For obvious reasons, I hate to be ignored.
Sincerely and very afraid,
Kaitlyn Johnson, Girl of Nowhere
From: AriHait558
To: RealxChick
Date: 7 November 2004
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Confession
Dear Kaitlyn,
I believe you. Mostly because I made good on my threat. I did go and talk to you during lunch the other day. I walked right up to—Carly, I guess?—and said, “You missed confession, young lady.” When she stared at me for a full five seconds without saying anything, I asked about the party, and she looked really confused. She stared at me like I was the Minotaur, and then Naida comes up and says, “Gotta go!” and steers Carly away without a word. It seemed odd that she’d protect you from me when we were at the party together. It wasn’t normal. I knew something was wrong. Different.
This raises all kinds of questions about the nature of reality, the nature of self, the idea of souls, the idea of the afterlife, questions about genetics, the mind—
You do realize you’re a regular science project?
Ari
PS—Thank you for your confession. I promise to keep it locked away as long as you like. But you should know that I really like you exactly like this. Exactly as you are. Kaitlyn.
I love your name.
From: RealxChick
To: AriHait558
Date: 7 November 2004
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Confession
I am very, very aware of the fact that I’m a science project—gone wrong. I seriously can’t believe you haven’t gone running for the hills.
K
From: AriHait558
To: RealxChick
Date: 7 November 2004
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Confession
I don’t scare easily, though I expect others do? It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it.
Come to the booth. I want to see you. I have questions. No cookies today—don’t want to make Carly fat without her permission. Doesn’t seem fair.
A
From: RealxChick
To: AriHait558
Date: 7 November 2004
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Confession
Oh, clever. We have a sense of humor.
Be there in 10.
K
37
[The following entry was pasted into the journal.]
Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson
Friday, 12 November 2004, 8:00 pm
Dorm
I’m going to do something stupid. I—what’s happening to me??
At first it was dark. Not so dark that I couldn’t see, but dark enough that shapes had no meaning. I was outside standing in a blanket of mist. I could hear the ocean, and I shivered. The taste of a changeable storm hung on the air. As soon as I thought this, the clouds above me, which seemed alive and full of malevolent depth, moving fast like a stop-motion film, gave a deep rumbling groan—and ceased. Just froze in the sky.
I stumbled forward and tripped on an ancient step, which led to an enormous house towering above me, three stories high.
Dee, I felt that house stare down at me.
The windows gazed across the landscape, each fringed by the crumbling slate roof like eyelids. Even the console brackets had the sunken, eroded texture of all things that have succumbed to the oppressive passage of time. The weather vane, too, stood rusted and old, no longer a thing of pride, but a creaking slice of metal warped into no definite shape by years of long corrosion.
I reached for the handle and gave a push, and the door creaked forward with an eerie whine that echoed around the room. The house was bare, unfurnished and covered with a film of dust, velvety thick. Desolate leaves—the remnant of an autumn long past—breezed their lonely way along the floor, carried by the dank, rotten air. A giant chandelier in the wide entryway hung on an ominously rusty chain, draped with cobwebs that even the spiders had long abandoned. There was a looming sense of emptiness about the place. Even the mildew smell seemed oddly distant and weak, like the remembrance of a scent.
And yet… somehow I sensed I wasn’t alone.
I climbed the rickety stairs to the first floor, feeling more vulnerable and naked than I had outside, each foot tentative on the warping, decayed wood. I was momentarily afraid I’d fall through the floor into some pitch-dark basement with no doors.
The second story was just as gray and foggy as outside, and I half-expected to hear thunder rumbling through the ceiling. It was oppressively small, with long, narrow corridors that seemed endless and labyrinthine, punctuated by ancient and blackened candle sconces.
I felt a sudden yearning for Carly, so powerful that it hit me like physical pain. I called her name. “Carly? Are you here?”
I wanted her to answer. I was terrified when she didn’t.
I was so alone. Too alone.
Something subtle seemed to move behind the wall, and I stepped hesitantly closer, not entirely sure I wanted to look.
It wasn’t a wall at all, but a mirror covered in a coating of dust so thick that it looked like wallpaper. A smoggy version of my face stared back at me, wide-eyed. I wiped away the dust, leaving a gleaming streak of polished silver in the wake of my hand.
This reflection was not me.
The eyes were no longer clear and blue; one was bloodshot with a blown pupil that made it look entirely black, and the other was a faded gray—dreary, like everything in this forgotten place. A cheap imitation of blue. They were pitiless, unseeing eyes, wide with malice, the whites yellow and full of bile. Her skin, stretched tightly over her skeletal frame, tinged a yellow-gray as she leered, black liquid congealing out of a mouth that was too large as it grinned.
“Me,” she gurgled, and the black liquid seemed to emulsify as it fell from her cracked, red lips and landed on the floor in gobbets of mush.
