Chapter 16 | Cover Up

Callie's POV

Jeremy's tires screeched over the gravel as he slammed his car into park. The vehicle had barely came to a stop when he plummeted out, making his way to us three still sitting on the front steps.

"What is going on here? I had to get Stanley to take over my shift at the pub. This better be worth it," his voice was in a frantic and his eyes switched over each of us, waiting for someone to speak up.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Katherine sneakily walking towards us. Her eyes that were once a golden brown had now blackened, and her smile seemed sinister versus genuine.

If looks could kill, everyone in Katherine's perception would've been dead. Her body swayed from side to side slowly, her footsteps seemed delayed as if she were walking in slow motion. The suspense was building, what was her next move?

"Stefan's dead," she leaned against the panel of the doorway, "Looks like everyone is still in a great deal of shock, excuse them Jeremy. I made the job a little easier, I killed him."

She spoke with little to no sympathy in her tone, though she had just admitted to a group of people that she had singlehandedly murdered her husband.

Jeremy was in disbelief, "How did this happen?"

The sinister laugh coming from Katherine caused the minimal birds in the trees to retreat from their nests, "It was quite simple, I did what you couldn't. The stakes, the cables, the car battery. It was easy picking, it was your intention. You just wanted to shock him, well he's surely shocked now."

I rolled my eyes deep into my eye sockets, the inaccuracy of her assumptions made my skin crawl and my blood boil.

"Nobody wanted Stefan dead," I peered up at her and watched as her confident posture didn't budge, "Nobody was supposed to die."

She shot her head towards the sky laughing evilly, "That explains Benji."

Chad jumped up from where he was sitting and shot off towards her, pinning her against the wall, "Listen here bitch, Benji was never supposed to be there. He was supposed to drive away and never look back. You're a twisted coldhearted fuck for doing what you did. Don't you dare compare me shooting Benji to your savage barbeque you had downstairs."

Katherine flinched in fear as Chad's words of envy spewed from his mouth, the veins in his neck protruded and his skin became a fierce red.

He was angry, angrier than I had ever seen him before. I rested my hand on his shoulder, feeling the muscles tighten as he felt my touch. I tried to pull him away from Katherine's reach, I wanted him away from her. I didn't trust her, I never did. I knew her capability, I also knew his. Both of them now had blood on their hands, both were capable of murder and they knew it.

"Chad, leave her alone," I continued to keep my hand pressed to his shoulder and slowly started to pull him towards me, "We need to stick together, we need to get rid of the body."

Katherine gawked at Chad, "Don't depend on him for that sweetheart, you see how that turned out. He dumped him around a dumpster, a dumpster that's more public than he may think. It wasn't thought out, it was sloppy. You're better off asking a dog to dispose of a body before you think about asking him."

Chad retreated from the entryway and began to stroll away from the premises without another word, and I wanted to run after him. It was times like now when I dreaded being alone.

Melanie sat across from me, Jeremy perched himself in the clay dirt in front of the concrete steps, and Katherine remained at her post in the entryway.

The only sound that could be heard was the traffic of the highway, everything else appeared to be eerily silent.

"So, are we going to just sit here while a body rots away in the basement?"

Katherine walked over to stand in front of us, towering over us all waiting on someone to react.

"You killed him," I peered up at her sadistically, "You killed him, you get rid of him."

She nodded her head, I could see in her eyes she was feeling powerless, "Nobody is going to help me with this?"

"I don't understand why you would do it," Melanie said surprisingly, "I trusted you, I gave you ten minutes in exchange for your word that you wouldn't do something stupid."

Katherine knelt down balancing her body on her heels, "I had my reasons." Her eyes shot towards my abdomen and watched as I trailed my hand over it, "Is it kicking?"

I shook my head disappointingly, "I won't feel that for a few more weeks. Sometimes I forget I'm pregnant, then it feels like the flapping of butterflies in my stomach and I remember."

The blackness that had possessed Katherine's eyes slowly began to fade, and she started to look human again.

Her forehead met her hands and she began weeping, "I shouldn't have done it. I thought I knew what I was doing, I was doing it for you."

I began to feel the hairs on my arms standing on edge, "What do you mean you were doing it for me?"

Katherine glared up into the sky avoiding the question for a few moments before taking a deep breath and speaking again, "When Stefan and I got married, his father wouldn't let him marry me until I signed a prenuptial agreement. I agreed, I never wanted his money. Deep down though I felt the love he had for me wasn't genuine, I shouldn't have had to sign away everything just to marry him. He promised me there would never be a divorce, that should've been enough. I stopped loving him that day, I shouldn't have married him. My love for him had vanished, and I knew eventually he would find someone to fill the void. I didn't think he would get someone pregnant, I didn't think it would get that far. What struck me was he was going to leave you, without telling me about you. He was going to leave you here alone and with a baby, not bothering to act like the two of you existed. That's why I did it, I did it for you. That baby of yours is the sole legacy of everything Stefan is leaving behind now that he's dead. I know you feel as if my intentions were cruel, but I'm not going to let you go down for this. I did it, if the cops even begin to look at you I will speak up."

Her eyes began to water, and I began to see her chest pumping rapidly. It had finally hit her, she was broken. I should've doubted her, but deep down I knew her words were genuine. I heard the fear in her voice, she wasn't proud of what she did. Deep down, however, she did it with the best of intentions.

I left the group to go find Chad, I knew in order for us to get out of this as a whole we were going to have to work together. I hated to help seal up another murder, but I felt I was obligated to do so. He was seated at the edge of the brush, staring off into the distance. His veins on his neck had disappeared, a sign that he had calmed down. His eyes were closed, and it looked as if he was soaking in the fresh cool air that was blowing in every direction.

His body relaxed as I sat beside him, "How are you feeling?"

