Jessica & Kate

Jessica and Kate
A Ghost Story
by Guy Person



  Mona and Jack White live in a small community seven miles from the growing town of Sundale.  The residents of Sundale Lovingly call this small patch of homes, North Horizon.  It was a safe and tranquil place.  The only tragic thing to ever happen in North Horizon was the disappearance of The White's only two children in 1997... until now.

TOWNSHIP OF SUNDALE
SEPTEMBER 2, 2004
8:58 PM
  "Sundale Police Department this is Tina what is your emergency?" It came out all in one breath.  The voice that spoke into the ear of the police dispatcher was cold and slow, sounding neither male or female.
  "Ten miles south.  Start at the end of Backwatte Road and go ten miles south.  There's a dead tree there and that's where you should dig to find the bodies.  Dig them up because they've been there for a long time, waiting to be found.  There, I've done my part."
  The phone on the other end of the line went dead and Tina couldn't shake the ice water chill that voice left on her skin as she sent the caller's strange tip through the proper channels.

NORTH HORIZON
11:24 PM
  Most of North Horizon was in deep slumber.  Mona and Jack were not among them.  The wedlock couple lay in their bed of thirty plus years, neither knew how long anymore because they had stopped counting.  After the loss of their two children, the marrage had gone from bad to horrible.  In the gloom it was Mona who spoke first.
  "Do you know what you are?"
  "What do you mean?"
  "I'm asking you if you know what you are?"
  "Just an aged man getting older.  Please Mona, I just want to sleep."
  "You're a damned liar, that's what you are Jack," Mona stated.  Jack could tell by her use of curse words that she was more than upset with him.
  "You've been lying and sneeking out of the house for the last seven years, care to explain?" Mona invited now.  Jack White was silent, feeling sweat break out on his rough face.  In the dark room the silence spun on.  Finally, Mona spoke again, breaking the unresponsive quiet of her husband.
  "I had no idea what you were hiding from me.  How could you.  How dare you."
  "Mona..."
  "Shut your mouth!  You had your chance.  I asked you to explain, but you let silence speak for you, so now I'm talking," Mona spoke in a low and agitated voice, "For seven years... I thought you were up to something, but my mind isn't as sharp as it once was.  You know I once thought you were seeing another woman behind my back... but then I thought, what would another woman want with you when you can't even satisfy your own wife!" Mona White had a sharp tongue and Jack could feel it's nasty cuts now.
  "Mona..." Jack tried again in whisper voice full of fear.
  "I don't want to hear a fucking word.  You listen.  I don't know how much longer this would have gone on, but I finally wised up to you.  I know the truth, because I followed you.  I borrowed Missy Kreen's car and I followed you.  I had to tell her I needed to use her car to get extra supplies from Sundale.  Knowbody can know about this and you know that.  The truth is, you've been keeping that thing alive haven't you?  That's where you go... to keep that thing alive.  Now listen close Jack White.  You are going out to that thing and you are going to kill it.  I want proof.  Real proof, not like last time.  Do you understand me?"
  There was nothing more to be said, Jack didn't dare protest.  Mona listened as her husband obediently got out of bed and dressed himself.  She watched him grab the car keys off the bedside table and then leave.
  Now Mona was alone.
  Rage grew to Mona's surface.  She listened as the family car, after several failed attempts, started up and drove off.  Mona slammed her eyes shut against the prosaic room.  She bit down hard on her tongue to kill the scream of hatred building in her throat with pain and the taste of blood.  Her mind began to swirl with the memories of her lost children and of her lame husband, her lying and sneaking husband.
  "How could you keep that thing alive?" Mona asked out loud.  Suddenly her mind was made up, and there was only one thing she could do.
  The woman got out of bed and dressed quickly into jeans and a red sweater.  Her long hair hung down passed her knees, and now she grabbed it up and rolled it into a messy bun on her head, sticking it there with old hair-pins.  She did it quick and with ease as anything else one has done countless times before.
  Moving with purpose, she left the bedroom and headed downstairs.  The house Mona White lived in disgusted her, a constant burden on her body, and memory.  Walking through it now upset her even more in her present state of mind.  Passing by a mirror in the hall leading to the kitchen, Mona's darting blue eyes caught a glimpse of herself in it.  The woman Mona spied in the looking glass was unidentifiable to her.  The lines were deep around her mouth and eyes, carved from seven plus years of building bitterness and anger.  The expression of hate cut into her face made Mona look much older than she was.  Even her beautiful long hair had gone a dull gray over the years.
  Once in the kitchen, Mona found the biggest and sharpest knife she could find, a clean and reflecting blade.  Then Mona sat at her kitchen table and began to wait for her husband to return.  The only thing to keep her company during her wait was the woman in the knife's flat surface and a growing case of what felt like heartburn.  Hours rolled by and Mona waited for Jack to bring the proof she had asked for and then she would make sure it was the last thing Jack White ever did.

