The Untold Story of Daisy Ann

   None of us girls had ever heard the name Daisy Anne Garrison until that night. However, we never forgot it once we did. It was almost like we couldn’t, something wouldn’t let us. I don’t know about the others but sometimes it was almost as if I could hear her name in the wind.

    I didn’t believe Allison, Maria, and Renee when they each retold what they had witnessed. I didn’t want to believe something like that could actually happen. But I soon discovered that Daisy Anne doesn’t care if you don’t want to listen. She was going to make you hear the story of how she lived. And how she died.

    That night was eleven and a half years ago but I can still see it as if I was still living it. Maybe I am because I never let it go. All the other girls grew up and moved on. Started families far away from California. Never looked back or came to visit. But I just couldn’t do that.

Not after Daisy Anne trusted us to tell her story to. Not after we failed to do even that for the young girl who lost her life because of others refusal to see what she was going through.

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The four of us had meet up at the old high school auditorium. Allison, Renee, Maria, and I sat in a square in the middle of the dust covered floor upon a faded blue sheet. There were old boxes piled around  us filled with junk that’s been there since our parents had been young.

The auditorium had also served as a gymnasium for a high school that burned down some twenty years ago due to a mysterious electric shortage. Once the new school was built it had a gymnasium and auditorium connected to the rest of the school. The building had remained empty and unused for years until we decided to use it as a meeting place.

It was the only place in town where we could meet and share secrets, without the whole town hearing about them within minutes.

We cleaned it up the best we could and tried to continue cleaning it once a week but the musky, mold scent remained constant and strong. We could practically taste it with each breathe, which is why we never held long meetings.

All three of them were shaking in fright, Renee was the only one in tears but the others seemed likely to follow suit any moment. We decided Allison would tell what had happened with her first because she was the most collected and composed. I urged her not to forget anything.

    Taking a shaky breath Allison began to recall her walk home only a few hours ago. “I was walking through the construction site because it saves me almost ten minutes in my walk. It’s a shortcut and I take it everyday, right? Nothing ever happened before that suggested it was dangerous. Right?” She spoke unsure, as if wanting us to reassure her that everything she had said was true.

    “Allie, we know you go through the construction site every night. Just tell us what freaked you out so much,” I tried to gently coax her to continue but my voice sounded annoyed even to me. I wasn’t trying to be unsupportive but the mold was utilizing my patience.

    Allison’s face looked as if I had struck her but she continued, “I started hearing a weird noise. At first I thought it was the wind or my imagination. But it was still there after a few minutes so I stopped walking to see if I could understand them.”

    “Them?” we chorused confused or, in my case, surprised.

She had only mentioned hearing one voice while the others mentioned several. She nodded absently, as if she was really getting into her story now.

    She spoke in a calm, soothing voice, “Yeah. There were two voices, it sounded like they were having an argument. The was a sound as if someone was sobbing in the background.”