Home Is Where the Bodies Are

by Amanda East

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” -C.S. Lewis

There is no greater joy in all the world than killing someone. Watching the light fade out of their eyes is a feeling that has no equal. It’s almost erotic in the waves of pleasure it delivers. I’ll never forget the first time. I was barely more than a kid. I had been practicing on animals for years, but it wasn’t enough anymore. I was craving… more.

I bashed his head in with a giant rock and the wet crunch of bone and brain matter was exhilarating in ways I never imagined it could be. He made a grunt as he slumped over face-first into the water.

Oh my god we just started-

Foreshadowing??

Same

I would reward myself by following her home. It didn’t take long, though, before that wasn’t enough either. I had to have more of her.

Creepy

I turned her body to face mine and locked eyes with the wrong girl.

UH OH

“You know that stuff will kill you, right?”

Hmmm is this a joke? Foreshadowing?

“I just wanted to be here for you.”

Colby is frozen now too, staring at the corpse at our feet.

Oh goodness

She looks just like me.

There on the soft skin beside the bone of her hip is a tattoo still fresh and tender. A tiny heart-shaped lock wrapped in soft twirling ivy. Just like mine. I can’t breathe anymore. My whole body is falling to pieces. I can’t stand. That tattoo meant so much to me at one point in my life. As everything starts to go black all I can see is the face of the man who wears the key to that lock forever etched into his body. Cash.

My world goes dark without her in it.

Kind of creepy

“It will always be okay for you to let go with me. I don’t care how many years it’s been or where we are in life or what stupid fight we had that morning, I will always be a safe place for you.”

“Her name is Seraphina. She’s been missing for about six months.”

“What would you say if I told you that we found something of yours under the body?”

I WOULD HAVE KEPT HER IF I’D KNOWN SHE WOULD LOOK LIKE YOU

With a hard swallow, I let the realization sink in that my ex-lover may not be who I thought he was.

Question him!!

All of those famous killers and criminals gave into their needs, but they got caught because they didn’t know how to play the part of the alter ego. That’s the secret. Do that and they will never question you.

Killing someone is the easy part. Living with them is hard. Letting them live is hard.

I’m afraid he’s done something terrible.”

Smart girl

One by one they face me spelling out something entirely different. S-E-R-A-P-H-I-N-A

“Suddenly you’re ripped into being alive. And life is pain, and life is suffering, and life is horror, but my god you’re alive and it’s spectacular.” -Joseph Campbell

One only lies about where he is if he is doing something he shouldn’t be.

“All I have ever wanted was for you to love me like I love you. I’ve always known you didn’t, but it has never hurt as bad as when I hear you say his name in a way that you will never say mine.”

She was abandoned on the sidewalk a couple blocks from the hospital just a few hours old. Wrapped in a blanket that was stitched with the name Seraphina. Born on May 7th, 2006. Severely malnourished and spent 6 months in the hospital for various reasons. Health problems her whole life related to birth defects, never kept long in foster care because of intense medical needs early on.

It was a daisy on her shoulder blade. All white petals except one blue and one pink petal.” “That was my mom’s tattoo.”

What the

“Yeah, except this girl had a third colored petal on hers. Just like your mom’s with a blue petal for Shane, a pink petal for you, and a purple petal, we can only assume, for Seraphina.” “But Mom was already gone when she was born. I looked into it this morning.” “Well, she was missing already, but we don’t know what happened to her. Gone doesn’t mean dead. Don’t take this as truth because it’s just a theory I’m working on, but if you look at the timing, she could have been 8 or so weeks pregnant when she was taken and no one would have ever known. To top it off, the baby was malnourished when she was abandoned. If some lunatic had Beth stashed somewhere all those months, she likely would not have been getting what she needed to keep a baby healthy during pregnancy.” My body feels cold inside and like a lead weight is sitting on my shoulders, “And that could explain why she looked like me.”

He seems lost for words for a moment, but then pretends he didn’t notice,

Hes so happy rn

A real woman’s severed hand is resting quietly in the drawer of my father’s bedside table.

“I’ve officially been removed from the case.”

“The hand. It is connected to me. Well, to both of us in a roundabout way.”

“I had that ring made for you before you left. Our names are engraved inside the band.”

I had to squeeze the life out of her with my own hands, the only bright side to the whole debacle. I had to scrap my makeshift tattoo machine back together and somehow remember how to fucking use it after thirteen fucking years. I had to put her body where Savannah might find it. That was a lot of fucking work just to frame a guy, but apparently not enough for my girl!

No way..it was colby

A mother fucking severed human hand wearing a ring he bought for her! Not even that cracked her faith in that fucking waste of human life!!!

“He left to stay with his mom for a while, trying to reconnect with her I think.” Cash’s eyes flash, “No, he isn’t. His mom died a couple of years ago. It was an overdose. I found her on a welfare check.” All the pieces come together in front of us, “I fucking knew it was all him.”

I feel my makeshift weapon clatter to the floor as my whole world goes black.

“Madness is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.” -The Joker

“But I love my first mommy,” she squeaks out. Colby slaps her face so hard that she falls to the ground and I let out a shriek of horror.

:(

That hand was hers.”

“I’ve had a whole life down here for 14 years and not a single soul had a clue. Mind-blowing, isn’t it?” He looks wistful now, “Growing my seed in a woman’s womb. That is, without a doubt, the greatest feeling in the world. I’m so ready to share that with you. I know you’ve been secretly taking birth control at home, but down here… down here I get to control your body. Our babies will be so beautiful, Savannah.”

Disgusting.

“I loved you my

whole life.”

This story doesn’t have a happy ending. What in life ever does? There is no way, in reality, to tie up all the loose ends. You can’t pack it all up in a box and hide it with a pretty bow. Sometimes bad things happen and it just is what it is. What can you do?

Now, as Cash and I sit in this crowded hospital cafeteria, he looks at me with the same fire in his eyes that he held for me when we were 15 and I know everything will be okay. It will never be perfect, but it will be okay.