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Novelo Rectangle

“You scared the hell outta me last night, you know that?” Harold said. They sat together in their newly unpacked kitchen, sipping coffee and eating instant oats. Nancy massaged his shoulders, feigning sympathy, and laughed.	“Oh, I’m sorry, baby. Tell me what all I said again. I honestly don’t remember any of it.”	“Well, at first, you just kinda mumbled a little bit. I wasn’t sure what you were saying.&nbsp;Then you just said my name real low and long over and over. ‘Haaaaaaaarold, Haaaaaaaarold, Haaaaaaaarold. Really it freaked me out. I tried to wake you up, but you were dead asleep. After a while you stopped and I fell back asleep.” They both laughed and finished their breakfast before each of them left for work.&nbsp;	Harold Simmons had found the adjustment to married life to be much easier than he’d expected. Having grown up as an only child after the tragic death of his brother Bill when Harold was 10 and Bill was 7, Harold had become quite accustomed to living on his own. In fact, he had much preferred it. When he moved across the state to begin his studies at the University of Michigan, he spent all four of his undergraduate years living by himself in an apartment two streets over from campus. After graduation, he accepted a job at Wilson’s Marketing Group in downtown Ann Arbor. It wasn’t the most exciting work, but it was steady, and it allowed him to save up enough for a down payment on his first home in just over a year. Harold had relished the idea of coming home to a peaceful and quiet place all his own.	Harold Simmons was not a recluse by any means, however. He had a few close friends from his Intro to Business days, and at least a couple nights each week, he enjoyed going out with them to watch the Lions, or Tigers, or Wolverines (oh my!), or whoever else was playing on the plasma tv’s over the bar. He simply preferred to return home alone at night. As his friends began getting married and starting families, Harold genuinely was happy for them, but he was also happy for himself—never having to deal with another person’s dirty dishes, no awkward small talk with in-laws during the holidays, and best of all, nobody telling him where he had to be and what he had to do. Harold was perfectly content on his own…until he met Nancy Lowe.	He was 30 then, and he’d been at Wilson’s for eight years. Most days, he worked in his own office, stuck in his little cubicle from eight until four. However, whenever he began a new project, he liked to schedule an in-person meeting with the client to get a better feel for their company and its needs. He had just walked through the front entrance of Morris Family Dentistry on a deep blue November morning, thinking through some last-minute questions he had for the dental office manager, when the receptionist suddenly caused him to forget everything he knew about advertising and business promotion. Over the next several months, Harold found himself having to make personal visits to Morris Family Dentistry quite often, only after first calling to make sure that Nancy was in. Two short years later, Nancy Lowe became Nancy Simmons, and the two of them bought a house together.	Now, as Harold made the fifteen minute drive to work, he laughed to himself, thinking about how unexpected all of this had been. It had been an adjustment all right, living with Nancy these last few weeks, but Harold found her idiosyncrasies to be endearing rather than frustrating. For instance, the way Nancy folded the bath towels by halving them over and over, instead of folding them into thirds, as he’d always done. And he loved the way she ate dessert before the main course, whenever possible.	“That way, I always have room for dessert,” she would say.&nbsp;	There was one aspect of Nancy that Harold wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to, though, and that was her sleeping habits. While Harold was able to fall asleep within minutes of the lamp being switched off, Nancy tended to be restless, tossing and turning, and kicking around the bedsheets. Not only that, but when she did sleep, she talked in her sleep. Usually she muttered unintelligible gibberish for a few minutes, before settling into deeper sleep, but the last few nights, she had spoken more clearly formed words. He wasn’t sure, but a few nights prior, Harold thought he had been awoken by Nancy repeating, “Willie,” the nickname he called his brother when they were young, but she stopped before Harold was cognizant enough to understand her. Sure, it creeped him out some, but if a little bit of sleep talking was Nancy’s biggest flaw, Harold figured he’d won the lottery. He pulled into the office smiling. # 	That night, Harold was startled awake not by Nancy’s words, but by her laughter. Although it came from Nancy, it sounded nothing like her. It was a much slower, heavier sound, different from her typical, buoyant giggle. Harold felt the uppermost part of his chest tighten with dread.	