SEPTEMBER 3
5:06 AM
  Across the street from the Whites' house lived the Kreen family.  Husband, wife and two teenage boys.  The family was like clock work, the one story brick house they lived in was always dark by midnight.  With two hours remaining before the first of them would have gotten up, from the dim home, a scream came.  The sound of a single runner in the domicile was clear to the subdued night.
  A wounded and bloody girl, around twenty in age, burst from the Kreen house, swinging the front door wide and stumbling down the porch steps.  She ran blindly into the dark street.  The girl crashed, her body hit the faded yellow lines of the road.  Blood was thick in her dark hair that went to her shoulders.  Her once smooth forehead was now cut and scraped.  Bruises ran the length of the right side of her face, black and yellow bruises, some puffy and cut.  Blood dripped from her nose and her full lips were split open.  From the four stab wounds sitting at close quarters next to each other on her right shoulder, the jean jacket she wore was torn and soaked in dark liquid.  Her small hands were filthy and covered in small cuts and scrapes.  Her jean pants were torn at the knee, the exposed flesh cut and bleeding.
  From the road, she looked to the house across from the Kreen house and saw a light glowing through one curtain covered window.  It became her destination and she forced her body to get back up, leaving an amount of blood where she had rested for only a moment.  The girl stumbled her way up the concrete steps leading to the front door of the Whites' home.  She pressed the small yellow button beside the door again and again, until someone answered.

5:09 AM
  The sound of the doorbell made Mona shout out in shock.  Her heartburn flared.  The gentle tones of the doorbell relayed an echo of irritation in Mona's mind.  She wasn't going to answer, figuring they would go away, but the second chiming of the doorbell told her not to get her hopes up.  A third and fourth tolling came in quick succession after the second.  The irritation was too much and Mona went to the door, taking the knife with her.  Jack had yet to return and Mona had already decided that Jack was up to something.  The fact that she didn't know what it was infurriated Mona to no end.
  Mona planned to tell whoever it was on the other side of the door, to get the fuck off her porch.  This was not the morning to pester Mona White.  Her anger was legendary in North Horizon, which everybody agreed got worse after Mona and Jack's tragic loss in '97.  But nobody knew Mona's true wrath like the man who had married her.
  Opening the door, ready to reprimand the person on the other side, Mona made no attempt to conceal the sharp blade in her hand.  Before she could so much as breath in to begin her rave, a bloody girl fell into the house, as if she had been leaning on the door when Mona opened it.  The girl landed on Mona sending them both to the hardwood floor.
  "Get off me!" Mona roared.  If not for the girl's promptness to roll off Mona, she would have gotten another stab.  Once she was off Mona, she was motionless, crying quietly onto the floor.  Mona stood, knowing how close she had come to sticking the girl with her weapon.  Quickly Mona shut the front door, taking no notice of the open door across the street.
  The girl wept on.
  "Who are you?  I know you're not from around here.  Did you come from Sundale?" Mona demanded to know, looking down at the girl.  Something about the young woman's condition was familiar, and it put black thoughts in Mona's mind.  It was clear what happened to the girl... in Mona's eyes.  She was attacked, and Mona was ready to bet her life on who had attacked her.  Instantly she let the blame fall to Jack White.
  Jack's fault for keeping that thing alive.
  The girl continued to cry, dripping tears and blood onto the wood floor.  Mona watched her, waiting to see if she was going to be able to collect herself or not.  With some frustration, Mona repeated her queries.  At that moment, the sound of a familiar car pulling up to the driveway disrtacted her.  Jack White had returned.  Looking at the hurt girl, Mona knew she had made a mistake by letting Jack go off on his own, but now it was time to clean up this old mess for good.
  "Let's get you to a bed, I'll call for help and you can lay down while you wait," Mona said to the girl, who looked up at her.  Their eyes met, and the young woman's eyes became congnizant under her tears.  The tears themselves seemed to dry up instantly and the girl continued to stare at Mona as she helped her up.  Mona took no notice of this, but quickly got the girl to her feet and took her upstairs in one of the rooms to wait.  One of the children's rooms.  Once this was done, Mona rushed back downstairs to wait for her husband.  She knew he was going to come empty handed because that thing was loose in North Horizon.
  "I should have went with him to kill that thing the first time.  He's a man, I knew he couldn't do the job.  I never fucking learn!" Mona said to herself and slapped herself in the face hard enough to leave a palm print.  But as her mother-in-law said so often, "Done is done."

