Peripheral Vision: A Supernatural Thriller(50)

Elizabeth felt the shaking and gasping coming to an end. There was a small quiver and then the young naked woman in her arms was still. Stillness seemed to surround the entire valley. Elizabeth felt her eyes begin to feel heavy and soon she was fast asleep. She was asleep and at peace… and then the dreams came.

When Elizabeth's eyes opened, she was staring down at her feet, except they weren't her feet, or at least they were too small to be hers. They were the dirty, bare feet of a little girl. She looked up and realized that she was standing in the middle of Berry Bridge, the twisting Iktomi running beneath her. She could hear the sound of the locusts chirping in the weeds along the river bank, underneath the bridge, and she immediately was transported to her young summertime memories. Her first kiss… Tom Benridge, when she was only 12. She remembered the many freckles on his face, how she would smile when he called her “Lizzy,” and also how he had turned so red after their lips first parted. Looking out past the end of the bridge she could see her family's white house, and the chicken coop, and the barn. Misty, her favorite horse was being lead out of the barn by some woman. Mom? She thought. No. Mom's dead. Wondering who had her horse, she ran down the dirt road toward the gravel driveway. The unknown woman was leading Misty by her reins down towards the river. As Elizabeth got closer she began to shout.

“Hey, what're you doing with, Misty? Whatcha doing with my horse?!” The woman, however, did not respond. In fact it seemed like she hadn't heard Lizzy at all. “Hey, lady! What's going on here?” Lizzy shouted, but again there was no response and the woman just kept on towards the river.

Now Lizzy was angry. She began to run towards the horse thief, shouting as she went. As she got closer to the woman, she noticed that things were starting to change out here. Starting to slip, if you will. The woman's outline wasn't quite there. It was almost blurred and bordering on transparent at the edges. Lizzy slowed her strides, but did not stop and soon she was in front of the horse thief, staring directly into her face. Lizzy stopped, took a step back, tripped on an old tree root, and stumbled onto her backside. Shockingly, she now realized who the woman was.... it was her... Elizabeth Abigail Bayard. But this Elizabeth had greying hair, and growing wrinkles. This Elizabeth looked like she hadn't slept in weeks. And this Elizabeth's face was covered in blood. Pulling herself up off the ground and regaining some composure, little Lizzy followed Elizabeth down to the water's edge. The memory of what she had done only moments before falling asleep, was now replaying itself in her mind. The image of the sparkling knife blade popped into her mind as she saw the two naked dead bodies and the blood stained grass.

Lizzy watched as the older version of herself somehow lifted the bodies, one by one, onto the back of the horse. Then she followed as the grey woman lead Misty up towards the old house. When she reached the outside cellar door, she stopped for a moment and looked out towards the road. Coast is clear, Lizzy thought. Then the woman went into action again, opening the sloping cellar door, pulling the bodies off the horse, and dragging them, one by one, stair by stair, down into the pitch-black cellar. Lizzy strained her eyes and peered down into the darkness.

A lone light bulb lit up, and Lizzy watched as the woman carefully wrapped the bodies up in black trash bags. She then disappeared from Lizzy's view for a few moments, but then returned carrying a mop bucket and what looked like cleaning supplies. The woman marched up the creaking cellar steps, right past Lizzy, and continued out towards the barn. As she walked away, Misty let out a loud neigh. Little Lizzy turned towards the horse and saw that Misty was now staring out towards the road. Was someone coming? Was she going to be caught? Then Misty turned her head back to Lizzy. Her huge left horse eye staring deep into Lizzy's eyes. Lizzy got lost in that eye. The huge black pupil growing larger and larger. Everything began to slip again. The colors were drowning out of this world, as the sound of running water grew louder and louder. Lizzy shut her eyes.

When she finally opened them, she was again sitting by the river with her arms wrapped around a dead naked woman. She looked down at her toes. She wiggled them. They were the right size again.... no more little Lizzy. Sticky, drying, blood covered her chin and lips. Elizabeth's tongue moved back and forth over her bottom lip as she attempted to regain her bearings. Then she remembered her dream. It came in a steady wave and all at once she knew what she must do, and that she must hurry. As the thought crossed her mind, her eyes jumped up to the dirt road that lead away from the house, across the bridge and over the hill. I must hurry, she thought.

Elizabeth worked fast, repeating what she had seen in her dream. After she finished bagging the bodies in the cellar, she grabbed the cleaning supplies, climbed the stairs, and then closed and locked the sloping door behind her. From there she led Misty back to the barn, took the garden hose, and scrubbed Misty down, never missing a spot. When she had finished with the horse, she went down to the river and began to clean the blood-stained grass. The blood-soaked towels, she threw into a black garbage bag. The ground she covered in bleach and bubbles. Washing the area clean with buckets of river water. The couple's backpacks were the next item to cross off her list.

At first, Elizabeth was going to throw them in the garbage bag with the bloody towels, but then she noticed that one of the bags was completely free of blood. No stain-not a drop. Without wasting another moment, she grabbed the backpack by its blue strap and tossed it into the river. She watched it float away. People drown all the time… unfortunate, she thought, and then she tossed the other backpack into the trash bag and sealed it with a tie. Elizabeth then climbed into the river herself and began to wash the sticky dried blood from her body. She sat down in the water and let it run through her hair and over her face. When she finished, she carefully double checked the area for anything she might have missed, grabbed the trash bags and cleaning supplies and headed back to the house. Her mouth was dry after all her hard work. It is time for some afternoon tea, she thought, tea sounds nice.