Chapter Fifteen: Ghosts

Chapter Fifteen: Ghosts

A few days later we turned on the television and settled on the news. Laying there in bed with my new husband, it felt like the world couldn’t get any better. I never thought it would get worse.

A photograph of Jack and Emma’s truck popped up on the screen. The report was about Emma’s suicide. I curled closer to John’s side. A thought occurred to me.

“Babe...are our fingerprints in that truck? They would be on the gun too, wouldn’t they? Oh no...”

“Quit worrying. They won’t find us here. I promise you that they will never find us.”

“Promise?”

“I pinky promise.” He effectively silenced me with a kiss, and our conversation (for the time being) ended.

I hatched a plan in my head of where we should go next. I decided everything out in my head before I told John what I wanted to do.

“We need to go back to the house. We have to bury Jack, then we can live there on the money we have left. Think of it as a hidden paradise.”

“Alright, let’s pack then. We need a vehicle too.”

Both of our bags were packed and we turned the room keys in at the front desk. From there we walked to a car dealership and paid cash for the cheapest vehicle they had. We drove out of town and straight back to the house. We turned into the drive and under the cover of darkness unloaded our suitcases, then set out to bury Jack.

A few days in the sun had not done him any good. He was even uglier than before. His face was swollen and bloated. Flies buzzed around him constantly. We made a new flower bed that night.

John and I got settled in for the night. We snuggled under the covers in my old room. I was awed by the love that I still saw in his eyes. I figured that we’d bury Jack and he’d realize what I was capable of and head for the hills. I wriggled as close to him as I possibly could and closed my eyes for the rest of the night.

The next morning we searched Jack and Emma’s room to see if we could find more money. buying the car had put a bit of a strain on our finances. What we found, explained everything about Jack.

“Ow!”

My hand was stuck by something sharp in the back of a drawer. When I pulled my hand out, a needle was sticking out of the back of my hand. Naturally I was freaked out and I gave into my first impulse.

“John! JOHN! Oh my GOD!”

He rounded the cabinet in one quick step and gently dislodged the needle. Massaging the back back of my hand, he led me to the bed.

“Did that have anything in it or on it?”

“I don’t know, it’s in the back of the drawer.”

He searched the indicated drawer and pulled out heroin and a small baggie of what looked to be weed.

“Of course! Jack must have been supporting his family and a drug habit by killing these people!”

I gestured to the garden outside. “That’s why they killed so often.”

John walked to the window, mouth agape.

“These are all graves? All of them?”

“Yes. Every single one is a traveler. Well, except for the one under our window.”

“And whose is that?”

“The real Minerva’s.”

I told him how Emma had killed her own daughter. He looked furious.

“So then they kidnapped you to fill the void, nine years later? Why not kidnap someone else before that?”

The shocking realization hit me like a ton of bricks. I turned to face the garden.

“They did.”