"So the last person who talked to Chastity before she disappeared is now dead," Damien says sounding as deflated as I feel.
"That sounds a little messed up doesn't it," I say adding to his skepticism. "Cause of death was a gunshot wound but there were also signs of a struggle."
"So someone wanted her dead."
"But why? Why kill Michelle if Chastity was the one mixed up with some bad people?" I ask as if Damien will know the answer. We sit in the painful silence of a dead-end before I offer up Michelle's address.
"Her house isn't far from here. It's weird, her file says her parents moved but the house is still up for sale," I say.
"So after Michelle died they bolted but couldn't wait long enough for the house to sell," Damien pieces together. "Well the question is, do we go tonight or wait for the morning?"
"It's only a two hour drive back to Philly, we can check the house out now and make it back before Midnight."
Damien takes the exit to Michelle's former home and follows the GPS accordingly. The streetlights dance through the car as the sun begins to set behind the skyscrapers in the distance. The GPS takes us off the main road and through a couple back roads until the trees begin to canopy overtop of us. The moon offers the only relief from the relentless darkness as it peaks through the leaves and illuminates spots of the dirt path.
The end of the road was also the end of the canopied trees as the pathway opened up into a large field that held acres and acres of land.
"Damn," Damien said, "That's kind of creepy."
He wasn't kidding. The house at the end of the driveway that divided the field in half was something out of a horror story. The old wooden porch that wrapped around the house complimented the deteriorating roof and covered windows.
"Well, what do we do now?" he questioned.
"It doesn't look like anyone has been here for awhile. Let's go check the windows."
We walk up the stone steps to the front porch and peer into the dark caverns inside.
"I can't see shit," Damien says as he makes his way to the door, "A few knocks won't hurt anyone." He pounds on the door a few times yelling "FBI, open up!" but to his surprise, it creeks open. "Dude, it wasn't shut all the way," he says in disbelief.
He draws his gun in his hand and walks through the passageway.
"Are you crazy?" I scream-whisper to him, but before he could answer he disappears within the shadows of the house and I have no choice but to follow him.
The house reeks of musk and dust as we creep our way across its worn floorboards. Every step disturbs the silence like a pebble landing in a calm lake. It feels as if these floors haven't been walked for a good while.
I follow closely behind Damien with gun in my hand as we aim to clear the first floor. We first venture through the living room where portraits are aplenty across each and every wall. These paintings feel especially creepy as I maintain eye contact with one of them and it seems to follow my gaze as I cross in front of it. I step to the portrait and reach out my hand until my fingers meet the cool canvas on which the image lies.
The painting immediately falls off the wall and crashes to the floor colliding with the wooden floorboards creating a deafening crack that cuts through the silence of the old house. My heart rate immediately skyrockets as Damien punches my shoulder, scolding me for touching.
"What the hell man?" he chastises, but before he can continue, the clatter of footsteps above us stop us both dead in our tracks.
"You heard that too, right?" I ask, becoming more and more anxious to be in this house. He nods his head ushers toward the staircase I carefully make my way to the bottom of the stairs and look back at Damien who nudges me forward and I begin my ascent up into the darkness of the top floor.
Each step creaks louder and louder as we make our way up the old staircase. It feels like an eternity before we make it to the top. I take a flashlight out of my other pocket and grasp it in my hand atop my gun and point them both down each end of the hallway, looking for the source of the footsteps. I walk to the left with my shoulder to the wall and glide gently across the upper level of the house. The only movement I can detect is the dancing of dust particles across my beam of light.
I look back at Damien as we reach the first door. "FBI," I say, "show yourself." I kick open the door and begin shooting my flashlight across every surface in the room. The bed is unmade and the closet door is open. I nod Damien into the room and we search each crevice until we agree that it's clear.
Before we could advance to the next room, a door closes down the hallway to the right. Damien looks at me with a startled look and rushes to the dark corridor. I follow behind as we make our way towards the slammed door. We reach a shut door and Damien shines his flashlight on the knob. "Finger prints," he mouths as points out the fresh marks in the layer of dust.
"Alright, open the door or we're coming in," Damien says as he reaches his gun into ready position. The scuttling behind and away from the door suggests that Damien's warning wasn't registered and he kicks the door down. The dark figure runs to hide from the flashlight into the closet on the opposite side of the room and closes the door.
"Hands up right now! Get out of the closet!"
I skate across the bedroom in ready position as I reach the closet door. I can hear crying. I usher Damien over and he shoots me a puzzled look as he hears the crying too.
"Show yourself!" I try again, but with no success. I reach for the doorknob and open the door, shining the flashlight on whoever is behind the door.
We are both a little shocked to see a young woman, probably twenty or twenty-one, in a ball in the corner of the closet sobbing into her knees.
"Hands where I can see them!" Damien yells as the gun is still pointed in the woman's direction. She raises her hands to reveal a young but tattered face. There is no makeup to smear from tears and her clothes are as dirty as they are torn. She begins to crawl out of the closet taking deep breaths between sobs until she reaches the bedroom floor where she falls to her stomach and arches her hands over her head.
"Who are you?" I ask urgently, with curiosity getting the better of me
"M-My name is, is Serenity," the woman says in broken words, "Serenity Pfiefer."
