Chapter 5 - The Dead Mother
David stared at the name on the insurance document until the letters began to blur.
Sarah was dead.
He had identified her body after the horrific highway collision five years ago.
Yet, this freshly printed policy had her signature perfectly forged at the bottom.
There was an address scrawled in blue ink on the back of the final page.
It pointed to an industrial district on the very edge of the city.
David looked at Lily, who was fast asleep in the passenger seat, exhausted by the trauma.
He put the SUV in drive and headed toward the address, desperate for answers.
The rain started pouring down, slicking the empty highway in a dangerous glare.
They arrived at an abandoned textile warehouse surrounded by a rusted chain-link fence.
David parked the car behind a rusted dumpster to hide it from the main road.
He gently woke Lily up, telling her they had to move quietly.
Lily rubbed her eyes and stepped out of the car.
She stood on her own two feet without shaking this time.
Her strength was returning faster than David could have ever imagined.
They walked through a broken loading bay door into the pitch-black warehouse.
The air smelled of old machinery and damp concrete.
David turned on his phone's flashlight, casting a narrow beam across the massive, empty floor.
In the center of the warehouse stood a strange, newly built wooden room.
It looked completely out of place, like a giant wooden box dropped into the middle of the factory.
David pushed the heavy wooden door open and shined his light inside.
The walls of the small room were entirely covered in photographs.
There were hundreds of pictures of David and Lily, taken secretly over the last five years.
They were pictures of them at the park, at school, and inside their own home.
On a small desk in the corner sat a calendar with today's date circled in thick red marker.
Written across the date were two words: "The End."
May you like
Suddenly, the heavy wooden door slammed shut behind them with a deafening bang.
The metallic click of a deadbolt locking echoed in the tiny room.
