The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

They’ll Never Know 
by Elaine Pascale

The knife sank out of sight quickly. The blue water concealed Peter’s crimes, erasing the evidence like magic.

Good, he thought, now no one will ever know.

***

Her husband had lain on top of her too many times to count, yet his dead body was heavier than she ever imagined. Susan could not ask for help disposing of his corpse; she had friends but they were not that type of friend. She dragged the body to a small skiff and drove it to the center of the lake. Susan tied extra anchors—one to his neck and one to his ankles—and then heaved him overboard. Her back screamed the entire return trip, but she was happy that no one would ever find him. No one would ever know.

***

Hessan labs routinely dumped chemicals into the lake. The toxins killed fish and caused diseases amongst the indigenous people who used the water for recreation and sustenance. The poisonous plumes were fleeting, quickly being replaced by turquois water like a healthy mask over pox-ridden flesh.

It fixes itself in no time at all, the CEOs thought, we aren’t causing permanent damage. And best of all, no one would ever know.

***

What no one could have known was that the lake would become infuriated with its treatment. At least, that is what the Dane-zaa people believed when they saw that a severe windstorm had caused the lake to cough up weapons and bodies and pollutants, uncovering crimes against man and against the lake itself.

The weapons and bodies and pollutants served as potent evidence.

Now everyone knew.

.

Fiction © Copyright Elaine Pascale
Image © Copyright Alex Grehy

More from Elaine Pascale:

The Kitchen Witches

The women of Cape Cod have a story that is dying to be told. If only they could live long enough to tell it.

When Fiona Walker is contracted to write about a party attended by her social circle, her friends begin dying. She captures the competition and misery of the women around her through three different stories.

In Wishes, Melanie Voss discovers a Time Between Time where nothing that happens counts. Initially, Time Between Time is a welcome escape from a life spent watching the clock while doing chores for her family. But something sinister is in the Time Between Time and it is headed straight for Melanie.

Death and Taxes tells the story of Nashville DeCota, the Cape Capo. Nash swears that she is not the Island Impaler, nor the Tooth Snatcher, but she has just as many skeletons in her closet. When her husband, Derrick, is kidnapped, she has to come clean about her crimes if she ever wants to see him again.

Fiona tells her own story in Hazing, where she finds that the real source of evil behind the deaths of her friends is worse than she could have ever imagined.

Available on Amazon!