The Four Before Me

by E H Night

  Will didn’t say much at all during their walk, but Ashley didn’t pressure him to hold a conversation. Instead, she just commented on the weather, and told him about how she would get sad too sometimes — that it was nothing for him to be ashamed of experiencing. He stared either ahead or down at his shoes, trying to decide what his next move would be. Betty wasn’t home, but he was still hoping that Ashley would be quiet.

  When they approached the house, he led her down to the shed near the water. “Will you help me for a minute?” he asked.

  “I — I guess so,” she replied as she followed him. She felt a lump in her throat, like she was unable to swallow her saliva properly. Something didn’t seem right, but she didn’t question the feeling.

  “I need help lifting something out of the shed. It’s not heavy, but it’s too big.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine. I have to hurry though. I’m supposed to meet back up with my friend for dinner. I don’t know if you saw her with me earlier or not. She just ran home to get a change of clothes first.”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “What’s that awful smell?” she asked covering her nose with the inside of her arm.

  “A deer died in the woods.”

  She looked confused, but it didn’t seem improbable.

  Will opened the shed door and stepped to the side. It was too dark to see anything, and the odor in the air grew extremely foul. Flies darted out, and swarmed all around their heads, buzzing angrily.

  “What the hell? Did you put the deer in there or something?” she said with concern in her voice.

  Will had already grabbed the gardening shears from beside the shed door while Ashley had been batting away at the flies. He pushed her into the doorway, and grabbed her by her ponytail. Immediately and methodically, he started chopping through her thick brown strands. She flailed and grabbed the back of her head out of instinct. The dirty shears sliced two of her fingers open, and she yelped in pain.

  “You need to be quiet,” Will said. There was no emotion in his voice.

  “Get off of me, you creep!”

  Will brought the sheers high into the air and shoved them deep into the back of her neck. He pulled them out, but with much less speed. They had wedged themselves in the space directly below her occipital bone, severing the connection between her head and spine.

  She collapsed to the shed floor.

  “There. That’s better, isn’t it Mama?” Will looked over to a large muddy suitcase in the back of the shed. His mother’s portable grave stared back at him, with only darkness for eyes. He cut the rest of Ashley’s hair and took it down to the basement, before returning to the shed once more. “I’m going to move you back home today. I already made a new spot for you. Are you ready?”

  There was no answer.

  “Okay, let’s go,” he said, suddenly happier. He pushed and pulled the suitcase and moved it back up to the house. Carefully, he pulled it toward the basement steps, and then shoved it gently down them. The suitcase bounced loudly until it hit the bottom with a loud thud. “There. You will like this better than the woods. I can visit you every day.”

  He brought down his shovel and a flashlight, and walked to the space beneath the wooden stairs. There was a small rickety door that led into a spider-infested crawl space. He opened it and crouched inside, pulling the suitcase along with him. He clicked the flashlight on and pushed the suitcase into a large hole that he had dug in the dirt floor. He shoveled the piles of dirt back into place, and concealed the grave before returning to the shed.

  Ashley’s body rested on the floor, but with only a small amount of blood staining the wood.

  Will lifted her shorn head, and pinched her cheeks, as if he was trying to wake her from a deep sleep. “You can go home now,” he said, smacking her lightly.

  “Will!” Betty’s voice called out from the driveway. “Will, where are you?”

  “Oh no...” he muttered, realizing that his sister was going to know that he had made another mistake. “I have to hide. I need to hide.” He scurried out of the shed like a scared mouse, and headed into the safety of the woods.

  Betty reached the shed and noticed the smell. Will had already explained to her, too, that a deer had died. She knew better than that though, but she didn’t want to ask what he had really been up to. She pushed the shed door back open, and saw Ashley’s still-warm body.

  “Dammit. Will! Get over here you son of a bitch!”

  He peeked out from behind a tree, and then sulked back over to the shed. “I didn’t mean to do it. I swear. I think she fell.”

  “I can’t keep doing this. It’s killing me, Will. You need to get ahold of yourself.”

  “I’ll try harder,” he said. “I promise.”

  “Good...” she rubbed her head with disbelief. “Now go get that wagon and bring me your shovel.”

  Will headed to the back porch and grabbed the handle of his wagon. Just as he began rolling it down the hill, he heard someone pulling into the driveway. The car parked next to Betty’s.

  “Hi there, Will. Do you know where Betty is? I really need to talk to her. It’s urgent,” the elderly woman asked. She was thin and freckled, with bright white hair.

  Will froze for a second, and darted down the hill with his wagon, not saying a word. The woman followed him, in fairly good condition for her age. She reached him only a short moment after he had stopped in front of the shed.

  “Betty? Are you down here too?” she asked, moving in front of the doorway. “Betty? Will? Are you — Oh my —” she stepped back, and tripped into the mud.

  “Susan? Dammit. Can this day get any worse?” Betty replied, staring at her with surprise. “Don’t scream. Don’t say a thing. Just let me explain real quick.”

