The wind had finally stopped.
Tony sat alone in the chair where Mitchell had left him, wrists raw, the blood crusted over. The silence was unbearable. It wasn’t the absence of Mitchell’s voice that haunted him now—it was the echo of his own. The things he’d said, the truths he hadn’t denied.
Outside, nothing had changed. But inside? Tony couldn’t tell if he was still himself or something else entirely.
He flexed his fingers slowly. They still worked. His legs, too. The ropes were gone, but their impression lingered. Phantom bindings on flesh—and conscience.
He didn’t call the police.
He didn’t run to his wife.
He didn’t shout for help.
Instead, he cleaned up the mess, one cloth stroke at a time, and tried not to look at the blood drying in the floorboards.
What was worse? Mitchell’s crimes? Or his own silence?
The tape still existed. So did the knife. So did the memory. But he told himself: You have children. A wife. A job. A future. Ruin Mitchell, and he might take everything else with him. And wasn’t that what Mitchell had said?
“My secret is your secret.”
Tony understood now. He didn’t have to believe in the Beast. He only had to fear it.
And fear had already moved in.
[from SEETHINGS, downloadable and free for a limited time].
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
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