The Curse of Cherry Hills

prologue

It all started in eighth grade.

The notorious town of Cherry Hills, home to the rich and protected, was hit with the biggest reality check it could face. A town with a crime rate of a decimal, soon struck with a series of crimes that remained unsolved for years to come. Innocent people locked up on suspicion, just to be let out the next day following a murder conducted during their captivity. No one had answers.

It ruined the reputation of Cherry Hills. The go-to vacation spot, soon deemed the most cursed city in the States.

I was merely a teenager when the first murder occurred. Sharon Wells, 24 and recently graduated from UPenn, visiting her hometown for the first time in 10 months right next door. I can still remember the way she smiled as she made her way up her childhood porch steps, seconds away from being engulfed into a delicious welcome-home meal. I guessed it would be chicken casserole, but the air smelt more like pork roast.

She'd had plans that night to catch up with some old classmates from her years here at Cherry Hills High. She was supposed to be home by 10pm because ever since her mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer, she'd been finding it hard to get to sleep, and with the ruckus of the unhinged front door, it surely would've woken up her mother. 10 was safe. 10 meant that her mother could sleep soundly.

I'll never forget the blood curling scream her mother let out the next morning as she stumbled into a scene that not even the local police could stomach. Sharon laid there, eyes half open just like her chest. Her silky white sheets her younger sister went out and bought for her homecoming were now a velvet red as they carried her off her childhood porch steps. Everyone expected Sharon's mother to die there, on the spot, in the doorway of her eldest daughters crime scene.

It was the talk of the town. However, everyone went to sleep at night with their windows open, doors unlocked, consciences clear. 

Even the Wells family. Her two sisters, 21 and 18, took every opportunity they could to share their experience with the news. They flaunted their peculiar case as if it were something to be proud of; the family to finally bring some change to Cherry Hills.

Her brother, 15, never left his room again, unless it was for school. He kept his head down each time he passed a reporter on his front lawn or his local grocer. He didn't even attend his mother's funeral 4 months later, fearful of the pictures and headlines the family would continue to face. After all, he never quite fit into the Wells image.

I was new to town the week before Sharon's incident. I'd met the Wells a couple times, my mother was very fond of the artisan muffins Mrs. Wells baked for her. I'm sure her death brought some disappointment to my mothers sweet tooth. One could even suggest my mother was quite fond of Mr Wells, too.

The local police had a part to play in Sharon's mothers death. After the third week of searching for clues, interviewing possible witnesses, retracing Sharon's every step, they'd concluded it was suicide. That was the only plausible scenario, right? Cherry Hills isn't home to psychopaths who kill young women for a thrill. Even though none of the case's evidence support this claim of Sharon's inner demon battle, it allowed the town to bathe back in peace and ignorance.

But I could see it Sharon's little brothers eyes every time I looked out my bedroom window into his. Those eyes held more pain and suffering in them than the town combined. Each night, as those eyes bled acid rain onto his pillow case, it become more and more obvious.

Guilt.

I saw it in my own mother's eyes ever since Sharon's murder.

He saw something that night that he knew would change Sharon's fate completely. Something that would leave Cherry Hills tainted forever.