  Susan Foster pointed her thin finger at the body that rested only feet away from her. “But, the — what is tha — what is —” she stammered, unable to form her thoughts into sentences.

  “Will, help me lead her back up the hill real quick.”

  With Susan’s arms resting on each of their shoulders, they helped her up to the back porch, and into the house. Will dropped her onto the couch.

  “Thanks, now go back outside. I need to talk to her alone, okay?”

  Will nodded and left the house.

  After several minutes of calming Susan down and easing her back into reality, Betty was able to start explaining things a little better. “I know what you saw is probably really scary right now, but you need to listen to me, okay?”

  Susan nodded with her eyes wide and bloodshot.

  “Will has a bit of a problem right now. I don’t really know what’s going on, but I can’t let anything happen to him. You need to promise me that you’ll keep what you saw a secret. Can you do that for me? Please? I’m begging you.”

  Several words finally managed to escape from Susan’s mouth. “Betty. Dear. I’ve kept so many of your secrets over the years. How many more are you going to ask me to keep?”

  Betty slapped her knee and leaned back into the chair across from Susan. “Are you really going to bring that up right now?”

  “For over twenty years, I’ve been bearing your burdens. From the moment you slept with my son, like some kind of a stray cat. I even kept your pregnancy a secret. I lied to my boy for you.”

  “Just stop. We don’t need to talk about this right now,” Betty said in an irritated tone.

  “Then when are we going to talk about it? Sarah doesn’t know that she has a sister, and poor Alice — my sweet Alice thinks she’s a damned orphan. If only she knew that her mother was just too ashamed to have kept her around. You know what I think is the sickest part of all of this?”

  Betty crossed her arms and scowled.

  “Betty, just listen to me for once. The sickest thing to me is that you went on to marry my son after trying out a few more guys in town first. Then when you had Sarah, you still didn’t want to admit to anyone that you had another daughter before her. My son might have hated an
d avoided me for many reasons, but if he had known that I’d been keeping his own child from him, well, he might’ve had that stroke a lot sooner.”

  “So, I’m a piece of shit. What else do you want me to say? I abandoned my own child, and chose to raise another one. Alice is doing great though, or am I wrong about that too?”

  “I’ve loved her with every drop of blood in my body. And you’re right. She’s doing just fine without you. She’s probably better off thinking that her real mother’s dead.”

  Those last words cut Betty like a knife. She had always felt guilt for giving her first daughter away like she was nothing more than an old t-shirt, but she’d still felt the need to stay strong and committed to her decision. She prided herself on good values. How would people have reacted if they’d known that she had a child out of wedlock in such a small gossip-filled town? What would people say if she had taken Alice back after she’d married Susan’s son — if she’d just suddenly announced that she had abandoned her? Guilt was hard, but admission was harder.

  “Susan. Please. Can’t we stop this?”

  “Do you have any idea how it feels for Sarah to not even know that I’m her grandma? I’m so tired of pretending to be some family friend. She hugs me like a friend. She thanks me like a friend. I’ve never gotten to hold one of my own grandbabies in my lap, and now she’s all grown up. It’s too late to ever get those moments back.”

  A sudden burst of aggression filled Betty. “Do you know what it’s like, Susan? Do you have any clue how it feels to hide a pregnancy, and to have to hand your baby off to someone else? Do you know how it feels to stay up all night long for years, wondering if your child is hurt or crying, or if they’ve been eating well? I’m not a cold woman. I’m not heartless. I’ve shown Sarah twice as much love to make up for my sins. Don’t you dare come into my house and try to tell me what pain is. My whole life has been pain!”

  Susan stood up from the couch and walked to the door.

  “Wait,” Betty called toward her, calming her tone down. “I’m just so worked up right now. Please don’t tell anyone what you saw. Just one more secret. I promise it’s the last one. I can’t lose Will too.”

  Susan grabbed the handle of the door. “I won’t say a thing to anyone, and I sure as hell won’t be talking to you anymore either.”

  Slam

  Betty cried for a moment, but a numb sort of rage grew within her and helped to dry her eyes. She decided that it would be a bad idea to leave a trail of bodies scattered across the woods, especially since she had just made an enemy. One body wasn’t too risky, but several bodies would definitely be harder to conceal. She didn’t want the risk of them being linked back to her or Will, so she came up with a better solution. She waited for Susan’s car to leave, and then she walked back out to the shed. Will trailed behind her, following her inside.

  “Alright Will. Remember the pigs? This is basically the same thing. Hang her up for me, can you?”

  Will nodded and obeyed.

  Once Ashley was in the air, dangling upside down by a single leg, Betty handed him a knife.

  “Get the rest of the blood out. It shouldn’t have clotted yet.”

  Will sliced into Ashley’s shoulders, and the rest of her blood poured out onto the floor like spilled jello. He gasped in surprise and amusement. “Just like a pig! You’re right!”

