Case File #101: The Forever Haunt
When tragedy invaded his life and forever changed him, it occurred during that tenuous time between boyhood and manhood. What he remembered first and always were the sounds and smells, the strangled cry of human agony, the whiff of cordite from spent ammunition. He would hear the explosion and then the exclamation, he would remember them both as though linked by that moment in time, the utter terror of his own screams that would keep him awake long after on cold dark nights. What next came to him were surprising images, oddly peaceful at first considering the presence of violence. The lazy climb of the morning sun, the blue sky that opened up a world fresh with possibilities, that’s what his father had always told him. Finally, the lasting memory fell upo
