The Night

Epilogue

We stayed the night in that house. That eerie house where spirits roamed and threatened to take us, but I was safe as I feel asleep still in Zac’s arms. We, too, roamed around the next morning when we woke. We found money hidden back in a safe in my mother’s closet where my brother and I’s combined birthdays was the combination. We packed up multiple things we wanted to take with us into the car. I took some of my things and my parents’ and my brother’s. As we explored the once familiar house Zac told the story of how he found me.

 I remember the day I lost my memory. Zac and I were on a magnificent date where we both told each other ‘I love you’ for the first time. We had gone back to my house and it was empty. We walked down to my father’s room in the basement where he did all of his work and building and inventing. He was frantic and went on about how my mother and brother had been killed by the night. This had confused me at the time until I remembered who The Night was: a ruthless group of your common mob, but yet so much more advanced. They killed and didn’t give a damn about it. They had killed my mother and brother while trying to get the whereabouts of our house and my father’s location.

My mother was furious, my parents vowed to not get involved with The Night on my mother wishes, and didn’t tell them a word. They shot the both of them right on the spot. Word had got back to my dad and he was frantic and worried that he would be killed and that all of his secrets would come out. He said he had a plan for the two of us, Zac and I. He said that he would erase our memories and give us new lives so that we would be safe. He really meant his secrets; that’s all he cared about. We all knew that this wouldn’t protect us, but I went along with it willingly because I always wanted to believe that there was hope for my father, but there never was. I sat down and had my memory erased, my hair dyed and shipped away to Montana with my father’s old clients who owed him a favor. As for Zac, he ran from my father.

Zac came back to the house exactly one year after my memory was erased to make sure he didn’t run into my dad; my dad surely would have killed him. Zac was right; my dad didn’t like another person knowing all of his secrets, so he didn’t like Zac. Zac came back to this house and took all the money he could find. He went through all of my dad’s papers until he found where I was and everything about my new life. Shortly after this, The Night also found my whereabouts. That’s where I come in and, well, you know the rest of the story.

As for my father, I don’t know where he is. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive and, frankly, I don’t really car as long as he doesn’t come for Zac and I. As for The Night, after killing their leader, the man with the dark hair and eyes, they dispersed and no one has heard from them. From the lack of newspaper columns about multiple men dead in an abandoned home, I suppose that they first cleaned up the mess of bodies first like they always do. They’re good at keeping their business under wraps. That’s why that got so mad at my dad.

As for Zac and I, after we packed up our things from the house, we headed out on a sort-of one year long expedition throughout the country, except for we had not specific place we were going, but I think that we both knew, in the bottom of our hearts, that we were heading to a specific place. After one year, we drove to Green Ridge, MO and we’ve been there ever since.

We arrived when I was 18, and we waited that long so that there won’t be any problem concerning our parents since we were then finally legal adults. Maggie allowed me to begin working at her diner and Zac worked at Gus’ shop. This is where we still work, and one day, when Maggie and Gus are too old, they are giving us their businesses. Five years ago, two years after we moved to Green Ridge, we purchased the nicest and prettiest house to hold our hearts and homes.

That first week back in Green Ridge, and my first day working at the diner, Zac proposed. Our wedding was beautiful. White strung everywhere and flower petals lined everything with grace. I felt like royalty as I walked down the aisle in the largest, most beautiful dress you could imagine. It was lined with feathers and ruffles and beads all coming together in harmony. The whole entire town was there.

As for the business, we both wish to never continue my parents’ work; in fact, we stay as far from it as possible, although, we do keep in shape with our gun wielding skills in shape. You never know when you’ll need it.

At the moment, I’m in my kitchen making pancakes for my family. My two little girls, Celeste and Dawn, ages five and two, are nibbling on fruit at the table as they wait for their father to come down the steps in his work uniform. The girls are both exact mixtures of Zac and I; another way we both come together in harmony. As I think about my girls I feel a slight kick in my swollen stomach, our first little boy, Malcolm, as if to say ‘Don’t forget me, too!’

We haven’t told our children about how we came to be together and our huge mess of a life together after that, except for how he used to follow me around like a puppy when we were in Florida as kids before this mess really got worked up, but someday they’ll know.

No one will ever know our story outside of the family; not Maggie or Gus, or even who the kids decide to marry. I guess the whole world is kind-of like that; a million different tiny stories that no one know. Just like how no one, including the government, has ever heard of The Night, or a machine that can erase you’re memory. No one may never know this story besides me, that’s just how life goes things happen and people don’t give a shit, but you do and you just kind of learn that you don’t give a shit, too because that’s your story; it’s you.