Frozen

2.3

Thursday 20th December 1991

"I'm going to go and check up on my parents, I haven't had a call from them all day" Dalie called out to me from the passage. I was deeply engrossed in the book I was reading by J. G Ballard, my favourite author at the time.

"Okay sweetie, send them my love. I love you." I vaguely heard a hurried 'love you too' because I had already lost myself back in the book.

I must have fallen asleep because I was jolted awake by the sound of the phone blaring out a whining and hideous melody. I groaned. I called to Dalie to get it before realising she was still out so I heaved myself up and answered.

"Umm... Hello?" I said blearily. To my surprise it was Dalie.

"M-Mum... Dad... T-they... Blood... St-stabbed" Her voice was high pitched and hysterical.

"Dalie, baby, calm down, whats happened?" The grogginess had disappeared.

"They're dead!" She wailed. She convulsed into spasms of jumbled words and sobs.

"Dalie, I'm coming, hang up I'm coming babe." I grabbed my keys off the kitchen counter and drove well over the speed limit to her parents house. They lived an easy ten minute drive away from us so I was there in no time. I wondered why it had taken her so long to get here. My hands shook and fingers fumbled with the keys as I tried to unlock the front door. I remember barging in calling out Dalie's name frantically. I heard a muffled reply from upstairs in one of the bedrooms.

The whole world came to a standstill. There was my Dalie, on her knees, sobbing, in a pool of blood next to her parents dead bodies that laid peacefully in their bed and if it weren't for the enormous amount of blood they could have been sleeping. I was rigid. My eyes took in the unsightly stab wounds in their chests and repulsive fragments of severed bones sticking out their chests. I retched and gagged but my stomach refused to relieve me of the ball of evil brewing inside me. A bunch of once white and now red roses were on the floor beside Dalie. Her parents loved roses. She must have picked them up before she arrive. My heart ached. Somehow I found the strength to call the police. Dalie hadn't moved. She was still crying. The blood had soaked into her clothes and she looked a mess. I desperately wanted to comfort her but I simply couldn't go near the bodies. I loved her parents. They were just like her. They didn't deserve this and neither did Dalie. I found a sheet and covered the bodies then dragged Dalie kicking and screaming away from it all then scooped her into my arms and took her downstairs onto the sofa, where I restrained her until she stopped clawing, hitting and shrieking at me for taking her away from her parents. But I could't hear her or feel her. I was numb and everything was a blur. I still hadn't said a word. It was like my world had crashed and burned. Part of me was thankful it wasn't my own parents. When the police came, paramedics treated us for shock and police asked us a few simple yes and no questions then drove us home. Neither of us were in any fit state to drive. The memory of the conversation was mostly a foggy hum. A specialist bereavement counsellor offered to stay with us but we didn't want her. We wanted to be alone.