His words put my heart at ease and for a moment, I felt the heaviness of being able to breathe being lifted from my chest.

"Everything is going to be alright," I wrapped one of my arms around him, "We need to help her."

The look he gave me was of pure disbelief, and I understood why he was taken aback. She had spoken to him as if he was a stray on the street, he had been left disrespected and I didn't come to his defense.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked him questionably.

He couldn't meet my eyes but I could see the tears building from his, "I just want you to be careful. This is getting messy, a little too messy. I will do anything for you, and you know that. I have gone to great lengths and depths for you, but this is where I draw the line Callie. We cannot keep making this a bigger mess than what we already have."

I began nodding my head understandingly, "Everything ends after this, we can go on with our normal life together."

A wave of emotion swept over me when his eyes finally met mine, with the same small twinkle in them that I had fallen in love with. He wrapped me in a tight embrace, pressing my lips forcefully to his. It was in this moment I wished time would stand still. Everything was perfect, and it was just us in that moment.

Nobody else mattered, and seemingly nobody else existed.

Jeremy came rushing from beyond the brush, "Are you guys coming?"

We both jumped and stood up as if we had been caught in a promiscuous act.

Chad brushed the clay off of his jeans and began tracking forward, "Let's get this shit over with."

Jeremy's eyes locked with mine, and I felt the heat rushing to my cheeks. I brushed my way past him without taking the time to explain to Jeremy what was going on, though it was no secret.

Everyone surrounded Stefan's body in the basement eyeballing one another to see who was going to make the first move. We were all clueless, we had never been faced with something like this. We began shooting ideas off from the top of our heads, everyone except for Chad.

We could drown his body in acid, disintegrating him. (Jeremy)

We could burn his body and just scatter the ashes somewhere around town. (Melanie)

We could just leave him here, let him rot right where he sits. Rats and maggots would have a field day with him. (Katherine)

Let's take a ride out of state, and dispose of his body in a lake or a river. Somewhere with alligators. (Me)

Chad stared at his deceased best friend, no emotion escaped from his face. No smile, no tears, not even the slightest sign of anger. He retreated from our tight circle and began pacing, he was the only one who hadn't contributed to our plots of Stefan's disposal. All eyes were on him, and I knew deep down he was doubting himself. He had blood on his hands, and one wrong move would land him in prison for life. There was already a body, one that he had killed and disposed of, there was no room for any error.

"Your ideas are amateur, too original. We need something that's not going to be seen. Something that won't be obvious. Let's bury him in a barrel, one of those huge metal drums. Bury it deep into the ground. There's five of us, we should be able to dig pretty deep with that amount of manpower," his hands illustrated his demonic design.

The four of us stared at Chad questionably, then transitioned our looks onto each other. The fate of all of us lied in the hands of our ideas, all of which had their own set of downfalls. Each downfall would land us in prison for life, or death row.

Ultimately it was Chad's plan which seemed to show the most promise of not being caught, and it was immediately strewn into motion.

Chad acquired a barrel drum from his father who only used it to store his deer corn for hunting season, and decided the best place to dispose of his body was on the property. It was already abandoned, and the only way the police would know to look for him there was if one of us tipped them off. It was the ultimate test to see who was really trustworthy.

We each brought a shovel from our own living places, not trying to stir any suspicion by purchasing new ones.

Stefan's body remained in the basement until it became time to haul him into the barrel.

I stood by watching as they dug a majority of the hole, not wanting to put strain on my body until the clay was loosened up.

I watched as the mounds of clay grew bigger and the hole slowly grew deeper.

Chad didn't stop the group until it was about ten feet deep, "That should do it. We need a sheet to wrap his body in, and it's going to take all of us to load him into the barrel. He's been dead awhile now, and with him being burned the way he is I'd imagine he's stiffened to a good degree."

The thought of Stefan's rotting corpse drew chills down my spine, the thought of having to assist in his untimely burial made me sick to my stomach.

I followed the rest of the group as they retreated back into the basement, thankful it would be my last time entering the room. Flies had begun swarming around Stefan's body and the aroma coming from him was thick. The room was past the point of uninhabitable, the clean oxygen inside was completely tainted with the stench of death.

I watched Katherine lay out the sheet close to Stefan's chair, she impatiently waited for the rest of us to join her.

Chad was the first one at her side, followed by Melanie then Jeremy. I surrendered after watching their daggers towards me, and began hoisting Stefan's stiffened body onto the sheet. By the time we were finished, you could hardly tell there was a corpse wrapped in the sheet.

"The only thing left now is to get him into the barrel and bury him. Jeremy and I can carry him outside, and we will meet you out there," Chad sent me a worrisome smile, a sign to go ahead and get outside.

I ushered Melanie in front of me and Katherine followed shortly behind.

Chad wasted no time getting Jeremy on board, within five minutes I could make out the shapes of their shadows emerging from the entryway of the building. I could see Jeremy's face growing green from nausea, his innocence had faded in a week's span and I felt solely responsibility.

If it wasn't for me he wouldn't be doing this today.

Stefan's body hitting the bottom of the barrel sounded like a trash bag of bones being thrown onto a piece of pavement. You would've thought he had shattered into a million pieces, deep down I wish he would've. Chad sealed the drum barrel for good, rolling it into the hole as soon as he was finished. I stood back and watched as the mounds of dirt slowly shrunk, and as they shrunk the barrel began to be swallowed by the Earth.

Chad patted the ground neatly making it look as undisturbed as possible before throwing his shovel to the ground, "We never speak of this to anyone. From this day forward we continue our lives as normal. We don't know where Stefan is, nobody has seen or heard from him."

We nodded our heads in agreement, thus finalizing our pact.

"Nobody comes back here," he glanced at the four of us individually, "Nobody."