OtVoM: Chapter 3

The morning had finally come to Peach Creek, the sunrise slowly coming up to greet everyone in town. It is here where we zoom in on Zoey's house. It is here where we can see Zoey sitting beside her father, who is lying in his bed. Zoey had just called the hospital for her dying father so he could be transported to hospice.

"Zoey…" she could hear her father say to her in a weak tone, "I'm sorry that this is happening… I…"

"I-It's okay," Zoey replied to him, tears started to form in her eyes, "I understand; you wanted to be with mom now… I miss her too."

Her dad only smiled to his daughter, "I know… you will go far with your friends, and with Eddy…" he closed his eyes, "I only wish I could see you two… walk down the aisle together."

Zoey widened her eyes at what he said, "D-Dad…?"

"Listen to me, Zoey," her dad started to say, opening his eyes again to look at her, "I heard you… sneak out of the house last night, so I only assumed… you went to visit him to tell him about my health…" he made another big smile, "Please, tell Eddy that I've… I-I've given him my blessings for him to marry you… if that's what you two want to do… for your futures, Zoey."

Her dad's eyelids slowly started to become heavy, "Don't worry, I… I-I'll tell him that for you… I love you, Dad," Zoey told him as she could see that he had stopped breathing and his body had become cold. He had finally passed on.

Zoey could only sit there beside her dad as she held his hand, sobbing for him. Both of her parents were now dead, "I-I can't handle this… Why did this have to happen?!" she yelled out loud to herself.

Suddenly, her doorbell started to ring, making Zoey jump a little in fright.

"Oh… I-I guess it must be the ambulance for my dad," Zoey sniffled, wiping away her tears, "I didn't even hear them drive up…"

She then went downstairs to answer the door, only to see no one outside when she opened it, not even the ambulance she called for, "… Strange."

As she turned around to go back inside, she could feel someone grab her right wrist and cover her nose and mouth with a weird rag. Zoey widened her eyes in shock, trying to shake off the person who grabbed her before passing out from the chloroform-soaked rag.

"I finally got you now, baby doll," stated Evan with a sick smirk, "Let's go have some fun back in Sunflower Shoal. I have a neat little place to take you for our special date!"

Meanwhile, we could see Eddy putting on his shirt after getting a shower before he heard his cell phone start to ring. He looked at the caller ID to see who it was, it was his mom.

He answered his cell phone before it went to voicemail, "Hello?"

"E-Eddy?! Oh, thank the heavens, you're alright!" His mom started to say in relief, he could tell she was panicking about something.

"Yeah? I'm alright," Eddy said back in confusion, "Is there something going on?"

"D-Did you not look at the news yesterday?!" His mom gasped at him in disbelief, "We only got this news from the police just now, but Evan escaped from prison yesterday morning!"

Eddy could feel a chill run down his spine, "W-What? Are you fucking serious?!"

"Eddy, language!" his mom yelled to him before making a sigh, "I'll let your language slide for now because of the news; we are all stressed out by this, b-but please be careful until the police find him! I beg of you!"

"I-I will, I promise!" He stated before he heard his mom hang up her phone.

Eddy stood there for a moment in shock at the news before another terrible chill ran down his spine again. He remembered what Zoey told him last night, about the visceral nightmare that she could clearly see and feel happening to her, his brother… was…

"H-He…" Eddy uttered in disbelief, horror, and anger before putting his cell phone in his back pocket.

Eddy went to grab his car keys and ran to the car he had parked in his garage. He usually kept it here because he never really drove to school, since the neighborhood was so close to walking too normally.

Eddy revved up his car and drove to Zoey's house to see if she was there. He knew he could just run there on foot, but if something did happen to her, he would need to try and quickly find her before it was too late.

As he arrived at her house, he could see an ambulance had arrived for her father. It looked like they had just got there. Eddy could also see her door was open a little, he hoped that it was just her letting in the people to take her father to hospice. He got out of his car to approach the scene, one of the nurses was standing by the open door, "Excuse me…"

"Hmm?" The nurse questioned as she turned to Eddy, "Oh, are you the one who called for the transport? I thought it was the daughter that lives here that made the call…"

"No, it was my girlfriend that did," Eddy said to the nurse, "Did she not open the door for you?"

"… No? It was opened like this when we got here," the nurse replied before glancing at the opened garage nearby, "She must have driven to town but left the door unlocked for us to enter. There isn't a car in the garage right now," the nurse made a small sigh, "I assume the death of her father was too much for her to bear."

Eddy started to grow pale in the face at what the nurse said, Zoey's dad had passed away already, and now she's missing from her house…

"Oh god…" he muttered out loud before dashing back to his car to get into it, confusing the nurse he was talking to. He revved up the engine of his car again, driving out of her neighborhood to go to Sunflower Shoal.

Eddy drove as fast as he could without trying to break the speed limit or cause any unnecessary attention, even though he was very much panicking; and the fact the weather was still making a few snow flurries today. He remembered Zoey mentioning the location she described in her dream once before; it was an extremely shady part of the town for Sunflower Shoal; many people tried to avoid going to that area because of all the crime that had been happening there for years. Drugs and prostitution were the biggest issues there, as well as infrequent murders.

According to her, there was a shady gas station right outside view of the window in the room where she was killed. Both the building and the room she was in looked very much abandoned. She also mentioned a lit candle on the windowsill of the room. It's a miracle she even mentioned this much detail at all, 'I guess it was that traumatizing for her that she could remember everything about it, even how it felt…' He thought to himself with an upset face.

As Eddy was nearing the city of Sunflower Shoal, he quickly called 911 on his cell phone to tell the police about the emergency that was happening, along with the information he learned from Zoey's dream; he put his phone on speaker so he could drive while talking to them. He knew it would take time for the police to even start a missing person's case, but if he mentioned that his brother was involved, they would help him faster. He then finished talking to the police as he finally drove into the shady part of Sunflower Shoal.

"Zoey, please be safe!"

Author's Note (October 27th, 2023): Uh oh. :C