It was 11 o’clock at when Ken stumbled over the threshold of the house just as he did any other night, with liquor and cigar smoke on his breath. He walked toward his kitchen, tripping a few times on his way. Once in the kitchen, he started to rummage through the liquor cabinet.  He grabbed the large bottle of scotch and headed toward the living room. Sitting down on the couch in front of the television, he reached into the cupboard next to him and grab his cigarettes, a lighter, and the remote. He switched on the television and watched the news story on a man that killed his wife and son out of anger.. As he watched, he struggled with the box of cigarettes, not wanting to let go of the bottle in his left hand. When he placed cigarette between his lips, he reached for his lighter.
    “Dad?” his said. Startled, Ken dropped the bottle and watched as it crashed to the floor along with the cigarette. .    
“Damn it,” he growled as he watched the puddle of liquid spread across the wooden floor and soak the unlit cigarette that had fallen with the bottle. “What are you doing up?”
    “I heard noise from downstairs and I wanted to see what it was,” son.
    “Ken?” his wife asked as she walked down the steps. “Is that you?”
    “Yeah.” he said to his wife, shortly. “Get me a beer,” he said, dismissing both his wife and son. He saw his wife frown before he turned back toward the television and stared blankly at the face of the killer.
    “Here,” his wife said as she handed him his beer. He snatched the bottle from her hands with a grunt and brought it to his lips. “That man looks like you,” she added, referring to the criminal on the screen.
    “No, he doesn’t,” said Ken, aggravated. He picked up the remote and changed the channel to something random. With a sigh, his wife led their son back upstairs to bed. He listened to her footsteps as she came downstairs once again and stopped behind his chair. He knew what was coming before she even opened her mouth, but his alcohol-clouded mind wasn’t prepared for the fight that was about to unfold.
    “What’s your problem?” she started. “You come home late every night and you do nothing but drink and smoke. We barely get to see you and when we do, you treat us like you would rather be anywhere else.”
    “That’s not true,” Ken replied, uninterested but his annoyance was growing. He tried to form words, but he wasn't sober up enough to come up with anything valid. “I just want some time to myself.”
    “Oh, I get it. You need time to yourself after spending hours at the bar. We’re so sorry for interrupting your drinking. Feel free to carry on.” Sarcasm dripped from each word as she continued release her frustration. Ken lost interest in the conversation and picked up the newspaper on the coffee table. He pretended to read it and hoped that his wife would get the message; he was not listening.
    Ken saw no end in sight of the conversation, so he got a new cigarette from the pack. He lowered the newspaper so he could put the news back on and groaned when he discovered they hadn’t moved on from the killer. With the cigarette still in his mouth, he lit it, using the newspaper to shield it from his wife’s view.
    Ken sighed as he took the first puff and welcomed the familiar burn of his lungs. His stress always seemed to disappear whenever he smoked. It was a bad habit he had tried to give up when his wife was pregnant, but when his son was born, the stress built and the smoking became more frequent.
    A shrill scream from his wife brought him back to reality. He locked his eyes with hers and was confused by the terror in them. Then, his hand began to feel warm. He looked down at the newspaper he was holding to discover that it had caught on fire. Quickly, he dropped the newspaper and it fell to the floor, into the puddle of alcohol.
    The fire quickly spread across the floor, toward the kitchen and the stairs. He faintly heard his wife’s cries and the television over the rapid beat of his heart. It had felt like a dream to him. His mind scrambled for a logical solution, but by the time he had come up with one, it was too late.    
His wife had rushed upstairs to collect their son while Ken remained downstairs and stumbled over his feet to get the fire extinguisher. The flames blocked his path to the kitchen, so his only option was to escape with his family. He advanced toward the stairs as quickly as he could, only to discover the fire had spread and blocked the staircase.
He watched, helplessly, as the colors of orange and yellow violently licked at his wife and son. Finally, his wife turned them around and the two ran up the stairs. Eyes gazing around the living room one last time, the face on the television caught his attention before he looked away and sprinted out the front door. Outside, his wife was lowering their son to a tree from the master bedroom. The bright flame behind the woman was visible through the window. He ran toward the tree his son was struggling to hold onto.
Time seemed to slow when the tree branch broke and Ken’s six year old son plummeted to the ground. Ken felt an emptiness inside of him start to take over his body as he watched the green grass become tempered by the deep red that was his son’s blood.
“No!” His wife’s screams shook him of his shock and he watches as the last person he cared about was taken away from him. The flames buried her and the sound of her screams engraves themselves into his mind, and he was forced to listen as the woman he took for granted call for him and her son. It was when the screaming stopped that he realized the flames didn’t only burn his home, they burnt his world.
Ken faintly heard the sound of police sirens as he was on his knees in front of his burning home. He didn’t register what was going on, and was confused as to why he was being dragged away from the fire. But he watched the fire grow smaller and smaller through the window of the ambulance as he was taken away from his home, and his world. All the while, the face he saw on television was running through his mind, and he couldn’t help but think that his wife was right. He really did look like the killer.
Breaking News: As many of you may have heard, police have been holding Ken Scott in custody for the last week to determine if he had any role in the fire that took the lives of his wife and son. Neighbors say that Scott has often come home drunk in the middle of the night and have heard arguing from the house on many occasions. Police say Scott was found drunk with a lighter in his pocket and when taken in for questioning, he repetitively said, “I killed them.” A doctor was brought in to determine his mental health and Scott was found stable. Officials determined he was guilty and Scott pleaded so in court. He is now being held in Washington State Prison to serve his time. In similar news, police still need information on this killer you may have seen on the news...