The Most Hated Man in School - Part 14 - The Pond

I was so stunned by the revelation of Keith's murder I didn't even notice the rumble of a car behind me. I twisted my head over my shoulder to see the familiar DeSoto pulling up towards the pond. It was my mother. I sucked in my breath and turned around to face her.

The ignition was shut off and within moments, the door swung open. Out stepped my mother, clad in her usual blue jeans and skanky top. She seemed to have gained a few pounds since Keith's disappearance. Well no wonder! She murdered him after all and must have felt a little remorse for it!

"What are you doing here, Annie?" she demanded, limping towards me. She must have gotten injured, I guessed, watching her stilted movements.

"I was walking home," I stammered.

"Since when do you come this way?"

I didn't know what to say to her to not let on that I knew the truth about Keith's death. "I...I wanted to take a shorter route. Bobby Lee told me this was a shortcut home."

She stared at me with curiosity. "You...found out, didn't you?"

"What?"

"About that - promiscuous young man from your grade. Keith Caselli."

I shook my head furiously. "No, Ma'am. I don't know a thing about his disappearance." Why was I stuttering so furiously? I was terrified I might very well be her next victim.

She began to laugh madly. "Don't lie to me, you hellion! How'd you find out?" She grabbed me by the front of the shirt. I struggled to break free of her, grabbing both her wrists. Her claw-like fingernails caught a scraping of my skin through the thin fabric of my t-shirt.

"Let go of me! I don't know anything!" I screamed.

She slapped me. "Shut up. DON'T LIE!!! Tell me how you found out!"

"I don't know." I lifted a trembling hand to my smarting cheek. "I know nothing about this."

"You'd understand if I explained it. That boy led me on, lied to me, and I had no choice but to do him in. We were going to leave together after we had a loving relationship together briefly, but then he had to get back together with his ugly girlfriend, what's her name, and left me feeling like a used fool!" she raged. "When his back was turned to me, I lifted a tree branch and hit him. And hit him again. And again. And again," she said with her eyes squeezed shut, as if she relished each and every moment of the awful memory. "He had it coming...oh, you bet he had it coming!"

"Where...where is he?" I stammered. Feeling strength overcome me, I suddenly screamed. "What did you do with him?!"

"You wanna know? How 'bout you join him?" She suggested sweetly. Before I could lift my arms to defend myself, she shoved me off the shore and into the pond. I hit the water with a terrific splash, soaking her as well. I landed hard on my butt, hitting my tailbone against a sharp rock. I grunted from the pain. I had to get up, out of the water, turn this crazed woman in...

The woman jumped in the water beside me, obviously not caring whether or not her precious leather cowboy boots might be destroyed in this pond or not. I ignored the pain shooting up like anesthetic in my butt and rolled over to paddle away from her.

"You're not going anywhere, but to the land of Satan!" she screamed, grabbing for me.

"Don't touch me!" I jammed the heel of my sneaker into her kneecap, knocking her down to her knees. She howled and let loose a string of the worst swear words I ever heard and that were not meant to be fully understood.

I managed to swim to the deepest part of the pond before I heard the splashing of my old woman behind me. My feet could no longer touch anything but the tips of weeds. Because of the pain in my rear end, I found it hard to move. I just wanted to rest until the pain subsided. My stomach ached from the mere thought of dying tonight.

I didn't have a chance to even take in a breath of air. My mother's hand clamped down on top of my head, shoving me underneath the surface. I heard her say something or another about my deserved death. With the moonlight and her car headlights as the only source of light, I could just make out the bottom of the pond. And what I saw underneath the depths would be enough to give me nightmares for many a night to come, for here was the badly decomposed body of a man. I began to kick violently as vomit rose in the back of my throat. I clawed at my mother's midriff, arms, chest.

The body was frightening enough to probably send me into the looney bin. I couldn't take my eyes off it, even when the currents turned it so I could make out the strangely bloated face. I had to get out of here.

Suddenly, I heard the splashing of another human body. I felt the hands on top of my head release me and I burst to the surface like a balloon held under the water too long. I coughed and spat out vomit. Opera music filled my ears...very much like what I'd heard in my dreams. And who should be struggling in the water with my mother but weird, homely Sarah Harper.

Had something made Sarah face reality about Keith being a cheat and then dying because of it? Whatever it was, she was angrier than I'd ever seen her before. She held a knife above her head and then plunged it into my mother's heart, twisting it to make sure she was dead. "You beast! You monster!" Sarah screamed.

Blood stained the water around me.

Hands gripped me under my arms. "Everything's going to be okay," Bobby Lee said softly, tugging me back to shore.

I couldn't rip my eyes away from the scene unfolding before me. After she killed my mother, Sarah plunged the knife into her own chest.

Three bodies were in the pond now.

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