by Boris Bacic
She grabbed the railing of the staircase and felt the first step with her toes without stopping. In the end, this turned out to be a mistake because Erika missed the next step and felt herself stumbling forward and losing balance.
Through a blurry vision, she saw everything around her spinning and felt immense pain exploding all over her body each time she landed on a step. She forgot all about the pain in her body when she felt something hard and sharp colliding with her neck.
Her tumbling came to an end, and Erika’s neck pulsated with an intensity that she never felt before. It took her a moment to realize that she couldn’t inhale or exhale.
As she lay there, motionless and scared, she forgot all about the sounds she heard upstairs and instead wondered where she would end up once she was dead.
Chapter 20
It was already night when Cheryl stepped outside. It was somewhat chilly, despite summer almost being here.
The house is barely warmer, Cheryl thought to herself.
She was glad to be out of the house for a bit. It didn’t even hit her how choked she felt inside the house until she stepped outside. And it wasn’t something that she was already used to by now. Usually, she’d have the feeling of needing her own space whenever she visited a small place filled with people, but that wasn’t the case here.
Mom’s house was huge, and only she and Jill were inside. It felt as if the walls themselves were closing in on Cheryl. No…even worse than that. Like someone—something—was in there and sitting on Cheryl’s chest, twenty-four seven.
She couldn’t believe how Jill didn’t notice it. Maybe she just wasn’t that attuned to negative energy. Or maybe she was so attuned to it that it felt normal to her. It didn’t matter. Once Cheryl got the truth out of Erika, she would go back to Jill and tell her everything, and then the two of them were going to get to the bottom of this.
Maybe Mom could still be saved? Maybe she was in a coma because that malevolent presence was keeping her imprisoned, kind of like in that horror movie? It was far-fetched, but right now, it was the only thing she got. She had to hope that Mom was not lost.
Cheryl had so many things to say to her. To tell her that she loved her, and that she grew up to be the woman that she is today thanks to her (even if Jill thought she was a brat), to tell her that she’d gladly take her into her own home to take care of her, if she had one…
To ask her why she gave Jill the house.
That thought infuriated Cheryl, but she tried not to think about it. She tried telling herself that Mom probably had a good reason to give Jill the house. She just wished that Mom had explained to her why she did it so that Cheryl didn’t feel so excluded and estranged.
Cheryl walked up the path towards Erika’s house, enjoying the soft breeze that blew around her face and exposed arms. She glanced back towards Mom’s house. The lights were on in most of the windows, and despite the surrounding darkness of the night, the house barely glowed with a meager, orange radiance, like a Jack-o-lantern on a porch for Halloween.
I would never want to live there, even if I got the house. Not after these last few days.
Come to think of it, she didn’t want anything to do with the house, after all. If she could help it, she’d never step into it ever again. Even if Mom stayed in a coma, Cheryl would not take care of her there. Maybe she would be able to get her transferred to a hospital in California (since Jill wouldn’t care about her being in Oregon), but that would probably be really expensive.
Cheryl ogled Erika’s house. The lights in the living room were on, but the rest of the house was engulfed in darkness. Cheryl hoped that Erika didn’t have second thoughts about sharing some more information with her.
As she approached the house, she was overcome with a meager nostalgic feeling—meager because the dread of the impending conversation loomed just above her. Had it not been for that, she would have remembered with relish all the times when she visited Erika’s home for some cookies or the other treats that she used to bake, when Cheryl took a break from playing.
Right now, all she saw was a lonesome house of an old woman, segregated from everyone else. And yet, the people in Sams Valley were always good to each other. Neighbors often helped those in need, invited each other for meals, etc. There was more distance between each house, but there was no distance between the people.
Cheryl walked up the walkway leading to the enormous house and rang the doorbell. A loud ding-dong carried through the house. She waited, feeling like she was on eggshells. She nervously looked around herself, cradling her arms and listening to the loud chirping of the insects.
When Erika didn’t answer the door after a whole minute, Cheryl rang the doorbell again. Still nothing. She tried knocking on the door, but there was no answer. That was weird. Maybe Erika just didn’t hear it. She was old, after all. The lights were on, so she must have been home.
Cheryl decided to try the back door instead.
She waded around the house, her shoes rustling through the tall and long, rarely-mowed grass. Why didn’t Erika hire someone to cut the grass for her? She obviously took care of her front lawn, but the side and back of the house were horrendous. Cheryl decided she would do it for her first thing in the morning. It’s not like she had too many things to do around her mom’s house, anyway.
Cheryl stopped in front of the back door leading to the kitchen and rapped on the door.
“Erika?” she called out, peering through the pane of glass.
She could clearly see the kitchen from here. A glass of unfinished water on the counter, and literally nothing else. It was evident that Erika kept her kitchen clean. Of course, that’s probably where she spent most of her time.
Cheryl knocked on the door three more times.
By now, it became clear to her that Erika probably wasn’t home, or if she was, that something was wrong. A part of her told her that she was just firmly asleep, but Cheryl refused to believe that.