5:16 AM
  Without taking his eyes off his dwelling, Jack White turned his car off and pulled the key out of the ignition hole.  He didn't think of the place he lived in as home, but as a prison with a warden strait from the deepest depths of Hell's fury.  Lights were on inside, which meant she was waiting for him.  He figured she would find out what he was doing eventually because Mona was not a stupid woman.  But he had gotten away with it long enough to have a plan of escape from her without getting dirty himself.  Jack feared his wife, more that any person or problem that could be possed to him.  He stared at the three story structure feeling like the coward he had become over the years of beatings his wife had administered.  The woman was bigger and stronger than him, always had been.  His body frame was thin and breakable while she was stout and solid.  From the day they were married, Mona's temper grew steadily worse.  Then in '97 she became something worse, after the loss.  Mona became callous, cold, savage, and heartless.  She had loved the kids, had warmth for them, but... things changed.
  Jack was in constant fear for his life, but would never tell a soul of his situation, even to save himself.  Fearing his wife, and the abuse she could hand out was something Jack wanted to take to the grave.  It was hard enough knowing these things in secret, let alone having the staring and judging eyes of the strangers who would find out, (Which would be everybody in North Horizon and most everybody in Sundale) if he told.  But all that was irrelevant because if he ever told, his wife would kill him and make sure he suffered before the end... still it would not compare to having people know what was going on.  Shame was the only thing he feared more than Mona.
  'If all goes well, Mona's gonna get what's coming to her.  I wish I could have gotten just a little more time, but she knows what I've been doing so it's now or never', Jack thought to himself.  He dared a smile in the dark before he got out of the car, stepping into the calm early morning air.  He had no proof for Mona and was damn proud of it.
  "Hey! Hey you!  Mister!  Help me!"  A woman began to scream as Jack closed his car door.  He turned around to see who had called out.  A blonde woman with movie-star features,(curly golden hair, slim body dressed in a tight short sleeve pink sweater and tan shorts), was running toward him.  Her brown eyes looked frantic.  As she closed in, Jack could see the pure panic on her face, but what stood out more to him was the blood on her hands and sweater.  Jack knew she wasn't a resident of North Horizon.
  When she reached him, Jack had to catch her in mid-collapse.
  "Are you okay?  Are you hurt?" Jack asked.  The woman steadied herself even as she spoke, still trying to catch her breath.
  "The police... we need to call the police," tears made tracks down her cheeks.  She shook noticeably, though there wasn't so much as a light breeze in the air.  Her eyes were trying to see everywhere at once and she was tugging on Jack's shirt.  She looked to be in a state of shock.
  "What happened?" Jack asked, fearing that he already knew, fearing that his plan had already gone soar.
  "They didn't... have heads... and the... neighbors too... my..." she moaned loudly and then her speech became nothing more than blubbering incoherence.  She dropped her head as if too heavy to hold up.
  "Let's go inside, it's not safe out here," Jack spoke.  He led her up to the front door.  Before opening it, Jack observed the street.  The houses were quiet and dark.  When he saw The Kreen's door wide open, a cold lump of dread swelled in his heart.
  'It's too late to go back now.  As mom use to say, done is done,' Jack thought to himself.  With a deep sigh, he opened the door and let the blonde enter before he went in himself.

