With the one exception—he only spoke to his mother when I wasn’t around—everything about my relationship with Shawn was wonderful. There was a strange feeling. I followed him around stealthily one day, and what I saw made my skin crawl.
The aroma of chamomile tea permeated our home as I heard Shawn murmur, “Okay, Mom,” into his phone. I’m going to be there.
When I knocked on our bedroom door, I asked if I might go in right away. Are you done speaking with your mother?
“Baby, come on in!” Shawn hardly looked up, too preoccupied with his phone.
“I must pay her a visit,” he declared.
Shouldn’t I have met your mother by now, Shawn? I questioned, observing the frown on his face.
“We’ll discuss it, but not today,” he waved off, averting my eyes. “It’s not easy.” That was not a valid justification. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to hide anything or be ashamed. So one day I made the decision to follow him without telling him.
I witnessed Shawn welcome a young woman in private while following his motorcycle to a remote home. Even though I knew he wouldn’t be seeing his “mother,” I was nevertheless devastated and felt deceived. In any case, I remained there and refrained from becoming angry until I had the information I needed.
They spent some time inside, and as I was ready to walk out, Shawn rushed out on his motorbike. My lips fell a little as I noticed the woman who had trailed him out had a tearful expression on her face.
I heard her beg, “Shawn, please.” Just give me a chance to speak. Please don’t treat me like way.
With his mouth tightly clinched, he raised his hands. “I have nothing more to say!” His voice resounded loudly in the still evening. “Keira, if you don’t follow my instructions, you’ll regret it greatly.”
Without spotting me, Shawn cranked the engine and sped off. I saw Keira wipe away her tears, walk toward the local park with a tiny puppy that had escaped the house on a leash.
There, I faced her. Anger-laced, my voice broke the silence. “Keira?” I questioned her what she was doing with a man who had a girlfriend after she flinched and gave me the impression that she knew about me beforehand.
She avoided looking at me at first, and all I got was excuses. She eventually broke down, though, and told me something I never would have guessed. Keira had taken out a loan from Shawn to pay for her father’s medical treatment.
“After Dad’s cancer battle ended, I was unable to give Shawn the money back.” His voice broke as Keira wept, “He… he forced himself on me.” “He snapped suggestive photos of us cuddling in bed. He threatened to share them online if I didn’t do what he wanted anytime he felt like it.
As Keira described the severity of Shawn’s abuse, I couldn’t help but feel sympathetic and irrationally angry. She wept and said, “I want to stop this madness.” “Shawn should burn in hell for destroying my life.”
I seized the opportunity to suggest, “Let’s end his tyranny together.”
In the waning light, our retribution plan began to take shape. After spending a little time with Keira’s dog, Charlie, we returned to her place and headed to my flat, prepared to trap my dubious lover.
A few hours later, the front door creaked open, and Shawn staggered in, his face flushed. His customary swagger vanished as he stared at the unexpected image, his expression seeming confused. I was wearing my nicest underwear, and the lights had been lowered.
“You surprised me, sweetie. I wanted to create a memorable evening. I enticed him to the dining table where his favorite whiskey was waiting for us, but he was unaware that it was laced with sleeping pills. “Let’s have a drink,” I said.
He sipped, letting down his guard, and stammered unintelligibly until the medication took hold. “Mmm… spaghetti” I’m feeling a little bit. His head fell on the kitchen table as his words faded away.
Keira came out, her laughter bittersweet. “It appears that he has left.” she joked. We thus carried out our plan, leaving lipstick stains and pictures on Shawn. Our acts were a mixture of juvenile mischief and revenge. But my happiness quickly gave way to fear.
Keira’s unexpected scream interrupted our lighthearted moment. She cried out in fear, “He’s not breathing!”
“No,” I cried out. “This is not possible.” It took me only a second to go into CPR mode, but Keira shoved me back.
“Iris, hold on! He is not reachable by us. How about prints left by fingerprints?
With my eyes clouded by tears, I blurted out, “We need to call an ambulance.”
She said, “We can’t call for help, they’ll think we killed him!”
Stuck in a nightmare, we discussed our bleak alternatives. Despite Shawn’s weight, we decided to conceal his body in the basement, and we did it.
After that, we tried to escape the terror within, at least in our minds, as we sat outdoors in front of my outdoor fireplace and enjoyed wine beneath the starry night sky. My tears beamed in the firelight, lamenting the dashed hopes of an impossibly distant future.
I let out a choking cry, the diamond on my finger glistening mockingly in the firelight. “One month. I’m only one bloody month away from realizing all of my dreams. Keira scowled at me, but I went on. He believed he was acting wisely. Belittling. It appears that he is the biggest idiot!
“Explain yourself,” she enquired.
I didn’t respond to her query, though. I wiped away another tear that escaped and thought, “I have enough jewels and diamonds safe in a bank vault… enough to start a new life in Chicago, far away from this mess.” “A new beginning with the legacy I’ve carefully sealed away.” Not a murmur, not a memory of this horror. Me alone with enough glimmer to make the darkness disappear.
Keira gave me comfort and said she would stay the night, even sharing a bed with me. She was the kind of friend I never thought I would have, and we spoke for hours about everything, including what to do with Shawn’s body the next day.
It wasn’t until I abruptly woke up that I realized I had fallen asleep. It remained silent and dark. The bedroom was silent, which made my heart race even harder. As Keira continued to sleep peacefully, I went to the restroom to clean my teeth.
