The Prom Night Reaper

"We find the defendant Guilty of all charges."

Those words have been repeated in my brain for the past seven years as I have sat in this cold, dark cell. According to the judge and my hometown, justice had been served; but, it most definitely had not. I didn't even know Mark Finch, Tom Harding, or Summer Stanton, let alone lure them into the woods, bind their hands and feet, and murder them execution style. I mean, that is simply too far outside of my skill set. Thankfully, my "atrocities and violence" had landed me here, on Death Row, alone in my cell awaiting the final appeals in my case to waste away. After seven years, with few personal interactions, I must admit that even I am questioning my innocence, trapped in my thoughts of how I stumbled across those three lifeless bodies in the woods that night, after sneaking back from an...engagement... with my girlfriend.

April 24th, 2014

Prom night. Every senior's favorite night of the year, the night when frivolity and scandal rule the night instead of order and sensibility. Prom night in our rural town in East Tennessee was a wild one, steeped in the tradition of attending the dance for roughly 20 minutes after spending hours getting ready and weeks of excitement, and then finding a field or someone's house to hang out at and get absolutely smashed all night before passing out for the night. Your typical, cliché high school prom night from the movies in other words.

It was around 5 PM as I stood in front of my mirror, retying my tie knot for the eighteenth time, my perfectionism struggling to let me get out of the room and the house to meet my date for pictures. The navy and pink striped tie, picked by my girlfriend to match her dress, finally wound its way into the perfect Windsor, the tie falling down beneath the navy vest, covering the fact that it was a tad bit shorter than it should have been. But, I could not be late, leaving Carolynn alone, waiting for me to take pictures. I knew she was already dressed and ready, as her social media stories and texts to me made it clear that she and her friends had been ready for almost an hour now, as they relaxed at Emily's house, her palatial house that we would be taking pictures at and spending the night after the prom. I was supposed to be there by 5:30, and every second that I couldn't get my tie ready felt like a minute or ten passing by. The clock next to me read 5:05, giving me twenty more minutes than I needed to get there. I flicked the light switch off and left my bathroom, heading for the door and my shoes.

"You look wonderful, dear. Have fun tonight!" My mother, ever the saintly woman who would only ever tell me I looked good, even if I had gone to prom looking like Dobby wearing his tea cozy. "Thanks mom. I promise we will be safe and I will call you if I need you, but I will see you tomorrow morning!" With that, I walked out of the house, my chestnut brown dress shoes elevating me and clicking on the sidewalk as I walked to the driveway and my car.

I texted Emily that I was in the driveway, a request that she had made so that each of us could get our first looks of our dates on camera with the photographer (her mom) prepared to take the pictures. As such, Emily came out in her dress, having already taken her pictures with her date, and blindfolded me, whispering that I was going to love what I saw when I could see again. We walked slowly across the entry way and into the wide entrance of their house, complete with its own large marble staircase heading up to the second floor of the house, if one could call it that...mansion would be my word of choice. Emily stopped me right in front of the stairs, telling me to keep my eyes closed as she removed the blindfold. Then, I heard a song; it was Carolynn's favorite song, and I knew that they had planned things out even more than I had thought. She came to the top of the stairs, the sun backlighting her beautifully, highlighting her and bathing her in golden light, making her look angelic against the giant windows behind her. I smiled, though that is an understatement, as that smile grew into a comically large smile as I saw her, regally walking down the stairs. "You look absolutely beautiful, Car. I am the luckiest man in the world to have you as my date tonight." I choked the words out, as my emotions caught me; seeing my girlfriend all dressed up was a sight to behold.

An hour after we had all taken pictures, the four couples piled into the party bus that Emily's parents had rented out for us. Getting one of these out to our county was a bit of an ask, and I am sure they paid quite a lot of money for it, but it was great fun as we sang and danced all the way into Knoxville to eat at one of the cities nicest restaurants: Olive Garden (I'm joking, though this is a "nice" restaurant to high schoolers!) I mean Wasabi, a Japanese steakhouse. We all laughed and smiled through our chef's presentation as he prepared our food, and admired all of our dates for catching balls of rice in their mouths when we all failed. We all thanked him as he left us to gorge on the copious amounts of food and half an hour later, we walked back to our party bus a little more lethargically than we had walked out of it an hour earlier. Then, it was on to prom, and we sang, danced, and drank all the way there.

