Fair Hand of Death

As her friends went on and on about how great college was, Melanie’s state of mind went in and out of consciousness as she played with a piece of paper. Somewhere between the “crazy dorm parties” and “constant paper writing”, she daydreamed about other things while folding and unfolding her paper. Despite looking exactly the same since graduation (all three girls were blessed with blonde hair and green eyes, as if sisters separated at birth), things changed.

It had only been four months since they all last saw each other, but the way the girls across from her spoke, it seemed more like four years. Melanie could hardly even keep up with pretending to be interested in what they had to say as they sat in the family diner. It wasn’t their fault: she was more exhausted from her sleepless night than bored with their pointless chatter. Surprisingly, one of them noticed Melanie’s inability to join in on the conversation.

“Melanie...hello?!?” Autumn said as she snapped her fingers in front of Melanie’s eyes.  “Are you even listening?”

She snapped back to reality and quickly returned to the conversation at hand.  “Sorry, I’ve just been out of it lately.”

“I bet” replied Amy “It’s been a tough year for you. First, you didn’t get into the same school we did and then, well…”

Melanie’s legs were instantly covered in goose bumps and she immediately jerked her body into an awkward position.

“Shut up, Amy. We said that wasn’t going to be brought up!” barked Autumn.

“What? I didn’t say anything about Daniel.”

“Just shut up, Amy!”

Hearing his name was reason enough for Melanie to leave.

“Look it was great seeing you guys again, but I have to go.” She quickly got up from the table and walked over to Amy and Autumn, giving each of them a quick hug and peck on the cheek.

“Wait, Melanie…we haven’t talked about your school!”

Melanie turned her back to the door, but was still backing up to the diner exit.

 She quickly said, “Oh you know, it’s what’s expected of Community College…less papers and closer to home. I’ll see you guys later, bye!”

She wasn’t sure if either Amy or Autumn said anything after that. Melanie quickly walked down the street and by the time she looked back to see if they were following her, the restaurant was a little over a block behind her. They hadn’t bothered to check to see if she was all right, which was fine by her. Once she realized she was alone, a big gasp of breath came over her, as if she wasn’t able to breathe the entire time she was with them.

She feared Daniel would be brought up. She feared hearing his name, because in his name revealed many torturous things to her. She wanted to forget everything and just pretend that he never meant anything in her life. As if the two years they were together never happened and nothing happened that random Saturday night in late April.

But someone knew what she did---and was willing to torture her about it.

Melanie received a note that was left in her windshield wiper last week. She found it after classes. It was typed with a simple message with no name to it:

“If you wish to lie about what happened, at least tell me the truth.”

She crumpled it up and thought nothing of it. That is, until the next day—same note, roughly around the same time, only this time she was at her house. By day four the message became more specific:

“If you wish to lie about Daniel, at least tell me what he did.”

Then yesterday, the message left on Melanie’s car, became obvious that whoever wrote it, knew:

“It was no accident. Daniel is dead because of you.”

            --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

            It was night. Melanie was smoking while sitting on the hood of her car. She decided to park the same spot she parked a little over six months ago. She remembered everything, but then again how could she forget it?

She came here with a guy…who wasn’t Daniel. Melanie didn’t even bother to remember his name, but she called him Kirk due to his uncanny resemblance of Kirk Cameron. He didn’t mind: he was only in it for one thing. Still, she had no real excuse as to why she did it but it happened. They came to the woods to be alone. She found this spot because of Daniel: he loved to go hiking, especially at night. Maybe that was the reason why she wanted him to park there: so she could get caught and end it.

One moment they were in the backseat, and the next Daniel was pounding on the window, screaming obscenities so harsh it quickly fogged up the window he had wiped only a minute earlier. Melanie got out, screaming, although she had no real reason to. Kirk laughed while he threw her purse out of the car, moved to the front seat and drove off. They moved further into the woods, as their fight echoed into other unknown parts of the forest. Anyone could hear all the juicy details if they just listened:

“You’re a whore.”

“You’ve never loved me.”

“I hate you.”

            That final one had Daniel lunging at Melanie. She couldn’t take his harsh words anymore, so she fought back and pushed him while he came towards her. He stumbled. He fell. She ran away and went home. She thought nothing about it. The next day the cops were at her house: they had unfortunate job to tell her the bad news:

            Daniel was found dead in the woods.

                        He apparently was hiking in the woods.

(He loved to go hiking, especially at night…)

                                    He stumbled. He fell.

(She ran away and went home…though nothing of it.)

                                                He bumped his head on a jagged rock and bled out.

            They were sorry for her loss. Everyone was. At graduation he received a five minutes of silence. During those five minutes, Melanie looked for Kirk in the stands. His younger sister was in her class, so had had to be there: but he wasn’t. Did he possibly know?

            As she waited, she went from smoking to playing with the latest message that was left on her car that day: the one she was playing with at the diner.

            “Meet me in the spot. Midnight---I promise I won’t bother you after tonight”

            She figured Kirk would be here soon. She looked at the cell phone: 12:03. Maybe he flaked out? Then she thought about it:

Not this spot, but rather that spot: The spot where Daniel died.

            She started to walk into woods.  The October air hit her spine in the wrong way. As she walked closer and closer to the spot, she swore she heard twigs snap and hoarse breathing behind her. By the time she reached the spot, she saw a figure holding something.

“Kirk?” Melanie asked.

It didn’t reply, whether it was Kirk or not she couldn’t figure it out. It stood in possibly the darkest spot of the woods. It could be a man…it could be a woman. It could be just be a tree, but then again, trees don’t turn.

It turned away from her and walked away. Melanie was scared, but slowly started to get pissed. “This was it? This…thing just wanted to screw with me?”

It walked almost out of sight, then turned back to Melanie and stopped in its tracks.

She assumed it wanted her to walk towards it. As she walked in that direction, she heard rushing water. Once she realized she was near the creek, she was a few feet away from it. As far as she could tell, it wasn’t Kirk, but she couldn’t be sure.

It was just standing there, for several minutes. There was a sense of awkwardness, but familiarity.

Finally, out of madness, she yelled, “Who the hell are you?”

In that instant, it grabbed her arm. It was trying to get her to fall in the creek: To die in the woods. Like Daniel.

“Kirk, stop! It was an accident, I swear to God! Listen to me…”

It jerked Melanie closer and it finally spoke.

“Who the fuck is Kirk?”

The jagged rock that was in its hand dashed into Melanie’s head, which made her fall into the creek. Every bump, tear and hit made her scream in pain. As she started to sink in the eighteen inches of dark water, she was unable to move The only thing she could do was  look up at the figure.

She removed her hood and let her sandy blonde hair out. She smiled as Melanie stopped screaming and slowly started to choke on both the blood and water that was filling her mouth. Melanie knew who the figure was and she knew what was to happen to her. Then, in almost perfect aim, she threw the jagged rock right onto Melanie’s head and watched as she sunk into the pitch black waters. She picked up Melanie’s purse, threw it into the creek and turned away to get back to her alibi.