Please Tell Me

by Mike Omer

Kathy limped alongside the road in the dark, hugging her doll to her chest. The doll was scared, because of the shadows, which was why Kathy clutched her so tightly. Sometimes, when you’re scared, the only thing that helps is a hug.

She hadn’t worn shoes for so long. For weeks . . . or months . . . she wasn’t sure. Maybe even a year.

“This is the before. I want you to get some toys and place them here to show me how you were before Kathy disappeared.”

In the past year, Robin had had four kids from Bethelville who came to see her as a result of Kathy Stone’s disappearance.

Melody’s daughter Amy used to be best friends with Claire’s daughter, Kathy.

However, Thirty-One Forest claimed a new notoriety soon after Kathy’s disappearance. It was where the police had found her shoes.

For some reason this always seemed to get stuck in Mom’s craw. That while people all over the world were dying of COVID, her husband had the audacity to die of a heart attack. Leaving his wife alone with this mundane widowhood.

Life gave her this child that suddenly was more important than anything else in the world, and then cruelly gave the child a mind of her own.

This was another thing the pandemic had killed, along with millions of people. It had killed spontaneity.

Robin was impressed. Twenty seconds into the conversation and Evan was already mansplaining things about her own profession to her and getting them wrong.

And her eyes were wide, haunting. The eyes of a deer as it stared, paralyzed, at incoming headlights.

BFFs, that’s what it was called, right? Best friends forever. Or in their case, best friends until Kathy disappeared. BFUKDs.

Blood was smeared all over his leg. And as Melody rushed to help him, Claire saw more blood was still trickling from a puncture in his skin. She looked back at Kathy. A sharp pink pencil lay by Kathy’s feet. Its tip was stained red.

Though having babysat Kathy several times, Ellie had seen things. Heard things. Claire and Pete were far from the perfect parents.

Her cart had three working wheels and one that was a free spirit who wanted to escape and tour the world.

Men shouldn’t be allowed to go shopping in the supermarket. They should be shot on sight if they walked in. Robin hated everyone.

“You know,” Tara said. “I think I haven’t purchased toilet paper for over a year. Back when COVID started, I bought like . . . a bazillion packs.”

Stabbed and then hanged. Just like the influencer, Haley Parks, whose body had been found in the forest a few weeks before.

Which was part of the reason she was brushing her hair. What was it about the act of brushing that made thinking that much easier? It was as if the faint tugging on her scalp loosened the sticky thoughts from within, letting them tumble freely in her mind.