“Nancy,” he whispered, unable to move. She continued to laugh. “Nancy, wake up.”	“Haaaaaaaarold,” Nancy intoned, “Haaaaaaarold. I know what you diiiiid.” Harold now reached across the bed and put his hand on her shoulder. She laughed a slow, eerie laugh again. He shook her until she woke up.	“What are you doing?” Nancy asked, sounding annoyed.	“You were talking in your sleep again.”	“Oh,” she said and rolled over. Harold stared at the ceiling in the darkness, not moving, until the alarm finally sounded, and they got up.	They ate breakfast in silence, and Harold noticed a coolness from Nancy he hadn’t felt before.	“Are you okay?” Harold asked her.	“I’m fine,” Nancy said, “I just wish you hadn’t woken me up last night. I was having such a nice dream. You and I were walking through some snowy woods. I didn’t recognize where we were, but it was beautiful.” She sighed. “I couldn’t sleep after you woke me up.”	“I’m sorry,” Harold said, “but you were talking in your sleep again. You were laughing this time. It was creepy.”	Harold had a hard time focusing at work. He found himself falling asleep at his desk, and it took a couple cups of coffee to keep him awake. He stared at his computer screen, unable to process the email written to him from a client. Instead, he replayed Nancy’s words to him from the night before in his mind.	“I know what you did.” As far as he knew, he hadn’t done anything. He searched online for causes of sleep talking, and while he was unable to find anything definitive, he read that high levels of stress may be a cause of sleep talking.&nbsp;	That doesn’t sound like Nance, at all. She works hard, but her job isn’t exceptionally demanding. We get plenty of time off and she never talks about being stressed. She’s the most easy going person I know.	After not getting much of anything done, Harold went home for the day. # 	Harold woke again to Nancy’s slow, ominous laugh. This time, she was sitting up in bed, facing him. In the pale light of the moon creeping past the edge of the curtain, he could see her looking straight through him with glazed, unseeing eyes.	“Nancy, go back to sleep,” he whispered. She was no longer laughing, but she continued staring in his direction. “Nancy, please go back to sleep.”	“Haaaaaaaaarold,” she softly sang, in a voice not quite hers. “I know what you diiiiiiid. I know what you did to Willie.”	At this, Harold’s blood turned to ice. Harold had told Nancy that his brother died when they were young. But she didn’t know about Harold’s involvement. Nobody did. Not even Harold’s parents. As far as anyone knew, Willie’s death had been a tragic accident, nothing more.	“What are you talking about?” Harold asked with a trembling voice. Nancy answered with her low, haunting laugh. She lay back down after a few seconds and was silent. Harold cried and eventually fell into a restless sleep. # 	The next morning at breakfast, Nancy was back to her normal, cheery self.	“The strangest thing happened to me last night,” she said.	“Oh yeah?” Harold asked, not telling her that the same was true for him.&nbsp; 	“I had the exact same dream from the other night, but this time, you and I walked up to one of the biggest oak trees I’d ever seen. The letters ‘HBSC’ were carved into the trunk. It was all so realistic.” At this, Harold choked on his coffee. “Are you all right?” she asked.	“Yes. My coffee just went down the wrong pipe,” Harold responded. “I’ve got to get to work a little early this morning. I have a meeting with a client, and I have to finalize a few things before we meet.” He kissed her and hurried out the door.&nbsp;	As Harold drove to the office, he thought about the giant oak. The sleep talking had been strange, but strange things happened. This made no sense, however. There was no explanation for it. The only other person who knew about that tree was Willie, and he’d been dead for over twenty years. Harold and his brother had found it the winter Willie died, and they had been amazed by the sheer width of its trunk. It stood out among all the nearby trees. They had decided to build a fort around it the following summer, when it was warm enough to be out all day. Until then, however, to claim it as their own, Harold had used his pocket knife to carve out the initials for “Harlold’s and Bill’s Secret Club.” Harold hadn’t gone back to the tree after Willie died, and he never told anyone about it.	