in the hope that that spark would ignite a dying flame.

But after the accident four years ago,

the tension in the atmosphere between myself and Karen

was simply frozen, I mean our relationship was

beyond on thin ice, it had fully melted

into a river of mindless blame and guilty regret.

And she wanted a divorce.

I mean, I didn't but I guess I knew deep down

that it was inevitable.

In the winter 2014 Karen and I had been together

for six years, we've been married for three

and I have to say, our connection was on another level.

Beyond comprehension, like we were on fire

with electrically charged passion

until our emotions met face to face

with spontaneous combustion.

February frost layered the midnight road

as the full moon reflected glistening flickers of diamond

surrounding the yellow cat eyes guiding our car home.

We were coming back from Karen's brother's birthday party.

We were only like three miles from the house.

It was a Tuesday night, the road was completely void

of any other signs of life, empty, vacant and inanimate.

Until it suddenly lit up.

I was driving, Karen was way too drunk to drive

and I shouldn't have been behind the wheel

of that car either and I knew that but no one else

at the party seemed sober enough to understand that.

So I was admittedly way beyond my limit.

And I take full responsibility for that.

But I felt so pressured!

My wife, her brother, even his wife, they,

they all kept pushing me to drive.

They kept saying thing like,

it's not that far, you'll be the only one

on the road, don't be a wimp.

You know?

It was hard, we should have just walked.

But we didn't.

I got behind the wheel of that car

and within one mile from our house I destroyed everything

that Karen and I ever had.

But the darker side of the story would stain

our entire lives forever, til death do us part.

Karen wanted to hear some music

but she was too drunk to work the car stereo.

She was in full on blacked-out party mode at this stage.

I was trying to find a station for her,

when I noticed that she was taking off her clothes.

She was looking at me licking her lips.

I remember looking into her beautiful blue eyes

and thinking how hot she looked and bam!

We hit a young woman walking home

from her next door neighbor's house.

She died instantly, she was seven months pregnant.

It took the ambulance a full hour to get to our location.

It took the cops two.

When the blues finally arrived

and finished taking our statements,

they breathalyzed me but of course I was no longer

over the legal limit at that stage.

So the accident was attributed to frost.

A frost that chilled both Karen and I down to cracked shells

of our formed selves, worn out insoles of our souls.

If that.

We never forgave ourselves or each other for that matter

and we were never the same again.

Why would we be?

We were the worst kind of murderers.

And we got away with it.

We slept in our own beds that very night

while the dead woman's husband identified the baldy broken

pregnant body of his wife.

Come to think of it, we didn't do much sleeping.

And I sill don't.

Four hard, long years later

Karen served me with divorce papers.

She had nothing left, I knew it.

She told me that she was empty inside

and that the only way we could possibly move on

was to not be together.

I didn't want her to go, pack her stuff and move out

but she was doing the right thing.

So she started putting her stuff into boxes.

Her brother Stephen caught wind of this

and he wasn't happy, apparently Karen told his wife Alison

about the divorce papers and Alison had tried to talk Karen

out of it but Karen told Alison her mind was set.

Stephen came straight over to the house

with Alison and they begged us not to give up hope.

Stephen broke down and told us how responsible he felt

for everything that had happened that night in 2014.

I tried to tell him that he was only prolonging our pain

by trying to convince us to stay together.

Karen agreed, then Alison started crying

and mumbling that it was all her fault.

I told everyone very firmly

that it was my fault and mine alone.

I could have chosen not to drive that night but I did.

And that's that.

When I said that, everyone stopped talking.

There was an awkward silence echoing of the walls

in the room for several moments while everyone realized

the inevitable truth, it was over.

Then a single heartbeat spoke.

It was Stephen, he made us promise to go

on one more camping trip before we part ways for good.

We used to go camping with them five or six times a year.

You know, two couples, open air, beer,

blazing fire, tents, all that kind of stuff.

To be honest, it was something I hadn't realized

that I was going to miss or something

that I was already missing.

I glanced across the room at Karen,

she was already looking at me.

I could see an ever so slight raise in her high cheekbones.

The thought of a final camping trip pleased her.

It was a spark.

Two days later we packed our bags

and headed for the Freetown State Forest.

Stephen drove, I hadn't driven a car since the accident.

