"So let me get this straight," John says, putting on a serious face. "You think there's a dead body hidden somewhere inside this house?"
"Uh-huh." I give a firm nod.
Drawing his brows together, he puts his thumb beneath his chin and begins to walk in circles. "And you think this," he squints and gulps before he continues, "missing girl everyone's talking about is the same girl those kids are talking about?"
"Yep." I nod, putting my hands on my jeans' pockets.
"And why is that?" He gazes at me in between circling around me—something which begins to annoy me.
Raising my brow ever so slightly, I take out the phone I found earlier from my pocket and wave it in front of him.
"See this?" I point to the charm strapped on the phone. "This definitely belongs to a teenage girl. Plus, what's the odd that there's a missing girl in town at the same time as the boogeyman killed—"
"Nah-ah." He waves his finger in front of me to my annoyance. "They didn't actually say he killed her."
With a frown upon my face, I continue, "Fine. Allegedly killing a girl."
"Wait a second." He finally stops moving and turns his gaze upon me. Cocking his head a little, he continues, "they said a lady. That doesn't necessarily mean a girl, right?"
I scoff. This man has definitely got on my nerves. "Yes, but then again, how reliable are two ten-year-olds?"
His eyebrow twitches, pausing for a while to make sense of my theory. "Well, I suppose you have a point. So, you're suggesting we search for the body, then?"
I flash a wicked smile. Finally. "Let's split up!"
***
"Argh!" I scream at what jumped to my face when I opened the cupboard a few seconds ago.
"Hey! What happened?" John comes running from across the hall, probably thinking I've already found the dead girl's body.
With a clearly disgusted look upon my face, I gulp and use two fingers to carefully grab the dead rat on my face. I quickly throw the damn rat far away from me.
"This is officially the worst investigation ever!" I cry.
Not that you've investigated much anyway.
Argh! Shut up, Evil Me!
He chuckles. "So? Anything other than the dead—"
"Nope!" I shake my head quickly as I raise one finger to close his lips. Just the thoughts of the dead rat on my face makes me want to vomit.
"What about you?" I ask, my hands still busy patting—or more like slapping—my own face to clean whatever traces left of the dead rat.
"Nothing so far." He shrugs. "I'll go check the bathrooms, okay?"
I nod, giving him the approval to dash to the nearest bathroom. This is already the tenth—and final—room, and so far there's zero dead, human body in here. The only place we haven't searched are the bathrooms, in which there are five or so in this house, all of which are larger than my whole apartment.
While still imagining myself living life like a princess in this mansion, I drag myself out of the room. As I head downstairs, I begin to think to myself; maybe there aren't any dead body anywhere, maybe all these craziness are just stupid, idiotic Evil Me acting up again. I mean, what am I doing here, really? I'm supposed to search for John's identity! Yet, I got caught up with Evil Me's horrendous scheme and probably jeopardize the whole investigation.
Great job, Alexis. Great job.
I let out a long sigh. But no matter how much I try to convince myself that nothing happened, a tiny part of me—call it a crazy girl's hunch—still believes there's something connecting John's accident and the girl's disappearance. I just don't know what it is.
As I pad down the stairs, my gaze is inevitably drawn to the shovel laying among the heap of sand on the first floor and notice something rather odd. I quicken my steps, squinting my eyes to take a closer look at the shovel. I notice most of the dirt and cement on it are already hardened to the point where it'd be almost impossible for them to wear off. The strange thing is, there isn't a single trace of dust on it.
I open my bag and take out a Kleenex as I bend on my knees to observe the shovel. I wrap the Kleenex on the handle to get a closer look without leaving any fingerprints. If there's one thing I've learned from approximately one hour of searching this house up and down, is everything— and I mean every single thing—inside this house has two inches of dust covering them. But not this one. Someone has clearly wiped this shovel clean; which brings me to a conclusion.
The girl's dead body is not hidden inside this house, she's buried somewhere around this house.
Just as I have my 'epiphany', a loud barking sound heading towards me draws my attention.
A dog? But how—
Before I can even finish my thought, the dog's bark has turned into a growl; a growl that oddly sounds very, very, close to me.
