Rose Larday was a young woman with a delicate nature. She always took care in everything she did, and she made sure she did everything in a manner to make her activities safe for her - a young woman. However one winter morning Rose was discovered drifting amongst the marshes at the local river - she was dead. What happened to Rose Larday?
Emma Springwood glared at the paper and shook her head as a tear shimmered in the right of her left eye. She couldn't believe that Rose Larday was dead! A portion of her heart quivered and she sobbed under her tongue. Doug Willoway nudged Emma's shoulder and she nearly screamed from fright!
"Get away!" she cried in her mind as she looked at Doug with terror on her irsises.
"What's the matter?" asked Doug concerned about Emma's timidity.
"Why should you think anything is wrong?" asked Emma who swallowed her fright to try and act as she would on a normal day.
"You look as though you have seen a ghost!" told Doug as he knit his two fine brows together.
"I do?" asked Emma before she forced a light laugh through her porcelain teeth. "You must be seeing things in the wrong light;" she added as she flushed under her skin.
"I am?" asked Doug as he raised his brows.
"Oh quite!" gasped Emma as she tucked the article she had read inside of her wicker basket. "Now let us forget about queer first impressions and begin our date!" she added with a laugh.
"I would love to!" told Doug before he took Emma's hand and led her away.
Emma began to quiver as she was pulled into the shade of the nearby trees. She enjoyed Doug quite a lot, however his choice of destination spooked her. Whenever Emma looked over her shoulder she felt a shiver race down her spine and she began to fear Doug.
"Who are you?" she asked inside of her mind as he glared at her with eyes as bright as a light. "What kind of person rests inside?" she asked.
Doug laughed at Emma as she glared at him in a queer fashion. He enjoyed the quiet tease of her stare, however what he didn't know was Emma had begun to fear him and within the hour she told him to pick her a flower before she raced away.
Emma ran as far as he legs could carry, and she met not a soul within the dark dense forest that crowned around her shoulders. For many minutes she feared that she was lost and her fright of Doug turned into terror of her whereabouts, however she found a road and walked down its length until she met a young woman named Pearl Farraway on the road. Pearl had a dream inside of her head until it was popped by Emma's shriek!
"A wandering soul!" she gasped through her lips before her mind could freeze her tongue.
"Oh yes;" told Pearl as she looked to Emma and pressed her best of smiles on her lips. "Are you lost?" she then asked as she glanced at Emma's dishevel.
"Completely!" gasped Emma before she tripped in Emma's direction. "Do you live near a car which may be able to drive me home?" she then asked.
"I live half an hours stroll away;" told Pearl as she glared at Emma with worry on her brow. "My parents are not in the best of moods to take a person home for a drive;" she then added as she recalled briefly the flogging her mother had offered her father for not having had said that he loved her before he had left the previous day. "However I could invite you to stay the night if you don't mind a little bit of in-house argument;" she then added.
"I really need to get home!" gasped Emma as she knitted her brows.
However a call from Doug broke the conversation.
"Emma dear!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Did you forget your flowers!" he asked before he offered two stems of flower he had carried as he had stalked every moving branch in an effort to find his dear Emma who had raced away.
"There he is the queer!" gasped Emma before she ran past Pearl and fast down the street.
"She is as fast as a rabbit!" gasped Doug who stopped in mid-step and collapsed to the dusted earth. "I can't follow!" he added before he laid himself down.
"What did you do to make her so nervous?" asked Pearl as she glared at Doug and began to feel an ounce of timidity herself as she recalled the image of Doug as he had approached Rose Larday outside of church one day before it was reported that she had been found murdered.
"Nothing, she just ran when we were out on a date;" told Doug as he shrugged. "She ran like a hare as though scared;" he added as he grew a slight edge on his tone. "I don't know what I did, but she was nervous when I had found her!" he gasped.
"You found her?" asked Pearl as she raised her brows and thought of Doug with a knife inside of his hand as he stabbed at a screaming Rose as she was held under the water of the nearby river. "Did you meet her while on a stroll?" she asked.
"No, I had found her at our meeting place;" muttered Doug as he wiped a hand over his brow before he bothered to glare at Pearl who looked a vision of nervousness herself. "Are you tense as well?" he asked.
"No!" lied Pearl as she grew fright under her eyes as she saw some strands of muscle in Doug's wide forearm. "I am only concerned over Emma's actions;" she muttered as she continued to hear Rose scream as blood circled around her head and over her eyes as she drown in the ice-cold river as Doug smiled a deadly grin that welcomed her to her death.