5:24 AM
  Standing in the hall leading to the kitchen was Mona.  She purposely hid herself in the shadows that sat there.  The blonde trembled where she stood, (noticing blood on the hardwood floor) trying to get herself under control.
  "This woman needs to call the police, something's..." Jack began, but Mona raised her hand and he went silent.
  "I know.  there's been trouble and I've made the call.  Take her up stairs Jack, the first door on the right, she can wait with the other.  You and I need to talk," Mona said as smooth and casual as a hostess at a five star restaurant.  Jack's face went grim with fear.
  The blonde looked from the wife to the husband, "what other?" she voiced, looking back to the large woman standing in the hall.
  "A young female is here.  She just arrived.  She's been hurt pretty bad, but as I said, I called the authorities in Sundale and they should be here soon enough.  You're probably in shock.  Let my husband show you up the stairs to a room where you can wait,"  Mona said to the blonde.  Harshness was bubbling in the smooth visage she held.
  "Come on, let's go check on that girl," Jack said to the blonde and grabbed her arm lightly to guide her toward the steps and up them.  Just beyond the top step, they came upon two doors standing across from each other in the dim lit hall of the second floor.
  Jack opened the door an their right to reveal a bright blue room.  There was a child's bed and a small rocking chair inside.  Only one other inanimate object was in the room: a small plastic sailboat, the kind a child would use for adventures in the tub.  Nothing hung on the walls and the hardwood floors were just as bare as the one window looking over the neighbors' garage.  But the first thing the blonde and Jack noticed was the girl resting on the child's bed.  She was still bloody and her wounds had not been so much as looked at by Mona.  Instantly the blonde went to the young girl and knelt before the bed.
  "What happened?" she asked, but the hurt young woman only moaned with her eyes closed, "We need to get someone here fast... or maybe just take her to the hospital," the blond then spoke to Jack, nearing panic all over again.
  "Everything is going to be okay.  The police have already been called.  They should be here as quick as can be," Jack said to her.  He left the room, closing the door behind him.  The taste of his lie was potent, like rotten eggs stuffed in his mouth.  If Jack White knew anything at all, it was the behavior of his wife.  Simply by the cool tone of Mona's voice, Jack knew three things right away. Mona was in a fury, she blamed him, and she most definitely did not call the Sundale Police Department.
  As he walked down the steps, fear gripped him.  Jack knew he was in trouble... no check that, he was in deep shit and there was no way to get out.  He didn't understand how all this could have happened, and was too afraid to realize that it wasn't happening the way his wife thought.  But it was only a matter of time before he would.  It was all a matter of time.

