Morning all. I hope you are ready for this morning’s prompt. I am ready for a big mug of coffee, but as it is brewing I will wait and jump into the prompt first. So timers set and off we go.
Not what I expected. I initially thought prank, but I think I am going more murder/mystery on this one.
Tuesday, September 9th: There was a dark stain on the carpet.
There was a dark stain on the carpet. Caro bent down to take a look. She stretched out a hand tentatively hoping it wasn’t something awful. She hesitantly touched a fingertip to the surface. It was still tacky. Almost dried but not quite. She pulled her hand away and looked at the fingertip that touched.
‘I think that’s blood,’ she thought. She hastily backed away from the stain as though it could cause her to bleed. She stood as she backed up and turned nearly running to the kitchen. She reached the sink and ran her hand under the faucet. Even though only one fingertip touched, she scrubbed both her hands.
She tried to tell her the scrubbing was doctor like but she felt more like a criminal erasing evidence. When her hands were clean, she dried them and looked back at the stain. It was one large stain.
There was no trail leading away from it. Simply the one stain.
She didn’t quite know what to do. ‘Toni might know,’ Caro thought. Again she moved without thinking. Her keys were still in her pocket. She walked back through the living room avoiding the stain, letting herself back out of the house. She exited, walked down the narrow pathway looking to the street. Caro tried not to look like she was running away. ‘Striding purposefully,’ she told herself.
She didn’t know what was going on but she knew if anyone was watching she didn’t want to look guilty.
‘I simply came by to meet George, The door was unlocked as always I stepped inside, called, when no one answered I left.’
She didn’t know why she felt compelled to offer a justification. ‘Other than that large might be a blood stain.’
‘We ask Toni.’ She thought. She might not know any more about bloodstains than she did, but she would know where George was.
She reached the car and slipped inside. As she started the engine she let her eyes drift towards the house. Was that movement in one of the upper windows? She didn’t know and refused to think about it. ‘I called out for George and no one answered,’ she reminded herself as she pulled away from the curb. It there was anyone in the house they didn’t want her to know about it.
‘So I know nothing about it.’ She drove away without looking back, suddenly feeling like she was being watched. The drive to Toni’s was not a long one, but by the time she made it, Caro convinced herself this was some sort of prank concocted by George and Toni to spook her.
‘It would be just like them,’ she thought. ‘And it is nearly October.’
They loved Halloween pranks. She chewed her lip. It was still September, officially. ‘But they could have gotten a jumpstart on things. She sighed. ‘I have to go to Toni’s anyway, its her car.’ Caro reached the apartment and parked in Toni’s marked spot. She left the car, locking it tight and walked deeper into the apartment complex hoping this was a joke but keeping the uneasy feeling that it wasn’t.
Ten til Midnight 