Fair-Haired Child

"Fair Haired Child" is the ninth episode of the first season of Masters of Horror. It originally aired in North America on January 6, 2006. A 15-year-old outcast named Tara is kidnapped by a strange couple and locked in a basement with their son who has a dark secret. Plot Tara (Lindsay Pulsipher), though a pretty and talented teenage girl, is not liked at her school and has no friends. Upon returning home one day, she is kidnapped and drugged. She awakens in a mansion in the company of a woman in a nurse's outfit, and attempts to reach out to her mother through telephone, but the latter seems strangely unfazed by her daughter's plight. After the call disconnects, the "nurse" starts asking personally invasive questions, like whether Tara has been baptized or whether she ever had sexual intercourse in her life. After Tara notices that she has been taken far away from home and tries to run away, the "nurse" (Lori Petty) and her male partner (William Samples) lock her inside the basement, where Tara finds a young boy (Jesse Haddock) hanging from a noose, close to death. She saves him, and the two form a bond. The boy, Johnny, is sweet and kind but cannot talk; he has to communicate by writing in the dust. With Johnny's assistance, Tara uncovers cryptic warnings on the walls, such as "Beware the Fair-Haired Child!" The two discover a room with numerous backpacks and a bloody bathtub, showing that they are not the first victims. Johnny begins to undergo a transformation from a normal boy into a hideous demonic creature, the "Fair-Haired Child" (Walter Phelan). Frightened, Tara hides from the creature until it turns back into Johnny. It is revealed that twelve years ago, Johnny died by drowning on his fifteenth birthday in a pond near the mansion. Desperate over the loss of their son, Johnny's parents (the kidnappers) made a deal with a demon, and performed a ritual that involves them providing a sacrifice of one virgin teenager (of the same age group as Johnny at the time of death) per year until the quota of twelve is reached. Tara is the last before Johnny can become human again, but Johnny is torn by his guilt over these sacrifices and has also come to care deeply for Tara. As he begins to transform again, instead of retreating, Tara embraces him until the "Fair-Haired Child" emerges and kills her.