5:27 AM
  Waiting like a patient feline for the mouse to come out of the hole, Mona waited at the bottom of the steps for Jack.  He appeared at the top of the staircase and the frightened look on his face only made her distaste for him grow.  As he came down the steps, she could see that he was about to cry, his hands were quivering.  Her distaste grew to a spiteful loathing in a matter of moments.  Once he was close enough for her to reach, Mona grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him down off the last few steps.  Gravity took him to the floor.  He hit with a loud thud and a squeel escaped his mouth before pain errupted in his left shoulder, which took most the impact.
  "Get up you stupid son-of-a-bastard!"  Mona yelled at him, but before he could comply she was on him, grabbing his hair and pulling him up to his feet.  He moaned out, almost took a swing at her, but saw the blade in her right hand.  Mona waisted no time in making sure he saw it.  She slammed his back into the nearest wall with a shove of her big hand and then pointed the tip of the blade strait at his throat, guiding it over his unshaven neck.  The sound of the blade moving over the small hairs was like a whisper of rustling bushes.
  "Mona, please don't..." Jack pleaded in a weak voice.
  "Look at you, sniveling like a baby.  Are you sure you're even a man anymore?  Maybe your balls just dropped off your body like so much useless flesh.  I'll never understand you Jack.  You should have killed it, but you had to save it.  Hide that... THING from me.  Now look.  More people are dead.  How many this time?  How many do you think?  I thought I had cleaned up this mess.  It's always the woman's job to clean up the mess!  Because men never do their part!"
  "I CAN'T!"  Jack shouted at her.
  "That thing should be dead!"
  "NO!  He's not a thing!  He's our son, Mona!
  "He murdered our daughter!  My daughter!  My only girl!  I don't care about the girls he killed in the woods, but I cared about my daughter!  My only DAUGHTER!"  Mona screamed into his face and she wanted to drive the knife strait into his throat right then, but somehow managed to hold herself back because she had a job for him.
  "I'll be damned if I'm going to let that thing keep on killing, it will die tonight Jack.  Mark my words,"  Mona's eyes were wide, sparkling like jewels of insanity.  Jack could smell the foul breath of his wife, hot and thick like fresh dog shit.
    "I want you to go out and find it.  Bring it back here.  And Jack, if you run, I'll find you.  My money can go farther than you.  You're fate will be beyond imagining, I promise you that.  If I need to call upon Satan himself, you will pay if you run now," Mona stated, "Now go!" she commanded.  She let the blade fall and was disgusted to see that Jack had wet himself.  The smell of urine filled her nose as it did his.  He began to cry again, feeling like a small child, feeling like his mother had just hit him for doing something wrong.  Shame covered Jack's face, his head was lowered as he began to walk away from his spouse.
  With tears coming down, and his heart filled with nothing but fear, he went to the door, feeling the blast of his plan blowing up in his face.  'I should have never brought him back here' Jack thought to himself, but he still did not see the truth.
  "Remember Jack, bring it home," Mona spoke before he shut the front door behind him and was gone.  'Bring that thing home', she thought, 'bring it home so I can kill both of you and be done with this mess for good.'
  The house was silent again, but only for a moment.

5:36 AM
  Both girls heard everything the man and wife said and now the blonde was ready to leave.
  "Come on, we have to get out of here," she said to the wonded young woman on the bed.
  "No..." the dark haired girl spoke.
  "The fucking killer lived here!  Didn't you hear what they were saying?  We're in his damned room!"  the blonde spoke.  After a moment of struggle, she finally got the wounded girl to stand.  Both of them heard the ladder hit the side of the house, just outside the window of the room.  Someone was coming, as if called home by the voices speaking of him.  The blonde took the other girl with her as she raced for the door.  The blonde screamed while the dark haired girl was silent.  The window swung open.  As the two girls reached the door, the blonde's grip slipped and the dark haired girl hit the floor again.  A man entered the room through the window, axe in hand.

