By Ashley Chang

Wenzao Ursuline College of languages 41st English Writing

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Written by Wei-Yu Chang

E4B

Instructor: Kenneth M. Smith

Wenzao Ursuline College of

Languages

Kaohsiung, Taiwan

June 2010

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Story Type: Mystery

Number of Words: 1757

Words in Oxford 3000: 92%

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Contents* ----------------------------------------

About the author-----------04

Synopsis----------------------05

Characters-------------------06

The Fate ----------------------07

The Marriage ---------------09

The Calm---------------------12

The Storm -------------------15

4

---------------------------------------- The Awareness ----------------18

Ricky’s Revenge---------------22

Taking Action------------------23

The last Thing----------------24

Relief----------------------------25

References---------------------26

Acknowledgment------------27

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About the Author* -------------------------------------------

Ashley Chang (1991- )

I am now studying in Wenzao Ursuline College

of Languages, in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. My major is

English and minor is German. This is the first time

for me to write a novel. I have always been fascinated

with mysteries and detective novels or films. After I

read a short story about murder, I decided to write

this story title”The Coldest Summer.” Hope this novel

is thrilling enough to make you get chills.

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Synopsis*

----------------------------------------

During the summer of 1998, Ricky met his

wife, Rose. It seems everything was going well after

they married, until the death of Rose came without

warning. Due to the fact of Rose’s death, the invisible

fiend got under Ricky’s skin and made him sick.

HOW could he get rid out of this fiend?

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Characters*

----------------------------------------

Rose – A 28-year-old interior designer.

Ricky- A 32-years-old architect.

Josh - A client of Rose and Ricky.

John - A mysterious man who started a

new ice cream store.

Mr. G- One of the partners in this unique

contract.

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The Fate*

It was a hot summer day, Ricky went to work as

usual. He was thirty-two years old and was

hard-working, perhaps even someone might call him a

workaholic. He worked all day long, unless his friends

invited him to have a drink together. Currently he was

working for Schiverung GmbH, one of the main

architectural companies in Germany. His

well-designed buildings and enthuses for his works

makes him one of the most famous architects in this

circle.

Josh, one of Ricky’s best friends, was planning

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to start his own clothing store. It had already been

decided that Ricky would be in charge of the

architecture for this new store. Rose, who was going

to take charge of the interior design for Josh, was a

twenty-two-year old, single, competent woman. In

order to make the store able to attract customers, Josh

arranged a meeting for them three to get an overall

idea of what type of his store he had in mind.

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The Marriage*

After Ricky and Rose both had gotten an idea

of what to do, Ricky decided to meet Rose again

not only for discussing for details but also for the

desire to see her. It was one still and lovely night,

and after Ricky had finished his work for this

night, he called Rose and invited her to “the

Lamps”, a famous lounge bar, near the centre of

the city. It had been a week since they had that

meeting about the store. However, Ricky couldn’t

stop thinking about Rose? Her Homeric laughter

and sweet voice appeared as if she was just

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nearby. On the way to the bar, Ricky was excited

and nervous until he saw Rose was standing

outside the door under a street light. He was too

nervous to say anything instead Rose eagerly

waved her right hand and greeted him with a

smile. Then, they went into the lounge bar. The

jazz music and the romantic atmosphere there

attract lots of couples. Ricky ordered a cup of

coffee, and Rose chose an orange juice. After that,

they started to discuss how to create the structure

of that clothing store. While chatting, Rose was

attracted by Ricky’s unique ideas and

hard-working, humble behavior. They quickly

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built up a connection between them. After a few

months, they finished the design of the store and

decided to get married.

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The Calm*

Everything was fine since they got married.

Ricky went to work as usual, but he backed out some

of his overtime and came home earlier. Rose became a

career woman. She was, therefore, working in their

new house instead of working in office. Every

morning when Ricky woke up, Rose prepared their

breakfast. Later, Rose helped Ricky put on his blazer.

After a kiss good-bye, he went to work. This seemed

to be becoming a daily routine.

One day, when Ricky was leaving the house,

the phone rang. It was a strange voice that could

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hardly be heard. It was Rose’s client, John. He was

asking Rose about designing an ice cream store. Rose

quickly received this case. Then, following normal

procedures for interior design, Rose went out to

discuss with John for that new store.

They met at the same bar, the Lamps. However,

this time the atmosphere was totally different. No

romance, no laughter, instead all Rose could feel was

John’s seriousness toward this work and herself. She

felt uncomfortable every time John made eye-contact

or looked at her body. Rose quickly ended this

discussion and returned home. At dinner, Rose talked

about what happened during that meeting to Ricky.

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However, Ricky did not think too much about this at

that time.

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The Storm* After a few days, John invited her out again. At

first, Rose tactfully refused. “Yeah, I would like to go,

but I already have planned tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

“Well, ok! I was just wondering if you could help

me select curtains for my store.” However, that was

just one of his purposes.

“Oh, sure!” Because of her occupational disease,

she accepted without much thought.