  Betty nodded, and tried not to gag. It wasn’t as exciting to her as it was to him, but she knew it had to be done. It was best to make it seem like some sort of a game to push through it. She continued shouting instructions to Will until Ashley resembled nothing more than a well-butchered pile of meat.

  They took every piece out to the smoker, and tossed the incriminating charred bones into a bag to be grinded down and fed to the pigs at a later time.

  “We’ll mix the meat in with the pork until it’s gone. No one will know the difference.”

  Tammy’s fate was sealed in the same way as Ashley’s, but Will had gotten lazy and tossed her bones into the woods when the grinder had jammed. He figured that Betty wouldn’t notice. Unfortunately, it was his damning mistake.

  Chapter 22

  “With or Without You”

  March 31st, 1988

  Almost two years had passed since Susan last spoken to Betty. She had run into Sarah a few times during her trips into Wintersburg, and she would smile each time she saw her wearing the lavender colored necklace. Susan had mailed it to Sarah anonymously, and that caused a sense of mystery around the object, making her want to wear it even more. It seemed more special that way than just saying it was from a family friend. The mystery and allure turned the necklace into a treasure.

  Susan didn’t see Sarah on her trip this time, at least not in the flesh. Instead, she was met with a frightening poster and the faces of several missing women, pinned to a bulletin board.

  “Sarah Noe,” she read the name. An awful feeling, like she had been punched in the gut, took over her, and she gasped for air. Almost immediately, she ran to the payphone and dialed Betty’s phone number. After two rings that seemed like two thousand, there was a voice on the line.

  “Hello?”

  “Betty! What happened? Sarah’s missing?”

  “Susan? Is that you?” Betty’s voice croaked quietly.

  “Of course it is! What’s going on? What happened?”

  “She’s gone.”

  “What do you mean she’s gone?”

  “Susan. She’s gone.”

  Betty broke into sobbing, and Susan immediately knew what she had meant. She thought of the last time they had talked. She remembered Will, his clothes dirty, his hands covered in dried blood. She recalled the smell, and the alarming calmness in Betty’s demeanor. That hadn’t been a one-time incident. Will had killed before, and she realized that he had killed after, as well.

  “Is it — did he —”

  “Yes,” Betty replied, her voice even more strained than before.

  Shock clouded Susan’s ability to react. She walked slowly to her car in the Medley’s parking lot, and sat down inside of it. She stared blankly ahead for a few minutes, and then started the engine. She drove all the way back home to Parkington.

  The sky had darkened by the time she reached the city again. She parked her car and stepped out onto the sidewalk, not even bothering to go inside at all. Her feet carried her all the way to the train tracks, about two miles from her house, and she continued staring ahead, blankly.

  Many years of memories flashed around in her mind, playing back to her like a vintage film reel. She saw the highest moments of her life, and the lowest. Her first love smiled and waved at her, as well as her late husband. She felt herself kiss him on the lips, and then heard herself saying goodbye in a slightly younger voice. Her son’s tombstone appeared as well, along with the many birthdays and Christmases that she’d spent ignoring him. She hadn’t been entirely absent in his life, but she had spent his whole childhood just waiting for him to grow up. When he’d matured into a man, he surrounded himself with the people who had appreciated him, and left her as only a painful memory.

  Then she saw Alice, and she saw Sarah. The guilt became too much to bear.

  And finally, there was a train.

  Susan stepped onto the tracks as soon as she heard its whistle blowing. She walked ahead fearlessly, waiting for it to take her to a different world. In a matter of seconds, her wish came true.

  ◆

  Detective Darrow watched as one team pulled water-filled cars from the lake, and another team carried out the piles of souvenirs from the basement. With everyone assuming that Judy was still properly buried in the safety of the cemetery, only Sarah was exhumed from the crawl space. Will had been fairly cooperative over the weeks, but he wasn’t going to give away any of the remaining secrets, unless he was asked specifically for them. In his mind, his mother belonged exactly where he had put her. He had only tucked her into bed. Since finding out that his hair and shoe collections had been taken away as evidence
, he was already upset enough.

  When Sarah’s remains were brought out in a body bag, Detective Darrow shivered. So much of his time and energy had gone into solving this case, and it was all being carried away in front of him. He had driven by the lake countless times since Sarah had gone missing, and she had been there waiting to be found the entire time. He wondered how many obvious clues he had missed due to time crunches, or other distractions.

  Detective Darrow looked over at the large shed. He had been shielding his eyes from the scene for a while — not because it was any more gruesome than the other things, but because it was a harder reality to grasp. Murder was one thing, but what had happened in that shed was something entirely unique and disturbing. He had never even fathomed that a person could have been so sick as to dispose of bodies in such a way. His eyes wandered over to the smoker, and he grew even more nauseated as his imagination ran wild. Each time the wind blew past his face, he’d catch an unpleasant whiff of cooked meat, causing his abdomen to cramp up in ways that he’d never felt before. He could barely stand to look at the tools and the bags that were being taken out from there, but something kept him staring.