Duffel Bag

Slinging my heavy, blue duffel bag over my shoulder, I hurried down the stairs. My best friend, Aaliyah and her family are waiting for me right outside the door, ready to take me to camping with them. It was a ritual we had every summer to celebrate our school accomplishments that year. Just as I was about to open the door, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and behind me was my mother, a worried look on her face. “Be careful out there.” she said. “You do remember that tonight is the anniversary. Don’t you?” My eyes grew wide. No. I did not. In fact, it completely left my mind until now, yet I looked back up at her and nodded. She dropped her hand from my shoulder and I was soon making my way out the door. I looked behind my back. She was still there. So, I gave her a small, reassuring smile. “I’ll be okay. Promise.” I said and with that, Aaliyah’s brother helped me into the car and we were on the road, driving to the campsite.

The ride was filled with hours of singing loudly, with the windows rolled down and laughing. Meanwhile, I couldn’t get myself to fully participate. Mentally, I was elsewhere.

“Dad?” I called out into the long hallway. We were at a hotel, getting ready for the holiday party in the ballroom tonight. My dad went out to buy my mom a pack of tampons, as she inconveniently got her period that same night and she did not come prepared. However, he had been gone for hours now and the nearest store was only a five minute drive away. He should be back by now. We heard a loud crash outside of our hotel room and we thought that maybe he was here. He wasn’t usually clumsy. So, I guess it was just a very wild, unexpected guess, but I checked outside for him anyway.

“Gigi!” I snapped out of my thoughts. Aaliyah was yelling at me now. I haven’t been paying attention. “You okay?” she asked. I shrugged and she furrowed her eyebrows at me, puzzled. “Okay…” she said, writing my behavior off as nothing. “Okay girls...go grab your bags and we’ll get the tents up.” Aaliyah’s dad said. I looked around me. Time flew by so fast. I didn’t realize we were already here. Aaliyah and I hopped out of the car and grabbed our bags, following the rest of the group into the woods. Aaliyah was trampling and out of breath behind me. She had a rope over her shoulder and she wasn’t the strongest person I know. “Here let me help you with that.” I took the rope off of her and wrapped it around my neck and shoulders.

I was walking down the hallway until…

I dropped my hand bag and fell to my knees. In front of me, hands dripped with blood that bled from the man’s neck, a rope tightly wrapped around him as he swung from the ceiling. “Dad! What the hell did you do?! Dad!” I cried, trying my hardest to untie him, but I could not reach high enough. “What’s wrong? Oh my...GOD!” my mom came running up to me. She shuddered at the sight, tears streaming from her eyes. We called 911 and watched them take his body away. I don’t understand. He wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t.

We dropped our bags on the floor and started to set the tents up. “Hey Gigi, I’m just gonna go for a short walk. Can you tell them?” Aaliyah asked.

“You want some company?”

“No. I just want to be alone for a little bit. Need some space away from everyone, since we’ve been cramped in that car together for so long.”

I nodded and watched her figure disappear into the woods.

Weeks later and there have been many deaths ruled as “suicides”. There was one thing I found strange: a weird similarity between my dad and everyone else’s suicide cases. Their families too said:

“He wasn’t that kind of person!”

“She would never hurt us like that!”

“My baby was so happy!”

“He had everything he wanted in his hands!”

“He could never do that to me!”

I didn’t understand. All of these “suicides” just were so...unexpected. It didn’t make any sense.

Two hours and Aaliyah never came back. Everyone was getting worried for her. “Maybe she got lost in the woods? She’s never had a good sense of direction.” her brother insisted and we scouted the woods for her together, flashlights in our hands just in case the sun starts to go down and we’re still out here.

“Gigi!” my mom yelled. I came running down the stairs to see what she wanted. I heard police sirens coming from the living room. What happened? “Look.” she said, pointing at the television. “Breaking news!” it read. “Numerous suicides were possibly murders?”

I flinched at the sound of Aaliyah’s mom’s pained cries. We followed her traumatizing screams, running deeper and deeper into the woods. “Did you find her?!” Aaliyah’s dad yelled. Then, there was the second scream. I was getting worried. What happened? Then, I paused. There she was. A rope tied to the tree. I looked at the rope around my arms and dropped it. Aaliyah was just there, slowly swinging from the tree to the rhythm of the wind, blood and dead skin flakes in her fingernails. She struggled. “She would never do this! I don’t understand!” her mom cried.

No one slept that night. The woods were eerily quiet, which made the hairs on my skin stand up.

“Be careful out there.” my mother said. “You do remember that tonight is the anniversary. Don’t you?”