Mary Walworth closed the door of the house behind her as she returned from work, setting her bag down and hanging up her jacket. After checking some emails from her phone, she realized that the house was oddly quiet. The usual cheers and squeals of her young daughter and voice of her husband were silent. No one had run to her when she walked in. Yet, her husband’s car was still in the driveway. Maybe they had taken a walk outside? The house smelled a bit strange, too…kind of metallic.
The mother walked over to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water to calm herself down when she screamed. Her sharp, new knives had fallen out of their stand,
strewn across the counter, and the largest one—the butcher’s knife—was covered in blood. The floor was red and shiny, since the blood pooled on the floor, contrasting evilly with the pure white tile, and made a path of droplets down the hallway. Mary knew she had to follow it. So she did, through the house, where it ended at the back door. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she went to open the door. Mary reached out, hand on the knob,
and—
There was a tap on the door, and Mary screamed, until she heard, from the other side of the door,
“Mommy!”
It was her daughter.
Mary threw the door open, hugging her daughter blindly, relieved to see that she was okay. But when she stepped back, she saw that her daughter was covered in blood, her face smeared with it. It was splattered on her face, her dress, and her pigtails.
“Wh-what happened?” she asked her daughter, shaking.
Her daughter didn’t say anything, she simply stood there, holding—a shovel?
Not one of the little ones, either. It was the big, heavy duty kind of shovel that was as trall as her daughter. Mary scanned the backyard, seeing no sign of her husband, but a large spot of displaced soil in her garden.
“Sweetie, what did you bury in the garden?”
The Garden
-Brooke P.
33