I set up front in the passenger's seat

and you know what, the drive over to Massachusets

was unexpectedly alive and energetic.

I mean, it was like magic.

Karen's mood was in a state I hadn't seen it in since,

since I could last remember.

Her and Alison buzzed in the back set

while I controlled the music.

For the first time in four years I could touch a car stereo

without flashbacks from the accident.

And there was this playfulness between Karen and I.

Not quite a fire but a definite hope.

It felt good.

Karen had decided to bring one of our old photo albums

along for the trip, neither of us had looked at pictures

in a long long time, hell we hadn't taken a single picture

together in four years.

The day before we left Karen told me

that if there was a chance for us,

even a single shred of light, she figured we'd find it

in that photo album or in those woods.

We arrived at Freetown State Forest at about 3:30 p.m.

On the way in, just past the forest sign

something ran across the road, inches away from the car,

causing Stephen to swerve and come to full stop

in the middle of the road.

Now, I admittedly didn't get a good look

at whatever it was but I thought I saw an animal.

Like a deer or something, but I don't know,

it was too fast and Karen and Alison didn't see anything.

Stephen swore it wasn't a deer.

He said it had antlers but he swears it was wearing a cloak

and had a skull for a head or something.

I assured him that it was just a deer

and eventually he agreed and shrugged it off.

I mean, it gave us all the shakes for a few minutes

but we all calmed down surprisingly quick considering,

well you know, 2014.

Anyway, we parked the car and walked for about a mile

to set up camp somewhere far away from other campers.

When we got to our site, the ladies made a fire pit

while Stephen and I set up the tents.

And again, the mood was as sunny and bright

as the September weather that surrounded the woods.

For a moment I thought the trip might actually be working.

Three hours later we had music from a wind-up radio.

A campfire blazing and the sun was setting beautifully

under the tops of the trees surrounding our site.

The four of us sat around the fire and conjured up memories

that I had forgotten about.

We laughed through the years of our past

and fought of the tears of a future

that we all silently feared would have

a drastic effect on, well, all of us.

As Stephen recalled a camping trip

from years ago when we all encountered a bear

that was fond of marshmallows, I looked over at Karen

only to find her gaze was already consuming my direction.

She smiled under her brother's voice

and continued to gaze at me through the dancing flame

burning between us, igniting the spark

that I was looking for.

We still had a chance.

After hours of reminiscing, several adult beverages

and a bit of admittedly tone-deaf singing,

Stephen and Alison said goodnight to Karen and I

before disappearing through

the unzipped hatch in their tent.

I winded up the radio to give it another charge

and threw some more logs on the fire

while Karen disappeared into our tent to get something.

Moments later Karen returned and silently sat down

right next to me, in front of the fire,

holding a massive black leather photo album.

I knew this album very well.

It had pictures in it from as far back as the first year

Karen and I started dating, all the way up to our wedding

and honeymoon, I could feel it.

This was our redemption, or at least it was supposed to be.

Karen smiled into my eyes, leaned toward me,

lightly pressed her warm lips against mine

and kissed me for the first time

in four heartbreaking years.

It felt so good.

It felt so.

But it was the last time

that Karen would ever kiss me again.

Karen placed the photo album in our laps

and slowly opened it to the first page of photographs.

So many memories came flooding back to me.

Karen immediately began to tear up.

We held each other for an hour

and talked about every single photo in that album.

One by one until we got to the last photo.

As Karen turned the final page in the album,

there was one last full page photograph of us on the left.

We were in a car, driving somewhere,

like a road trip or something, I don't remember,

but what I do remember is that both of our faces

were completely scratched off the photo.

It took me a minute to realize it was us.

To be honest I, I recognized the car first.

It was that car, our murder weapon.

Then our attention was drawn to the inside

of the back cover of the album.

The right side.

Across from the haunting photo of Karen and I,

there was something written in red, fresh red liquid.

I read it out loud, if you yourself cannot release,

then it will come to take a piece.

I asked Karen if she did this,

if she destroyed the photo and wrote the message

but she swore that she didn't.

I told her that it wasn't very funny

and that I felt very hurt by this

but again, she promised me that she had nothing to do

with what was in that album.

She was about to say something else

when a horrifying sound rang out

through the midnight forest.

(distant wailing)