Small metallic clank.
One. Okay just one. Maybe it’s nothing.
Another one. Okay two. Just two.
Three. Shit.
Four.
Clanks coming up the basement stairs. Louder. Louder. Louder as it gets closer to the main floor.
Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Faster.
It would be at the basement door now. Fuck, fuck, fuck. And I heard the sound of the latch, too slow.
And then hissing. Like a board game hourglass, something heavy being dragged along the filthy carpet. Down the hallway, just outside the closet door, but moving past it now. What the fuck.
Margaret. Margaret. Margaret is looking for me. She’s going to fucking kill me. Sammy must be dead. He must not have survived after he fell from my arms to the hard basement floor.
Am I asleep now? Did I fall asleep in the closet? No I’m awake. I’m definitely fucking awake. This isn’t patterned space, this is real space. So maybe she can’t hurt me. Maybe I’m just drunk and imagining things. I won’t sleep tonight. I’ll stay awake all night so nothing bad will happen to anyone. Because they can’t leave patterned space. But they can. Because we talked to Sybil or someone on the Ouija board. Someone moved that real life planchette. They can do whatever they want, wherever they want, whenever they want.
I’m never ever coming back here again. Just like you warned me, Sybil. You warned me I should never ever come back. I’m leaving now and never coming back. Just gotta wait. Gotta wait for her to go away, then I’ll run. First I’ll get Alf though, I’ll get Alf and then we’ll run out the door. And if we can’t run out the door, we’ll jump out a window if we have to, make one of those weird ropes out of ripped sheets that people make in movies.
And then so loud, up the stairs over top of me. The rumbling thunder of that metallic something dragged up, thud, thud, thud against the carpeted steps. And then CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! Snapped wood, something tearing. More dragging. CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! So many this time. Is she crashing through the rooms looking for me? Is she going to hurt Alf? I put my hand on the knob and want to go save him but I’m terrified, my whole body paralyzed.
She can’t hurt anyone. If she could, she would have. Last night when Alf was alone with her in that room in the basement, she could have killed him then if she’d wanted to.
It was me she wanted. She was looking for me, coming to kill me, this is how I’ll be punished. And then I’ll be stuck in this house forever, she’ll punish me for all of eternity.
Goddamn you Herman, why did you give me this life. Why did you make me live? You see it now. You see why I should have never been born. I made you see it. I’m going to make you see it.
She’s back down the stairs.
Loud and faster than before. Is that fucking breathing? I picture her face, the black-and-white face I saw in the newspaper at the library, it’s winded and wheezing, spittle hanging from its black-and-white dotted lip.
Her face that night at the inn, glistening with sweat, eyes made small, distorted by puffy flesh.
More thuds. Massive ones. Splintered wood.
JESUS. JESUS. FUCK FUCK FUCK.
The light just turned off. The light is off in here. FUCK. FUCK. The lights are off now and I can’t see to write. I can’t see.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!
I’m going to die. She’s gonna fucking kill me. She wants to KILL ME. Sybil, someone HELP ME HELP ME DIARY!!!!!!!!!!58
58. It should be noted that in this last section, Noelle’s handwriting gets bigger and more frantic, begins to transform into what it looks like during her fugue states. At the bottom of the last page is a dark concentration of scribble in black pen, ripping a hole right through it and through the next few pages as well.
Hello again Mr. Dalrymple,
If you’re reading this part that means you’ve made it to the end, and you’re probably curious as to what happened next.
It was a crime scene with curiously little physical evidence, especially considering the amount of blood. Blood usually has a way of acquiring footprints and fallen hairs, but this blood didn’t have any of that. Not a single print of any kind. The murderer would have had to put in considerable effort to achieve this. Particularly given the smeared blood trails from room to room, created by the bloody pickaxe dragging along the floor.
There were incredibly high blood alcohol levels in each of the bodies, which would explain the lack of defensive wounds—likely the victims weren’t able to react quickly, if they woke up in time to react at all.
Fucking great Trevor. Fucking great. Okay, so I think I see what’s happening here. In our version ,though, Noelle is going to be just another victim. Another poor sap who is trying to figure out the history of the house, but by the time she does it’s TOO LATE. Margaret has already summoned her son to kill everyone.
Noelle’s body, found in the closet, presents an even more confusing array of evidence. For one thing, she had traces of all of the other victims’ blood on her body, and not simply because she was murdered with the same weapon either. The traces of blood found on her suggest strongly that she was present during each of the murders, or at the very least interacting with the bodies postmortem. In addition, hers are the only prints found on the pickaxe. However, we can’t understand how it would have been physically possible for her to have lodged that pickaxe into her head all by herself, and so accurately too. It was lodged directly into the “sore spot” she refers to so often in the diary.
We spent a lot of time investigating circumstances under which seemingly impossible feats of physicality can occur, particularly the occurrence of feats of physicality during sleepwalking and fugue states. Opinions on this matter are starkly divided.
Regardless, that Noelle murdered the rest of the kids was ultimately the most plausible theory based on the physical evidence at the inn.
So, first things first. Find Wink and Margaret’s kid, get him to sign off. The first amendent can only take us so far, we’ve gotta be careful about defamation, right to privacy, blah blah blah. Obviously we won’t use real names, but we want to cover our asses. I’m enclosing a release with these notes. Get him to sign it so we can make him everyone’s worst nightmare next summer. Call me when you’ve found him.
And what we found in the Dixon home was more compelling still.
After many attempts to contact Herman Dixon via phone, an officer went to the house to find the front door open. He went inside and discovered Herman Dixon asphyxiated in his bed.
He too had been murdered within the last 48 hours. Strangled.
The size of the bruises on his neck were small, indicating that the murderer was likely a young female.
Again, there were no defensive wounds, but in this case they were puzzling. If Noelle had indeed strangled her father, the evidence at the house suggested that he might have let her.
Transcripts of the diary, with my annotations, were distributed to three child psychologists, one paranormal psychologist, and a handwriting expert (who reviewed a photocopy of the original diary as well). Many theories were presented, but none without flaws. Ultimately we closed the case naming Noelle as the murderer, but like I said, to this day I’m not convinced.
And be careful, in case he really is a nutbar.
Without a living person to punish, the victims’ parents filed a suit against the owners of the inn and lost. As far as I know, the place is still open and operating as it did back in 1999. In fact, this case probably renewed interest from the “novelty visitors” Noelle mentioned in the diary.
And we were never able to locate the Rat Pack. Not even Sammy.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Ali McDonald, Sam Hiyate, and Brian Farrey-Latz for continuing to believe in me.
Thanks to Tom, Debbie, Alex, Maddy, Sammy, and Teejee for absolutely everything—don’t think
I could have kept myself on track last year without you guys.
A super extra special thanks to my favorite deputy, for seeing lots of scary things and living to tell the tale.
And finally a belated thanks to the great Kennedy Cullen, whose editorial eye is good enough to eat.
Photo by Paul Clairmont
About the Author
Ainslie Hogarth was born and raised in Windsor, Ontario, but currently resides in Toronto. She has an undergraduate degree in English Literature and Philosophy and a Masters in Creative Writing. She watches a lot of movies and has a lot more books in her head. Visit her online at ainsliehogarth.com.
The Boy Meets Girl Massacre (Annotated) Page 17