Nightmares Never Go Away

Chapter Eleven: She's Gone

(Jonhathan)

"What happened Jayden?! Why are you here? Why would you come here?" I shout staring at the house as he sits motionless on the porch steps.

He's not moving as I get out of the car walking over to him and that's when I look him over.

He's covered in blood.

Is he okay? Is he hurt? Where's Vivian? "What did you do?!" I yell on the verge of pulling him into my arms and shaking him.

I want answers. I need to know where Vivian is when this wasn't part of the night. He wasn't supposed to be covered in blood and Vivian wasn't suppose to go missing at the house I haven't visited in years.

I dropped them off in the town we live in at the corn maze. They were only going to be out for a few hours. Not too late, not long enough to get this far away from home.

How did he end up hours away at the place I didn't want him to wander back?

"I don't know. I don't remember." he says trembling. "I swear I didn't do anything. I didn't hurt her. I wouldn't hurt her dad please believe me."

"Is she here?" I dare ask.

"I...I didn't do it." he avoids eye contact staring at the ground and I race inside the house. No hesitation in me to get to Vivian.

She's my daughter, I carried her for nine months. She's part of me I don't want to lose.

Racing into the house, little light to guide me around I look around. I remember everything about the house after years of not living here. Everything is rushing back to me of living here with Jared, the pleasant and bad memories I wish to forget.

Vivian isn't anywhere I can see and I start to doubt she is. Until I reach the blood on the floor and I look up to the attic. The stairs are retracted down and I'm frighten to go up. I'm scared of what I may see.

I never thought I would be back here. I never imagined Jayden would be covered in blood that can be his sister's.

Do I want to go up? Do I need to see what happened to my daughter? Is Jayden more like Jared than I thought and wanted to believe?

The smell of the blood is making me sick. My thoughts are causing my stomach to twist more than the pregnancy has and the last thing I want is to go up there.

But I have to.

I take a deep breath and place my hands on the ladder. One step at a time leading me to something I don't want to see. I'm hoping with everything in me I don't see Vivian. I don't want to see something as devastating as her body laying lifeless once I reach the attic.

And that's what I see, "No! No! Vivian wake up sweetie. No, you can't be gone. You can't be gone." I pull her into my arms.

*****

Several Hours Later...

(Jayden)

"I told you everything already. I don't know what happened okay? I just know there was someone dressed up as a scarecrow I seen a few nights ago and I saw him again last night. It had to be him. He did it, he hurt her." I tell the man who brought me into this private room at the police station.

"Someone dressed up as a scarecrow took you and your sister from the corn maze and brought you to the house you once lived in?" he replies making every word out of my mouth sound like a crazy lie I concocted into a story.

"Yes."

"Now I find that hard to believe Jayden." he replies.

"It's the truth. I'm not lying." I repeat again.

Time is ticking away as I sit at the police station and the look on my dad's face, after he walked out of the house, is engraved into my head. He didn't look at me the same. He didn't look at me to begin with when the look on his face was a mixture of disbelief and pain. I could see in his eyes the few seconds he met my eyes he was questioning my innocence. I was too. I couldn't believe what I found upstairs was once my happy lively sister not the hollow empty body lying there. Someone hurt her. Someone killed her but it wasn't me. I would never hurt her.

"Your sister's blood was found on your clothes and hands along with your fingerprints on the weapon." he points out but that isn't possible.

"What weapon?"

"The knife you used to stab your sister multiple times." he says with a stern expression on his face. He doesn't believe me. No one is believing my story but it's the truth. I didn't hurt my sister. All I ever wanted to do was protect her from the bad and somehow I couldn't. I couldn't stop the person who ended her life. 

"I didn't hurt her. I didn't do anything." I say one last time doubting myself as I do.

Was it me like everyone wants to believe? Did I kill her like they think I did? Was the scarecrow at the house a figment of my imagination? Or am I innocent and everyone has it wrong?