Hear no Evil

                                                                                     Chapter 1

Clutching the sheets , her face was smooshed into the pillow, gazing right into the darkness of her mind. It has been 2 days since she touched the sunlight , there were a lot of unanswered calls, messages and few door bells which were completely ignored by her or, she didn't notice. All she could hear, were screams of silence, rushing through her spine. Beth was 24 years old, with blond short hair, mostly pulled back to reveal her warm face and woeful blue eyes, working as a research assistant at Efterliv Inc , was living on her own. Everything was working pretty fine until the night before yesterday.
Beth needed a coffin for her dreadful childhood memories, that used to haunt her with every breath. Her parents got seperated when she was 4 years old, so she lived with her father, expecting him to make everything better each day but regrettably, things stayed same for her. Her past wasn't quite an ideal one so she decided to take a new start. She wanted to get far away from the places that sucked her soul pretty much. She wanted to be somewhere located at nowhere land, miles away from the city, and she knew such a place. Wildedel. A small town but a wonderland with population of several hundreds, located between the mountains with trees stood up like spikes. There was something eye catching about that town, like it was being kept away from new architecture, paved with light grey stones, houses with same but of old architecture, grassy like mother nature kept it safe for thousands of years. An ideal place to escape from the life she barely survived. As soon as she started living there, She was warmly welcomed by the whole town and almost everyone knew her by now.
Usually there was nothing special in her day, waking up with the first ray of light, cleaning the mess of yesterday, putting everything back to its place like no one ever touched it and making her house looked as clean as whistle. She used to get to work around 7 a.m, in her 80's Maserati, waving at 64 years old Mr Deandre with a smile, who used to sit at porch for most of the day. She needed to drive a few miles, half aware of the world outside, through a lonely road making its way between mountains. As soon as her car started getting distant from the sight of Wildedel, distorted radio signals begin to catch some channel playing the same old country song each day
"In the Morning of the summer days
When sun is shinning all over the place
and when the shadows of the night prevail
We can get tickets to the stranger's gate"
But on her way back around 4 p.m, there was no sound of any music or distortion except for the sound of car cutting through the wind. Reaching her street, she used to take a look the porch of Mr Deandre, to wave at, if he is present there but there wasn't a single day when he was there around that time. She wasn't the one of the religious kinds, but still used to sit in a church for a while each night to relax, to clear her mind. Sometimes the only hope left is a faith in God, deep down, it is always there.
That night, she got back late from work, the night was dark with a few stars in the sky. The whole town was silent except for some chirping insects making sharp noise. As she got into the house, even the chirp stopped and then there was a complete silence Making it sure that she locked all the doors, She crawled under the sheets bed was warmer than usual. She just took a glance at her cell phone and within few seconds, buried in her sleep. At 2 a.m, she heard a voice saying "Bethany, i need you, please, listen to me.... Bethany", a familiar voice that was, voice of her boyfriend, Neil. She wasn't completely awake but she managed to jump out of bed, all she could see, with half opened, blurry eyes, was a shadow of Neil. She followed the shadow but suddenly she came back to her senses as soon as she remembered that Neil died year and a half ago. And her eyes were wide open staring at the door of her room, that she locked before she slept, or she didn't? She wasn't sure. But now there was no shadow there, she was standing in her pj's, in a light of a street lamp, which was shone through the open window illuminating a small area of the room. Her heart was pounding heavily, she could hear it, mixed with the whispers of wind, making its path through slightly opened window. Her eyes were still wide open She slowly stepped towards the main door to make sure it was locked, again. She could feel the cold concrete against her soles, as she walked back to her bed. She laid down but sleep wasn't anywhere near her. Unconsciously, her jaw was tightened at uncomfortable position, while she was staring at the dancing shadow of curtains on opposite wall, with blank eyes.

