The Haunting of Secrets

by Shelley R. Pickens

  Her expression goes from annoyed to confused before it settles on sheepish. “No worries Aim, I was just drawing some things I’ve had on my mind lately and must have lost track of time. Come on in girl” she says as she backs away from the door so I can enter. “I’ll even show you what I’ve been working on.”

  I enter her room and as usual, the untidiness of it surprises me. As a person who lives her life simply and without a lot of miscellaneous stuff, Dejana’s room is claustrophobic. There are large drawing papers, pencils, and markers that litter the white comforter atop her bed and floor. It’s as if she goes where the inspiration takes her and if it means moving to the bed without cleaning up the desk, then so be it. It’s the organized chaos of a very creative individual. However, in my mind, she would give some women on the show Hoarders, a run for their money.

  She leads me to her bed where I see a number of large, white papers with dark, pencil drawings on them strewn about. I am immediately drawn to the one on the top of the pile. It’s a black and white portrait of the first girl we identified as one of the killer’s victims. Dejana has drawn from memory, every single facet of the young girl’s face. But she did more than that; Dejana was able to draw her as if she were alive, happy, and beautiful. The life practically glows from her drawn eyes. It makes me want to reach in and steal whatever it is that makes this girl’s life complete. It’s amazing.

  “Dejana,” I gasp, “no matter how many times I look at your portraits, they never cease to amaze me. Even without ever knowing her, you gave her life. Thank you,” I say, emotions swirling within me.

  Dejana just sits back and smiles at me, ever confident in her ability, but never boastful. “Thanks. It means a lot. I tried my best to draw her as I thought she was. She deserves to be remembered. When we catch this killer, I’ll make a drawing of every one of his victims and give it to their families. I just hope it’ll help them have some peace,” Dejana says, giving me yet another reason to be in awe of her.

  I take a few minutes and sift through the drawings on her bed. I see people from school in various scenes. One shows a boy and a girl kissing, their embrace recorded by her steady hand. Another shows two girls laughing in the cafeteria, their faces not giving away any of their secrets. I continue to look through, amazed at how well Dejana has captured and documented the very essence of the people that attend our school. I’m just about to praise her again when my breath catches in my throat. I have reached the bottom of the pile. I move the other portraits aside as I pull out an extra-long piece of white paper, almost the length of her bed. It’s a portrait of our school, half of it perfect and the other half charred. I take a closer look at the charred part of the sketch and see that flowers only grow on the charred side, the same one that held the cafeteria. The sun and clouds hover over the entire building, a clear message that says life is still there. I look even closer at the ruins, bring them almost to the point where they touch my face and I realize that the charred remains aren’t just random. Within the remains, I can see letters that spell out the phrase:

  We will never forget.

  “Oh Dejana,” I say, clearly at a loss for words. What could I possibly say to tell her how amazing and wonderful this piece is or how perfectly it captures what everyone feels? I hear her move behind me; studying the sketch with me.

  “I wanted to remember them somehow. I couldn’t get them out of my head, those thirty-seven that lost their lives. I found that drawing this, as I remembered their faces, helped me. Maybe one day I can share it with the families or with our school and help others heal as well. Or maybe not,” she says gathering up all the paper. “It may just be silly.”

  I stop her from her frantic gathering of the papers, put my hand on her arm, wait until she looks me in the eyes, and say “Not silly Dejana, brilliant. Beautiful, breathtakingly brilliant.”

  She nods and sets the papers back down on the bed, the grief ever threatening our hearts literally and metaphorically, put to bed for now. She shakes herself out of her stupor. “Okay, enough of the heavy. Isn’t Leah supposed to be here by now? Where is that girl?” she asks with a huff. “I’ll go downstairs and get my cell to text her and see where she is.”

  Dejana makes her way out the door, the pencil holding her bun in place, bobs while she walks. She mumbles some kind of question on her way out that I can’t understand so I follow her as she makes her way to the door, trying to ascertain what she was asking. For that reason alone, I see it. I catch the glow of it through the window. Something outside is on fire, casting a bright, yellow shadow piercing the darkness that surrounds the house. I yell Dejana’s name and run full tilt towards the back yard. Dejana follows me, confused by my behavior, but sensing my urgency. I run through the den, barely slowing down to open the revolving kitchen door before I throw open the door to the backyard and run out into the darkness. I stop running the minute I make it out the back door.

