✓ | OVERNIGHT ( ORIGINAL )

i. questionable family life

CHAPTER ONE.

[ i. questionable family life ]

     FAMILY LIFE ISN'T talked about in the suburb of Cleveland, it's quiet; almost too quiet. Some of the most loudest people have the most heart aching secrets you can't even imagine. The ones who put on a smile everyday once they go to school, frown once they even think about going home. Family life is such a delicate topic to talk about that nobody knows what goes on behind closed doors.

     Harriet Orman always got out twenty minutes before it was actually time for school to end that day because she needed to catch the bus. Not the school bus, but the city bus in order to pick her five year old brother up from daycare because of the fact her single father was unable to. Harriet let out an exhausted sigh as she sat down on the bus stop bench, all alone only with one earbud in listening to a podcast explaining the 'Haunted Carmichael Case' and all the information police "seemed" to have left out.

     She stared down at her lap and played with her thumbs, paying attention to the male speaking. "What we know about this . . . Benjamin Carmichael guy is that he, he basically felt no remorse for anyone. His mother was physically abused by his father when he was younger, which is what we believe to have inspired Carmichael to turn completely psychotic and go after at least 130 people." The dark-skinned girl shuddered and let out a deep breath, taking all of the gruesome information in.

     Harriet became so invested with the events that were revolved around Benjamin that she wasted countless nights examining and investigating the case. She thought it was so bizarre and horrific that she needed to know his motive, the information behind the victims and what they had in common, and why the case was swept under as like it never existed and was only a urban legend.

     The bus approached up in front of her, catching her eye. She let out a groan as she stood up and walked towards the bus. The doors opened, seeing the too familiar bus driver. "Back again, Harriet?" Thomas Winifred, the elderly bus driver, asked letting out a chuckle. She repaid him with a smile and dropped a dollar into the payment box.

     "I could never get tired of you, Tom," she joked as she patted him on the shoulder once she made it up the steps, "you know where I'm going." He nodded before taking off as Harriet slid into a seat where she sat everyday. She sat her backpack by her feet and glanced out the window once they started to move. She lied her head on the window and watched as her surroundings continued to pass her.

     "You know, three teen boys on Halloween visited the so-called 'haunted' Carmichael house and two of the three boys went missing and were never found," explained one of the hosts of the podcast.