5:38 AM
  "So, you've come home." Mona spoke, hearing the shrieks of the blonde.  Her grip on the knife handle tightened as she raced up the steps, taking them two at a time while the stinging in her chest persisted.  Mona felt hot excietment now as she reached the top of the steps.  The door on the right side of the hall burst open and both girls spilled out, crashing into the opposite door before falling to the floor.  Mona ignored them for the moment, stepping past them to look inside her son's room to see if it was really him.
  Indeed, Mona White's only son stood in his room, seven years older than his fifteen years when she had last seen him, when he had murdered his sister.  Curtis White had killed his sister, but Mona knew as well as Jack did, that his sister wasn't the first.  There had been others.  Jack had named him Curtis, but the person holding the clean axe in his left hand was nothing more than a killer to Mona.  A thing she tried to love... after all she covered up his first three murders and if that wasn't love, Mona didn't know what was.  But killing his sibling had been the last straw.  She didn't want anyone to know about what her son had done and she didn't want her daughter's name on the lips of everyone while it was splashed all over the front page of every newspaper, so she had order Jack to kill Curtis after they had seen to their dead daughter.  The madness of that time festered in Mona over the years, but now it was being sharpened to a corrupt and evil element at the the sight of her son standing before her.  In Mona's eyes, this was all Jack's fault.
  Curtis White was stunned by the madness glowing in his mother's blue eyes, making his grip on the axe loosen.  He could feel her hatred covering him like a hot and diseased blanket.
  "Go down the hall," Mona spoke over her shoulder to the two girls, "The door on the left will take you up to a place where you can hide until I come for you," without looking to see if they were obeying or not, Mona stepped into her son's room and shut the door behind her.  It slammed, making the man with the axe jump.
  "Dad said..." was all he could confess before Mona attacked.  The very sound of his voice (changed over the years but still his) instantly took Mona to new hights of rage.  It was a voice that should no longer be, clearly a demon dressed as a man.  Mona let out a banshee cry as she ran at him, knife raised.  She rushed across the room to the standing man like a wraith of vengence.  Mona knocked him down, pinning the axe between them as she plunged the blade into his left eye.  Still screaming, not hearing the eye pop, Mona began to twist the knife.  The blade began to scrape against the edge of the socket ripping away flesh.  Soon, Mona could feel the sharp edge grinding agains bone.  It made her smile.  She wanted to kill his sick and twisted brain, smash the windows of his soul.  the knife came out dripping and she stabbed out the other eye before she slit his throat.  Curtis did not scream or fight, he only twitched and bled and died with the rest of his confession trapped behind his lips forever.
  More pain in her chest came as she stood up to study her work.  'Oh yes', Mona thought, 'there will be much to clean up as the sun rises.  Much to do.  There can be nobody left who knows.'  With this thought running through her head, Mona left the room, swinging the door open wide, and heading down the hall to where she had instructed the girls to go.
  Into the attic.
  'The hurt one will be easy' Mona thought, 'the blonde might give me troubel, but they both know too much.  They have seen that things face, and probably know what I've done.  They can't leave here.  Nobody can now.'
  As she walked up into the darkness, the smell of dust and mold filled her nose.  The attic ran the length of the house, was pitch black and filled with old boxes and torn furniture.  Mona didn't think she would have much of a problem hunting the two down if she had to, she knew the attic well.  But hunting was a last resort.
  "The police are here!  They're waiting, come on out girls!" Mona invited, but got no answer.  All was quiet and Mona listened as things began to happen below her.  There was a loud thump from the second floor.  Seconds later, the front door opened and slammed shut.  Mona no longer knew what was going on, but she felt she had been tricked by the two girls.  She let out a howl of scream and headed back down to the second floor.
  Half way down the attic steps, Mona froze.  Pain siezed her chest and she gripped there.  Numbness flooded the arm and hand holding the bloody knife.  She heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs from the first floor and this got her going again until her legs grew too weak to support her.  As she reached the bottom, Mona dropped the knife to catch herself on the attic door.  The bloody cutting tool slid into the hall and was still.
