“I never should’ve gone down there. God, I wish we’d never gone down there.” Guilt washes over me and fills me with regret. “You know I thought about not going that day? It was rainy and chilly. Mason wasn’t in the best of spirits, but we went anyway. If we would’ve stayed home, none of this ever would’ve happened. We wouldn’t be sitting here. Isn’t that crazy? One little decision like that can change your whole life?”
A pregnant pause fills the space until finally Detective Layne speaks up. “Believe me, we’ve all had moments like that.”
Except mine’s the only moment that ended in a murder investigation. Ms. Walker is moving her head like she agrees with him, but she’s never been through anything like this either.
“Anyway, we went, and that day wasn’t any different than any other day. We came around the corner past the river bend like I told you before, and I wanted to go down by the edge to catch dragonflies. Just like I said.” I give him a pointed look. Most of my story was true. “Mason is usually right next to me. He doesn’t like to catch the dragonflies himself, but he likes watching me do it. I only took my eyes off him for a second. I swear. It wasn’t long at all. One minute I was bending down, putting the dragonfly into my jar, and the next minute, I looked up, and he was gone. Then I heard that ungodly scream.”
The horror of that moment flushes through me like a stiff drink.
“Mason!” A scream ripped through my throat. “Mason!”
My heart slammed into my chest, and I took off running in blind terror.
Faster. Faster. Calling his name again and again. A brief pause to listen, straining my ears for another sound of him, gulping the air hungrily. No sound of him. Only bugs. The wind.
I sprinted forward. Pulse pounding. Scanning everywhere for him. Branches whipped across my face. I swiped them aside. Hurtled over the ones in the path, kicking up dirt.
“Mason!” My lungs throbbed.
I twirled around, scanning everything. The sound of dragonflies buzzed in my ears. My mind swung. A wild vortex. Blood thrummed in my head, swirled in my ears.
“Help! Somebody help us! Please help!” My cries were desperate pleas with no answers. I took off running again, still screaming. The sound of my feet smacking the path ricocheted around me. My legs burned. I pushed through the pain, forcing myself to run faster.
Get there.
And then I was.
I burst through the clearing and stopped dead in my tracks. My eyes couldn’t register what I was seeing. My brain wouldn’t process the information. A protective layer against the horror of what was in front of me. At first, I thought Mason was hurt. There was so much blood. Red filled my line of vision. Everywhere I looked.
I opened my mouth to speak. To call out to him, but my words were frozen inside. Just like his.
There was something underneath him. Nausea matched my panic at the realization that it was a body. A somebody.
“Mason.” My voice was barely a whisper. “Mason.”
He lifted his head. Pure terror lined every feature of his face. He let out another one of those awful sounds. The one I’ve told Detective Layne about so many times. Most of my story is true, but he’ll never believe it now. That doesn’t matter, though. I still have to tell it.
Ms. Walker’s hand on my knee makes me jump. “Are you okay to go on?”
My hands shake. I twist them together on my lap. I’m not okay to do anything, but I pick up where I left off so we can hurry up and get this over with. I’m not sure how much more I can take. “I just ran after that. I didn’t think. Just ran. You know how the rest goes.” How many times has he heard it? None of this does any good. He’s wasting valuable time on these stupid formalities with Mason when he should be finding That Monster.
“Humor me another time, would you?” he says with a smile, like there’s anything funny about this.
“Sure.” I give him an equally fake smile back. “I found Mason on top of Annabelle just like I said. I tried to get him off her, but he just started wailing and flailing no matter what I did. He was more freaked out than I’ve ever seen him. I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified the man was still out there. All I could think about was how he might be hiding in the trees somewhere. That’s when I lost it again and just started screaming wildly for help again.”
“And that’s when the runners found y’all?”
I nod.
The two girls were training for a half marathon. The thick woods surrounding the creek are filled with crisscross jogging paths. There’s a main trail leading up to the road. The tall, lanky one was in front, leading the way to it, when she spotted us and stopped. Her eyes took in the scene in quick snaps. “What’s going on?” she asked, trying to gain control over her breath.
“Call 911! You have to call 911!” I screamed, racing over to her and reaching for her. She sprang backward like she was afraid of me and didn’t want me to touch her. “Please! You have to help. Call 911!”
Her friend slowed behind her. “Is everything okay?” The girl’s eyes grew big as she took in Mason next to Annabelle. She stepped back, reaching blindly for her friend, never taking her eyes off me. “What’s happening? What’s going on? Tessa? We need to get out of here.” Her voice wavered with fear.
Mason let out a bloodcurdling shriek that made us all jump and snap our heads in his direction. He was crouched next to where Annabelle’s body lay twisted on the rocks. Her face up toward the sky. Eyes wide open. Blood splattering them both.
The first runner’s friend put her hand up to her mouth. “Oh my God. What’s going on?” Her head swiveled as she twirled around, eyeing the trees like I’d been doing seconds ago.
The tall one shoved me aside and ran over to Mason and Annabelle like she was going to help them.
“Don’t!” I yelled, but it was too late. She stepped around Mason and looked at Annabelle. The girl’s face drained of color. She put her hand up to her throat like she was checking for her own pulse, like the horror of the moment might have killed her. For a second, time felt suspended before she suddenly leaned over and heaved into the brown leaves next to the rocks. Does she see Annabelle’s face like I do whenever she tries to sleep?
“The runners said that you were just as upset as Mason.” Detective Layne’s voice brings me back to the present moment.
“I mean, God, I would hope so. I just saw a woman’s face brutally smashed in, so yes, I was pretty upset.” What a stupid statement. Sometimes I wonder how he ever got his job. “You’re probably used to seeing mutilated flesh, but guess what? I never have, and I’m not going to apologize for freaking out over a woman’s brain being on her forehead.”
“One of the girls, Tessa, I think? She said you didn’t want to wait for the police or the paramedics to get there. You just wanted to leave as fast as you could after they called 911. In fact, she says you kept trying to pull Mason away from Annabelle and get him to run with you, but he wouldn’t let you anywhere near him.” His eyes grip mine. “Why were you trying to run?”
Why was I trying to run? Is he serious? That Monster was in those woods. We couldn’t just stand there and let him catch us. Do what he’d done to her. I try to hide my frustration and annoyance, but I’ve never been good at masking my feelings. “I didn’t know if we were safe or not. Y’all get to look at things objectively after the fact, so of course it’s easy for you to stand back in judgment and see all these things I should’ve done or what didn’t make sense at the time.” I shift my gaze between the two of them, since Ms. Walker’s questioning everything, too, or she wouldn’t be here, even though she pretends like she’s my friend. “But I had no idea what was going on. None. Nobody did, and I was terrified. I’ve never been so scared in my life. Maybe you think straight in those situations, but guess what? I don’t.” My eyes narrow to slits. “So I panicked, and I stayed panicked. There was a crazy man out there. He’s still out there. Or have you forgotten that?”