I was startled again by a startling, familiar laughing that seemed to be coming from the shadows. Shawn? I said, “It’s just a nightmare,” but the flickering lights in the bathroom made me wonder if I was crazy. Once more, the deep, guttural laughter mocked my terror and left me speechless.
I went back to the bedroom and saw Keira was still asleep. Was everything I imagined? I fell back asleep, shook, and kept thinking about Shawn’s eerie laugh. “It’s just stress,” I told myself, but resting didn’t really help.
Keira was screaming in terror when I woke up and saw her pointing to a corner. She freaked out, saying, “Shawn was there, staring at us!”
I turned the lights on and saw nothing except our collective frenzy. I urged, “Keira, Shawn is dead,” even though I shared her level of fear.
I tried to calm her down, but the weird atmosphere in the room made us feel even more anxious. Keira eventually fell asleep again, while I remained up. Despite my disbelief in ghosts, I was concerned by the strange happenings that night.
Keira and I awoke at early to the somber reality of burying Shawn. However, the basement was empty. “The corpse is gone,” she said.
“Away? How? Terrified, I whispered.
Keira shook her head, a chilly certainty shining in her eyes. “Iris, what the devil is going on? A dead body can’t possibly escape by itself. The door to the basement was closed.
I could no longer resist wanting to leave my residence as terror took hold of me. Desperate to get away, I hurried to my car as she followed and tried to stop me. Enter now! We must go right immediately! I screamed at her. Keira followed me without more resistance, even though she was terrified and perplexed.
I drove carelessly and made my way to the bank with the intention of stealing my jewelry, which were the last things I had to part with.
I finally got the valuables back and got back in the car, but it took a while and the paperwork was driving me crazy. Then I confronted my new acquaintance. I begged, “Keira, please.” “I need you to swear to me that you won’t tell anyone. nor about the missing corpse, nor about Shawn, nothing at all. I beseech you!
Reluctantly, Keira nodded and gulped, “I won’t tell anyone.”
We drove off, having secured that flimsy deal. But the nightmare didn’t end there. I noticed a motorcycle that looked quite similar to Shawn’s in the rearview mirror as we got closer to Keira’s house. Fear took hold of me as the bike seemed to be getting closer. My heart was pounding.
I attempted to concentrate, brushing it off as an illusion of my guilt, but my anxiety was heightened by the motorcycle’s growing closeness. Keira saw that I was upset and insisted on taking the wheel.
“Iris,” she murmured in a frigid, clipped voice. “Hover over. You’re not fit to operate a vehicle.
“I’m alright,”
“No, you’re not,” she shot back. “You’re experiencing a breakdown. Give me the wheel.
She leaned over to me and unbuckled her seatbelt before I could object. Her slimy, chilly fingertips touched me, making my breath catch.
“Iris, you’re to blame for everything,” she growled. “You put him to death. He was overdosed by you. And now you’re plagued by guilt. I parked the car carefully to the side, keeping those words in mind, and we swiftly switched seats. She moved right away.
Not at all. After a while, with a voice hoarse with dread and wrath, I exclaimed, “That’s not true.” It happened by mistake. Both of us are aware of that. However, when I glanced in the rearview mirror, the motorbike remained in place.
Was this crazy stuff getting to me? Was Shawn a creation of my shame-stricken mind? However, I received no response. All we could see in front of us was the highway, which seemed an infinite asphalt ribbon meandering through strange territory.
“There!” I cried out and waved a quivering finger at a neon sign that was blinking in the distance. “The Motel Sunset. Keira, please stop the car. I was unable to continue driving as a potentially phony bike pursued us for another minute.
My heart felt heavy with the solitude and seclusion of the hotel. A menacing click at the door startled me out of my reverie while I was thinking about my jewels. With a groan, the door opened, showing Shawn’s terrible and unbelievable form.
He approached me slowly, menacingly, and with a devious smile that made it impossible for me to wake up from the nightmare. “Shawn?” I muttered, feeling as though terror and astonishment were suffocating me together.
Shawn’s sinister grin expanded. “Iris, you killed me.” It’s your turn to pay now,” he said in a raspy, frigid voice.
The room closed in on me, and the smell of rot rose. I shrank back. “The jewels, Iris,” commanded the hideous form of Shawn. Please give them to me.
Sick with terror, I staggered back and let out a little cry that went unheard. But getting away was a far-off dream. The world blurred into a terrifying jumble of images and noises. I saw the hideous shape of my deceased partner shoving the gems into a bag through foggy eyes. Then I was completely engulfed in darkness and my awareness vanished.
***
I spotted Shawn and Keira at the motel door, each wearing a similar set of handcuffs, being led to a waiting police vehicle. A victorious grin appeared on my visage.
“You fools, did you think I would fall for your cheap tricks?” I made fun of them. “Even though I’m not a detective, I can recognize a phony plan more easily than a five-year-old can identify a birthday cake.” Your little performance was as convincing as a little child trying to pass off a sketch made with a crayon as a work of art.
I had discovered their plot and prevailed. Hehe! I first had my doubts the night before when I heard Shawn’s unsettling chuckle. However, Keira’s casual friendship, the body’s disappearance, her witnessing Shawn’s ghost, and a plethora of other discrepancies provided me with the information I required.
After Keira’s request for a different room served as the last straw, I had already contacted the police from my hotel room. An officer praised me for making the call on time and revealed Shawn and Keira’s entire ruse.
They were scam artists who manufactured deaths and invented relationships to prey on rich ladies. I let out a trembling breath as the police car transporting them vanished into the distance, the morning sun warming my cheeks. A fresh start coincided with the arrival of a new day.