Within Shallow Waters

chapter 4

Charlotte turns the flashlight on her phone on. She points it towards the pond. She shrieks in horror.

"JENNY!!"

There was her sister lying on her back with face in the water. Charlotte runs over to the end of the pier and pulls her sister towards her.

Charlotte begins to cry. "Oh, Jenny.. I'm so sorry.. I'm so sorry.."

"About what? You didn't do that, I did."

Charlotte quickly turns around to see a man walking towards her.

"Stay away.. don't come any closer."

Charlotte lets go of her sisters swim suit and looks from the man back down to the water.. if she could just swim to other side..

"You think your grandmother sent you here?? Ha! Your grandmother never made it past the kitchen table a couple days ago when she called. I heard she had two beautiful grand daughters that she just loathed to death.."

Charlotte tilts her head in confusion. "What? My grandmother wanted to see us... She called my mom and---"

The man fiddles with the zipper on his jacket. "Nah, that lady didn't give a rats behind about y'all's lives. All she cared about was keeping herself alive. So being as I was the electrical man working in her house and also the best serial killer in the business.. I thought what the heck I haven't killed lately."

Charlotte's mind becomes foggy and unsettled by the words coming out of the man's mouth. "You're telling me, that my own grandmother set us to die just to save her own life?"

Charlotte looks down at her dead sister floating lifelessly in the water. "No, I don't believe that. She wouldn't do that, she didn't want us around she never wanted us dead."

The man shrugs. "Doesn't matter now, I mean she's been dead for a couple days now.. and since she lives alone and has no friends, she'll be there a long time."

The cold wind begins to blow and the man pulls back his dark brown hair. She pauses a moment and looks into his eyes... He looks so familiar... But how?

Charlotte looks the man straight in his eyes. "Why do you kill?"

The man's smiles drops, not expecting a question like that. "Well since you are going to die anyways.. I had a daughter once... Beautiful little girl."

The man smiles dreamily then frowns. "Then my wife divorced me. She left me and took custody of my child. She wasn't hers to take from me."

Charlotte sits down on the pier. The man looks Charlotte in the eyes. "She was my life and then that monster of woman took her and... She married another man. My little girl began to look up to him like a fatherly figure and I couldn't have that so I murdered him one night. My daughter was only four at the time.."

He looks up towards the sky. "I left feeling satisfied.. maybe a little too satisfied. But my daughter would never call another man father. I wouldn't have it."

The man sits down on the ground. "My ex-wife killed my little girl.. she blamed her for all of the problems in her life."

The man runs his hand through his hair. "I found out through a letter. She admitted it. But by the time I got it, and went to where she lived, my ex wife had disappeared and never saw her again."

The man wipes away tear and laughs. "Ah but doesn't matter. I can't get rid of the rage so I destroy other mothers lives by taking their daughters like that woman took mine."

Charlotte stares at the man, not sure how to feel or react. She had never seen someone so broken... Or so familiar."

Then she felt herself do the unexpected. She walked towards him. "What was her name?"

The man takes a step back clearly confused with the situation. "It doesn't matter."

Charlotte drops her phone and the light shines against her face and his. She drops to her knees. She had seen him before.. in an album in her mother's closet hidden away.

The man's eyes suddenly soften and he takes a step back..

Charlotte takes the chance to run back towards the house. She locks it just as the man gets to the door.. banging, trying to get it open.

She slips down to her knees in tears... That man was talking about her.. she was his dead daughter.. she was the reason he became a Serial Killer..