  Dejana was following me so closely that she runs into me. She starts to say ‘what the hell?’ but stops in mid-sentence. She finally sees them. Standing before us, illuminated by a large burning tree in Dejana’s backyard, is Leah. A knife is held to her throat by a man in a ski mask and covered from head to toe in black. The only piece of flesh visible is his eyes. The exact color of his irises is hard to decipher through the slits of the mask. The eerie glow from the fire blazing behind him reflects in his eyes, intensifying his already hard stare. The memories in my mind vibrate, confirming what I already know. Before us, stands the killer we have so desperately sought out these past weeks. He’s here, a few feet away from me and I want to rip his heart out. I tear my eyes away from the dark figure holding the knife and finally look at Leah. My anger immediately grows when I see the look of pure terror in her eyes.

  “Let her go, it’s me you want,” I spit at the killer as he holds my friend hostage.

  Behind me, I hear Dejana whisper a quiet, “Oh my God,” but to her credit, she makes no move to hysterics. Because of his mask, I can’t see the killer’s reaction, but I can sense his hesitation. He had used Leah to lure me out here and now that I’m close, he seems to be waiting for something. Maybe he’s waiting for me to offer to trade my life for Leah’s. I see the knife in his hand lower infinitesimally and I dare to hope that he takes me instead.

  “I’m here right in front of you; the only one who knows all your secrets. If you want to shut me up asshole then come and get me,” I say, taunting him, doing my best to get him to focus on me and not the knife at Leah’s neck. For a few moments, I think it’s working. Then, off in the distance, I hear sirens from a fire truck. I turn to the sound, my heart picking up the pace as I realize they must be coming here. One of the neighbors must have seen the flames and called the fire department. I turn back to Leah still in the killer’s grasps, her face a portrait of intense fear. Seconds before the fateful moment, I realize too late that this was his plan all along. He wanted me to see this, needed me to watch as he tormented Leah. He wanted me to have hope, just so he could watch it disappear. He takes one last hungry look at me before sliding the blade across Leah’s throat. Blood pours down the front of her shirt in waves, staining all it comes in contact with, a dark crimson.

  I scream, “No!” and take off toward Leah; desperate to save her though I know in my heart it’s too late. The blood is quickly beginning to pool at her feet. The killer callously shoves her frozen, shocked body to the ground, before turning and silently blending into the dark night. I fall to my knees in front of Leah and cradle her head in my lap. I put my gloved hands over her neck wound in a vain attempt to staunch the blood loss, but there’s nothing I can do to save her. I had my chance to convince the killer to take me and I blew it. Behind me, I hear Dejana on the phone, calling for an ambulance, her voice rising in shock and panic to be heard above the sirens. I look down at Leah and try to find the words to comfort her, but my mind is numb, drowned in guilt. Her death is senseless, a punishment for helping me and a decoy for the killer to escape. I blame myself.
I should have never gotten Leah involved with this search in the first place.

  I look into her frightened eyes and say, “I’m so sorry Leah.”

  She grasps my hands and tries to speak, but the killer must have severed her vocal cords, because all that comes out is a gurgle. I feel her push something small and hard into my hand; I look down and see a blood splattered flash drive. Her eyes bore into mine again as she tries to tell me something, but it’s lost in the recesses of her torn and battered throat. I am overcome with grief. My heart is heavy, weighed down with the knowledge that the world will never know how wonderful Leah is, how brave she was to go up against a killer armed with nothing but a laptop and a mission, all to give the souls of those poor murdered girls peace.

  Then it hits me like a splash of cold water over my face, an idea so simple, so easy to complete, pops into my head. It’s so obvious I wonder why I hadn’t thought of it before. There will be a way for her to live on, to never be forgotten. For the first time ever, I voluntarily take off my glove and offer another person my bare hand.

