Still Getting Letters

Well I've decided that I'll try and guarantee that this'll get updated with one complete story each week. This is another old one, and from now on I'll try to add a new one each Saturday, regardless of what's happened during the week.

Another one arrived today. I mean, I know that there's up to a month delay in postage between there and here, but its been over a year now. I just keep getting the letters, all signed from her, all relating the latest events in her life. This one was to let me know that she'd finally moved on, although she'd like to keep in touch, and had settled down with her boyfriend in their new house.

The house burned down fourteen months ago, she was killed in the fire. Police suspected arson but could never prove anything. And I'm still getting the letters.

It was nearly two years ago now that she stormed out, after our final argument. We'd been great friends, but becoming lovers had been a mistake. Now the only thing that could fix the damage was time and distance. She left the country, found a job teaching English to starving African children in the hopes that they could get jobs on tech support desks rather than making shoes. A few weeks after she left I started getting letters from her, one every day, right up until today. I don't know what to do with them now.

What do I do if they just keep coming? I keep hearing more and more about her life, and all I can think is what we had together before she died. I saw them take the coffin, I even had to identify her from her personal effects. She and her boyfriends bones, twisted and fused together by the heat of the fire. The boyfriend who had taken her in after she left me, stolen the one love of my life, and then allowed her to die. I only managed to identify her from the ring she was wearing, the one I'd given to her when our relationship started, when we became more than friends for that first time.

The letters arrive with the normal post, but I can't track them back. I've tried asking the post office, they can't tell me anything. Apparently they've been sorted, but there's no record of it. Nor is there any record of the air mail delivery number on each one. As far as the post office are concerned, they don't exist. I've been to the house she keeps talking about. Nothing but a bare, twisted skeleton, burned almost to the ground, nothing but blackened wooden beams scattered across the sterile foundations.

I just don't know what I'm meant to do. What does she want from me? Why can't she just tell me?

This is going to drive me insane, I know. I can't do anything about it. I should have just let her go, I should never have gone to Africa to try and find her. I should never have done it. I shouldn't have set alight to the house when I found out she was living with someone else, was doing the things that were only mine before with someone else.

Jealousy is a terrible thing, and she won't let me forget it. I know they both died in that fire, I watched as their naked, writhing flesh melted from their bones in that bed. I stood outside the house and watched it burn to the ground. So why am I still getting these letters?

Its my birthday today, I got a package from her. I don't really know what's going on still. I've not opened it yet, I'm scared to open it. I don't know what she might have sent me. There's no way that this can really be from her, or that any of the letters can have been, but who else would know so much? Either its someone setting me up for something, or there's something truly strange going on. Whichever it is I'm terrified. I think I'll try and move house, maybe that'll get rid of the letters.

Okay, I'm going to try and force myself to open the package.

I can't do it. I picked it up and gave it a shake. Whatever's in there is heavy, and sounds metal I guess. Possibly in a few bits. Doesn't seem to be padded at all though, so it can't be fragile. Its just a package wrapped in plain brown paper, I always used to rant about how I don't understand the reason for wrapping paper. I need to know what she sent me, but I'm scared of what it could be.

Okay, okay. I'll open it.

There's a letter under the wrapping, still in her handwriting, signed from her. It doesn't say much, just giving the latest news as usual, and wishing me a happy birthday. Wait, there's a post script.

Oh god.

I'm opening the box now, although I already know what's in there. God help me.

“So then, we can suspect foul play quite happily I think. Its obvious that he's been strangled.”

“Yep, looks like it. What do you think all of these papers are about?”

“I heard he went quite odd, but I didn't know he was this strange. Why stuff loads of blank papers into blank envelopes?”

“No idea, though then again considering what happened with his wife I guess you can't blame him for being a little weird.”

“What, you mean running off to Africa with that shaman nutter?"

“Yeah. Then there was the whole thing where he got accused of attempted murder and arson."

"Who? The shaman?"

"No, the nutter here. You must've read about it in the papers."

“Oh, now that's just sick.”

“What? What is it?”

“There's a severed hand in this shoebox. What kind of sicko would do something like that?”

“Dunno. Take it, we can probably get some prints off and try and identify it."