"Like, Michelle Pfiefer?" Damien asks.
"Sh-She was my sister," she says before more sobs start to accumulate, "but that's all I can say. They said if I say anything the same thing that happened to Michelle would happen to me."
I look over at Damien who wears an equally skeptical glare. He reaches down to help her up and she clumsily obliges as she makes it to her feet. She wipes the tears off of her eyes and says, "You have to go; they will know you were here," she says.
"Who will?" I plead back at her, "and why are you here and where are your parents? You have to talk. You will be safe." We reach the foot of the bed where she sits gently and breaths in and out deciding whether to talk.
"I think they have the place bugged," she says quietly but calmly.
"Who does?" Damien says with agitation building in his tone. The more Serenity talked the less we understood about the situation.
"The people who killed Michelle."
"Serenity you need to tell us everything that happened, okay?" I say in the most enticing way possible, "we aren't going to let anyone hurt you. You don't need to be afraid anymore."
Her eyes are wide and glassy as she gazes up at us. She nods her head and sniffles a few more times before stumbling to her feet. "Come downstairs. We'll talk there." We follow her down the dark hallway and descend the creaky steps and make it back to the first floor where she guides us into the not-so-kept living room.
"Would you like any water?" she inquires. Damien and I exchange glances and decide we best not.
"That's alright, but thank you. Can you start at the beginning?" I am trying to sound as friendly as possible even though the aggravation is building. Why the hell was Serenity still here and where did her parents go? I watch Damien fidget with the arm of the chair he sat in as Serenity attempted to hang the portrait I knocked over.
"Sorry about that," I say blushingly.
She offers a half smile. "It was a picture of my grandfather," she explained, "Michelle painted it. She was a wonderful artist. She had her whole life in front of her until she met Chastity."
"So they were pretty good friends?" I ask trying to turn the conversation into something useful.
"When Chastity went missing, Michelle tried to find her. And when she did, she wished she hadn't."
"What do you mean?" Damien chimed in.
"Well, before she went missing, Chastity tried to kill herself. After she failed and Michelle and her parents found her, she went missing. When Michelle finally found her, she was completely different," she trailed off as she looked at her sister's artwork. "Michelle told me that Chastity had said she was visiting a group to help with her suicidal problems. Chastity told my sister that the group she was visiting saw death a different way and saw it as a positive thing you have to share with other people."
Damien glanced over at me and we both owned puzzled looks.
"Chastity got a tattoo soon before she said goodbye to my sister," Serenity continued. "When Michelle tried to get Chastity to stay and come home, Chastity fled and Michelle never saw her again. It was weeks before the wake and Michelle kept trying to dig and dig before she went to the police. The night after the wake, Michelle told me everything she knew and everything she had found out about Chastity and this group she was visiting and was going to go to the police station. She told me to stay at the house in case our parents wondered where she was. But on the way to the police station," she trailed off once more fighting back more tears but it was no use. She began sobbing again.
"She was killed," I said under my breath and Serenity nodded, trying to gather herself.
"The next day I got a letter saying if I left the house or told anyone what Michelle had told me, I would die just like my sister did. When my parents put the house up for sale and moved because they couldn't handle being in the town where their daughter was shot, I stayed behind. They still don't know that I'm here. I couldn't risk telling anyone anything."
The girl seemed genuine. Even though a lot of her story seemed farfetched, she seemed genuine. I tried to piece together what I could of the story and make sense of it: Chastity disappears, Michelle finds her but fails to bring her home, weeks go by and she hears nothing and says nothing, Michelle attends the wake and the next day is found dead. And then her sister who she told the whole story to is threatened into becoming a hermit.
"What do you think is going to happen to you now that you've told us about this? What are you afraid of?" Damien poked and prodded.
"I think they have this house bugged, or someone is watching it," Serenity began. "I don't know, all I know is, my sister is dead and whoever shot her said I would be next. Michelle tried to go to the police and if I do the same thing I'm afraid I'll get shot."
Before Damien could make a point about her safety, a screaming bullet pierces the window facing the dirt road upon which we came.
"Get down!" Damien shouts as he goes for his gun. I pull Serenity to the ground and tell her to stay put.
"Damien, you go out back, I'll take the front," I say urgently. He runs to the backdoor and patrols the back. The night is dark and it is foggy as I peer through the window. I crack open the door but am interrupted by another gunshot that cracks the frame. I hit the floor and point my gun into the field and take random warning shots.
As the night turns silent once more I venture past the front porch and call for backup on my walky-talky. Damien swings around the front of the house and announces the back is clear. He is interrupted by another gunshot that wizzes past us and into the house. We run to take cover behind our car and aim our guns once more into the darkness.
"Was this shit really bugged?" Damien asks half sarcastically.
"Who the hell is shooting at us?" I ask back.
Before another shot could be fired, the night is illuminated with a bursting explosion behind us. The light from the blast illuminated the field enough to see a hooded figure get in a car and drive away. The blast ignites every piece of wood in the house and sends me flying over the car and skidding across the ground.
Smoke fills the night as I try to recover from the explosion. As the smoke clears, I see Damien to my left, clutching his leg, and I see the Pfiefer house completely toppled in on itself.