by Boris Bacic
Probably because she knew that her time was almost up, and she wanted to fix things before dying.
Jill never knew whether her mother was religious or not, but she knew that people never really thought about fixing their mistakes until the threat of death started looming over their heads.
The front door closed, and moments later, Cheryl walked into the living room. She looked exhausted, as if she had spent two nights partying without a break.
“Have a good talk with Erika?” Jill asked.
She was sitting on the couch, and Cheryl took a seat on the sofa across from her. Her little sister shrugged.
“Nothing special, I guess.”
Jill leaned forward.
“Listen, um. I know that this thing with the will is not small news. I just want you to know that—”
Cheryl grimaced and shook her head to interrupt Jill.
“Let’s just drop it, Jill. Okay? You got the house, it’s yours. Now you can finally stop complaining about how Mom always loved me more than you.”
That came as a gut punch to Jill. She narrowed her eyes, flabbergasted at what Cheryl just said. It caught her off guard so abruptly that she didn’t even know what to say back in response. Cheryl whipped out her phone and frantically started scrolling through something.
“This has nothing to do with that, Cheryl,” Jill finally added.
“Oh, yeah? Then what?” Cheryl lowered her phone and looked up at Jill with a hostile expression.
Suddenly, Jill got angry, too.
“You’re a spoiled brat, you know that?” she said. “All your life, you got used to being in the center of Mom’s attention while I had to fight for it. And now, for once, you’re not Mom’s favorite, and the whole world stops because of it!”
“Well, excuse me for making a big deal out of not getting a portion of the fucking house I grew up in!”
“You think I wanted this house?! You think I even wanted to be here in the first place?! I hate Mom, you understand?! I hate her!”
The final sentence pierced the air and was followed by a deafening silence. It felt liberating to say that. Jill thought it many times, but she never actually vocalized it. Cheryl’s face contorted into a grimace, but then she returned to the assault with that same alacrity from before.
“You say that I’m a spoiled brat. But you know what? You are one ungrateful bitch!”
Jill shot up to her feet. She was pretty much ready to pull Cheryl’s hair out.
“What should I be grateful for, Cheryl?! For being treated like an unwanted child all my life?! For always being the one who got in trouble while you got off the hook easily?! For having to dread coming back home from school because I didn’t know if Mom was gonna have one of her mood swings?! You have no idea what it was like for me, and how could you?! You were always pampered, and you got everything you always wanted!” Jill had to fight to suppress the tears that threatened to well up in her eyes. “Well, guess what? You’re not in the center of the world, Cheryl! Nobody has to conform to your whims like Mom did when you were a kid!”
Cheryl clambered up to her feet, red in the face.
“You think you’re so much better than me!” she said. “Because you have a family and a good job?! Is that it?! Well, go on, keep the fucking house! If Mom was so horrible to you, then I don’t understand what you’re doing here in the first place!”
She spun on her heel and started towards the door. But Jill wasn’t done spewing vile words towards her. No, no. Cheryl started this war, but Jill was going to finish it.
“You’re right, I do think I’m better than you! And you know why?! Because I’m not so self-centered! Why do you think Tom left you?! Maybe stop and look around you for a moment instead of just focusing on you, you, and only y—”
A booming sound from upstairs caused Jill to stop speaking. A song on the radio from their mother’s room began playing. Cheryl looked how Jill felt—terrified. Both sisters instinctively looked up towards the ceiling, listening to the distorted, muffled music upstairs.
Jill silently gestured for Cheryl to follow her upstairs, instantly forgetting about the heated argument. Cheryl nodded timorously. Jill took the lead, and as soon as they approached the stairs, the song got louder. Jill recognized it as ‘I want to know what love is’ by Foreigner.
Tentatively, Jill started climbing the stairs, step by step, her eyes fixated on the top. She heard Cheryl’s terrified, trembling breath right behind her. The moment Jill set foot on the second floor, the song that played from her mother’s room started stuttering, repeating the same few words over and over.
Face it aga—
Face it aga—
Face it aga—
Jill noticed something else, too. She turned to Cheryl, whose face was now drained of all color.
“Did you leave Mom’s door open?”
Cheryl shook her head incredulously. Jill glanced back at the door. It was slightly ajar, just barely a crack. There was an intruder in the house. And he was in Mom’s room.
“Stay here while I check it out,” Jill said.
She didn’t look at Cheryl to see if she would agree with her. She tip-toed across the hallway, never once looking away from the door or blinking. As she approached the door, she peeked through the crack, expecting to see some sort of movement in the room.
Nothing, and if there was, it was too dark to see.
Jill grabbed the edge of the door and opened it. The door luckily produced no creaking noise. She gave the room another once over before stepping inside.
She barely had enough time to take a step forward when she heard a loud thud.
***
Cheryl stayed at the top of the stairs. Her arms were crossed, but she had her phone ready in her hand to call the cops if necessary. Somehow, however, she felt that the police wouldn’t be able to help them with whatever was going on in the house.
Jill disappeared into the room and then—
A muffled thud and a scream pierced the air.