 

                                                                                       Chapter 2

 

The room was glowing with a sunlight. She was still wondering in a valley of her sleep when suddenly, a knock on a window brought her back to reality. She didn't remember for how long she was asleep. Trying to open her squeezed shut eyes, she looked right across the window. It was Mr Deandre's daughter, Jocelyn. Jocelyn was 19 years old girl usually in a country side outfit, frizzy hair tight in a ponytail.
"where have you been?? You alright?" Jocelyn asked, as soon as Beth opened the door.
"I was just a lil tired, workload, you know" Beth answered in gravelly sounded voice. Her head was still spinning.
"A lil tired? Beth no one has seen you or heard your voice for two days" Hearing this, brought beth back to her senses. She still wasn't sure if that was a dream or .. "obviously that was a nightmare" A voice in her head said.
"Come in" she said. Jocelyn followed her to the kitchen. "Coffee?" Beth asked. "Sure, let me do it." Looking at her condition, Jocelyn thought she better do that for her. "So is there something you wanna talk about or, just a work load? I mean, it's been two days." Jocelyn asked curiously. "The whole week was tiring so I just needed a break." Beth said with a pause. For a second Jocelyn stared at her, like she wanted to believe what Beth said.
Beth walked towards her bed to check her phone. It was dead. She still wasn't feeling okay so she thought better have a coffee first before thinking about something else.

"How are you feeling now?" Jocelyn asked.
"Alot better now. So who was living in this house before I came here?" A question just popped up in beth's mind and she couldn't resist asking it. After taking a sip, Jocelyn said:
"They both were friends of, your age I guess. Friendly people. Everything was going pretty fine for them. But I don't know why they just decided to leave this place."
"Oh, why would anyone leave this place. Anyhow, I got lucky." Beth said with a chuckle.
"Quite lucky" Jocelyn added.
"How's Mr Deandre?"
"He is doing great, taking his meds regularly, diet, everything's great." Jocylen said.
"I'm glad to know. Can I ask you something?" Beth said.
"Yeah sure" Jocelyn smiled.
"What happened to your mother?" Beth asked. "umm, will tell you about it later. I gotta go now, will meet you soon." Jocelyn said "Call me if you ever need something." Jocelyn putted the mug down and walked towards the door.
"Thanks, I sure will" Beth was amazed with the reaction while watching Jocelyn walking towards her house. As soon as she closed the door, she walked into her room and powered her cell phone on, which she plugged in to get charged. The phone started buzzing with a lot of messages. And then the name popped up she was looking for, Marcus.
"Oh thanks God its you, where have you been?" Marcus asked as soon as he recieved the call.
"My car broke down.." She lied in a most possible way she could. "I was so worried about you. Are you gonna come tomorrow?" Marcus asked.
"Yeah, sure I will. I'm sorry, you must had to do a lot of work?" Beth asked worriedly.
"Oh, no. Don't worry about it. So it was kinda day off. Will tell you about it." Marcus told.
"Oh okay. Well, meet you tomorrow, take care".
Thinking about the events, that happened the day before yesterday, she closed her eyes. "It was nothing more than a nightmare" she whispered. Putting all those thoughts aside, she decided to take a shower.
As She turned the knob on, hundreds of drops trickled down her body, soothing her mind, while she was looking at her in mirror. Every single moment from her past started fading away as the fog covered everything around her. So she spent quite a time under shower. It felt like some kind of weight got lifted off of her.
Singing along the rhythmic voice of whitney Housten, she was in the kitchen cooking dinner. The whole house was filled with aroma of Salisbury Steaks. It was 7 p.m, when she heard a knock on the door. She turned the music off and slid the curtain to look outside, nothing was visible other than a blinking street light and two shadows on her door step. Her heart skipped a beat.
Her first thought was, better to take a knife with her, but then she whispered "Silly me", and walked towards the door. There were two gentlemen on the door, cleanshaved in white and black suits, as she took a look throught peephole. She opened the door.
As she was staring at them with a questioning look, one of them said with a smile:
"Hello mam, we used to live here."

 

 

 

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Publication Date: 09-18-2017

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