A Flicker in the Dark

by Stacy Willingham

An entire life whittled down to a pile of bones that are no different from yours or mine or even that field rat’s, really.

It’s the realization of how many hidden bodies could be buried beneath my feet at any point in time, the world above them completely oblivious to their existence.

she was just a girl.

Cooper never seemed like an adult with his burping and his Game Boy and his stash of dirty magazines he kept hidden under the loose floorboard beneath his bed.

Porn addiction and gamer? Yea tht incel killed those girls...

Hot by the majority of the United States’ fragile standards, but not Louisiana hot. That

Girl shut up

My head was starting to spin just slightly; it was weird, but kinda funny.

Girl you would not get buzzed off that that quick

And that’s why I remembered it so vividly when I saw it again, four months later, hidden in the back of my father’s closet.

WHAT

We had become so used to it—to intruders and prowlers and threatening phone calls—that when we heard the bell politely ring that morning, we were almost more afraid to know who was behind that thick slab of cedar, patiently waiting for us to invite them inside.

Cooper looked at me, shocked at my language, my rage.

My father, another middle-aged white man with a meanness he couldn’t explain. He offered no concrete explanations, no valid reason why. He offered only the darkness. And surely, that couldn’t be possible—people refused to believe that otherwise average white men murder without a reason why. And so we became the reason: the neglect of his wife, the taunting of his son, the budding promiscuity of his

daughter. It was all too much for his fragile ego, and eventually, he snapped.

understood my brother’s aversion to dating, to getting too close to anyone.

INCEL

I had found his LinkedIn profile, confirming his profession in pharmaceutical sales. He was mentioned in a newspaper article from 2015 printing his finishing time for the Louisiana Marathon: four hours and nineteen minutes.

Mecore

Abandoned in Breaux Bridge, the memories of my youth twisted into a real-life haunted house, a ghost story, the place kids ran past with their breath held tight for fear of summoning the spirits that surely haunted its walls.

When Daniel had said them only a month into our courtship,

REDFLAG

because they both understand the inherent danger of existing as a woman.

Yes and no?

in classic female fashion, she feels the need to be defensive, to prove to the world that she’s a good mother, an attentive mother. That this isn’t her fault.

But what they don’t understand is that she abandoned us, too.

That poetic symbolism wasn’t lost on me, either—that he spent his days outside of a cell taking lives, but once he was incarcerated, he was apparently determined to save them.

BECAUSE HE DIDNT DO IT IT WAS YOUR BROTHER

about all the things we’ve seen and done in the years since she decided we were no longer important enough to stay alive for,

You are a psychologist you shpuld not be saying this

I abandoned my mother because it’s easier this way.

Well duhh

She won’t be able to talk about it, verbalize it, get it off her chest the way that I can—the way that I am, right here, right now. Suddenly, it feels incredibly selfish. But I can’t help myself. I say it anyway.

This is so messed up

already, she’s been replaced, taped over like a broken vending machine.

Holw true crime ppl act

Tokens meant to celebrate the milestones of their girls growing up, instead forever memorialized by their untimely deaths.

So what kinds of questions did those guys ask you?”

Ok why am i sus abt him i thibk the brother killed the original girls but maybe daniel is killing the new girls? Stjll think is brother

He keeps going, his hands still resting there as he pumps harder and harder, faster and faster. He starts to squeeze, and I let out a scream before shooting backward, moving as far away from him as I can.

YEAH LOCK HIM UP

“Cause of death was strangulation.”

DANIEL I AM SO ONTO YOU…lowkey was his sister a victim of her dad/brother?and hes getting revenge?

Aubrey’s body turned up minutes after I had left the search party. I was there. Did this person somehow know I would be there? Even more terrifying—was he there, too?

Daniel it isnt looking too good for you

We came back because she wanted to prove to herself that she could stand up to him.

But now she was afraid. She was just as afraid as I was.

I suppose all children think of their parents as perfectly happy people, some kind of subhuman life form devoid of feelings and opinions and problems and needs.

I hadn’t realized how tightly he had been squeezing.

Sus…

“You just couldn’t stay away, could you?”

Idiot…

Bert Rhodes’s rambling—his anger over my life and how I turned out, his wondering what it felt like to take a life—was practically an admission of guilt and a threat of future violence all at once. I

Girl…

I hate that Daniel is taking the blame for this, but I can’t think of another explanation. Another way out without telling Cooper that I’ve been calling pills in for myself under Daniel’s name. So instead, I’m quiet. I let Cooper believe it. I let his distrust for my fiancé sink deeper, simmer louder.

Shes pissing me off

And there, at the very top, I’m greeted with another name: Aaron Jansen.

Affair time like mother like daughter

It’s a necklace with a long silver chain, a single pearl on the end, and three small diamonds clustered at the top.

Watch him say its a gift

“My name is Dianne Briggs. And my daughter, Sophie, went missing twenty years ago.”

DUH

I can tell he wants to keep talking, so I lean forward and kiss him once before he can say anything else. Before this feeling is gone.

Well saw that coming

like a flicker in the dark, it felt good.

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