A Thousand Words

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Abigail Rialto was walking home from school one day when she saw a crowd whispering and crowding around her best friend's house. Her best friend Penelope was walking with her. She immediately grabbed Abigail's hand and dragged her behind as she booked it across the street to her house, hoping for the best. If somebody got hurt, she didn't know what she would do. Abigail was a squeamish girl, and she didn't like crowds. But she was helpless with her friend's hand trapping her.

What they saw waiting for them was by far the weirdest thing to have ever occurred in the small town. There was no body. But there was the outline of one, like the police would do for a murder. But what stuck out the most about the body outline, was that it was traced in red. In blood. Penelope was suddenly pulled to the ground by Abigail's limp body. She had fainted at the sight of the blood.

Penelope delicately lay Abigail down in the grass and ran through the yard to where her family was huddled around the strange bloody mess in their driveway. She hugged her mom and desperately asked what happened. "We don't know. Nobody in the family is dead, so there's no reason for it to be in our driveway. The police are going to collect some of the blood and do a DNA test on it to see who it might be. But I can't think of anybody." She hugged her mom and dug her head into her shoulder. Penelope's mother was a beautiful woman named Melody, and she was the best mother in the entire world. She knew just how to make Penelope calm down. It took less than a minute for that skill to come into play now.

The next few days were uneventful. Tension was high in the town, and everybody seemed to be the suspect of whatever happened. the police had removed the blood, but traced over the tracing in chalk and marked it as a crime scene. Obviously the blood had come from somewhere, and the police suspected that a body would soon be found to match the tracing and the blood. After a few days, the result from the DNA test were in.

Penelope's mother was frowning over a piece of paper when Penelope got home. She looked up, startled, when Penelope walked into the room and smiled, subtly slipping the paper behind her back. "How was school Darling?"

"Same as always. Have the results from the DNA test come back?"

"No. Well, ok yes they've come. But Sweetheart, this isn't something that you should be worrying about, alright? The police will take care of it." Penelope frowned, but nodded. The next few days went by in a blur. The were far too fast for either Penelope or Abigail to really process. Penelope felt nothing but burning curiosity at what that piece of paper could hold. Her mother had expressly forbidden Penelope from looking, but forbidding any child from anything only increases their desire to know.

Abigail didn't feel curiosity. She was just as squeamish as ever. But she would indulge Penelope with her fantasies of knowing who might have died. The police were constantly patrolling the school now, and they constantly surrounded Penelope's house. Her mother consistently held the DNA test results in her coat pocket, out of reach. Abigail was terrified of what that piece of paper might hold, but Penelope would hear nothing of Abigail's fears. Although it soon became clear that it was hopeless. Penelope would never see that DNA test.

The blur came to a sudden stop when the weekend arrived. Abigail and Penelope had arranged to go to Penelope's grandmother's house for the weekend. Penelope pranced around the house and packed her things. She shivered as a breeze flew through the room. She looked over at the window to find it open. She narrowed her eyes at it before slowly walking up to it. She quickly snapped it shut and screamed as a paper fell to the floor. She held her hand to her heart as its speed slowly dissipated back to a normal one. "What's wrong?!" Melody screamed.

"Nothing! Just a random piece of paper that fell and scared me." She picked it up and flipped it over. On it, in small, organized handwriting, was written the simple sentence: Tonight's the night. Have you prepared? She frowned and threw it into the trash. She didn't have time for her brother's pranks. It wasn't her brother's handwriting, but he had loads of friends who he could have used to throw her off. She wasn't fooled.

She jumped in the car and they drove off towards her grandma's house. They stopped half way at a gas station, where they were supposed to meet Abigail. Abigail was a half hour late when Penelope was fed up and dug through her pockets for her phone to call Abigail. The voice at the other end of the line was definitely not Abigail's. She had no clue whose it was, but she had a creepy feeling slip down her spine at the sound of the smooth, collected, and emotionless voice. "Hello, Penelope. I'm a bit disappointed. Didn't you get my letter?"

"What letter?"

"I said tonight's the night. Do you not want to save her?" The line immediately went dead before she could respond. Her head snapped up to meet her mother's eyes and she whispered inaudibly that she wanted to go home. If she went any louder, she would end up screaming in her desperation.

They raced to Abigail's house first. Whoever this person was had obviously been talking about Abigail. When they got to Abigail's house, the sight was not pretty. There were over a dozen dead policemen on the lawn. But no Abigail. Suddenly, everything clicked. "Mom, let me see that DNA test." Melody's trembling hand wordlessly handed over the piece of paper. The name stood out invariably among everything else. Abigail.

The next day, they found the body to match the tracing. She was molded perfectly into the exact shape, her blood smeared everywhere. And on her body was a piece of paper with small, organized handwriting that said: I gave you fair warning.