  “Take my hand. If you touch me, every memory you have will flow into me. I promise you, it won’t hurt. I want to share those memories with everyone. If you’ll trust me, I will make damn sure that this world never forgets you, ever.”

  As if she knew her life was leaving her, Leah uses her last bit of strength to grasp my hand. Instantly, Leah’s memories fill me. I tilt my head back, absorbing, reveling in the decency of them. Through Leah’s eyes, I can see how much she cared about others, the times she helped teach computer skills to technologically challenged adults, the thrill of solving puzzles in computer programming class and challenging herself to new computer hacks, just to see how far she could go. She never knowingly damaged anyone with her work and it was clear in her memories she had friends who cared for her. I had just reached the most recent of her memories, when they ceased. Surprised, I looked down and realize why. Leah’s eyes have dulled over; her soul no longer inhabits her body. Without the soul, the body is just an empty shell. Gently, I place Leah’s hands across her chest in the universal sign of death. For once, I am grateful for my curse. I am thankful that I could give Leah a shot at immortality. She deserves no less for her efforts, for her bravery, but most of all, for being an unwitting sacrifice in a deranged killer’s plan. She didn’t deserve to be taken so young.

  The roar of fire engine sirens fills my ears as they reach Dejana’s house. Vaguely, I register the firefighters as they run around me asking questions, preparing to put out the fire in the tree. A few kneel in front of me; lift me away from the body as they make vain attempts to save Leah’s life. They don’t realize she’s already gone. I look down at the flash drive huddled in my red hands and I put it in my pocket. I see my blood stained clothes, vaguely recognize that I am bathed in Leah’s blood, the blood of an innocent. Rage fills me. I vow then and there, I will do anything to bring this creep down. If I have to forfeit my life in the process, so be it. It wasn’t much of a life to begin with anyway.

  Chapter Thirty

  ~ Cloaked Monsters ~

  Rain comes down in sheets as I stare out of the hole that used to be my bedroom window. I sit among the charred remains of what was once my room, surrounded by the darkness I crave. The blackness comforts me somehow, allows me to hope that sometime soon the world will make sense again. Then the thought of a deranged killer hunting me, creeps back into my mind and the hope burns up just like my room did. I sit in my blood stained clothes with my legs curled up and my arms wrapped around them, willing the killer to come and find me. Enough bad has happened these past few weeks that I feel like I could just sit here until I petrify. Vampires can do it, why not me? I’ve been here for more than three hours now and sadly, my heart still feels raw from Leah’s death.

  Tears flow freely down my face mirroring the rain outside. I’m not sure when I started crying. I feel numb, detached even from the events of tonight, the small stains of water apparent in the black wood beneath my feet are evidence of my grief. It isn’t that I’ve never seen or experienced death, I have, but only in memories. Death was something I watched like a movie, something intangible that I could judge from afar. However, seeing it firsthand, doing all I could to stop the inevitable, changes everything. Watching allows your mind to process the death as fiction, an irrelevant event that has no personal effect or connection. But actually experiencing death, watching the spark of life leaving the eyes of that person, causes your heart to break and bleed. The pain freeflows like a broken dam and I have no idea how to fix it.

  My phone vibrates next to me, but I ignore it. Just a few short hours ago in her back yard, I gave Dejana the bloody flash drive and told her to find out what information Leah uncovered about the killer. Leah obviously found something and wanted us to know about it, to use it to finish this guy once and for all. I tried to slip out before anyone noticed me; the blood on my clothes however, was of great interest to the police. I was a key witness to a horrible crime. They asked me tons of questions, the most obvious being if I knew the killer. That was the only question where I lied. I could honestly answer all the other questions, because I knew nothing. I wasn’t sure what led the killer to Dejana’s house, but he seems to know everything else about me so why not say that I am staying with Dejana? It isn’t that I don’t want to talk to her; I’m worried about her and I am itching to know what’s on that flash drive. However, I have other pressing things on my mind right now. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, Brenda’s murder has created quite a problem for me: possible exposure. I came to this city to hide. The more exposure this small town gets, the greater the chance my past has to catch up with me. I’ve been running from it for as long as I can remember.