“Jill!” Cheryl shouted.
“Cheryl! Get over here, quick!” Jill shouted from the room in what sounded like sheer panic.
Cheryl sprinted across the room and ran inside, looking around, the adrenaline pumping through her giving her the boost of courage she desperately needed to fight whoever was inside. She saw Jill standing in front of the bed with tense shoulders, her back straight as an arrow. Mom was no longer in bed.
“What the fu—” Cheryl started, and then her voice disappeared when she looked on the floor to the left.
Mom was lying on her back on the floor next to the bed. She was in the exact same position as she was when sleeping, and the first thing that came to Cheryl’s mind was that she rolled off the bed and continued lying in a coma.
But everything was still attached to her, and the machine and the covers on the bed were neatly pushed to the side, so it looked like someone had gently picked her up and placed her on the floor.
Cheryl looked around the room once more, just to make sure Jill didn’t, in her shock, miss seeing any intruders. It must have been almost a whole minute of Cheryl and Jill just staring at their mother’s body in a stupor, with Foreigner repeating the same lyrics brokenly when Jill finally broke into a gait forward.
She stepped around Mom’s body like it was contagious and furiously slammed the radio’s power button. The stuttering song stopped, leaving the room in silence. The sisters shared a terrified glance with each other. Jill rarely looked scared, but right now, Cheryl saw palpable fear in her eyes.
“What the fuck?” Jill asked with a hint of frustration.
Cheryl broke out of her trance and looked around the room one last time, just in case Jill had missed a potential intruder in her shock. She knelt down and looked under the bed. She expected to see a face staring back at her, but of course, no one was there.
***
Jill ran a hand through her hair. What the fuck was going on here? Was someone really in the house? Where did the
y go?
She glanced at the window and realized that it was closed. They didn’t escape through there. There were no other hiding spots in the room. Jill jerked her head towards Cheryl, causing her hair to fall into her face.
“We need to check the rest of the house,” she said.
Cheryl agreed. Together, they went from room to room until they checked every nook and cranny in the house. Eventually, they came to the conclusion that no one was there. Once they were sure that they were safe, they lifted their mom back on the bed and covered her with the blankets.
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Cheryl shrugged.
Her current docile mood was incongruous to her usual volatile personality, Jill noticed. She thought about Cheryl’s suggestion to call the cops.
“We shouldn’t jump the gun here,” she shook her head.
“There could be someone dangerous in the house, Jill!” Cheryl exploded, returning to her normal self.
“We just checked the house. For all we know, Mom just rolled out of bed on her own.”
“And turned on the radio in the process?” Cheryl raised an eyebrow.
Cheryl wasn’t going to believe her, Jill knew that right away. She pulled out her phone and said.
“Let’s call Violet and see what she says.”
Cheryl crossed her arms expectantly. She nervously shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Jill dialed Violet’s number and waited. It started ringing, and after a few rings, Violet answered.
“This is Violet. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can,” the voicemail said in Violet’s frigid tone.
“Hi, Violet. It’s Jill. Listen, something strange is going on with Annette. So um, would you mind getting back to me when you find a moment? Thanks,” she stated on the voicemail, and then ended the call.
She was disappointed that she couldn’t get Violet on the line right now to prove to Cheryl that this sort of thing was possible with comatose patients. A part of her also wanted Violet to reassure her as well, and not just Cheryl.
When Jill looked up at Cheryl, she saw her staring at her with a stern expression.
“I know what you’re suggesting, Cheryl,” she said.
“I’m not suggesting anything.”
“Ghosts aren’t real.”
“I’m not suggesting that!”
“Yes, you are. And that’s fine. But let’s be rational for a moment here. Both the front and back entrances were locked before Erika arrived. All the windows were closed. There was no way that someone just snuck inside without us knowing about it. So that eliminates the possibility of an intruder pushing Mom off the bed. And why would they do it in the first place?”
Cheryl looked nowhere in particular. Jill could tell that she wanted to believe her, but she was just too unnerved after what she saw.
“I think… yeah, maybe you’re right,” Cheryl looked back at her and pressed her lips together into a thin slit.
She said that in a patronizing tone. It was the tone she used whenever she dropped the ball and agreed with the other person just to get the argument over with.
“Alright,” Jill simply nodded, following her lead and also dropping the line of conversation.
“Listen, um… I’m gonna go to Erika’s for a bit. I need a moment away from this place.”
“Yeah, sure. Just call me if you need anything,” Jill solicitously remarked.
Cheryl nodded. Without a word, she left the room, stampeded down the stairs, and a moment later, the front door opened and slammed shut so loudly that the window rattled.
Jill suddenly felt uneasy standing in her mother’s bedroom. She exited and closed the door behind her. She suddenly felt a strong urge to check the one room she and Cheryl still didn’t check for any intruders—the office.
As Jill approached the door and grabbed the knob, she felt a knot forming in her stomach. For some reason, she knew that she would not like what she would find inside, and yet, she was unable to just leave the room be. She pushed the door open and peered inside.