  Mona's pain subsided only a little and she was far too determined to stop herself and realize what was happening to her body, but knowing it was not heartburn.  She moved on, sliding her feet across the hallway floor and using one hand against the left wall to support herself.  All she knew was that she had to clean up the mess, finish the job once and for all, it had to be done, there was no other choice.
  She was almost to the stairs leading down to the first floor when Jack White came out of his son's bedroom, back from his short walk around North Horizon.  Only now did he realize what he had been to afraid of to point out to Mona before.  Jack stood in Mona's way, and she stopped before him.  In his hands was the axe, blood dripping from the sharp chopping edge.  Still hate and insanity glimmered in Mona's eyes, she was drooling, and spit made it's way to her trembling chin.
  "I saw what you've done.  I saw... no heads, just like Curtis in there.  Why?  Why did you kill those people.  Curtis couldn't have killed all those people.  I counted the bodies.  There was no time for him to kill.  I dropped him off here to kill you Mona.  I dropped him off only a half hour before I got home.  He had no time.  It was you Mona... wasn't it.  I had no idea you were so far gone..."
  Confused, Mona glanced into Curtis' room and saw his body, headless, the head itself was missing.  More confusion struck her and she thought of the thump she had heard when she was in the attic... just before the front door opened.  Jack took a step toward her and she yelled out.
  "Stay away from me!"  Mona had no idea what was going on, but she did know that was not the way she had left Curtis. 
  Another wave of pain hit her and Mona's face crunched up as if she had just been shot in the chest with a pistol.  Jack dropped the axe and took three steps toward Mona, who tried to move away from him.  Jack's face was fill with concern, but only for a moment.  He kneeled before her and studied her.  He thought about turning around to pick up the axe again, but decided he didn't need it.
  "You're dying," He realized aloud and a huge smile, almost inhuman, spread across his face.  Jack chuckled, "The bitch is finally dying.  I thought you would never die.  Not even Curtis could kill you.  Is it a stroke?  Maybe a heart attack.  If it is, that's funny, because you know what I've always thought about you..."
  Behind Jack, the axe was found and raised.  He saw his wifes eyes grow wide, but she did not point or warn him.  Jack White's head was torn from his neck in one swipe of the axe with near impossible strength.  Blood pumped, the body dropped, and the head rolled to Mona.  Mona looked away, seeing the knife at the other end of the hall where she had dropped it.  She crawlled, pathetic and slow, trying to reach it.  Her heart froze and she was blinded with pain.  For a moment she felt as if she were underground, buried alive and hearing voices screaming in her head.  Buried alive and feeling the worms work their way into her flesh along with the roots of a tree ten miles south of Backwatte Road.  Suddenly Mona knew who had come to her door on this early morning.
  It was his first victom.
  Still blind by pain with a distinct ringing in the middle of her brain needing oxygen, Mona could still hear the screaming of voices.  She would give anything to be out of the ground, away from the worms and bugs and screaming voices of pain, and the darkness.  As if her wish had been granted, Mona was back on her floor in the hall of the second level of her home, breathing and...
  ..."Jessica's... dead... you can't be... her... my son... killed her..." they were Mona's last words.  Seeping from every pronounced sylable was trembling terror.  She no longer looked at the knife laying at the other end of the hall, but up at the axe that was about to end her life before her heart could.  The axe floated in the air, held by nobody, though Mona could feel the cold presence of someone, and could hear heavy breathing that was not her own.
  "Mona," spoke the holder of the axe, "You didn't recognize me at your door, but you remember me now.  You'll remember me long after you're dead too.  I'm free from the ground you put me after your son killed me.  I've spent a decade in that dark place.  But I made a deal with the dark and the dark set me free.  Bloodshed until sunrise is payment for my freedom.  But I didn't do it for me.  I did it for Kate.  She's close, I can hear her.  I'll free her soul before she has to make a deal too.  Before her soul sours in the ground like mine, like the other two girls your son killed.  I don't know where they are now.  Their bodies you hid with mine, but I don't know where they are now. Kate shouldn't have to make a deal.  I knew I'd find you and Kate if I came back to North Horizon to give my payment to the dark.  Death is what the dark covets, what my sour soul will covet forever because of you, your husband and your son.  I wanted you to know.  I want you to know what you've caused.  Remember that.  Hell awaits you Mona White, your son and husband have already been accepted.  The sun is coming up so you are my last, payment is complete."

