Chapter Thirteen #2
They were always spooky at night. But it felt even more sinister as I made my way through them in the pre-dawn hours, knowing that the land belonged to the mafia, that they wouldn’t be okay with me searching it.
Especially if they knew I planned to run right to the police if I found what I thought I would.
I spotted the trail ahead, then stepped away from it, heading deeper into the woods.
Each step was met with a crunch and a snap, leaves and branches underfoot, and I swear each footfall seemed attached to a megaphone.
Though it was hard to hear much over the whoosh of my pulse in my ears, the thundering clap of my heart against my ribcage.
I kept my flashlight aimed low, hoping no one would be able to see it if they were at the garden center.
When I’d been heading home earlier, I’d seen a few men setting up a bunch of cameras. The last thing I needed was to be caught on them red-handed.
I tucked my chin to my chest and kept moving, scanning the ground for anything that didn’t quite look right.
The sun was just starting to streak through the forest when I finally saw something that had my back straightening and my blood turning to ice.
It wouldn’t have given anyone pause if they weren’t both incredibly familiar with the woods themselves and looking for something that felt off.
Right there, between two large pine trees, the ground looked wrong.
Leaves were piled, scraped inward toward a central point, leaving other parts of the forest floor bare.
If you looked closely enough, you could even see the little teeth marks from the rake in the dry dirt.
Someone had raked the leaves into a pile. And I was pretty sure I knew why.
But ‘pretty sure’ wasn’t good enough.
I wasn’t going to be able to take my next steps until I knew, until I saw it with my own two eyes.
Sucking in a steadying breath, I stepped forward.
Stretching out a leg, I started to kick the piles of dried leaves away until what was before me was a patch of recently disturbed earth.
I swallowed back the sick feeling in my stomach as I slipped on a pair of gloves I’d taken from my car first aid kit, lowered down to my knees, set my flashlight down, and reached to start pulling the dirt away.
I dug for what felt like hours as the sun continued to rise. Sweat beaded on my brow, slid down my back. Little specks of dirt mingled with the moisture to make me feel gritty as I kept digging, as I went deeper and deeper.
My knees hurt, my lower back and shoulders screamed. I was pretty sure when I pulled off my gloves, they would be full of blood with how much my fingertips hurt.
But nothing would stop me.
Not until I could put my mind to rest.
The earth felt oddly warmer as I continued to work and there was a strange sour scent all around me that I couldn’t quite place.
My fingers scraped one last time.
Then I reeled back with a cry, dropping hard onto my ass as my heart punched so hard against my chest that I was sure I was going to have a heart attack right there in the woods by myself.
I gulped at the air, hoping that enough oxygen might make me less dizzy, might be able to clear my mind. But with each deep breath, my nose burned with the scent of rot.
Because when I’d scraped that last bit of dirt away, it had been eyes staring up at me. Open. Unblinking. Familiar. They were the same eyes I saw behind my lids each night when I tried to sleep.
Except, of course, they were no longer looking at me through the face of a freshly murdered body.
Oh, no.
This was a several-day-old corpse. The peachy skin was a mottled gray-green with darkened veins, clouded and sunken eyes, and a rounder, more bloated-looking face.
And, well, we weren’t going to talk about the insect activity.
Even just thinking it made me flip over onto all fours, dry heaving for several long, agonizing moments.
The scent was strong, drifting out of the makeshift grave on the breeze that started to kick up the leaves around me.
“Okay. Alright. Okay,” I murmured to myself, crawling a few more feet away, sure a little distance would help my stomach stop rolling.
This was what I thought I would find. There was no reason to be losing it like this.
My hands were sweating profusely, so I slipped off my gloves.
I sat back on my heels, trying to talk myself into turning around, pulling out my phone, and taking a picture.
Because what if cameras did see me? What if they came back and moved the body?
The cops would think I was crazy.
I needed proof.
Swallowing hard, I reached for my phone, unlocking it, then toggling over to my camera.
Then I turned, hoping that seeing the corpse through the lens might make it easier to detach myself from it.
As I raised my hand, I did catch a face.
But it wasn’t one belonging to the body on the ground.
No.
It was a man in the woods just a few yards behind him.
My heart lurched.
The sweat on my body turned to ice water.
Some voice in my head told me not to panic, that there were many reasons for someone to be in the woods.
Hell, I took walks and hikes through the woods all the time.
Granted, those were woods belonging to the state, not private property.
But people did stuff like that all the time, didn’t they? Go where they didn’t belong?
That said, weren’t people usually dressed for an early morning walk or hike? In bright colors, with reflective gear? Not decked out all in black. Like a criminal. Like me.
But when people both randomly out for a stroll unexpectedly came across each other, they said something, they waved, they offered a pressed-lip smile.
This guy stared at me, dark eyes unreadable.
Some heightened animal instinct in me saw the way his muscles tensed just a second before he lunged.
And I ran.