Prompt 3 -
Word Limit: 2000 words.
Word Count: 1335 words.

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★★★

Stranger Danger

"It has been fifteen long years since young thirteen year old, Mackenzie Blight went missing. There is still no trace of her."

The voice came from a middle aged woman on the television, reciting the news like she did every day at five o'clock.

The young girl's picture is always shown beside her face, to keep her disappearance circulating in the news every so often.

The thirteen year old was pictured as a short, skinny, blonde haired girl in piggy tails. She was wearing blue overalls with a pink shirt underneath and blue shoes to match.

The girl looked quite happy in the photo that had been chosen to be what her community remembered her as in the many years she had been unfortunately missing for.

A man was seated on an arm chair in the living room, staring lifelessly at the screen, barely blinking through the entire segment.

It was only a moment later did a woman enter the room and pick up the remote to turn the little box off in a rush.

"I thought I told you to stop watching the news, Roger," the woman commented with a disapproving look at her husband.

"I wanted to see who won the game," Roger grumbled back as he crossed his arms against his chest.

"Yeah, well, you know that they play that at this time every Thursday," shot back the woman with a sigh of defeat.

"I don't know why they are still so stuck on one missing girl. Can't they give it a bloody ol' break?" He continued to grumble as he picked up the newspaper.

Deciding that he may as well read the game scores if he couldn't see the highlights.

"Have you forgotten that we pay for that kind of coverage?" The wife asked with an eyebrow raised as she came to sit on the couch.

"It's about time we stop wasting money on that crap, Debra." Roger commented as he adjusted his glasses atop his wrinkled nose.

Debra shook her head, "We have a part to play," she mumbled back in a casual tone as she picked up her piece of wool on the side table.

The blonde woman had been halfway through knitting a new scarf for winter. There was so much time to fill, that she'd already knitted many others previously.

Silence filled the air as the couple went about their usual business.

Things had been quite boring and rigid for many years - always the same tasks at the same time. Nothing had ever even so much as shifted in their schedules.

Suddenly the phone had begun ringing which ceased all movement.

It was a moment before Roger began speaking again, "Are you expecting a call?"

"No," Debra answered as she shook her head in confusion.

"Nobody ever calls after four," he stated as he scratched his head as he racked his brain for a single inkling.

Everybody they had known had either moved or passed away in the earlier years.

The couple was utterly alone in this world.

The phone stopped ringing but it had already rattled the two inhabitants of 32 Olivine Avenue.

Before either could utter another word, the phone began ringing again.

"Well, you better see who it is then," grumbled Roger as he went back to his newspaper but his ears were alert.

Debra huffed before picking up the phone. She plastered on a fake smile and spoke in her cheeriest voice.

"Hello, Blight residence."

"Hello, mother," the voice drawled in a low tone.

"Sorry?" Debra asked as she began blinking rapidly, "I think you may have the wrong number."

"I don't think so," the female voice responded.

Roger looked up from his newspaper as he gave his wife a hard stare.

"Haven't you been searching for me for fifteen years?" The voice suddenly asked.

Debra's eyes widened as her heart sped up in anxiety.

"It's me, Mackenzie. I want to come home," the voice continued in a slow pattern.

"Kenzie?" She asked as fear began settling in her bones.

It couldn't be.

Debra dropped her half-done scarf to the floor in panic.

"Don't you miss me?" The voice asked, filling the sudden silence.

Roger glared before taking the phone off his wife.

The woman never did anything right in his opinion.

"Sorry, I think you might have the wrong number," he said, slowly.

"It's me. I'm older but it's still me."

The voice did sound like it came from a female in their mid-twenties but she wasn't fooling him at all.

"I still love the colour blue and snowflakes on the first snow fall of winter."

Roger's resolve was crumbling as sweat began forming on his wrinkled forehead.

How could someone know something only three people in the world knew - and this person was certainty not one of them.

'How?' Debra mouthed to her husband as she began to enter full panic mode.

The couple looked over to the only photograph they had up on the fireplace mantle. It was a picture frame that depicted a time when their family had been whole.

Little Kenzie was twelve and the couple looked like time had not been as harsh to them.

That had been taken only three months before that dark fateful night.

The rest of the maroon-coloured walls of the living room were bare, as if they barely lived in this house at all. Despite owning the property for at least thirty years.

The Blights had only kept one photograph and even then, it was not a sweet reminder.

'It can't be,' Roger mouthed back to his wife as he shook his head.

"Daddy, don't you remember? The way we used to jump in puddles whenever it had rained the night before."

Memory lane was not somewhere he was keen to travel on.

The aging man was only growing more agitated as the years had gone by, having chosen the life of a recluse.

People only got in his way.

Roger looked back at his wife, noticing the clear signs of fear displayed on her features. He was starting to feel a little afraid too.

"How can you know that?" He asked, anxiously.

The truth was clear to the couple that this person was only imitating what they had long ago discarded.

"I know it had been our little secret because mother hated whenever I got dirty."

In this moment, Debra could careless about tracking mud inside the house on a rainy day.

There were bigger things at stake - someone knew the truth.

Debra's eyes wandered over to the lone fire poker that sat in its holder beside the fireplace. It was simply decoration now, for they hadn't had a fire going since that night.

The handle had become dusty and a little rusty from sitting in the same place for fifteen long years.

Flashes of that dark night made its way back to the forefront of her mind.

The way she had meticulously curated that fire to keep the entire house warm on the coldest night in the middle of the harshest winter.

The fact Mackenzie had come home covered in snow, ruining her favourite rug.

Then the blood that had trickled onto that very same rug when Debra had struck her daughter over the head with the fire poker in the heat of the moment.

Nobody ruined Debra Blight's favourite white rug and got away with it.

It was the last time she would ever have to scold Mackenzie and then purchase a new replacement on the following day.

Today, the floorboards were bear - the rug had left with the child.

It simply made no sense that a dead girl could be talking to them on the phone.

"But who are you really?" Roger suddenly asked with a great deal of terror as he locked his wide eyes with that of his wife.

Their secret would not be buried with them, it seems.

"I told you; I am Mackenzie Blight and I know what you did."

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