His stomach was in knots all day. He went home early, telling his boss he had a fever. # 	That night, Harold didn’t sleep. He lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling and listening to Nancy’s rhythmic breathing. After several hours, Harold realized how tense his body was. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly, as he relaxed his muscles.&nbsp;	He felt himself rolling to the left as Nancy turned her body towards him. Harold opened his eyes to see her smiling at him.	“Haaaaaaarold. Haaaaaarold,” she said. “I know what you did to Willie.”	“Stop it!” Harold shouted, “I don’t want to hear it anymore!” This just made her laugh that slow, deep laugh.	“I know all about what you did to Willie. You were out of school because of the snow storm. You went back out to see your tree. You wanted to make plans for your fort, and you saw the pond,” she said in her not-quite Nancy voice.	“Shut up! Just shut UP!” Harold was becoming hysterical.	“The pond was frozen over, and you dared Willie to walk out on it,” Nancy said.	“Please! Don’t do this anymore,” Harold sobbed. Nancy continued, ignoring his pleading.	“You called him a coward. ‘You’re a little chicken,’ you said. You made him so angry he cried. And then he started to walk out onto the ice. You watched him and you laughed. But he didn’t see the cracks forming in the ice,” she said.	Harold moaned. “I tried to yell at him to come back, but he wouldn’t listen. He just kept walking,” he whispered.	“And then he fell in. He screamed once, and then he disappeared under the ice. And what did you do? Nothing! You stood there. You didn’t even try to help him. You ran to get your parents and you left him there. You told your parents he had gone out to the ice on his own,” she said.	“I didn’t mean for it to happen!” he cried.	“Haaaaaaarold, Haaaaaarold, Haaaaaaaarold.” Nancy laughed her low, evil laugh.	Harold couldn’t take it anymore. Screaming, he picked up his pillow and covered Nancy’s face. He straddled her with his knees as she thrashed around, trying to throw him off of her. After what felt like an eternity, Nancy stopped moving. Harold sobbed beside her. # 	After hearing his story, Harold’s public defender encouraged him to plead insanity. A man with no criminal history, who killed his wife because he believed she was haunting him in her sleep was certainly crazy. He was confident that with the testimony of a psychiatrist, while Harold would spend the rest of his life in a mental health facility, it was a more appealing option than the alternative–life in prison with no chance of parole. However, Harold chose to plead guilty to the murder of his wife, because for one thing, he wasn’t insane—he knew what he’d seen—and for another, he had loved his wife. He knew he deserved to pay for what he’d done to Nancy. So, in a brief trial lasting only three days, Harold was sentenced to life imprisonment at Ionia Correctional Facility, where, at least, he had a cell to himself.		After a few months had passed, Harold had resigned himself to his new life in prison. It wasn’t all bad, as he had access to a library, as well as a few hours of rec time each day. He spent most of his time reading or attending the daily church services led by the elderly prison chaplain. He kept to himself and did his best to stay out of everyone’s way.	One night as Harold was sleeping, he dreamt that he was walking through a snowy wood. He was young, and his brother Bill was with him. They came to a massive oak tree with the letters ‘HBSC’ carved into it. Harold was reaching out his hand to feel the letters when he was startled awake by the sound of a man’s slow, deep laughter, coming from the cell next door. Harold pulled the thin bed sheet over his head and covered his ears with his hands, but it wasn’t enough to silence the voice.	“Haaaaaaaaaaarold. Haaaaaaaarold. I know what you diiiiiiiid.”

I Know What You Did

WritingReese

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I Know What You Did

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Reese Black

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