The darkness deepens, a suffocating veil that smothers sound, leaving no trace of the world's comforting hum. Not a chirping cricket nor a buzzing insect dares to break the eerie silence, the howling of wolves and the whispering wind through the trees are also conspicuously absent, the only sound being the frantic rhythm of Vanessa's breath. She pauses for a moment and bites out her acrylic nails in a nervous frenzy before continuing her mission.  

Driven by an alien passion, a sinister force lurking over her shoulder like a haunting nun, she continues to dig. Her hands claw through the earth, their insistence almost desperate, as though they beg for this task to be done. Her fingers plunge deeper into the soil until they feel something chillingly smooth, yet unbearably cold.

 "I found him. I-I found him," she gleams, a strange blend of relief and breathlessness in her voice. But, she uncovers only the left hand chopped at the wrist, the tattoo of her name around his ring finger barely faded. Panic flickers her eyes as she searches the same hole, first north, south, to the east, but can't seem to find the rest of the body.

Suddenly, a torch casts its blinding light into the brooding darkness. Vanessa squints against the harsh brilliance, her pupils contracting painfully. She strains to see as she continues her feverish search for the rest of the body.

 "Vanessa?" The voice is familiar, and her heart skips a beat as she recognises it as her boyfriend's, Austin.

"Get down here and help me find him," she responds urgently, her tone tinged with desperation.

"No, not this again. He's dead, buried, forgotten and not in the middle of our backyard. That's what we agreed on. That's what is in the report." Austin's voice trembles with a mixture of fear and exasperation.

Vanessa, however, is relentless. She continues to dig, moving to another section of the land, crouched to the ground like a manic allegedly threatened by the unforeseen government and her movements erratic, like a cat covering its excrement in a fit of panic.

"He's out for blood," she says with a shiver, pausing for a minute to peer beyond the intense beam of the flashlight. "I saw him this morning as I drove to work. He-he said something...uh, something about revenge." She swallows hard and apprehensively. "He fogged my rear-view mirror, then started wiping it one streak at a time like a sinister puzzle until he revealed his ghastly, pale face and dark eyes," she cries in horror.

Rolling his eyes, and his patience thinning, Austin moves towards her, a firm grip taking hold of her arm. She screams softly, her voice failing her as he compels her to her feet, his fingers digging into her skin with an almost painful urgency.

"Marvin died, in peace, better than he deserved. You're just tired. Ever heard of mercury in food? That must be it," he dismisses, guiding her unsteadily back to the house and directly to the bathroom.

He helps her shed her dirt-stained clothes and fills the bathtub, the water cascading into the tub with a soothing murmur.  Making sure she's inside and relaxed, he settles to give her a massage when a phone rings outside in the bedroom, the shrill sound cutting through the stillness. Austin hurriedly excuses himself, promising to return.

But that's just it, the perfect moment where the wind outside howls with malevolent fury. A branch scrapes against a window, its nails-on-chalkboard sound sending shivers down Austin's spine and he drops the phone before he could answer, the lights in the house beginning to flicker ominously. He then hears a violent splash of water in the bathroom, followed by an eerie silence.

"Vanessa?" he calls out in growing panic, the voice trembling as fear takes hold.

Rushing back to the bathroom, Austin's heart races as he finds the bathtub empty, the window thrown wide open, curtains fluttering like ghostly specters.

As he approaches the window, a bottle of shower gel crashes to the floor, its contents spilling like an omen. Just as he's turning to investigate, his feet slip on the soapy mess, and he falls to the ground with a resounding thud.

A chilling déjà vu plagues him in that moment. Haunting memories flood his mind, an eerie, blood-curdling cry echoes with the promise of retribution, prodding at his already terror-stricken consciousness.

Marvin had broken into the house wanting to surprise Vanessa and maybe convince her they are meant for each other. He decided to take a shower first before he could make them dinner. Bold, as this was Austin's house. When Austin found him, shower gel had spilt in the struggle, Austin lost his footing and Marvin had attempted to flee, but Austin managed to seize Marvin's leg, joining him on the floor in a chaotic tangle of fear and vengeance.

Presently, Austin stumbles outside, his heart racing with dread. Vanessa, disrobed and fraught, has returned to her relentless digging. His anger and agitation surge as he rushes toward her.

"Leave him be! He's not a ghost set out on a mission for blood. He doesn't have the bones for it," he yells, attempting to convince himself of the truth he clings to.

Vanessa, resolute, begins to hum in an unwavering tone, almost like a mantra, or the resolve of a climber scaling a perilous peak as the only way free is the top of the mountain.

She's assembled half of the body now, a jigsaw puzzle of dismembered limbs, including three of the limbs, his private area and the hand she found earlier. Austin makes a desperate attempt to pull her away, but she remains adamant, chanting the mantra in a hoarse voice under her frantic breaths, "I need my body!"

Austin sighs in resignation and retreats to the house. The pain in his left arm throbs incessantly, a painful reminder of the violence he had inflicted. It's the same hand he punched Marvin with to unconsciousness and the same one that swung an axe with a murderous intent, leaving Marvin's skull fractured before he chopped him into several grisly pieces and buried him in the backyard.

The tension in the air reaches its zenith as Vanessa unearths the head and torso, the final pieces of the grotesque puzzle. The dead body then starts convulsing, missing its left arm to shoulder. A chilling transformation unfolds as the lifeless cadaver appears to take on a life of its own, and Vanessa herself begins to convulse in synchrony.

"I take what's mine!" she screams in a painful screech, her body mimicking the corpse beside her.

The reanimated corpse falls back into stillness just as Austin returns, horror-stricken. Vanessa rises from her position on the ground and leaves the backyard in an aftermath of a rabbit's invasion, calmly walking back to the house as if nothing just happened.

"Vanessa, hey! We can't leave it like this. The neighbours will see," Austin pleads desperately, the fear in his voice evident.

"Let them!" she retorts, her voice strangely deeper, adenoidal, and unmistakably male. It's a disconcerting change that doesn't escape Austin's notice. The very same way Marvin used to speak that tickled Austin's ears, and not in a good way.

"I'm not going to prison because you were overwhelmed with guilt. It's been two years; they found his arm in a dumpster," he reminds her of the story they had fabricated. 

"But I'm lying in your backyard, aren't I?" she replies, stopping abruptly and turning to face him.

His heart races as he takes a hesitant step forward, the grip of fear tightening its hold.

"You had nothing to do with this, remember, Vanessa? You weren't home."

"No? Wasn't she laughing when you struck me with an axe?"

His breath quickens as his mind races with terrifying thoughts. "Stop playing with me, Vanessa."

She nonchalantly brushes dirt from her shoulders, a boastful gesture Marvin used to do.

"She's dead!"

Austin is visibly shaken, his world unravelling before him. "This isn't a joke. You said you never wanted to see him again. You said he's better off dead."

Vanessa takes a menacing step closer, her gaze predatory, like a leopard sizing up its prey.

"Surrender!" she yells to the night.

As he tries to avoid her cunning advance, Austin stumbles over the lifeless body sprawled on the ground. The grotesque, disjointed figure begins to move, creeping slowly and with a deliberate, eerie purpose, like a spider seeking the ideal angle of attack. It rises onto its two feet, when Vanessa's limp body joins, collapsing atop Austin.

Marvin's lifeless form shrieks into Austin's face, and the world dissolves into a nightmarish abyss. His consciousness slips away as the last thing he remembers is the taste of dirt, filling his gaping mouth.

Written from First Prompt

1431 words