She screamed at what she saw.
Chapter 19
Erika fumbled for the keys of her house and unlocked the door. Her hands still violently trembled, even five minutes after leaving Annette’s house. For the duration of her walk home, she contemplated whether telling Cheryl about the cave was a good idea.
She hadn’t planned on saying anything at all—ever. Annette made her promise once Cheryl was born that she would never tell a soul. At first, Erika didn’t even know what it was that she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone. All she knew was that Annette was convinced that something otherworldly was after her and that she was trying to protect herself.
But just like everyone else, Erika dismissed Annette’s paranoia as just that—paranoia.
She entered the house and closed the door behind her. She locked the door for the first time this early in years. As Erika made her way towards the kitchen, she held a hand over her mouth, reprimanding herself over and over for opening up to Cheryl.
Now the poor girl might go down the same path as Annette. And what if that leads to the same madness that Annette went through? Cheryl would surely visit later, and then Erika would fix the mistake she made. She will tell Cheryl that she was just scared and confused, and that her ravings shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Erika walked over to the kitchen sink and poured a glass of water for herself. Her legs suddenly felt wobbly. She had to hold the glass with both hands to stop the water from spilling. As soon as she took one sip, she felt much better. She turned around with the glass still in her hands and placed it on the counter. She sighed deeply as she glanced towards the living room. A low bang upstairs startled her.
Erika recognized that sound. She knew it all too well after living in this house for almost forty years. It was the window in the hallway upstairs. It had faulty hinges, and whenever it was left open, it would often slam shut from the draft, only to reopen on its own. Erika’s late husband Shane promised he’d fix it, but he never did. Erika must have forgotten to shut it before leaving.
She climbed upstairs, scolding herself for becoming so senile. Old age, after all. Every day, she left that window open for an hour or so a day to let some fresh air in, but she would put a rag or an old shirt on the windowsill to keep it from slamming into the frame. Maybe she forgot to put the rag there today in a hurry, when baking the chocolate nut cookies.
It wouldn’t be the first time it happened. But the solution was simple. Erika would just need to stop opening that faulty window. The last thing she needed would be a shattered window.
The bang came from upstairs louder this time, almost causing Erika to jump out of her skin.
She placed a hand on her chest, feeling the drumming of her heart. She climbed upstairs just in time to hear another startling bang from the window. When she finally reached it, she realized that the sound was indeed, coming from the window slamming.
She breathed a sigh of relief. A part of her thought that maybe it was something else, something… unnatural, but she dismissed that thought, telling herself that she was just influenced by Annette’s paranoia.
It happened in the past, too. She would visit Annette and listen to her talking about dark figures that visited her in the night. Erika would nod and listen, and then she would go home and start to feel like someone was standing just behind her all night long. On those nights, she would sleep with the lights on and a Bible next to her bed.
Erika approached the open window handle just as it was about to slam shut in full force. The glass rattled even at the slightest movement from the years of damage it sustained.
“Shane, Shane,” she said to herself melancholically with the shake of her head. “Maybe it’s about time I fix this stupid window myse—”
Something caused Erika to stop speaking. Did she hear that right just now? She jerked her head to the right and observed the hallway. The spot where Erika stood was illuminated by the moonlight, but the hallwa
y was enveloped in gradual darkness, the end of it not even visible through the blackness.
Erika stared into the dark, squinting through her thick glasses. She couldn’t tell if there was anything there, not just from the dark, but from how dirty her glasses were. Erika raised a hand and took the glasses off, lowering them to her shirt in order to wipe them.
Everything was so blurry without her glasses. Blind as a bat, she’d always say.
A dull thud came from the end of the corridor, causing Erika to jump. The glasses slipped from her hand and fell to the carpet with a muffled sound.
“Oh, blast it!” Erika said as she knelt down, ignoring her aching back and knees.
She felt the carpet with her palms and fingers while focusing her gaze at the end of the corridor, even though she couldn’t see a thing. She clapped the floor on all sides, but the glasses were nowhere to be found. This is what always happened to dropped items—they somehow end up on another continent.
Erika clapped her palm on the floor in frustration and then stopped. Her clap echoed. It echoed? Was that right? She slammed the floor with her other palm harder this time, and it echoed again.
Erika waited.
Silence.
“Hello? Is anybody there?” she squinted harder, but to no avail.
Her eyes were starting to hurt from exertion. Convinced that it must have been her imagination, Erika continued searching for her glasses—with gentler motions this time.
Even so, the sounds of her hand shuffling against the carpet echoed. What was going on here? Erika brought her palm down on the carpet abruptly. It echoed once more. She clapped twice in a row. Both claps echoed. Erika held her breath as she stared at the blurry corridor in front of herself.
She raised her hand and brought it down, just above the carpet, but didn’t touch it.
Clap.
The sound came a foot in front of Erika. The old woman screamed and scooted backward. She clambered up to her feet as quickly as her frail bones and muscles were willing to cooperate, ignoring what she thought was a blurry figure standing in front of her in the hallway.