"Her re-actions are a strange nervous tick;" muttered Doug as he narrowed his eyes at Pearl and began to chew on his ideas over what had gotten the little women's shirts ruffled. "Would you run away from me if I took you out on a date?" he asked. "Would I frigten you?" he inquired.
"No!" gasped Pearl as she began to chatter under her teeth. "Not I;" she added as she sucked in a brave breath.
"Prove it!" gasped Doug undeterred from his skepticism. "Come to the river with me;" he added as he grew a flutter inside of his chest.
"What about Emma?" asked PEarl as she felt her nerves twist until they were knotted inside of her intestines.
"What about her?" asked Doug as he shrugged and stood. "Let her run away, she wasn't anything but a flimsy hook-up;" he added as he threw the stems of the flowers away. "We aren't steady;" he added. "Just good friends;"
"Lying already?" asked Pearl before she stepped back and away from Doug's taller figure. "That is a shame!" she added before she waved and walked back the direction she had come from in a hope to find Emma as she she wandered back home.
Pearl left Doug behind her in the shadow of the tree. His shadow had stood strong behind his feet but he had no energy to stroll behind her and so Pearl was able to get-away from Doug's image. However who she couldn't find was Emma who had raced away into oblivion no matter how far Pearl walked. After half an hour of strolling Pearl found her way home and she re-entered the house which had screamed when she had left. Thee was no-one inside and Pearl was able to move to her bedroom to rest.
It wasn't until the next morning that Pearl heard a shriek come from her mother's lips. Pearl raced into the kitchen to find her mother in quiver over an article that had been printed early that morning.
"What is the matter?" asked Pearl.
Pearl's mother glared at her young daughter and she shook her head.
"Young Emma Springwood is dead!" she gasped. "Found dead in the forest a few blocks from here;" she added.
"Dead?" gasped Pearl as she quivered inside of her skin. "How did she die?" she asked.
"The article doesn't say;" told her mother as she pressed a hand over her brow. "Best you not wander far from home;" she added before she began to sob.
Pearl nodded and wandered back inside of her room where she stressed as she recalled Emma as she had approached her with fear under her eyes. It was then Pearl realized that Emma had been running from her own fear of death and that its face had been on Doug's heated stare. Pearl wanted to quiver as she recalled Doug so tall amongst the branches but too weak to move - he surely couldn't have raced along and captured Emma, could he? Accusations ran under Pearl's mind until she wanted to faint! She didn't know Doug very well, however he had been on the hunt for Emma who had ran away from him in fright.
"It couldn't be true!" gasped Pearl as she felt her worry fling her head into a spiral that made her knees wobble. "Doug couldn't have!" she gasped. "No one could have!" she added. Who would?" she then asked.
However after a few days Pearl couldn't hide herself from the truth as Emma's face was given front page on the local papers. Pearl hid herself inside of the house as she nibbled on her fingers - the news of Emma's death had frightened her and she no longer wanted to take a local stroll by the road.
"Who had done it?" asked Pearl as she crooked her head at a shadow. "It couldn't have been Doug!" she gasped.
However her mind wanted to scold that it had been Doug who must have turned into an animal after she had walked away in order to be able to catch up with Emma and attack her until she had been murdered, and Pearl felt scared.
Pearl visited her dear friend of five years Marge Bouquet. She felt her teeth chatter as she walked under the shade of the fellow trees. They stood tall and haunted her as she scuttered through dark shadows with fright on her mind, however sooner then later she scrambled up the path that led to Marge's fine home and she nervously knocked on the door.
The door was answered and soon Pearl was escorted to Marge's study room where she met a friendly smile and a cup of tea freshley brewed.
"How are you today Pearl?" asked Marge as she sipped on tea.
"I am over my head!" gasped Pearl as she quietly sipped on her tea. "I am scared that Doug Willoway is a murderer!" she told as her iris's diallated.
"Doug Willoway?" asked Marge as she knotted her eye-brows. "Why would you say that?" she inquired.
"I saw him with Rose before she was murdered and with Emma before she was murdered!" gasped Pearl as she shivered.
"A murderer?" asked Marge's brother Steven who poked his head around a shelf of books. "What a fright!" he gasped before she shook his head and left the room.
Pearl shivered as she saw Steven leave - she hadn't known he had been in the study and she almost near fell apart to scream that she was out of her mind. Marge saw the strain in Pearl's eyes and she put down her cup of tea.
