So my alarm is set. Three hours and I’ll wake up. I have water and Gummy Bears and a lot of shows to watch, I think that’ll be enough to keep me up. I can stay awake from midnight until it’s time for school. I can do this. I know I can.
Goodnight.”
“Oh my God, there was a knife under my pillow again! How the fuck? It was not there when I went to sleep. I want to say someone is pranking me… but I’m an only child. My parents wouldn’t do this. They don’t know about the journal, do they?
I’m just glad I woke up. I’m fucking ecstatic.
It didn’t stop the nightmares tonight. I’m trying not to wake up my parents with my cries. I don’t want this life. Not anymore.
Lisa Siegel was only a kid, dammit.
I want to kill him. I want to dig the knife from my pillow into his throat. Nobody deserves what he did to them. Nobody deserves what he did to those women. To little Lisa. I hope the shitbag is burning in hell… I hope… I hope if there’s something worse than hell, he gets it. He’s a monster. He’s a damn monster.
But the dream…
It started days ago. Days before her death. I was Lisa Siegel. I was at the ice cream truck. My hand was full of sticky pennies. The cone was seven cents. Her brother Joel had one, too. We raced back into the house as happy kids gathered around the truck. Lisa knew them all. Everyone knew everyone there. None of the kids in town suspected that in days she’d be the dead one. All the parents kept a close eye on things with the slasher on the loose…
But some didn’t watch close enough.
The days passed fast. It was easier to forget I was Valerie when I was Lisa. I was having fun and almost forgot what was to come. But I felt it in the air. Something sickening was coming. I knew it. And I don’t know why he had his eyes on Lisa. I never saw him. He was never around. He never knew the family. But he came for Lisa.
Maybe it was to see if he could do it. Random target. The thrill. The rush. Maybe. Or maybe I’m just trying to put a reason to it when there is no reason, and that’s even sicker. The detestable fucker probably had no reason, I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I’m tired, scared, confused. I just lived three days as this girl in three hours. And I can’t stress enough how it felt so real to me. As if I traveled across space and time back to 1968. Back to a whole different world.
Then the dreadful night came. I’m grabbing my neck as I write this. Making sure it’s still there. My head is still attached.
I heard him in the halls walking up to Lisa’s room. So did Joel. I saw him turn a fraction in his bed—he was up for a moment and only a moment. He heard it and was asleep again. I wanted to tell him to wake up. I wanted to yell. I wanted to tell him to protect his sister, to get our parents, to… I wanted to be anywhere but there. It was out of my control. I couldn’t do shit.
There was nothing human in his eyes that night. I could see them through the darkness, the same eyes the college girl loved. Their chilling influence made me shiver. I opened my mouth to shriek. His hands shut my jaw. It hurt. Tears flowed. I heard the bees in the hive outside the window.
Before I knew it his hands were around me.
The man—the Sunday Slasher—snuck me out of the house. Joel would be awake and screaming by early morning.
‘Calm down, Sweetie,’ he said. His disgusting voice brought out more tears. It was harder to breathe. His hand wouldn’t let off my jaw. I looked into the night. The darkness wasn’t natural. It looked extra dark; as if tonight, the darkness wanted to hide what would happen to me. To Lisa.
The elementary school was two blocks down. The playground was Lisa’s favorite place in the world. It was her happy place… and that’s where he took her.
He never let go of my jaw the entire trip from my—from Lisa’s house to the park. He pushed me into the woodchips next to the teeter-totter. It felt like a thousand little needles scratched me. I remembered thinking this was a happy place. This shouldn’t happen here. But his smile, the smile he had with every kill, told me it was happening here. It reassured me of my death.
Then he took the pocket knife. It said something on the side but I couldn’t read it. He took the blade to my mouth and traced it around my lips gently, with a certain type of elegance, until he placed it in the left corner of my mouth. Then he poked only a little. The force slowly increased until he broke the skin. A drop of blood fell out and slipped between my lips.