It was the girl. The one who has been watching me. But she was rotting. Or was it Carly? I didn’t know. I still don’t know.
I took a startled breath. “Who—”
Without warning, her smile vanished, replaced with a garish scowl, teeth bared, her eyes flat and dead, but wide and manic. She reached out—through the mirror—and grabbed my throat. I felt her broken nails dig into my skin.
“Me!” she screamed.
I fell backwards; the thing dragged out of the mirror with me, and I saw that she was nothing more than a shredded stump of a torso—her legs and pelvis were gone, leaving ribbons of fatty tendons and muscle. Her half body thumped the floor wetly. I managed to wrench myself free and run farther into the house, along a dark narrow corridor and towards a wooden door that stood apart, brand-new, surreal, and gleaming in the dilapidated abode. I heard the girl dragging herself along the floor after me, her long nails clawing at the splintered wooden panels. I glanced back once, saw her hand extended, her mouth a yawning black hole, and screamed. There was no echo.
I burst through the door and found myself stumbling into the foggy evening, gulping down gasps of brine-tinged air.
Behind me the house stood suddenly far away, watching me. Now I could see that it sat on a hill, and both hill and house were on the verge of crumbling over a precipice into a cankerous sea far below in that slow, fuggy way of dreams I’ve read about so often.
The sea wanted the house.
The house wanted me.
The girl was nowhere to be seen, and I felt more alone than I have ever felt, even in the oblivion of nonexistence.
Later, Attic
Dee, I had a dream. A nightmare. A house. A dead freaking house. I felt that house like it was a part of me… God, it was so real.
Something else.
A deep, black stillness has come over me, Dee. Slowly, like time itself is bending around me, decaying at the edges. Nothing seems real. Still nothing from Carly in the Message Book, even though I wrote out what Lansing told me… the lie. But nothing, no reply.
Something is wrong.
I scoured the room
looking for tiny squares of purple—jeans, no; dresser, no; bathroom mirror; nothing. And then—I found one! On the corkboard over our desk. Except… it was my note. The one I left her yesternight, the one that said No note?
Still there. Completely untouched.
What the hell is going on? I feel sick, Dee.
I pulled out my Post-its and scribbled a message for Carly with shaking fingers: “Are you okay? Why didn’t you write me? Is Lansing right? Am I hurting you by writing to you? Please tell me.”
Having no sign of Carly makes me feel exactly as I did in the dream—terrified and alone. Even though I’ve never seen or spoken to my sister, she is always there in her scribbles and in the evidence of her movements by the little acts of kindness—a new book, a folded sweater—that she leaves behind. But this morning, our room looked unchanged, and I suppressed a shudder at the nothingness I felt in the pit of my gut.
Just like at the end of my… nightmare.
I still feel it now.
Maybe she was busy. Maybe she needed time to process the anniversary. Maybe she went to talk it over with Naida.
I’m going to check.
[If Kaitlyn went to talk to Naida, no record of the conversation has been found.]
38
81 days until the incident
Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson
Saturday, 13 November 2004, 9:00 pm
Attic
Still nothing from Carly. Dee, what’s happening?
4 blue pills
12 white pills
32 yellow capsules
How many should there be? I don’t know. I should have been counting!
She discarded me directly in bed, and it was warm, the mattress soft—as though she’d been lying there for a while. I went straight to the Message Book, a dead, horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don’t know what I expected. A note telling me she was actually doing better? That she and Lansing agreed on her treatments? That Lansing was trying another trick on us?
All I got were white pages with nothing in them. My own message glared at me with amusement and derision, and I suddenly felt panicked. Where is Carly? Why hasn’t she written to me?
I’ve always heard her words, even though I was only reading them, because without them, the silence feels deep and dangerous.
I hear Aka Manah sniggering somewhere in the shadows.
“Go away,” I tell him. “Leave me alone.”
But his breathy sounds seem only closer.
Later
I picked up the phone, even. I was going to call Dr. Lansing. The closest thing I have left to a parent. I picked up the phone… almost dialed the number. Hung up.
What could she do except tell me I was “integrating”? That I shouldn’t be afraid?
She lost my trust long ago, when she first called me a symptom. And now I have nowhere to turn.
The girl is here. So thin, so painfully thin. She is grinning even though her yellow hair falls like spiderwebs into her waiting hands.
I wish she would stop smiling.
Later
Whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou
whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou
whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou
whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou
whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou whereareyou
39
[The following diary entry is barely legible, the ink smudged, pages curling, the letters small and untidy, as though written in great distress.]
Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson
Sunday, 14 November 2004, 9:00 am
Attic
Here, in the dark, I can write.
What’s happening, Dee? Why is this happening? I woke up this morning.
I woke up.
This morning.
