A small country town was in the beginning of its founding stages. As a horse and carriage rolled down the clumpy dirt road, you could only hear the click-i-dy clack, click-i-dy clack of the horse’s hooves. The old carriage pulled up to an unkempt patch of land. A man with thick brown facial hair and broad shoulders, stepped out of the buggy, and held out his hand to help his very pregnant wife out onto the ground. The woman said to her husband, “Howard is this it. Is this our patch of land? Our VERY OWN patch of land?” Howard had replied, “Yes, Amelia our very own land.” They climbed into the buggy as the sun lowers in the sky and turns to dusk. The morning sun rose in the sky as Howard awoke, he grabbed his hatchet, and he left to go cut wood. He wandered around the forest looking for something. Suddenly, Howard found a huge grove of hickory trees, and he smiled. He took his hatchet and hacked away at a huge magnificent hickory tree. As he was about to finish chopping the tree down, he heard an ear piercing scream coming from the direction of the buggy. Howard emerged at the top of the hill to see Amelia holding his newborn daughter. He sat down beside Amelia and said, “She is gorgeous.” Amelia tiredly whispered, “Let’s call her Cadence.” He responded, “Perfect.” Then, Amelia said with concern, “Where will we live… where will SHE lives!” Howard stares at the ground and puffs out a huge breath. He walked off into the forest. THUD! The huge hickory was down on the ground being sectioned off for the cabin that Howard was building.
One year later, Cadence was giggling as Howard threw her in the air. He sat her in the crib and sat on the hand built table. Amelia smiled at her pregnant belly and, she turned back to the cauldron of soup over the fire pit and said, “Supper is ready.” Howard took a bowl and filled it with soup. He let it sit and cool as he got some crackers. Howard took a huge bite of soup, but he spat it out and said, “This is burnt and the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten!!!” he threw the bowl at the wall, and as it shattered on the wall, he walked out the door. Amelia fell to the ground sobbing asking to herself, “Why does he do this to me?” Howard walked in and yelled. “I am the husband … you are the woman… you are supposed to provide and please me with a warm meal every day! You are the scum at the bottom of my boot.” Amelia was kneeling on the floor weeping as Howard shouts. Cadence was wailing at the top of her lungs because of the obnoxiously loud yelling.
As a few years passed, Amelia gave birth to a boy named Tanner. Cadence was so thrilled that she ran around the house and broke the crib. She ignored it as she admired tanner drinking his bottle, but Howard walk in and she giggles turned to silent fear. The abuse that Howard showed toward Amelia has developed a fear of her father, and that fear became a reality when Howard had seen the crib. “What in the sam-hill happened here?” exclaimed Howard, “Cadence Marie Mitchell come here this instant. What happened here?” Cadence looked down and cried. Howard snatched her by the arm, and lashed her backside with his belt over and over. He threw her down on the ground and said, “That is what you deserve. You shouldn’t break everything in my house.” The five year old was sobbing in pain from the blisters from the leather. As Howard went to bed, Cadence went to hide under the table. She had cried herself to sleep beneath the table.
With the following years, the abuse worsened and became more frequent. Eventually, there was not a day that Cadence and Tanner weren’t cursed, beat, and/or caught in a fight between Howard and Amelia. Finally, the kids got a break because their sister Lily had made her way into the world. Lily was thought to be the saving grace. So they thought. The family soon found out that Lily had a rare intestinal disease. Within the first four years of her life, Lily had fallen gravely ill. Cadence and Tanner ran inside to hear Howard and Amelia arguing. “We can’t afford the medicine, Amelia!” argued Howard. Amelia said with tears down her face, “Howard she will die if we don’t get it.” Howard yelled, “No more Amelia, we can’t!” Howard reached back and smacked Amelia. Tanner paused, tripped, and broke the table throwing food everywhere. Howard snatched tanner preparing to beat him, but as he swung Cadence got in-between them, and she got smacked across the face with the belt. She fell to the floor unconscious. Tanner reacted rashly and punched his father in the nose and broke it. Howard had never been that enraged. He grabbed the broken table leg and whacking Tanner everywhere until he was bleeding. Howard spat on the ground and said, “You two are a disgrace to me, and don’t call me your father anymore. You disgust me, and you don’t even deserve to eat dirt.” The siblings tended to each other’s wounds, and wept as they feel helpless. “We are 15 and 10 there is not much we can do,” said Tanner. Cadence said, “We need to do something.” “What if we… well…um,” Tanner expressed his thoughts. “I’ve got it!” said Cadence evilly. The two conversed and formed a plan.
That very rainy night they fulfilled their plan. Cadence snatched a kitchen knife, and Tanner grasped the hatchet tightly. They crept into their parent’s room quietly. Tanner raised the hatchet and said, “I win this one.” He severed his head clean off and watched it roll across the floor while it was spewing blood everywhere. Amelia awakes to Cadence slicing through her heart while saying, “He-hehe-he, you should have stopped him.” The two had worked up such an appetite, they grabbed a skillet and fried slices of their parents' flesh. They made sandwiches and licked their lips as the juices dripped from the meat. They butchered everything but their eyes. They pickled the eyeballs for their memories, and used the bones as cookware. Lily had awoken and asked, “Where are mommy and daddy?” Cadence answered, “They went for a trip, and they will be back. Would you like some special bacon?” “What makes is so special,” Lily wondered as she tore into the succulent “bacon”. Lily smiled, but suddenly she had fallen out of her chair and had a violent seizure. She was foaming at the mouth and suddenly she went limp. Cadence cried and said, “Tanner she is dead. Go bury her.” Tanner did so, and he buried her by a hickory sapling.
The two children eventually died from starvation after their parents’ organs and other food ran out. Cadence and Tanner spirits still live in that house. Highway 79 was built in front of the house of the Darling Children. Now whenever it rains, the porch oozes blood, and eyeballs roll out from the doorstep. You even can see Tanner and Cadence sit in the window with their fork and knife waiting their next meal of human flesh to drive by on a rainy night. Now the town of Paris, Tennessee is the home of the Darling Children of the human flesh.