5:55 AM
  Mona White's severed head rolled across the floor, hair coming undone and setting out like a gray carpet.  The axe dropped to the hardwood floor, stained with the red of the Whites.

6:42 AM
  When the police arrived, they were greeted by Monica Stepps.  They gave her a blanket that she used to cover her blonde hair and tight pink sweater that was stained with blood.  She told them her story of the early morning events as the sun rose to a foggy day.  The officer that took her statement was a man named Kyle Runscen.
  Monica started by telling how she found her parents dead in their home and ended with... "We went out the back door, and then... she went back in.  I tried... but I couldn't stop her.  She even locked me out.  You have to go back into that house and find her.  She was hurt... bad.  I thought she was dying, but..." Monica spoke, and then Officer Runscen cut her off.
  "Wait, slow down.  Did you know this girl?"
  "No.  She looks young, maybe twenty.  She had dark hair to her shoulders, hazel eyes, and she was wearing a jean jacket.  She had bruises on her face and..." Monica stopped then, noticing the picture Runscen had on one corner of his clip board.  It was aged and faded with dog eared corners, but it was clear enough.
  Pointing at the picture, Monica said, "That's her!"
  "Who?  Her?" Runscen said and then shook his head no, "You're mistaken."
  "No, that's her.  She's even wearing the same jean jacket..."
  "You're mistaken," Runscen told her again.
  "Why!  How do you know that?  Who is she?"  Monica yelled in frustation.
  "She was a missing person case, about ten years ago in Sundale.  The first one of three.  I was a rookie back then, so I don't know much about it, but they gave me a photo of her just like everyone else, in case we spotted her.  Nobody ever did, then the other two girls went missing.  Then, around nine last night we got a call, they didn't give a name, but by eleven last night, we found three bodies up in the woods do to the caller's tip.  They were identified about an hour ago.  They young lady in this photo was Jessica Homes, one of the bodies we identified.  I'm sorry, she's been dead for ten years.  So... you do see that whom ever you met couldn't have been her."
  Fog curled around them both as the sun rose higher into the sky.  A dark shiver coursed down monica's backside and a young woman's mocking laughter fluttered in her head.  After coming to visit her parents in North Horizon and finding them dead, Monica Stepps had no reason to stay.  The funerals would be held in Sundale and that's where she stayed until it was over.  She never came back to Sundale or North Horizon again.  Sometimes, late at night, she returned in dreams, and Jessica Homes always waited for her.  All this came to and end in 2007 when Monica Stepps was found dead in her bathroom tub.  Her blood covered the green tile floor and both basin and toilet were filled with it.
  Monica was the first of twenty-two victims to be found this way, the same number of victims found in North Horizon.

THE WHITE'S BACKYARD
  The Sundale Police Department place the first murder in North Horizon at 11:05 PM on September 2.  Every victom has been decapitated by some fasion or other.
  When they arrive at The White's house, they discover four dead bodies in the backyard.  Three are hanging from the branches of an old tree.  The victims hang upside down, legs tied at the ankles to thick branches.  LIke all the victims, all three bodies are headless.  The heads of these three bodies are spiked onto broken off branches from the tree.  The other end of the branches are planted deep into the ground, standing the heads up before the bodies they had belonged to.  Mona and Jack White are identifed by a nieghbor, but nobody knows who the third person is.  That shocking knowledge will come later, for now he is just another victim, but the only one with his eyes dug out of his head.
  Carved into the flesh of each head is a single word, different for each of these three victims, and they are the only three victims who have these markings..
  CUNT is etched into Mona White's head.  Her husband bares the word CRAVEN.  Written onto the young man's head with no eyes is the word MONSTER.  But these are not the only words the police find.  Scratched deep in the ground at one corner of the White's backyard is one phrase.
DIG HERE.  When they do, they find the fourth body.  Little six year old Kate White, Mona and Jack White's missing daughter and last victim of Curtis White.  A red dress covers the body which is pulled free at exactly 8:00 AM on September 3, 2004.
  As Officer Runscen pulls the decomposed body out with horror, the front door of The White's house opens and a little girl (wearing the same red dress) steps out into the thicking fog.  Her hair is long, like her mother's, and her eyes are bright and wondrous.  She holds a small toy sailboat in her hand, taken from a room in the house.  She disappears into the fog, searching for the embrace of her mother, the warm kiss of her father and light laughter of her older brother.  She doesn't understand everything that has happened, only that she is safe now.  Little Kate White also knows it was Jessica Homes who some how saved her from the darkness she had been living in.  Jessica who tried to calm her in the darkness they both lived in together.
  Kate will endlessly look for her family in North Horizon and the people there will see her in mirrors and in their dreams.  They will feel her longing and her sadness even on the brightest of days.  While she searches for her family, Kate will wonder what Jessica did to set her free.
  Whatever it was, Kate will always love Jessica because of it.

    THE END