The sun was worse than fire, exposing every single part of me, and everything else. The room was complete like it had never been before. Bigger, more complicated. Harder. It was not a room I have ever seen.
Dee—Carly is…
Where is Carly? I don’t know how or where or why. I woke up this morning and it was light and bright, and she wasn’t here. I was. She hadn’t written in the Message Book, because I was where she should have been—
I can’t do this.
I don’t know where she is. First, she didn’t look at the Message Book yesternight, and now she’s gone. Have we switched? Was this meant to happen?
I threw up in the bin, saw my reflection—it’s all wrong! I looked like every photo of Carly I’ve ever seen. And all I could hear was Lansing’s voice in my mind—
Integration. Integration. Integration.
I WAS MEANT TO DISAPPEAR, NOT CARLY!
I screamed and I screamed and I ran out of there as fast as I could there were so many people around the girls I only briefly see at dinner on the rare occasions I actually go to the hall and who I watch while they sleep now they were talking moving running laughing all of them in one place there were too many colors too many things too many people all around at once and I didn’t understand and I wanted to hide but the sun made everything so white and my eyes my eyes—
They tried to talk to me: “Carly, what’s wrong?” “Carly?”
“Carly, what’s happened?” “Where is Carly going?”
Carly? Carly? Carly?
I screamed at them all.
Everything so hard, everything so fast. Winding up, not down.
Nothing muted, soft and safe. Everything there, so real and sharp!
I couldn’t handle it. I ran and ran and I didn’t know where I was going, only that the sky was blue and the grass was green and the colors were all wrong and too strong and my eyes—
Shit… Shit.
The attic is always dark. Always safe.
What do I do? Where is she? How do I… what do I do?
Dee, please. If it’s you, stop laughing.
Dee, help me. Help me, Dee. What do I do?
I’m going to wait for sunset. If I discard into another day, I’ll know something at least. I’ll know Carly is safe. That she is now the night child and I’m now the day. Maybe we were always meant to flip around at some point… We really don’t know anything at all.
Except something is wrong. I can feel it inside me like I’ve lost a lung. I listen for my Voice, but there is nothing except silence. There has never been such silence, so I know he must be close.
I smell ashes and blood, and I don’t understand why I am here and Carly is not.
I need to get to the dorm; Carly will panic to wake here. I’ll be sure to leave her a note. If I don’t discard… if I’m alone. Dee, what happens then?
What happens when a kite loses its string?
5:00 pm, Dorm
The sun set.
From: RealxChick
To: AriHait558
Date: 14 November 2004
Subject: Losing My Shit
Ari, help me, I don’t know what to do—Carly’s gone. Shitshitshit, Ari, what do I do?
From: AriHait558
To: RealxChick
Date: 14 November 2004
Subject: Re: Losing My Shit
Kait? Are you okay? What’s happened?
From: AriHait558
To: RealxChick
Date: 14 November 2004
Subject: Re: Re: Losing My Shit
Are you there?
From: AriHait558
To: RealxChick
Date: 14 November 2004
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Losing My Shit
Kaitlyn, you’re scaring me—what’s going on? Where are you?
From: AriHait558
To: RealxChick
Date: 14 November 2004
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Losing My Shit
I’m going to the chapel. Meet me there.
40
79 days until the incident
Naida Camera Footage
Monday, 15 November 2004, 2:22 AM
Naida’s Dorm Clip #1
The screen is dark, but the muffled thump and corresponding “damn” indicate that the camera is recording.
A lamp goes on, and the screen takes a moment to adjust. The camera wobbles and points at the floor, where two socked feet appear in the circle of lamplight on the carpet.
“What kind of hour do you call this?” Naida mutters, walking to her door. She lifts the camera belatedly, and we get a brief view of her disheveled hair in the mirror on the back of the door before she opens it. She storms along the corridor and bangs on the next door over.
“Some of us are trying to sleep!”
A thud and then sobbing.
“Kaitlyn?”
Naida opens the door onto a scene of chaos. The bed is upturned, the bedcovers strewn across the floor. The bookcases are empty, the contents scattered about the room in violent disarray. Kaitlyn is huddled in a corner behind the bed, sobbing. She slams her head into the wall repeatedly, the sound loud and shocking. There are smudges of blood on the pale wallpaper.
“Oh, my God,” Naida breathes, moving forward, and we see her hand reaching outwards. “Kaitie—”
At the sound of Naida’s voice, Kaitlyn’s head shoots up, revealing puffy red eyes. She is holding a bottle of wine in her hands; it is almost empty.
Naida’s camera shakes. “Kait—”
Before she can finish, Kaitlyn jumps to her feet, wine bottle forgotten, and launches herself past Naida and out of the room. Naida follows, and we see a flash of Kaitlyn as she races out the fire exit.
The Dead House Page 12