An hour after we arrived at prom, we were heading back to Emily's for the real fun of the night. We pulled up around 9:30, each of the boys making sure that their now barefoot dates made it safely inside. "Everybody get changed into something more comfortable and meet at the pool, I'm sure that my parents have set something up out there!" Each couple snuck off to a prearranged bedroom; Carolynn and I walked, well more like ran, up the stairs, hand in hand and headed to the room she had picked out for us, a room more isolated from the rest of the bedrooms in the house. As we walked in, I saw that she had set up a deluxe air mattress for me that was next to the main bed of the room. "We all set these up to convince her parents that we weren't going to sleep together. We told them that there would be two boy and two girl rooms. They 'bought it' but they were kids once!" She laughed and pulled me in for a kiss, her perfume filling my nostrils with an intoxicatingly delightful scent. After a long moment kissing, she pushed me back ever so softly. "Let's save that for later. We don't want to be late to the pool. Help me out would you?" She turned, pulling her hair away from her zipper. I paused for a moment, stunned by my luck. "What are you waiting for?" she asked as she waited impatiently. "I know you want to see what's underneath." She giggled, and had she been facing me, I would have seen the suggestive wink. I unzipped her dress, which put my hand at the small of her back, and watched as her dress floated to the ground as she shimmied out of it, leaving her almost naked except for the small black bit of lace tightly clinging to her hips. "Can you toss me my bikini? It is on the chair behind you." I grabbed it and tossed it to her. "Now, close your eyes. I want to see your jaw hit the floor once I have this on. I missed it just now." This time, I saw her wink. A few seconds later, she was ready, and she told me to open my eyes. My jaw, which had just recovered from slamming into the floor, slammed into it even harder as my girlfriend twirled slowly in her bikini, the white fabric clinging to her curves like it was made only for her. "Your turn." She stepped closer to me, unbuttoning my vest and slipping it off my arms. Then, she pulled on my tie, forcing me into a passionate kiss again before she continued to help me disrobe. Before I knew it, I was in front of her in only my boxers. "I got you this for tonight. I know we didn't tell you guys about going swimming." She handed me a black swim suit with gold stripes on the sides. "Thanks, Car. I love it."

We walked out onto the back patio and down to the pool. As we approached the pool, we saw that Emily's parents had gone a little overboard by leaving us mounds of snack and coolers full of drinks under the gazebo, as well as instructions on where to find the ingredients for pizzas and how to use the pizza oven. As we sat around and waited for our pizzas, we watched movies on the big screen; everything felt right in the world.

An hour or so later, we were all swimming, each couple basically on top f each other in their own corners of the pool. "Let's go for a walk in the woods" I whispered softly in Carolynn's ear.

"Sure, let's go."

We found ourselves in the dark woods, with nothing but a flashlight to help illuminate the walkway. We knew that Emily had a tree house back here somewhere, she had insisted that it be secluded, and we eventually found our way there. I let Carolynn climb up first, following quickly behind her. This was no ordinary, ragged treehouse. Emily had wanted the luxury and her father always outdid her wildest dreams. It had a bed with a sleeping bag stowed away to prevent bugs from being in it. There were two massive bean bags and even electricity. We didn't bother with the lights, and we quickly flopped onto the bean bags, Carolynn cuddling into my arms before rolling on top of me and kissing me passionately.

"Keep moving! If you stop, you will regret it."

I pushed Carolynn back. "Did you hear that?"

"hear what?"

"Someone is out there. I think something bad is going to happen. Stay up here, I will be back in a second." The wind rustled through the trees as I climbed down from the treehouse, the branches eerily clicking against each other. I followed the path in the direction that I heard the voice come from, or at least thought I heard it come from. As I moved as stealthily as I could through the woods, I heard a shriek come from just ahead. I moved closer, then hid myself out of sight as I saw the silhouettes of two people kneeling on the ground and a third standing behind them. Then, in a flash and bang, one of the kneeling bodies dropped to the ground. Then the next. My heart raced as I stayed where I was, frozen in place as I heard rustling through the bushes and a person running away in the opposite direction. I moved closer to the bodies, feeling for a pulse but finding nothing but warm blood coating my fingers. I tried to rub it off on the ground, then ran back to the treehouse. I climbed up, the light was now on, which worried me, but when I got to the top, there was no one there. "Where is she?"