That feeling of fear and panic only intensified when she twisted the knob and found the door to be unlocked. Cheryl gently pushed the door open, allowing it to creak loudly until it stopped moving.
“Erika?” she called out once more.
Her voice sounded muffled in the enormity of the kitchen. She glimpsed towards the living room, which was only partially illuminated by the strong kitchen light. Cheryl began ambling forward. She suddenly felt like she was intruding; like she was somewhere where she wasn’t welcome. But that was silly, right? Erika always told her to let herself in when she was a kid. She wouldn’t get angry for finding Cheryl inside her home, right?
So then, why did she have this feeling of dread building up at the pit of her stomach, so potently that it was almost debilitating?
“Erika?” Cheryl called out again, but her voice was just a whisper now.
She stepped onto the carpet of the living room. It was too dark to see anything, even with the partial radiance coming from the kitchen. She took out her phone and turned on her torch.
She wished she hadn’t.
Chapter 21
Jill couldn’t believe what she was looking at.
The vèvè was still there, on the wall. If anything, it only seemed to become more prominent, as it brightly glowed with a black color, even in the darkness of the room. But that’s not what caught Jill’s eye. What made her scream was the message written in a crude, black paint above the vèvè.
WE HAD A DEAL
At first, Jill was frozen. She held a hand clasped over her mouth to further suppress the scream building up in her lungs. Someone was inside the house. Someone—
Crash!
Something in the room fell and broke. Jill only saw a sliver of something toppling from the shelf and disappearing in the darkness, but the shattering sound was unmistakable.
“What the fuck!” she shouted.
Or at least, she thought she did, but the sentence came out as a frightened whimper. She swiveled one hundred and eighty degrees in one quick motion an
d started dashing towards the stairs.
She was in great danger and had to get out of the house right now. She raced down the stairs and towards the front door. She grabbed the doorknob and yanked it backward.
The door wouldn’t budge.
Jill rattled the doorknob violently, not understanding why the door wouldn’t open. Cheryl left it unlocked when she left just five minutes ago, there was no doubt about that.
“Come on, open up, open up!” she squealed in terror.
A loud pop exploded above Jill, and she was immediately plunged into darkness. She screamed and turned around, slamming her back against the door. No, it wasn’t darkness. It was complete and utter blackness. For a moment, Jill couldn’t see a finger in front of her nose. Her eyes may as well have been plucked out of her sockets.
She hyperventilated and stared ahead, fumbling with one hand for the knob. She continued rattling it, but the door refused to cooperate.
Crack.
The sound came from somewhere near the top of the stairs, like a joint snapping from hours of not being used. Jill stopped moving. She gasped, panting louder before calming down her breathing into shallow, panicked breaths.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The footsteps descended the stairs, getting closer to Jill with each step.
Thud. Crack.
The sickening bony sound almost made Jill scream, but she kept her mouth closed. She breathed in and out deeply through her nose, probably giving away her position not just to the intruder in the house, but to the whole fucking neighborhood.
Thud.
The step resounded at the bottom of the stairs. Jill kept her eyes fixated in front of herself, but she couldn’t see a thing. No, there was something there. A short silhouette, standing and… twitching? Its head convulsed violently, but it made no sound.
Crunch.
The step came on the floor in front of Jill, right where the foyer ceiling lightbulb shards probably fell after popping.
Crunch. Crunch.
Two steps closer. And then they stopped.
“Who are you?!” Jill shouted. “What do you want from me?!”
Crunch.
The sound was more muffled this time, like eating cereal with a closed mouth. Jill couldn’t see the twitching figure anymore. If it remained there, then it was too dark to see it. And despite logic telling her that it was right in front of her, Jill couldn’t budge. She hadn’t realized that even her breathing had stopped almost entirely.
Something touched her hair.
Jill screamed and shoved at whoever was in front of her. She felt her hands connecting with something soft and fleshy, but she didn’t stop to think about what it was. At that moment, only one thought raced through her mind—I have to live for Charlie. The thought of never seeing her son filled her body with a boost of energy that she never experienced before.
Jill rushed into the living room and, from her memory of years living in the house, slammed her palm against the light switch without looking. She didn’t really think at that moment, she just knew that she couldn’t stand to be blinded like this in such everlasting darkness, stuck with whomever broke into Annette’s home.
The living room was instantly bathed in meager lights, even though right then, to Jill, they seemed like they were sent from heaven. She barely had enough time to turn around and look at the figure stalking her.
Chapter 22
Cheryl’s phone torch jerked in various directions from her uncontrollable trembling. She screamed at the top of her lungs, and when she was out of breath, she screamed again. And then again.
And then her rational thinking returned. She pointed the torch at the bottom of the stairs one last time, just to make sure she didn’t see things wrong in her terror.
Erika was at the bottom of the stairs, her body splayed upside-down, her arms in unnatural positions that the human body was not capable of without injuring itself immensely. Her neck was craned sideways almost ninety degrees, with a neckbone jutting prominently against her skin. Her eyes were open, vacantly staring directly at Cheryl with wide eyes. Her mouth was slightly agape, as if trying to say something but unable to, due to the broken neck.
