Summer

Summer Part 6

Two months later.....

      No one had come looking for Summer. Luke was half expecting the police to come knocking on his door, but they hadn't. Even her family in Queensland had apparently not noticed her missing. Luke tried to relax. He was in the clear. He had rid the world of a horrible person, a person who had caused at least two deaths. But he couldn't relax. He was a murderer. He had dreams. At first he saw her lying on his bed with him whispering "I love you so much, Lukey. Don't ever leave me." But in the last couple of weeks the dreams had become nightmares. He saw her lying in the dark at the bottom of a hole in the ground. She broke out of the black plastic and clambered to the top of the shaft, then made her way to the nearest road where she was given a lift back into the city. He saw her looking at him with evil in her eyes. "You tried to kill me, Lukey. I loved you and you tried to kill me. You're going to pay, Lukey, you're going to pay."

He had seen Max twice in the last two months. Each time he had asked if Luke had heard from or seen Summer. Luke had answered truthfully, no. "I think you are very lucky," Max had said, "She must have forgotten you and moved on to someone else."

Luke's next dream was more disturbing. He was at work and returned to his office after lunch. As he walked in the door he heard a familiar voice. "Hi Lukey." He gasped in shock as he saw Summer sitting in his customers' couch. She looked beautiful as ever wearing a black dress with her long dark hair hanging down around her shoulders. S-Summer, how can you be here?" he stammered.

"You thought you killed me, didn't you Lukey? But you didn't. Now I'm back, and you have to pay for what you did." Then she jumped up and lunged at him with a long bladed knife. He woke from his dream in a sweat.

The next morning something even more worrying happened. As he was sitting at his dining table having coffee and toast for breakfast his mobile phone chimed with a text message. As he read it his hands started to tremble and the phone dropped to the floor. It was from an unknown number. The message read:
Time for you to pay for what you did. S.

Luke spent the rest of the day jumping at shadows. Either Summer wasn't dead and she was coming after him for revenge, or it was her ghost. But he had been positive she was dead that night he pushed her body down the mineshaft. So did that mean he was being haunted?
He managed to get through that day at work, and that night he hardly slept at all, terrified of what he would dream.

He struggled in to work the next day, and was sitting at his desk drinking his third cup of coffee when there was a knock at his office door. Two men wearing suits entered.
The taller of the two introduced himself as Detective Townsend and his partner as Detective Cameron.

Luke sat back in his chair and waited to be arrested. This is it, he thought. Summer's body must have been found and they had evidence leading back to him. It was all over. But he was in for a shock.

"Sorry to bother you at work, Mr Paterson,"Townsend said, "We're investigating the death of a Ms Susan Phillips and we think you may have known her. We found your name in her list of contacts on her phone."

"Wait, who did you say?" Luke gasped in horror.

"Ms Susan Phillips. Did you know her well?"

Luke couldn't believe it. Sue was dead. The beautiful gentle girl he had tried so hard to start a romance with. "We dated once a few months ago," he answered in a monotone, "I haven't seen her since then. Detective, what happened? How did she die?"

"It appears she was attacked in her apartment yesterday morning. She died from a blow to the head with a heavy object. A neighbour saw a woman leaving her apartment at about eleven o'clock which we think was around the time of the attack. The description matches a photo we have from a security camera in the entrance of the building taken at 11.08am." He held out a sheet of paper which had an enlarged grainy photo on it. "Do you know this woman?"

Luke's hands trembled as he took the sheet of paper and looked at the image. It showed a tall slim young woman with long dark hair. She was wearing sunglasses, but her head was down making it difficult to see her face clearly. It was also a slightly blurred image from being enlarged. It was Summer! Or was it? Maybe his mind wanted it to be her, but she would have had to come back from the dead! He looked closely at the photo again. The hair and figure of the girl matched Summer, but the face could be someone else......maybe.

He handed the photo back. "Sorry Detective, I don't recognise her." What else could he say? Yes, I think I do recognise her. It's the girl I killed two months ago and dumped out in a forest.
Townsend handed him a card. "Thank you for your time. If you think of anything else please give me a call."

After the detectives had gone Luke sat in a daze with thoughts whirling through his head. She said it was time for him to pay. She said it in his dream and in the text message. Summer had killed Sue. She had come back from the dead, or was it her ghost? He put his head in his hands and moaned. He was going out of his mind. He left the building for an early lunch, but instead he went to a bar and over a few beers tried to get himself together. It had to be a coincidence. Poor Sue was murdered by a woman who resembled Summer. And his dreams were just that....only dreams. They would fade in time. But he couldn't explain the text message. Who sent it, and why?

He went back to work at midday determined he was not going to be Summer's next victim. She was dead, and he was going to get his life back together. He decided to spend the afternoon on the showroom floor attending to customers. Keep yourself occupied, Luke, he told himself. Don't think about her, she is not going to ruin your life.

It was late in the afternoon, and Luke had just showed a customer a bedroom suite when James, one of the junior staff, came up to him. "Oh there you are," he said, "Remember that hot girl with the dark hair who was here a couple of months ago? I just saw her a few minutes ago. She was going up the stairs, probably to see you. She must be waiting in your office."

Luke stood frozen to the spot. This was his dream from the other night. Summer was still alive. She had somehow gotten out of the mineshaft and was here now for her revenge. Hesitantly he walked up the stairs. He reached the top and went to his office door. Slowly he peered around the doorway to see the customers' couch. No one was there. He breathed a sigh of relief and walked to his desk. But then he heard a sound behind him and he whirled around expecting to see Summer wielding a knife, but again no one was there. He went out into the passage and checked in both directions. No one. He tried to calm his breathing. He had become a nervous wreck. He went back into his office and sat down at his desk to check his emails.

"Lukey."

He jumped and looked around. That was Summer's voice! He got up and looked out the door. The passage was empty. He walked along to the top of the stairs which led down to the main showroom. He looked down, but there was no one on the stairs. 

Suddenly he felt a hard shove from behind. As he lost his balance he twisted around, and for a half a second he looked into the face of a fairy princess with beautiful pouting lips, and long black hair half covering her face. "I told you you would pay," she said with a dark smile. 

Then he was in the air falling. He cracked his head on the bannister, then somersaulted the rest of the way hitting the bannister post at the bottom of the stairs. He heard a crack followed by a sharp stabbing pain in his back, then his legs went numb.

A woman screamed as several staff and customers rushed up to him. As Luke's vision went dim he looked up to the landing at the top of the stairs where the tall woman with long dark hair stood watching the scene below.

Luke! Luke!" called James as he crouched down next to him, "Can you hear me?"

"Up there," Luke croaked as he managed to point up to the top of the stairs.

James looked up at the landing above. No one was there.

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