Cold Case

The Beginning of the End

My name is Nate Collins and welcome to the worst time in my life...

I wake out of my sleep by the alarm, of course. I'd barely gotten any sleep last night due to me staying up thinking about the murder. Maria, my wife, tells me not to think about it so much because it isn't healthy but it's honestly all I can think about. I jump because Maria grabs my hand.

"Babe, have a good day at work..okay?" Maria says. "Yeah. Go back to sleep, text me if you need anything though." I respond.

I get ready and head up to the murder scene. As I'm driving, I get a call from Michael. He's just helping me solve this case but he's also a close friend of mine.

"Yeah, Michael? What's-" he interrupts me. "Nate, you need to hurry and get your ass up here." he says. I'm kind of nervous now because he never acts this serious. "Alright, I'm coming right now. What's going on?" I ask. "Look man, I can't really explain it 'cause I don't know how. Just get up here." He ended the call after that.

I start speeding because of this rush that I'm getting through my body. "Hopefully I don't get pulled over." I think to myself. A few minutes later, I arrive at the scene but no one is there. I step out of my car and walk around trying to see if I can find anyone. I stop and pull out my phone to contact Mic but my contact list is empty. I dial Michael's number and I wait for him to pick up but it says that his number doesn't even exist.

I close my eyes and when I open them, I'm back at the car. I look through the window and everyone was at the scene now, including Michael. "What the hell?" I say to myself. I step out the vehicle and go to Michael. "Hey, Mic." I say. "Jesus, Nate, What to took you so long?" He asked. "What do you mean, I pulled up a while ago?" I reply. "Nate, I called you like an hour ago. You don't live that far from here." Michael says. We both just stare at each other for a second. "Whatever. Look at this place... Do you have a clue what's going on?" He asks me.

I walk by him because I notice two body bags on the ground. "Michael..are you fucking serious right now?" I ask angrily. "Hey, don't you dare blame me for this. I love you like a brother, Nate, why would I go and take your parents from the morgue and lay them back at their damn scene." He replies. "You might as well blame me for all the missing evidence too." He adds. "What're you talking about?" I ask. "The evidence, Nate. It's all gone. No camera footage, bullet shells, weapons, nothing. It's just gone." He replies.

I freeze after those words. I honestly think my heart skipped a beat. "How could all of it be gone?" I think to myself. "So you're telling me that no one knows where anything is?" I ask. "No. I asked everyone who's working on the case and they all have zero clue on where it has gone or where it might've gone to." He replies. I walk away for a while, I need to breathe and gain my composure.

I pull out my phone to check if Maria messaged me. She usually asks if I got to where I needed to be safely and fills me in on how Blake and Arianna, my son and daughter, are doing. She didn't text me so I just put my phone away and walk back over to Michael. "Hey, Mic. Come here for a sec." I say. "Yeah, what's up?" Michael asks. "We need to gather everyone up, right now. What's gonna happen is everyone here at this moment is gonna get in groups and we're all gonna go look for the evidence." I tell him. He just looks off to the side and turns back towards me. "Okay...okay but we gotta get more people, Nate. It'll take forever if it's just us here." He says. "Yeah, I know. I'll tell you what, how about I go and start searching while you head back and get more?" I ask. "You sure you wanna start by yourself?" He asks. "I'll start off alone and you can tell the others to start searching. After that, go and gather more people, come back here and let me know so I can tell you where I am." I say. "Alright, see you in a minute." Michael says.

I never liked this place as a kid. The house is nice but our backyard is like the front door to a forest. Anyways, I walk into the woods and start searching for any evidence that we had earlier. I just so happen to walk past a tree that mother, father and I carved our names into. I can't hold my emotions in any longer so I start to cry and pull out my gun. I fire at the tree several times until my magazine empties. I drop my gun, walk over to the tree and lean up against it. There is another coat of bark on the tree and there's lettering carved into it as well. I can't make out what it say so I break off more bark until I can understand it. "Blake and Arianna" I read from the tree. "How? I was young..and I always said I didn't want kids when I was that age. Why are their names here?" I ask my self.

My eyes widen and I just sit there for a second. I snap out of it, grab my gun and run back to the car. There's a police officer still at the scene. He notice me running and draws his gun. "Hey! Stop right there, Sir." He says. I stop where I am. "I don't care, I needed a breather anyways." I think to myself. The officer walks up to me. "Why ya in such a hurry?" He ask. "I..I need to get home, Officer." I struggle to say. I then show him my badge and he let's me go on. I jump in my car and pull off fast, leaving tire marks in the ground, I could even smell my tires as if they were burning.

"I should call Michael and tell him that I had to leave." I think to myself. I grab my phone and go to my contacts but once again, my list is empty. "Are you serious right now?" I say to myself. I don't let it bother me, I just continue going back home. I finally get to the house and rush in there. I stop because I see Maria making dinner. She almost dropped the pan of macaroni from me running in the house like that.

"Oh my goodness, Nate, you scared the crap out of me. Are you okay?" Maria asks. "Uh..uh" I was lost for words. "Babe, you need to sit down for a sec. You look like you just experienced World War 2 or something." Maria says. "Wait, no. Where are the kids?" I ask worriedly. "In their rooms" she answers in a confused way. I run back to see if they were there. I look in both their rooms and say hello then I go to the bathroom. "Nate, get yourself together. You're losing it right now." I say to myself. I walk back to the living room then I scream and fall to the floor. I swear, for a split second, I seen Maria on the couch but her throat...it was cut open. Maria runs over to me. "Nate! What's going on with you? Did you even take your pills?" She asks. I honestly forgot about my pills. I guess I been thinking to much about the murder that I haven't thought about the pills. Maria assumes that I didn't take my medication and goes to grab them for me. "Here, babe. Take them because you're clearly going crazy." I put the pill in my mouth, close my eyes and swallow it.

I open my eyes again and what I see totally blows me away. "There's no way this is real...no way." I say in disbelief. I'm back in the damn car, at the damn scene with the same damn police officer standing there. Michael just so happens to pull up right beside me and beeps his horn. We both roll down our windows. "Ya know, Mic, we literally made eye contact and you still beeped your horn." I say. He just stares at me. "Hey man stop that, you're being weird." I also say. "Why are you sitting in your car, Nate? You said you were going to go search." Michael says. "Uh. Yeah." I reply. He makes a gesture as if he is confused. "Right..I had to go back home for a sec. Something came up." I tell him. "Well why didn't you just say that? It's like you didn't hear thing I said." I just sat there and thought about what I seen at home..Maria.. "Nate, man. What's your problem? Let's goooo so we can find the evidence." Michael says. I get out of the car and we both go back into the forest.