Then he jerked the knife up, and I finally screamed and his hand jerked away. He punched me in the throat. I was in shock. I almost didn’t realize how deep I was cut. He pushed me down deeper into the woodchips, my head was tilted back, and blood stung my eye.
With one hand he closed my jaw again, and with the other he cut me on the right side of my mouth. It was so natural for him. So easy. Yet he didn’t give my body that weird look he gave the others. That look of wanting them. He didn’t want me. Not sexually. Not like the others. That’s when I knew it was all a game to him. And I think in that’s when Lisa died, too.
Then he sat me up. It was time for the neck. He had another knife. A much bigger knife. But with the darkness and the blood filling my eyes I couldn’t tell where he got it from. Maybe he left it there at the park ahead of time. Or maybe this is all a dream and this isn’t how it happened. I don’t know. I just need it to stop. God, if you can hear me, please make it stop.
Then the Sunday Slasher winded his arm back—that was all I could see. This was the worst part: silence. The silence where I knew the knife was coming at me. I only had seconds until the gaping gash would appear. I couldn’t see his face. Not anymore. But I can only imagine the intrigue that played on it when he said, ‘Hmmmm…’ and stopped.
He poked at the end of a bone stuck through my skin. He poked it again then pushed on it. Then the next slash of the knife came. Lisa’s head was on by a thread. When it came down to the last little bit of skin still connected, he tore it off with his hands. He held my/her head, then kissed its cheek.
‘So beautiful,’ he said. ‘And always smiling so big and bright.’
Then he set it in her lap, folded her hands around the head.
He walked away, turned back, and opened his mouth. The sound of my alarm clock blared. I abruptly woke up, shivering and cold. My window was open.”
From Valerie Hart’s diary
“I thought it was just me. I thought I was just depressed this morning. I thought I woke up feeling even worse than normal. But it’s Carpenter. I checked the window this morning to make sure it was still shut, as it had been mysteriously opening during the night sometimes. And it was shut, thank God. Outside I saw leafless trees lining the street and cinnamon leaves everywhere, and I thought: it would be beautiful anywhere other than here. It could only get worse here. Because then I noticed the decay on the sides of the trees, the miserable black masses of rot forming on them. It was a tangible comparison to the way the permanent sable sky over Carpenter eats away at me and everyone who lives here. Misery and depression seeping into my skin, infecting me, filling my lungs, suffocating me, consuming me.
But the sky looks extra dark this morning. As dark as the night was when I was Lisa. When it was trying to hide something. Maybe God is trying to hide us, hide Carpenter. Maybe this city was a mistake. I can’t blame him. This shithole has to be a mistake.”
“It’s Friday. Rose wants to do stuff, so I’m writing in class in case I have no time later today. I slept eight hours. I’m easing away from the three or four hours a night. I just can’t keep doing it, it takes so much out of me. I became clumsy, forgetful, I wasn’t even there. And maybe if I get some sleep… I can finally know where the damn knife under my pillow comes from. I put it in its fucking spot in the kitchen every fucking time I find it, but it comes back. What if I threw it away? Or into the ocean? Or… just left it somewhere far, far away.
Ugh, should I be this paranoid? The knife has to get there somehow. Is someone watching me? Living in the walls of our house? Rose showed me something like
that once, a guy found on his security camera someone living in his house, someone eating his food and using his shower when he wasn’t home.
Is that it? Is there someone in my walls watching me? Listening to me? Fucking with me? There’s no other explanation for it. Otherwise, how is the knife getting there?
So how could I catch this person? How could I make it stop? I have fifty questions and zero answers. So what’s the plan for today? Eli’s as usual. Getting a smoothie or milkshake or some shit then going to the mall. Maybe Rose will learn to buy normal fucking clothes. We’ll probably end up getting Chinese food from the food courts. It’ll be a fun day, I hope.”
From Valerie Hart’s diary
“I miss Avery. I’ve texted and called, but he won’t reply. I just got to the library. It’s a Saturday of course. As soon as I walked in, I rushed to sit down and message him. But he didn’t even open it. He hasn’t opened anything from me.
