge, that now prodded inevitably at him.

On his final assignment he ducked under the yellow tape and entered the house now swarming with police activity, the usual loud voices hushed and then he saw why, for swaying silently from the ceiling fan, the figure of a child no more than five, with the rugged rope seizing the little girl’s neck, her golden locks draped delicately across her brutally arched face.

That night as he stepped into his apartment and faced his wife, badge still tucked firmly in his jacket pocket, she gave him a reassuring smile having heard the cruel news report and knew that the man who’d vowed to combat the forces of malevolence was not yet ready to leave the battlefield with one man short, not now, not for a very long time.

For Three Line Tales