Every morning, as the first light of dawn crept over the horizon, I watched my neighbor, Mrs. Thompson, walk into her yard. She was always punctual, stepping out at precisely 6:30 a.m. with a yellow garden hose in her hand. It was a routine I had come to expect. What struck me, however, was the strange, repetitive nature of it. Every single day, she watered the same small patch of ground near the corner of her fence. The rest of her yard, brimming with flourishing tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries, remained dry and untouched.
At first, I thought she must be growing something delicate in that spot. Maybe a special type of plant that needed extra care, something precious to her. But after several days of watching her carefully water the same patch, I noticed something odd: nothing was growing there. The soil remained moist, but it was bare, devoid of any sign of life. No tender sprouts, no leaves, not even a single blade of grass. Just wet, dark soil.
Curiosity gnawed at me, and soon I found myself walking over to the fence one afternoon when Mrs. Thompson was out there, watering as usual. I gathered the courage to ask her.
“Mrs. Thompson, why do you water that patch of ground every day? I’ve noticed that there’s nothing growing there.”
She froze, her hands trembling slightly as she held the hose. Her face turned pale, and for a moment, she didn’t speak. She glanced at me with wide eyes, clearly startled by the question, before muttering under her breath.
“I have potatoes there… a special variety. They need a lot of water to grow.”
Potatoes? I stared at the empty patch, unable to suppress a skeptical smile. Potatoes don’t grow on bare soil, and certainly not with the amount of water she was using. I knew she was lying, but I didn’t press the matter further. I decided to observe for a few more days, hoping for some sign of what was truly going on.
Over the course of the following week, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. Every morning at 6:30, she would repeat her routine. The soil remained just as dry as the day before, and the oddity of the situation only deepened. Mrs. Thompson herself seemed more and more agitated. Her eyes darted around nervously whenever I passed by, and she avoided looking directly at me. There were moments when I caught her watching me from behind her curtains, her gaze heavy and filled with what seemed like fear.
That night, I lay awake, unable to quiet my racing thoughts. The image of that barren patch haunted me. I felt an unease building within me, like an itch I couldn’t scratch. What was she hiding? Why was she so determined to water that spot when there was no sign of any plants? I couldn’t ignore the gnawing feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right.
The next morning, driven by an urge I couldn’t explain, I called the police. I know it probably sounded ridiculous—who calls the authorities over a woman watering her garden? But the strange behavior, the lies, and the tension in the air had me worried. I gave them my report, though I could tell they didn’t take it seriously at first. The dispatcher seemed skeptical, but after some hesitation, she agreed to send someone over to investigate.
Within the hour, two officers arrived at Mrs. Thompson’s house. I watched from my window as they approached her yard, knocking on the door. Mrs. Thompson answered, and I could see her talking to them in an animated way. She appeared visibly shaken, as if she knew this moment was coming. The officers walked around the yard with her, taking a few notes, but it wasn’t long before their expressions shifted. They stopped in front of the patch of earth that she had been watering daily, and I saw the confusion written across their faces.
One of the officers crouched down to examine the soil, his expression hardening as he pulled something from the ground. My heart raced. What were they finding?
Moments later, I saw them beckoning other officers from their cars, and the scene quickly became more serious. The police had found something in the soil—something that made their faces drain of color. I watched in stunned silence as they carefully dug into the earth, revealing something horrifying.
Buried beneath the soil was a small bundle, wrapped tightly in plastic. As they unearthed it, the officers’ hands trembled. The bundle was too rigid, too solid to be anything natural. With a gentle tug, they pulled it free from the earth and unwrapped the plastic. Inside, they found something that made my stomach turn—small, delicate bones, wrapped in a way that suggested they had been buried there for years.
The horror of the discovery hit me all at once. Mrs. Thompson had been watering the soil every day not for potatoes, but to conceal something. Something dark and twisted. The officers exchanged grim looks as they carefully examined the remains. I couldn’t help but feel the weight of the truth settling over me. This wasn’t about gardening—it was something far more sinister.
As the police continued their investigation, Mrs. Thompson was arrested. Her trembling hands and the hollow look in her eyes revealed a guilt too heavy to ignore. What had she been hiding all these years? What had driven her to bury the remains in her own yard, day after day, to water them, as if trying to wash away the past?
In the days that followed, the truth slowly began to emerge. Mrs. Thompson had been hiding the remains of a person who had gone missing years ago. The victim, a local teenager, had vanished without a trace, and no one had suspected Mrs. Thompson. The police believed she had been involved in the disappearance, and now, the evidence was undeniable.
As the investigation continued, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had been witness to something much darker than I had ever imagined. My neighbor, the woman I had waved to on countless occasions, had been living a double life, hiding the most horrific secret beneath the surface. And for years, she had watered that same patch of ground, perhaps believing she could somehow erase the past.
Now, that secret was out, and there was no going back. The quiet, seemingly ordinary neighbor I had once known was gone, replaced by someone who had been hiding something far more sinister than I could have ever imagined.