“A woman was found face first in a river outside of Clinton County. A friend of the victim identified her as Addison Jones, a wife and mother of two children.”

That’s when I turned off the TV and thought about the horrible thing I did. I didn’t know she was a mother, she looked too young. Again I hear the spine shivering scream she let out as I grabbed her small boney neck. I then remembered how she tried to get out of the tight clutch that I had around her body. How she bit the hand that was covering her mouth. I saw the fear in her dark green eyes, and right before she died she clawed my face with her long red fingernails.

“you’re very lucky that it was only me that saw you last night.”

I jump and turn to see a heavy set older man, with hair as grey as a storm cloud and eyes as blue as the sky.

“Who are you?” I ask while looking at the doors of my rundown apartment making sure that they were still locked and they were.

“My name is John” He said as if I should have already known that.

“what are you talking about?” I ask thinking this old man is crazy and he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

“Don’t pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about.” His voice getting deep and strict. “ you have a feeling guilty now that you now know that someone saw you kill her huh?”

“Kill who? What are you talking about?” I ask again because I’m still wondering who he is and how he got in.

“Don’t worry I’m not going to tell as long as you admit it to me that you killed her. I hate people that lie to my face even if I saw them do what they say they didn’t do”

I don’t know if I should tell him the truth, but looking at his soft expression on his face I could tell that he wasn’t going to tell. And I know what he means I hate it when people lie to my face too. ”Okay I killed her, but why does that matter, I mean why are you not going to tell the cops.”

“Son we are like family. And family doesn’t tell on each-other. I just want to help you get away.” He said while his voice got soft and loving.

“What do you mean by family?”I ask wondering if he knew my dad before he went to prison for killing my own mother when I was only a child.

“Don’t worry about it” He says it like he didn’t really mean it.

“Okay, well how are you going to help me get away?”

‘’I have a little place in Ohio; we can stay there until all of this attention goes away. Once it goes away we can get you a small place in the country and everything will go back to normal.”

“Okay, I guess I’ll trust you but only because I have too. Let me go pack my things.”


“Hurry up.” He tells me in an eerie voice as though he knows something is about to happen.

I go to my bedroom to get the only two shirts I own, and a pair of jeans. After I pack my things I go to the bathroom to shave my scraggly beard. As I get to the mirror I see the person I hate the most. I see a drug addict, a lonely man, and a murderer. I see the long scar where the woman clawed my face with her long red fingernails. I look into my eyes which are about the same color as John’s and start to cry. Why did I have to kill her? Now her children have no mother and her husband has no wife. I can’t take it any more so I grab my gun and go back to John.

“You look better” he says when he sees my eyes and sees that I have been crying.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

We walk down the stairs and out of the lobby. The manager sees me and tells me “Jack your rent is late, be sure to pay it when you get back.” I ignore him and we walk to my car.

“So where are we going?” I ask

“Ada, Oklahoma, just follow the signs.”

We start driving and we start talking about some pointless things like hobbies the John asks, “Why did you kill her?”

“I don’t know”

“Yes you do”

“No I don’t” I say in an loud voice

“Yes you do you have to.” he says In a soft voice.

“My father killed my own mother when I was only five I guess I have emotional problems or something I just felt that nobody knew how I felt or something.”

“Thanks.” He says quietly.

“For what?”

“For telling me.”

After driving for a while I see the sign that says ‘Ada next exit’.

“We are getting close.” John says, “We need to find a place to sleep.”

“You told me you have a place here.”

“I only told you that because I knew you wouldn’t have come if I didn’t.”

“Okay. Well do they have any really cheap motels here?”

“Yeah maybe we can find one.”

We drive for about ten more minutes around the small town until we see this empty motel parking lot. I get out of the car to get the room we got room 316, the cheapest room in the place. I go back to the car to get John and my bags but he was gone. I grab my bag and my gun and go up to the room. As I walk into the gross room the smell rushed into my nostrils. It smelled like mildew and cheap perfume. I look at the old sofa and see John sitting watching the news.

“How did you know we got this room?” I ask.

“I heard the man tell you and saw him give you the keys.”

I looked at the TV as I heard a news reporter say, “Breaking news, a local deer hunting camera caught the murder of Addison Jones. The murderer named Johnny Ray was tracked to his apartment in Tulsa. He has left Tulsa and was tracked to Ada, Oklahoma. I look at John and run to my bag to unpack my gun.

“What are you doing!?” He yells.

I ignore him and load my gun. “Forgive me.” I say and point my gun at John and shoot. The bullet flies and goes right through John but he doesn’t seem hurt at all.

“You can’t kill me son. You can’t even get away from me I’m always with you. He yells as his voice gets devilish.

“What are you?” I manage to stammer out.

“I’m your conscience son I won’t die until you do.”

I look into his blue eyes with my weak ones. I put the cold metal gun to my head and pull the trigger. Bang!