“I think…It’s fine for me to cancel that meeting.”

She suddenly remembered that she had already

refused him.

“Really! That would be great. Thanks! Is it ok

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for me to pick you up at the main train station

tomorrow morning at nine?”

“Of course, that would be great.”

The next day, she left the following message for

Ricky. “I have to help that client that I told you about

to choose the curtains for his ice cream store. I will be

back at five p.m.”

It was still a hot summer day. John was waiting

for Rose to arrive. His heart was pumping when he

saw Rose approached. He took a deep breath, going

out off his car and caught Rose’s attention.

After Rose got in his car, John quickly gave her a

dozen red roses. She was surprised but refused the

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offering. However, it was too late to get rid of them.

John was losing control. He didn’t want to let Rose

out of his car, so he kept driving. Too scared to think,

Rose jumped out of the car.

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The Awareness*

Ricky came home at five p.m. as usual. He

crooned while he was looking for the right key.

However, Rose wasn’t home,

He waited until eight o’clock. It was already

late, and Rose hadn’t even called. Ricky tried to

contact her, but her cell phone was turned off

which was unusual that Rose always kept her cell

phone on when she was out. Ricky suddenly felt

something was wrong. Perhaps Rose was in

danger. He drove to the ice cream store to see if

and he noticed that

there was a message on the kitchen table.

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they were still there discussing the design of that

store.

However, the only thing Ricky saw was so

unbelievable, frightening, causing him to

trembling. The man was holding a huge sack. In

order to persuade himself that Rose wasn’t in that

sake, he was hiding himself to see what John was

going to do. While the man carried the sack onto

his shoulder, a familiar hair tie dropped out of the

sack. At that moment, he was aware of the fact

that Rose had been killed by John. He decided to

keep the evidence because he wanted revenge.

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Ricky’s Revenge*

After Ricky healed his wounded soul, he went

back to work. It seemed everything went on well, until

he stepped into the building where he worked.

Something strange happened, he kept trembling and

the death of Rose returned to his mind. Even when he

went to the supermarket, the feeling wouldn’t let him

go. Therefore, he had quitted his job for a while and

stayed at home for an entire week.

While Ricky was thinking how to get revenge

for his Rose, his e-mail signaled that” You’ve got

mail!” It was from a person, Mr. G, who Ricky

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hadn’t heard from before, but the topic of that e-mail

was so attractive and made him curious which was”

LET’S MAKE A CONTRACT.” He opened it and

the content showed Mr. G’s purpose was to murder

the person who was his enmity. For not being

suspect after murdering, Mr. G was asking Ricky to

commit murder by exchanging their targets, who

they wanted to kill.

Over the next few days, they contacted each

other by sending e-mails. At first, Mr. G sent Ricky

the personal information of his target and gave some

useful information for Ricky to confirm the target.

On the other hand, Ricky also sent him John’s

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information. The murder was already planned out.

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Taking Action*

After a few days, Ricky received the good

news from his conspirator. The e-mail showed the

news of John’s death. Also, there were a few photos

attached, which showed John’s corpse. After receiving

this news, he was relieved and thought he could live

without that illness anymore.

He went to a supermarket, however, when the

door opened, the same nauseating feeling came to him.

He screamed and wondered why it wouldn’t let him

go. Suddenly, an idea flashed through his mind. He

realized that things weren’t done yet.

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The last Thing*

Ricky called an agent in order to get the

information of where that person worked. Then, he

started his plan. He waited until late at night, drove to

an official building, hided behind it and looked around.

Here he saw, a kind, honest guy staggeringly out of

the building. Ricky calmed himself down, and got

closer to him. Slowly, inexpertly taking out the rope,

had wrapped the rope around the man’s neck. No one

noticed. The man died. Ricky quietly moved his body

to a dark, narrow alley. A perfect murder, no evidence

left behind.

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Relief*

Ricky returned home with accomplishment and

emailed to Mr. G with photos attached. Then, click

“Notify me when this note is read.” The only thing

that he was sure of was that he wouldn’t receive an

e-mail quoting “the letter was read.”

After everything had been done, he could

finally go back to work as usual. However, there’s

only one thing that could not returned that was

“Rose”.

The End

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References* References:

Images: http://tw.image.search.yahoo.com/sea

rch/images?ei=utf-8&fr=slv8-acer&p=killer

Acknowledgment*

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Dear Mr Smith Thank you very much for what you have taught me. I have really learned a lot from you. I am glad that I can be here in this classroom, and be your student in my fourth year in Wenzao. I have never seen such a considerate and helpful teacher like you. Every time when we were not able to finish our essay, you always postpone the deadline for us. Also, I can see how much attention you have put on us. You read and correct every essay by yourself and gave them to us in a short time. I really appreciated all you have done to us. I would say that though I am not the best writer in this classroom, I have got lot of writing skills from my earnest teacher, Mr Smith. Thank you so much. I will always keep it in mind forward. Yours truly, Ashley Chang

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After making a deal on this

contract, WHAT would Ricky do

to rescue himself?