My eyes widen as my heart continues to beat faster than ever. If there's one thing I fear, it's dogs. I gulp and turn my head very slowly to the origin of the voice. The small Shih-Tzu keeps growling at me, showing its teeth as if ready to attack me.
"Annie!" June cries.
Oh, so this is the Annie they were talking about. But how did the kids manage to feed a pet for all these years? After all, 20 years is a very long time!
Snap it, Alexis! Look at it! Does it look like it's over twenty years old?
Well, I guess not. But it still scares the hell out of me! Gritting my teeth, I gulp again, not having the guts to move an inch.
"Uhm, a little help here?" I plead to the kids.
"Annie, sit!" Jude commands. But instead of listening to the little boy, the dog steps closer towards me with its fangs out, still growling.
"Annie!" June says with a commanding voice. But the dog's lack of reaction makes it clear to me that the kids are not its owner.
Calm down, Alexis. Calm down!
How am I supposed to calm down, Evil Me? It's going to eat me alive! I repeat, it's going to eat me alive!
I try to catch my breath and think straight. Why does this dog attack me out of nowhere? If the dog doesn't belong to the kids nor live in this house, then there is no reason for it to defend its territory, right? Now, what could possibly—
In my peripheral vision, I see the phone straps dangling from my pocket. Slightly raising my brow, I decide to take a chance. In a swift move, I grab the phone strap. Just as I take the phone out from my pocket, the dog's eyes move in the same direction as the phone.
"Fetch, girl!" I throw the phone away from me.
The small dog bolts toward the phone, jumping high in the air to catch it, only to fly past through the phone.
Wow! A ghost dog? Well, that's new.
The phone splits into two as it hits the floor, while Annie safely lands on the floor not far from it. The dog turns around with its gaze fixated to the phone, her tail wagging back and forth.
"Lexi? What happened?" I turn to the origin of the voice, only to see John running down the stairs towards me.
"It's uhm..." I switch my gaze to the dog who begins to let out a small whimper. From afar, I can tell it's really sad.
"Whoa..." I can see excitement lit in his eyes as he approaches the dog. "What's a dog doing here?" John bends and stretches his hand to pat the dog's head with a huge smile plastered on his face. The dog takes a careful step back, but John doesn't give up that easily. He drags himself closer to the dog and reaches out, trying to calm the dog and gain its trust.
After a while, John tries to pat the dog's head again. This time, the dog responds by sitting right in front of him. As John continues to caress the dog, the dog's expression turns much calmer than before.
"Annie, huh?" he says, grabbing the small heart pendant hanging around its neck.
The two kids approach John and the dog. "She loves it when her head is being patted, she always makes that look when I do that!"June says, referring to a rather creepy smile on the dog's face.
"Yeah! She's so cute, isn't she?" her brother continues. To my surprise, the three ghosts begin to play with the dog.
"Wait a second, how can you guys touch it? I mean, you're a ghost, she's a ghost. Wait a minute, why am I calling her she? Oh my God, I must've gone crazy! What the hell is going on?" I mumble to myself.
John chuckles. "Calm down! It's probably just a..." He pauses, drawing his brows together while looking for the best word to explain the situation. "Ghost thing! Yeah, must've been just a ghost thing, you know?"
Feeling a bit left out from the group, my lips curve down slightly. "Well..."
Suddenly, my thoughts are drawn into the origin of the dog. Judging by its fixation to the phone I found recently, it's highly probable that the girl who owns the phone also owns the dog. Now, if I'm right and the girl is already dead, did the Boogeyman killed Annie too? Was that why the kids said the Boogeyman hurt Annie?
"Kids," I say as I stand up. "Where did you find this... uhm... Annie?"
My question seems to scare the little kids as they stop playing with the dog instantly. They don't give any answer, but the looks on their faces convince me this dog doesn't belong to them.
"It's okay, you can tell me." I smile softly.
"Well, she came to the house that night," June answers.
"What night?" I ask.
They lower their gazes to avoid mine, but I can see a tinge of fear in their eyes. "The night the boogeyman came to our house," Jude continues, his voice wavers.
