In the dead of night there was a loud crash right out outside Maria’s bedroom window. Even though she was on the second floor in her apartment complex the sudden noise that woke Maria up rattled her to the core then when she fully woke up her fear turned to anger. She slowly kicked her Suffocatingly large comforter off of her tired body and was harassed by the frigid cold air of late October. In an instance she pulled her curtains back and peered through her blinds just in enough time to see a man walking away from the large garbage cans. Knowing her mother would be up Maria screamed to her a rhetorical question even though her mother would still find a way to answer.
“What are they doing through dead bodies in there?” With a smile her mother stuck her head in and said, ” Well this is the best time to do it wouldn’t you say?”
All Maria’s energy has left her and all she can do is crawl back into bed and through the comforter back onto herself.
Waking up today was a struggle for Maria since she really couldn’t go to sleep after all the commotion last night. All she could think about was the oddness of the situation in its entirety. No one even throws away their garbage that late and most importantly the only men that lived in this complex from what she knew of was older men in their 60s at the very least, will the man that she faintly saw that was illuminated by the blue hue os the moon was at the very most in his early 30s. But as the day progressed all these little things that bothered her while they were fresh in her mind seemed to become insignificant as the day progressed.
Several days later this incident happened again but this time with a woman older than her mother. The light from the full moon showed the scene in a clearer light and Maria was able to see in the garbage can itself, and in it saw a bag that looked to be more of a dry cleaners material than a garbage bag with wet stains coating the bottom of it, and a woman looking up at her with a blank expression on her face. With that image scaring her thoughts Maria quickly drew her curtain and grabbed the scissors of her desk and ran to her mother’s room without even processing what she was doing. Before she went into her mother’s room she tucked the scissors safely in the kangaroo pouch on her pull over hoodie then twisted the door to her mother’s room and told her she would be walking her to her car because she wanted to talk to her.
On the way to the car in a panicked but low voice she told her mother about what she just saw and her worries about the previous person she saw. Her mother quickly wrote off all of her concerns with logical explanations. This eased Maria slightly but she still ran home after her Mother got in the car safely and immediately locked the door. She breathed a sigh of relief instantly after and even felt a little silly.
At around 10 am Maria heard the front door open while running out she cheerfully said, “ you were right mom I was being ridiculous earlier” and as she rounded the corner she saw a faintly familiar person in the entryway.
In a soft but malicious voice the women spoke, “ It looks like Martin was right after all, I was being paranoid and it was too soon to tell if you were on to us -hmm” with a gut wrenching splat at hand with Maria’s mother keys still clutched in them was dropped on the dark hardwood oak floors and the blood quickly soaked into the nooks on the floor slowly crawling to maria’s toes.
