Shaanah was strolling alone through the park, unaware that she was walking into an ambush. Tom had left an hour before her and had lain in wait for her in the park. Shaanah had never suspected that he had lusted after her from the first time she had joined the company a month ago, and he had been careful not to raise her suspicions.
Shaanah lived a street away from the park and she enjoyed the nightly exercise. Just before she neared the park’s exit, Tom attacked her. The struggle was intense and violent, for Shaanah fought like a woman with everything to lose. It was only after Tom punched her in her mouth, smashing some of her teeth and tearing her lips, that she succumbed. He went wild then when he saw her so compliant and unresisting, unaware that he had knocked her out and mistaking her docility for consent. When he finally regained his senses, he was horrified to see that he had strangled her in his passion.
Shaanah was dead, and Tom acted purely by instinct. He scooped up the soft earth under a grove of pine trees until he had created a shallow grave, then he dragged Shaanah’s body into the hole, covering it with earth and pine needles. He knew the scent of the pine needles would help camouflage the eventual smell of decomposition.
He told Bernadette a story about having taken a bad tumble to account for his dirty clothes and broken knuckles. Then he had forgotten Shaanah and the incident as if it had never happened. The police had no leads, as no one had seen Shaanah leave work that day. Tom had a firm alibi of having left work nearly an hour before Shaanah, and he had told Bernadette he would go for a jog. Nobody ever suspected him because of his authentic reputation as a wonderful husband and honourable citizen.
The images ended as abruptly as they had started, and the ghost said, “Taste.”
Tom clutched his chest as his heart painfully convulsed once, twice…and then stopped. He toppled forward squarely across the hidden grave, lifeless and face up. His features were frozen in an ugly contortion of terror, his sightless eyes protruding vilely from their sockets.
Shaanah’s mother listened with a heavy heart to Lorenzo, her 12-year-old grandson, end his evening prayer the same way he had done for the past four years since his mother had disappeared without a trace.
“Dear Lord, grant mercy to my mother’s soul, and let Your justice prevail. Amen.”
***
Tell us: Do you think in the end justice was served?
