Chapter 5 - The Ghost in the Machine
I found refuge in the old potting shed at the back of the estate.
It was a small,
rickety structure,
filled with rusted tools and bags of soil.
It was the only place they wouldn't look.
I sat on a pile of burlap sacks,
my body shivering uncontrollably.
The paralysis was completely gone now,
replaced by an aching exhaustion.
I looked at the vial in my hand.
It was a small,
amber bottle with no label.
But it was enough.
I reached into the pocket of the burlap sacks and found an old burner phone.
I had hidden it there months ago,
a precaution I had taken when I first started suspecting Daniel.
I hadn't had the courage to use it then.
I had it now.
I turned it on,
the screen illuminating my pale,
ghastly face.
I had one contact saved.
Sarah.
My best friend since high school.
A woman who had always seen through Daniel’s charm.
The phone rang twice before she answered.
“Hello?”
Her voice was thick with sleep.
“Sarah,”
I whispered,
my voice cracking.
“Elena?”
She sounded like she had seen a ghost.
“Is this a joke?
Who is this?”
“It’s me,
Sarah.
I’m in the potting shed.”
Silence.
Long and heavy.
“Elena,
you’re dead.
I saw you in the coffin today.”
“I was drugged,
Sarah.
They tried to kill me.”
I heard her gasp,
the sound of a life-long bond snapping back into place.
“I’m coming,”
she said.
“Don't move.
I’m coming right now.”
I sat in the dark,
clutching the phone like a lifeline.
An hour later,
the headlights of a car cut through the trees.
Sarah.
She parked at the edge of the woods and ran toward the shed.
When she saw me,
she fell to her knees.
“Oh god,
Elena.”
She wrapped me in a thick blanket,
her tears hot against my shoulder.
“You’re freezing.
You’re white as a sheet.”
“I came out of the coffin,
Sarah.”
“I know,”
she whispered.
“I know.”
She helped me into her car,
the heater blasting warmth onto my frozen limbs.
“Where are we going?”
I asked.
“To the police?”
“Not yet,”
Sarah said,
her eyes fixed on the road.
“If they know you’re alive,
they’ll destroy the evidence.”
May you like
“We need to let them think they’ve won.”
“We need to let the funeral happen.”
