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I set down my cleaning supplies and moved the items in front of the hole. Pressing my eye up to the hole I strained to see anything. The light in Jennifer’s bathroom was on but everything else was dark. I looked toward her bed and could see her under the covers. She was covered to the waist and wearing a Winnie the Pooh sleep shirt. I could see her breasts move up and down with every breath she took. “Will you ever forgive me?” I whispered. I moved everything back the way it was and grabbed my supplies and quietly left the closet.
After scrubbing the walls clean I continued down the stairs cleaning more blood from the handrail as I went. In the kitchen by the back door there was a little puddle of what looked like blood mixed with water. I got down on my knees to clean it up and the smell hit me, I peed here. I felt the blood rush into my cheeks. I was so embarrassed even though there was no one around and no one would ever know. The rags wouldn’t be enough for this, I went to the linen closet in the downstairs hall and got a large bath towel. I cleaned everything up to the point that you would never know it was there.
It was going on 5 a.m. and I was exhausted. I decided that I had done the best I could do and it was time to get some sleep. I wrote a note for Jennifer and stuck it to the dry erase board in the class room. It read:
Jennifer,
I am feeling very sick today and I don’t think I can do class. Please just
take the day off. I will be in my room resting.
Love,
Michael
I then headed upstairs. After getting back into my room, I cleaned up all of the blood in my bathroom and bagged the clothes and towels up. I set them in the corner of my room, I will take care of them tomorrow. For now I just wanted to sleep. I stripped down and climbed into bed. Im not sure I dreamed at all that night, but I slept hard.
I woke up around noon the next day. Groggy I rolled out of bed and got ready for the day. Unable to really think about much I brushed my teeth, pulled on some clothes and walked downstairs to the kitchen hunting for food. When I got down there I was surprised to see my note exactly where I had left it and there was no sign that Jennifer had made any food. I pulled out the cocoa puffs and made myself a bowel. Everything was so quiet. It was really earie. I sat slurping my food and thinking about the day before trying to recover some of my memories. For some reason I couldn’t get anywhere. I was really anxious to see how I had left the fort and the thing I had played with. I stood up to drop my bowl back into the sink and when I turned around Jennifer was standing there. She had just come downstairs and had her coat on like she was going somewhere. “Oh, hi…” I said. She smiled a little and said “Im going into town to run some errands, do you need anything?” I answered “Could you get me some Alka-Seltzer, Im really not feeling well.” She nodded and we stood there awkwardly. I started to say “Hey, are we ok?” but as I was saying it I noticed a couple drops of blood on the wall next to her. I only got out “Hey, are we…” and then I kind of trailed off. I walked around her to where the spots were just as she was responding “I don’t know Michael, what happened is not ok.” I put my back to the spots and said “I know but I think I might be in love with you.” She looked like that troubled her. She said “Michael, you’re too young to know what that really is. You aren’t even a man yet.” That hit me hard and an image flashed through my mind of screaming at her body as it lay at my feet. “I, I, I’m” I couldn’t form a complete thought and she turned and headed out the door. I felt so angry. I just needed to go out and explore my fort and try to get through this day.
I put on my jacket and my gloves and headed out the back door. I walked out into the woods, feeling pretty good for the day. I walked past the shed, through the woods, into the clearing and as I rounded the corner of the doorway to my fort I banged my arm against it. Pain shot through me and I let out a little scream. I rubbed it softly waiting for the pain to subside. When it finally did I went the rest of the way inside. I was expecting the worst, blood splattered on the walls, guts everywhere. But I found nothing. Not even the hole. I had this really weird feeling like I had missed a lot. I started looking around. The blood I smeared on the doorway was still there but now that it was dried it just looked like dark brown paint. The table was clean and there was no sign of the tarp or the coyote. The ground where the hole was, was very soft. So I must have cleaned up and buried everything in there. Hanging from a string next to the squirrel head that I hung up from the ceiling where a couple of small bone fragments that I remember putting in my pocket the day before. It looks like I am starting a new collection. I felt really good about what I had found and remembered that I needed to burn the clothes I had bagged up from last night, so I headed home again.
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