"It is best not to make the world the enemy until you know they are the enemy;" told Marge as she looked to Pearl who seemed so shaken that she looked smaller then usual - more like a child. "Smile at Doug until you are told he is the murderer;" she advised as she pressed her most polite smile on her face.
"I suppose that is most fair;" told Pearl as she pushed her tea-cup to the side. "Thank-you for your advice;" she muttered. "I am over my head, I wish to go home now;" she told.
"Take a rest and see me soon!" gasped Marge who stared closely at Pearl as she stood. "Do not worry yourself in to knots - murders happen every day;" she added.
"Thank-you Marge;" told Pearl before she picked up her hat and left.
Pearl walked down the street and away from Marge's fine home. She felt on the edge of despair - there were so many accusations inside of her mind it was hard to create any questions; within her mind Doug was a murderer!
Pearl took a moment to recall the way Doug had been as a student in the local public school - she recalled him late, always wanting to wander from peers, always wanting to know the time even when he had a watch, always looked at others as though peering through them rather then looking at them; he was different, however he had never been seen as threatening until the murders began to take place.
"It is so odd that Doug had been seen with Rose and Emma before they had been murdered;" muttered Pearl as she kicked a stone off the path and onto the nearby grass where it rolled and met a pair of polished shoes.
"It may be odd but it is not wrong;" told Steven as he looked at Pearl with eyes that were wise and dark.
Pearl usually liked his state, but today it seemed to make her belly crawl - those eyes seemed too dark and the way Steven had been standing there without notice made him ghost-like.
"Oh quite!" cheered Pearl before she waved and walked on.
Pearl expected Steven to follow her, however he stood still for a moment before he settled down onto the lawn with the book he had taken from the study. Pearl felt relief that he had not followed her - she may have tried to screamed if he had approached her as though he thought her a mad woman!
Pearl walked all the way home and settled down inside of her bedroom. She felt relief that she had made it to Marge's house and back without any issue, however she did not feel calm - there were too many questions without answers, too many accusations; was Doug a murderer? Pearl still wanted to say 'yes!'
Pearl walked into town to visit the bakery. She brought bread and buns and she took them home with her. On the way home however Pearl met a lone figure by the road - it was Doug.
"Hello Doug;" muttered Pearl as she stared at the young man with the wind-blown hair. "Out for a walk?" she asked.
"I have spent three days outside;" told Doug as he nodded. "I never returned home after I had chased Emma;" he added.
"Really?" asked Pearl. "You must be hungry!" she added.
"Perhaps if I bothered to think about it;" muttered Doug as he grinned a wry grin. "You look a little tired yourself;" he added.
"Yes I have been a little stressed;" told Emma as she shrugged.
"Marge told me that you suspected the worst of fellow citizens;" told Doug as he glared at Pearl with care.
"I am sorry!" gasped Pearl as her composure was blown off her shoulders. "I didn't meant to suspect!" she added.
"That is fine;" told Doug as he shrugged. "Perhaps I am a murderer;" he added before he began to grow a sour look that made his face appear green.
"You look sick!" gasped Rose before she picked up a bun from her bag and held it out to Doug who smiled before he politely took the bun within his dirt-stained fingers.
"I may eat this - would you like a walk to the river?" asked Doug as he continued to toy with his stare as he glared at Pearl as though she were an interest.
"Well I can only take a short stroll - I need to put the buns in the pantry before the icing melts!" muttered Pearl before she turned her head to see a road that was an barren as a field during drought.
"Then come for a stroll;" told Doug before he held out his hand.
Pearl gulped as she turned her eyes back to Doug and coyly she took his hand. Together they walked towards the river - it was a little awkward as Doug's grip tightened at every step; within five minutes they stood before the rushing river and Pearl couldn't get away from Doug not even if she pulled with all of her might!
"Let my hand go!" gasped Pearl as Doug peered into the rushing water with deep depression inside of his stare.
"You told Marge you thought I was a murderer;" told Doug as he glared at the water until he saw the fine silver rivets that reflected on its tide like diamonds. "There is only one trick to murder;" told Doug before he lifted his eyes in order to see Pearl as she quivered like a frightened hen before a cat. "Suicide!" he gasped before he jumped into the rushing river and took screaming Pearl with him.
Under the water both sunk and along the tide they were dragged. Pearl needed air desperately as she tried to free her hand from Doug's hold as her hair waved around her face and over her eyes; however she couldn't make Doug let go and so they were pushed into water deeper and colder. Pearl felt her heart pop and finally she was unable to breathe and only a short while after her body had taken to float did Doug's hold weaken as he too drowned under a blanket of dark black water.
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