Here I am crying over my schoolbooks. Crying as I do homework… and thinking of him. Of the fun times. I haven’t seen him, haven’t passed him in the halls. I think he’s avoiding me. He’s good at it. Dammit. Dammit, is he good at it.”
“I told Rose I felt like shit from writing in here. She told me to drop it. I told her I tried. She said to hide it somewhere, and I told her I’d hide it under my dresser. So, I think I’m done with this. I’ve tried a time or two already. I don’t know if I can do it. I’m tired. I’m so, so tired.
My dreams must come from you. From the diary. I can’t explain the knife, but I can get rid of the nightmares… that’s all I want. That’s all I ask. I hope this is my last entry. Maybe I’ll follow up. Maybe I’ll let you know if it worked. Oh, God, I write this as if you’re a human listening to me. But nobody is reading this, nobody is gonna, nobody can. They’d throw me in the fucking psycho bin if they did. I don’t belong there with those crazy fuckers. I’m normal. Goddammit, I’m normal.”
Chapter Twelve
From Rose Hawthorn’s diary
“Jesus fucking Christ.
It won’t stop. Let me catch you up. It’s been a week since I put you away. I can’t let you go. I’m so addicted to you. Writing in this journal… makes me feel alive! It helps me! I need it! Fuck me. My hands have been shaking every time I grab a motherfucking pen. Every time I grab a pen I almost start writing my thoughts. I need a place to keep them. There are too many for my head.
I’ve been sleeping three or four hours again. Not because I want to, but because I can’t sleep. I lay in bed and all I can think of is the knife.
I wait, listen, and think below my covers. If they come, I’ll hear them. There must be someone living in the walls. Someone fucking with me, someone waiting for me to sleep. So I shut my eyes. I pretend. I’m awake with my thoughts and I worry about whoever it is touching me. I worry about jumping out of bed and screaming at their touch. I worry they’ll stab me with the knife if I move. I need to see who puts it there.
But then I sleep. And I never find the person. The person in my walls. I cover up as much as I can when I change my clothes, and I’m damn sure to change them fast. I don’t want the pervert to see me through the walls.
I’m scared it’s him. The Sunday Slasher. I’m worried he lives in my walls. His damn smile is on my mind. It haunts me. It’s nasty. The memories of being murdered come back, and part of me still has the college girl’s thoughts—I still remember how it feels to adore him. And to hate him. Mostly I feel the collective hate, but there’s still that slight desire slipping through. That godawful lust consuming me.
Sunday: a steely tingle ran down my back. I was going down the treehouse steps in my dream, and I looked around, and fog filled the air. I couldn’t see below me, I had no idea what was there waiting for me should I head downward. And then a steely tingle came again, and I turned to see Athena.
‘Valerie, you look so beautiful,’ she said.
‘Am I sick?’ I asked.
Athena put an arm around me and kissed me. I pushed her away.
‘Maybe you’ll be different,’ Athena said.
I wanted to stab her. I wanted to burn my lips off. It was disgusting and vile.
‘I hate you!’ I said.
Athena’s finger twirled in her hair, and she said, ‘There’s still time for you to turn out different. But I don’t know that you will.’
I felt a black spot inside of me when she said that. A sickness which rose and spread through my stomach. I was sick all right; as sick as I’d ever been. I fell on my hands and knees, gripping the steps. I was close to falling off. She seemed impossibly far away. She seemed impossibly tall. She was only two steps away, looking down at me, smiling. I didn’t want to fall, but my head burned and everything felt hot as if the air were somehow boiling. I sneezed. I was getting sicker. Everything seemed putrid; black decay spread along the treehouse. Athena came closer. She kneeled down by me.
‘I hope you feel better,’ she said.
The fog was getting higher, it engulfed me quickly. I was drowning in it. I had no sense, I couldn’t see, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t feel.
Monday: I missed school. I missed Eli’s. I stayed home. I… I was sick. Incredibly sick. It felt more like a disease than a sickness. My head was heavy. I laid down. I almost never sat up or stood up. All I could do was rest. I drank tons of water; I was kind of out of it. Then I took medicine, drank tea and drank juice. I felt like a sack of dog shit.
