Dear Tyler Turnpike,

I know what you know. Keep your mouth shut. Or there'll be more than one funeral this month.

-Secret Keeper

Tyler Turnpike had watched when Jason Hargrove faked his own death.

He was supposed to meet the Kleizmick siblings in the woods to hang out with them. Tyler trudged through the trees, trying to find the two of them. They usually met up a little ways down from Lakeside Bridge...

Tyler paused and cursed himself for his stupidity. They usually met on the other side of the bridge.

That was his first mistake.

Groaning, Tyler turned around and headed back towards the bridge. As he neared, voices echoed through the trees. Tyler recognized them.

Vera and Jason.

What are they doing here? They never hang out in the woods.

Tyler walked a little further and found the two walking up the bridge.

They must be walking home.

Tyler shrugged it off and continued climbing the hill to go down on the other side of the bridge where Jordan and Julia should be.

And then Tyler looked down.

That was his second mistake.

Beneath the bridge were three people dressed in all black, wearing masks. Two of them looked like girls, the last one a tall boy. One of the girls and the boy set down a long narrow machine that looked something like a refrigerator shaped as a coffin. The temperature on the side of the machine read, "98.6°F". It was something straight from a sci-fi movie.

Some sort of instinct told Tyler to duck down, so that's what he did. He dropped to the ground and hid, using the inclination of the hill and a fallen tree trunk to cover him, peering up at the odd scene above him. Nothing could prepare him for what he was about to see.

They opened the machine and inside was Jason's body. Tyler clasped a hand over his mouth to stop himself from screaming. He looked up at where Jason was sitting on the bridge railing. He looked back down at the body in the machine. They looked exactly the same.

The dark blond hair the spread out down the side of his face in waves was combed exactly the same. They had the same body shape and height. Even their clothes were the exact same. He couldn't see the color of the fake Jason's eyes, but he had no doubt that they would be an emerald green.

Gloved hands lifted fake Jason's body out of the machine and onto the damp ground. As the other two closed the machine again, one of the girls moved and bent the limbs at different angles. It looked like he fell from the top.

And then Vera screamed. Tyler looked up just in time to see Jason falling. But he was falling slowly. His hand was clasped around the end of an elastic rope like the kind you would see in a rock climbing course. His feet touched the ground lightly as Vera's shrill shouts echoed through the woods. 

The girl on the ground stood up and took the rope from Jason's hands. She propelled herself up onto the rope and climbed it using only her hands, disappearing from sight. The two other masked people quickly carried the heavy machine back around to a ledge in the bridge. With a start, Tyler noticed the small maintenance door hidden in the side of the bridge.

Jason approached fake Jason's body on the ground and pulled out some gloves, slipping them on as he crouched down next to the body. Tyler couldn't read Jason's expression from the distance. As Jason grabbed a nearby rock, the girl from earlier landed back down on the ground, crouching. She had a contraption in her hands, the one with the rope in it that must've been latched to the side of the bridge to help slow Jason's fall.

She ran to the two carrying the machine and slipped in front of them, dropping the contraption onto the machine and taking out a key from her pocket. She inserted the key into the maintenance door and held it open as the two people pushed the machine through the door.

In the meantime, Jason had grabbed a nearby rock and, after a moments hesitation, slammed it down on the fake Jason's head. Blood spilled from the open wound. Jason carefully placed the rock beneath his counterpart's head.

Suddenly, voices emerged. All four of them looked up. Tyler couldn't make out exactly what the voices were saying, but he recognized the sound of them.

Julia and Jordan.

Tyler was frozen in place as Jason cursed ripped the gloves off of his hands. He threw them to the girl holding the door and she caught in one smooth motion. Jason scrambled up the hill as he motioned the others to leave. The people carrying the machine picked up their pace and disappeared inside the bridge. After a moment's hesitation, the girl let the door close shut and stayed hidden behind the ledge.

Jason disappeared from view on the top of the other hill, but his voice echoed through the trees, mixing with Jordan and Julia's voices. He must've been talking to them to stop them from going further and seeing the dead body identical to Jason's.

Suddenly, the shouting increased. A mere moment later, Jason rolled down the hill, head over heels, and landed right next to his fake dead body.

He looked down at the body next to him and hesitated for a split second until the girl reached out to him and hissed, "Jason."

That shook him enough and he slipped behind the ledge, both of them hiding in the shadows as Julia ran down the hill. She collapsed at fake Jason's body and Jordan followed slowly afterward. Both of them looked mortified as they stared down at the body.

They think it's the real Jason. They think he's dead.

Tyler should've said something. He should've stood up and approached the grieving siblings. He should've told them that their brother was really alive and hiding only five feet away. But he didn't. He was paralyzed on the spot, forced to watch the devastation in front of him unfold.

That was his third mistake.

Jason leaned his head backwards against the stone of the bridge and looked up whispering two words. Tyler couldn't hear him, but he could read his lips clearly:

I'm sorry.

Julia held the bloody rock in her hands for a moment before letting it slip from her fingers. It rolled down the hill and merely a few inches away from Tyler. No one noticed.

Suddenly the two siblings looked up as Vera's voice emerged again. They looked at each other before Julia stood up and started dragging Jordan away.

Oh no.

Julia and Jordan disappeared from view just as Vera collapsed to the ground next to fake Jason. She was crying his name.

Once again, Tyler wanted to shout out to Vera and tell her what was happening. And he almost did. Watching Vera cry over Jason's body, Jason's pained look as Vera's sobs spread through the bridge, the small hug the masked girl was giving Jason was enough to nearly push Tyler out of his paralyzed state. But just as he was about to stand up and say something, sirens echoed through his ears and lights blinked in the distance.

Tyler had no idea how they knew to show up, but as he looked back at Jason's unsurprised facial expression, he knew Jason called him here. He must've sent in the anonymous tip himself.

Either way, Vera staggered to her feet and scrambled away from the scene of the crime. The masked girl slipped the key back out of her pocket and slid it into the door, twisting it open. She disappeared through the door and Jason, after pausing for a moment and inspecting the scene around him, followed her into the darkness.

The door shut with a click, leaving behind no trace of the events that had truly transpired. The only thing left was the dead body that looked like Jason lying on the ground, blood flowing from an open wound in the side of his skull.

Tyler already knew the police would rule it as an accident. They would say that he died from falling off the bridge. No one would ever suspect the real events that had occurred before his very eyes. Tyler didn't believe them himself.

Tyler looked around and his eyes landed on the bloody rock lying only a few inches away from his fingers. With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he realized that Julia's finger prints were on the rock. If the police decided to check, they would peg her at the scene of the crime and say that she killed him. Even if Tyler went forward and expressed what he had seen, they would never believe him. Nothing like this had ever happened in history.

But still, Tyler needed to figure out what happened. He needed to understand why Jason had decided to fake his death. What was Jason hiding? Who were all of the other people? Who was the person on the ground?

Tyler intended to find out. But until then, he needed to remain under the radar. They can't know that he, or anyone else, was at the scene of the crime. They would never let him solve the case.

Tyler pocketed the rock and ran.

Author: Welcome to Part 3. Only three more chapters left. Read with caution, because I don't hold back.