Cheryl sobbed and screamed some more, but she was aware that she needed to get out of here right now. She could still be in danger.
Jill!
She had to get back to her sister and warn her. She never should have left her alone in that fucking house. She turned around, sprinted across the kitchen and out of the house.
She didn’t even care if there were potential witnesses who would later testify to seeing her run away from a crime scene.
***
There were moments in Jill’s life when she felt really scared. The most terrified that she’d ever been in her life was when she was seven years old and got stuck in a log. She was exploring with the boy who gave her Lola, when they found a hollow toppled log. He suggested they crawl through it. Jill inspected it first to make sure there were no bugs or other creepy crawlies inside.
Once she deemed it safe enough, she crawled inside first, just to try to go through to the other side like the special agents from the cartoons she saw. It was a tight fit, but she pushed forward. The other end was just there, a few feet away.
But when she made it halfway through, she could no longer move. She tried going backward, but she couldn’t move there, either. No matter how she tried moving—rotating, pushing, pulling—she couldn’t budge. The boy tried helping her, but he couldn’t do anything to move her.
Eventually, she realized that she was stuck in that log, in the woods, with no one close by capable of helping her. That caused a panic to jolt through her so abruptly that she began hyperventilating. This caused the tight space of the tree trunk’s interior to press against her chest even more, until she thought she was going to suffocate in there. The boy told her that he’d go fetch help and ran off, leaving her alone. Minutes went by, maybe even hours, but Jill lost track of time.
Dad heard her screaming eventually and came to the rescue. He couldn’t pull her out, so he told her to calm down because that way, her chest would deflate a little bit. It took a while, but eventually, she listened to him. Once she was calm enough, Dad grabbed her by the feet and pulled her out of the tree.
He carried her home in his arms and made her hot chocolate to calm her down. Her mom, of course, scolded her and told her how she knew Jill would get in trouble in the woods, but her words were nothing compared to the terror she experienced that day.
Jill never experienced anything in her life even remotely as scary as getting stuck in that hollow tree.
Until tonight.
Now, as she stared at her mother standing in the doorway between the foyer and the living room, the fear that she felt inside the tree trunk faded in comparison.
Annette’s head twitched violently, and the corner of her mouth was contorted into a stroke-like grimace. Her wrists and fingers were rigid, twitching just as violently as her head. In one of her hands was Jill’s doll, Lola. The only part of her body that seemed stable were the perfectly still legs that she stood on, in a somewhat spread-out stance.
Jill wanted to call out to her mom, but she knew that the monstrosity that stared back at her through her mother’s eyes was not actually her mother.
An eternity of being locked in a staring contest passed, even though it was probably just a few seconds, and then the thing embodying Annette moved. It arched backward with impossible flexibility, causing another loud, bony crack to fill the air. It planted its palms on the floor, going into a bridge position, and then scuttled up the stairs.
It was gone within seconds.
Jill looked down and saw Lola on the floor next to the bloodied carpet and the shards of glass from the busted ceiling bulb. The doll was in a sitting position, her black orbs for eyes staring right at Jill. Jill couldn’t take it anymore. She ran into the kitchen and dashed towards the backdoor.
She heard a muffled thud-thud-thud-thud coming up
stairs from her mother’s footsteps. Jill yanked the door open so violently that it slammed against the wall. The cold air that wafted into her face had never felt so refreshing, as she rushed through the thick grass around the house, towards the road.
As soon as she reached the paved path, she bumped into a figure, causing her to lose balance and fall backward. Jill screamed, and the figure screamed back.
“Cheryl! Cheryl!” it took her a moment to realize that the shrieking figure was her sister.
She was tear-stricken and hysterical, even more so than Jill. They hugged each other tightly, and Jill hastily tried to convey what just happened. The words came out incoherent and disconnected, just like Cheryl’s. If someone saw them, they probably would have thought they were two lunatics, screaming like that into the night.
Eventually, they calmed down, and Cheryl was able to utter one sensical sentence.
“We need to call the police!”
Chapter 23
“And you just found her like that?” the older of the two police officers asked as the younger one took notes.
“Yes, I already told you, she was dead when I entered,” Cheryl said in frustration.
She was standing in Mom’s room along with Jill, Violet, and two of the police officers. It took a lot of convincing to get Jill to go inside, but Cheryl had to know what had happened. She had never seen her sister so distressed, so whatever happened must have been terrifying. Even when the cops entered the room and Cheryl behind them, Jill refused to budge.
After some convincing, she peeked inside, and only when she saw for herself that Mom was really in bed and comatose, she entered—hesitantly. Jill explained over and over that Mom was awake and running around the house. She even pointed to the foot sole where the shard of glass from the broken lightbulb was embedded, along with fresh trickles of blood. Everything she said pointed to it being the truth, but for some reason, Cheryl still couldn’t believe it.