"Uhm, Lexi? What's going on? You don't think this dog belongs to..."
"The missing girl," I interrupt.
"The boogeyman?" he says at the same time.
The second he hears my answer, his cheek turns bright red. My eyes widen at his answer and I can't help but let out a small chuckle. I quickly pull myself together and hide my laughter as he presses his lips together to hide his embarrassment.
"Go on," he says, trying to avert the subject.
Question them, Alexis. Question them!
Whoa, calm down, Evil Me. Remember what happened the last time I talk about the Boogeyman with these kids? With these crappy walls around us, I'm afraid this time I won't walk out alive if I asked them straight away!
Have a better idea, then?
Well actually...
"Come on, guys." I bend slightly to match the kids' height. "Let's play outside, shall we?"
The kids greet my plea with a wide, happy smile. "Come, Annie! Let's go outside!" Jude cries. The dog barks once, saying its agreement.
"So? What's on your mind?" John whispers.
I sigh. "Frankly? I have no idea. I guess I'll just let them play for a while and ask them about the Boogeyman slowly. What else can I do?"
I stop right outside the door. The sun almost sets, which means I have to wrap this 'investigation' up soon, or I'll be forced to spend a night in this house, and I am not letting another creepy dead animal approach me again.
As I begin to ponder my thoughts for a clever way out, I can't help but admire the beautiful view. The sun's warmth shines through the vast backyard, lighting every single one of the flowers growing out here. It still amazes me how the garden is still as good as—I suppose—twenty years ago. I wonder if the owner of this house still takes care of the garden as well...
The smile on my face slowly fades the second my eyes lay to the set of red—or rather dark pink— flowers among the blue ones on my right side. My expression turns into horror as I realize the possible reason behind the oddity. I gulp hard, trying to make sense of it all.
"Lexi? Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost! Oh, well that doesn't sound quite right, huh?" He lets out a soft chuckle. "I meant..."
"Shh." I wave my finger, signaling him to shut up. I approach the flowers quickly and begin observing.
All the flowers in this garden are blue dahlias, except for these parts of the garden. What if I was wrong before? What if the owner of this house did not have a weird sense of art? Instead, what if the color of these flowers in this area has been turned to red?
"Blood..." I mutter.
"What? What do you mean, blood? Are you bleeding?" he asks.
"No, you idiot, these flowers!" My hands gesture at the flowers before our eyes. "A huge amount of blood has been dropped here somehow, and that makes the color—which was blue in the first place—turns into red! Dark red, the color of human blood! Second-grade science, remember?" I talk at a rather fast pace.
"Well I don't exactly remember that, now do I? Or should I?" he answers.
"Oops, sorry..." I shot him a guilty smile.
Instead of a sad smile I've expected, a rather proud smile is drawn upon his face. "So, you were saying?"
I stand up, straighten myself, and turn around to face the ghost, intending to explain my theory. "Okay, so all these flowers"—I motion to the flowers around us—"are originally blue. Now, when a certain dye, or coloring, is thrown into the soil, the flowers can change color." I pause to look at his face, to see if he understands what I'm saying or not.
"Like dying your hair? Wait, what's it called? Osmo..."
"Osmosis!" we say at the same time with huge smiles on our faces.
"Now, say you have a bucket of blood and you throw it into these soil, what would happen to the blue flowers?"
"It turns red?"
"Bingo!"
"So, we can say this"—his left-hand gestures a small circle at the ground with the red flowers—"is the murder scene. Right?"
I nod quickly.
Well, well. He's not so dumb after all.
"If only the dog can talk..." I mumble to myself.
"Well..." I turn to John, curious as to what he means. "I think I might be able to help you with that." Before I know it, a mischievous smile spreads across his face.
Author's Note:
Hey guys! I know I haven't update this story in months and I'm really really sorry about that. I had a terrible writer's block, no excuses sorry!
Anyway, thank you soooo much for reading and for being real patient. I really hope you like this chapter. Hopefully, the next chapter will be finished soon.
See you in the next chapter!