When my mom told me not to visit for three months due to “renovations,” I didn’t think much of it at first. She’d always been a bit particular about her space, and I figured she wanted to manage things without the added stress of visitors. But as time passed, something about it gnawed at me. My mother and I were close, and suddenly, she seemed distant, only texting sporadically and never picking up my calls.
After weeks of excuses, I decided to surprise her. I drove the four hours to her home, expecting to find construction crews or plastic sheets covering the furniture. But when I pulled into the driveway, the house looked the same—no work trucks, no ladders, nothing that screamed “renovations.” My stomach tightened. Something was off.
I knocked on the door. No answer. I rang the bell—still nothing. A sense of unease crept up my spine. My mother never ignored the doorbell. I reached under the flowerpot where she always kept a spare key and let myself in.
The moment I stepped inside, an overwhelming stench hit me. It was sickly sweet, mixed with something rotten. The air was thick, almost suffocating. I called out, “Mom?” but the only response was the creak of the wooden floor beneath my feet.
I moved cautiously, stepping toward the kitchen, where I expected to find her. Instead, I found something else—an eerie silence punctuated by the faint sound of buzzing. Flies. My breath hitched.
Then I saw it.
The living room, once pristine and filled with my mother’s carefully arranged antiques, was in complete disarray. Furniture was overturned, broken picture frames littered the floor, and in the middle of it all lay a massive plastic sheet—something lumpy underneath. My heart pounded as I stepped closer, each breath feeling heavier than the last.
With trembling hands, I peeled back the sheet.
My legs nearly gave out. Beneath it was a decomposing body—face unrecognizable, but the clothes, the silver bracelet on the wrist—I knew them. It was my mother.
A strangled scream tore from my throat. My mind raced. Who would do this? Why? My mother had no enemies, no reason for something so horrific. And then, from the corner of my eye, I saw movement. My pulse thundered in my ears as I turned.
A man stood in the hallway, half-shadowed. I barely recognized him—my own uncle, my mother’s estranged brother. His eyes were dark, hollow.
“She wouldn’t let it go,” he murmured, his voice eerily calm. “She kept digging into things that should’ve stayed buried.”
I didn’t wait to hear more. Adrenaline surged through me as I bolted for the door, his footsteps pounding behind me. I barely made it to my car before he lunged. Tires screeched as I sped away, hands shaking, tears blinding me.
Later, the police found him trying to flee. It turned out my mother had uncovered a long-buried family secret—one he had killed to keep hidden. But in the end, the truth came out.
And it was bloodier than I could have ever imagined.