  After Mary adopted me, she gave me permission to change my name. It was then that we moved here to Bartow, Georgia, a small town in the middle of nowhere. It was the only place I could think of where he wouldn’t look, the boy I touched when I was seven. His name was David, a bully who terrorized the schoolyard every day at our elementary school. One day, the gym teacher decided to challenge all the second graders to a game of dodge ball. Since this was long before I realized what was wrong with me or how to control it, I was chosen to play. I became part of the team that was to go against David’s much stronger team. Even that young, he was always a leader; a large boy who used either charm or intimidation to get whatever he wanted. Being the biggest of us, David was excellent at the game of dodge ball. Slowly but surely, he alone dispatched my teammates until only I remained. The only reason I was last was because he didn’t see me as a threat.

  Staring each other down in the middle of the court, he and I faced off. His body exuded confidence, mine fear. Suddenly, we both lunged for the closest ball. We reached it at the same moment and his hand touched mine. Instead of being flooded with memories, I saw nothing but a dark, black void. He broke contact quickly and when our eyes met, I didn’t see anger or fear. What I saw scared me even more—a smile. One filled with recognition and elation. Fear and anger I can deal with, but exhilaration when faced with my curse was just too strange for me. Regardless of his response, the isolation I required to live my life was gone with that one touch. I ran out of the gym and never returned to that school. I have no idea what David found so enchanting about my curse after it was revealed. Regardless it made no difference. He harbored no memories. And a boy with an empty head that should be inundated with seven years of memories was as much a threat to me as a boy living the secret life of a murderer.

  I went home, packed my clothes, and was gone within the hour. That was the beginning of my shuffle through the foster care system. I had no idea what kind of person has no past, nor did I ever want to know. It didn’t matter what new town I ran to, he always found me. Whether it took a month or a year, he’d always just appeared one day. It’s only by the grace of luck that he has never seen me as he was roaming around school or buying something in a random aisle at the grocery store. It doesn’t seem t
o matter where I go, he always manages to track me down. David is the boy I have spent my life in isolation to avoid, the main reason I choose to be ignored. If I don’t exist, then he can’t find me. But now, with the national news inundated with stories of the bombing, the missing kids, the murders, he will come. He won’t be able to avoid it. David was always drawn to suffering and bloodshed. I am not naïve enough to think that he has grown out of that. So tonight, I will use myself as bait. To put an end to this killer so I can leave Bartow and find another safe place to build a life. I will miss Dejana and Logan more than I can bear to think about. In order to protect them, however, I have to disappear once this is over. I need to find some way to say goodbye.

  So here I sit, avoiding Dejana’s calls and waiting for the killer to come and get me. I know he’s watching me; I’m just not sure what he’s waiting for. Behind me, I hear a creaking noise; someone is trying to make it up the stairs. I stand and turn around to face what used to be my door. My hand curls around the knife I got from the kitchen. Since I know the killer loves knives, I made sure this one is extra sharp. I try to control my breathing, slow down my heart as I wait for the killer to make it to my door. The creaking noise grows louder as he gets closer to the top of the stairs. Blood roars in my ears, but it helps me focus on the door, focus on what is to come.

  I hear a loud bump just outside my door followed by a familiar voice shouting “ouch” very loudly. Logan. I see him come around the corner, an annoyed expression on his face as he rubs his right knee. “Was there always a large, black table at the top of the stairs blocking the way?” Logan asks, clearly frustrated.

  “That’s what you get for not coming in through the window,” I say sarcastically, despite the happiness that I feel seeing him. I was so sure that I would never have the chance again. Yet here he is, alive and attractive as ever in his low-cut jeans and a white t-shirt with some kind of basketball logo on the front. His hair is a mess, as if he had just gotten out of bed and ran his hands through it to compensate for lack of a brush. It should make him appear disheveled, but he totally rocks the rugged look. My eyes are finally drawn to his and in the soft glow of the flashlight. I can see the gold sparkle in his hazel eyes.