Yay! I have sorted the next (short) chapter. It's not been too friendly, but that's expected, after I left it to fend for itself for so long.
"I'm so sorry, really. I wanted to tell you, but you didn't come home, and-"
Pete raised his hand to silence the rambling bed-nurse. "I know, it's not your fault." He sighed, and stared blankly at his wife's body, swinging from a rope. The contents of her bladder were dripping from her body to the carpet beneath it, staining the cream fabric darker. In Pete's eyes, it was the dark red of blood.
Truthfully, he was thankful. Even if his wife had recovered, she wouldn't be the same as she had been before. Now, with her hanging by her neck, he could pretend she had died the glamorous and beautiful woman she had once been.
"She'd been… She'd been there for quite some time. You know, before I got here. I didn't want to touch her, I'm sorry. Should I call the police, or someone else?"
Pete looked at her, weariness filling his eyes. The nurse was young, too young to have to deal with dead people and broken families. It wasn't her fault, but still the anger rose in his chest. He was grateful for his wife's death, yes, but he could still be angry with those he blamed.
"Leave." He watched his wife, hypnotic in her dead dance-like movements.
"Are you sure I shouldn't-"
"Now." He turned to face the nurse, glaring. With his bloodshot eyes, squinted in pain and malice, and his face turned purple from goodness-knows-what, he looked like a devil.
The nurse backed off, not turning her back until she reached the stairs. She turned and ran.
"Bessie?" He called out, hoping to God that his daughter hadn't seen the body. "Bessie?" He stepped out of the room, towards the door of his daughter's. He heard a girl, humming from inside. "Bessie, love, answer me."
He pushed the door open, the humming growing louder in his ears, but there was no one there.
"Bessie?" He looked around, sure the humming had come from her room. "Bessie, are you here?"
"I'm here."
Pete turned around. The voice had come from his own bedroom. He bit his lip; he hadn't wanted his daughter to see the body of her mother. He stepped back inside, but no one was there.
"Bessie, darling, it isn't good to play games." He looked under the bed, and a giggle met his ears, a breeze running behind him and out through the door, which slammed.
"You'll never catch me."
He got up nervously. Bessie wouldn't play games like that on him, but the voice was so familiar, and it was definitely a little girl. What other young girls would be in his house? He walked to the door, and opened it slowly. The house rang with silence.
There was no one there.
Pete walked downstairs, raking his hand through his hair. He was going mad. He had heard of Widowers going mad slowly, but never within five minutes of their wife's death. He went to the kitchen, looking around desperately.
Where was she? The nurse hadn't mentioned Bessie at all, perhaps the nurse hadn't seen her all day, or she was somewhere in the house, maybe Pete hadn't noticed her.
There was a knock on the door.
"Bessie?" Pete turned and walked up the stairs to the hall. The shadow cast on the door was too tall to be Bessie, too shapely. It had long, wavy hair, and as it turned, its profile became visible. A pointed nose, full lips, long lashes. "Annabel? You're dead."
The shadow opened its mouth and Pete heard a musical, mocking laugh. Then the shadow turned to face him once again, raising a slender arm to pull the knocker back.
"Answer the door Pete, why won't you answer the door?"
As the words entered his ears, Pete knew who it was. It wasn't Bessie, or any of the orphans. It was Annabel. She'd come back to life. He couldn't let her. She would drive him mad. She had never been perfect. She'd flirted with everyone she knew.
These were the thoughts twirling and twisting in Pete's head, entwining him in their grasp. They pulled him towards the coffee table Annabel had insisted on placing in the hall, made him pick up the silver letter-opener.
He wasn't sure what came first after that; opening of the door or the stabbing. He couldn't even remember opening the door, just the relentless downward motion of the blade, slashing the woman's flesh.
It was only after at least three minutes, the blood gushing over the porch and down the stairs, that Pete stopped. He stood up; knowledge that he'd kept his wife's ghost from visiting him placing a triumphant smile on his lips. It disappeared when he noticed who he had killed.
It wasn't Annabel.
It was because of this that Pete spent the afternoon digging, the sudden rain running down his clothes, pounding the stains out. Everything about the rain made him grateful; it kept people indoors, it made the ground easier to dig in, and, most importantly, it washed him clean.
He hated the clearing. It had a similar feel to his home, the feel of death and decay. But there was a difference, the deaths of those in the clearing were the deaths of the oppressed, and though Annabel hadn't been an oppressor in the way Pete or the other workers were, she was, in some way, the same.
Pete looked down at the bones lying beneath where the woman he had killed was placed. The children's bones rested against the young body of the nurse. Her face was still twisted in shock and fear.
But he knew it wouldn't be long before the worms ate away at her body, leaving only bones. And no one would find her.
After all, no one had found the children, had they?
Well, I said it was short. Someone review, I have umbrella stands! A review each, they're very pretty. Anyone? Please?
Well, see you until next time.