I did not dream. If I did, well, I don’t remember. I should get sick more then, if it keeps the dreams away.
Tuesday: Still sick. I felt a mist of heat around me. It was heavy. I thought of you, Diary, of writing. I needed to. But I couldn’t get up. Any movement upset my stomach. I felt as if I’d throw up if I got any closer to this book. But I needed to write. It’s part of me. I needed to.
Wednesday: I was fine enough for school. I stood over my dresser, looked down at the part where you were hidden, then got on my knees. I was scared. I was scared that maybe there was a black hole under there and you were gone forever. I was scared the man living in my walls stole you. Which, speaking of, the knife still hasn’t returned yet. It’s in its spot in the kitchen, and I’m glad.
I reached my hand under the dusty dresser. I touched you. I cried in joy because you hadn’t left me. I felt crazy then. I was a psycho. I belonged in the insane asylum with the other crazies, didn’t I? I pulled my hand quickly away. I lay there hopelessly. I hadn’t had a nightmare in days… but I needed you. I did what I could. I went to school. I tried to be myself. And it worked, but my palm kept itching with the need to write. So I drew in class, I drew the whole day, and I found myself writing what I’m writing now. I scratched it off the paper, tore it up, threw it away in the dumpster behind the school. I did anything I could not to write in this diary. But it’s in me, I need to. I need to do this, to write in you.
Thursday: I couldn’t be in the room with you. No, I really couldn’t. Not when my nightmares had stopped. I couldn’t risk them coming back. I seemed normal again to everyone. No more talk about bags under my eyes, no more knives under my pillows.
So I went to Rose’s and I pretended to study. All I did was doodle in the corner of my notes.
‘Get my mind off stuff, Rose,’ I said.
‘Huh?
‘Dipshit,’ ”I laughed. Too much on my mind. Distract me.
‘Okay?’ Rose said like a question. ‘I started reading a book called Eternity, it’s about a boy named Brandon who…’
And Rose went on. I stopped listening by then, pretending to focus on what she had been saying, pretending to be interested. I just needed the slightest distraction, and she gave it to me.
Orion cooked steaks. I ate half of one. It was a struggle to eat, I didn’t feel well. I was still sick. But I ate because I had to, I had to eat something. I chugged orange juice, watched TV with Rose. All was normal.
I envy Rose Hawthorn just a little bit. I wish I could be normal again like she is. But I can’t get rid
of this… weirdness. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. I wish I could be anyone else. I don’t want this life anymore.
So then I went home. I slept on the floor by my dresser. When I woke up, the knife was next to me. I wish I knew why. I held it in my hands… and I tried not to scream.
Then I dropped it. My hands went over my neck. There was nothing wrong with it. I was worried about my neck… because I had a dream that night.
I was the next victim of the Sunday Slasher. I was Riley. I jumped. I realized I was here, I realized where I was at the sight of those scary dolls looking back at me. Those plastic and glass eyes that never blinked. They stared at me. They followed me around. They were just like the ones in my other dream, where the lady chased me, and there were those crying dolls. Except these didn’t cry, their eyes just watched. Studied me. Studied me like the man in my walls probably did.
All the dolls had long, flowing hair in a ponytail, just like I did—not me—like Riley did. Come to think of it, they all looked like her. Blonde hair. A pretty smile. Eyes that were big and vibrant.
Then her thoughts became mine. She loved dolls oh so much. Their beauty especially. And she loved how their looks were preserved forever. She wished she could be a doll. She wanted to be pretty like them. Riley was obsessed with looks.
And when this dream started, she had just gotten home from the nursery where she worked. There was a little girl that kept pulling Riley’s hair. It was a tiring day. She was unsuspecting, and she was having a window fixed. The man seemed nice to her. I wish I could’ve talked to Riley. I had her thoughts, but I couldn’t give her my own. We were one body, but we were two separate minds. My mind was seldom in control. And oh God, I talk like this is reality, but it’s just a dream. Just dreams. Right?
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