The Sunday Slasher was repairing a window screen for her, she had cardboard up in its place. It was a warm day, so she walked instead of driving. His shop wasn’t far, six or seven blocks away. She left with a water bottle in hand, unaware it would be the last time she ever saw her collection of dolls.
Riley passed a friend along the walk. Another blondie. I don’t know her name. I can’t even hear the conversation. All the sound was sucked out of the world as I begged her, cried to her, screamed, ‘Go! Leave! Go with your friend! Run away! Don’t go down there! Don’t get your window! He’s gonna murder you!’
But she couldn’t hear me. I begged her. But Riley walked away from her friend, the last person (besides him…) that would see her alive.
Her friend never stopped feeling guilty as long as she lived. She died a few years later by suicide. She never left a note, but some people thought they knew why. Too much guilt over Riley.
Riley continued on to her inevitable doom. I yelled the whole walk. Death edged closer with every step. Wind screamed over the roofs. It was already hot out, but it turned into such a scorcher when I got to his block. As if the air were flames. It bothered me, Valerie, but not her, Riley. Faint music drifted to me from his house.
I shivered. Even in the heat, I shivered.
Riley walked to the door. She knocked. Knocked again. Then he answered.
He let her in. The door squealed on its hinges as if warning her…
‘Ah, Miss Riley,’ he said. ‘Lookin awful gorgeous today.’
‘Who, me?’ Riley smiled.
He winked, smiled, then said, ‘Of course.’
‘You’re so sweet,’ Riley said.
He told her he was gonna grab the screens from the workshop, then he walked toward the door. Her back was turned. Then he moved behind her back and grunted. As she started to turn her head, he grabbed her, and that’s when she finally screamed.
He pulled on her ponytail, tugged until it felt as if it’d rip off her scalp, then wrapped it around her neck. Everything was fuzzy, I couldn’t see very well.
Moments later he dragged me to the crawlspace. He sat across from me. That nasty unpleasant smile was all I could see. He was there for an hour, maybe two, just looking. Then he came closer hesitantly. He touched my shoulder with one finger, then dragged it down my back. He hovered over me. Then he cupped my breast. Then he pulled away, embarrassed.
When he left a minute later, I didn’t know I would wake up. I lay there, dizzy, hurt (an understatement), nearly blind, and then I saw it.
The headless body of a lady. She was in that Audrey Hepburn black dress.
I woke up screaming.
But on my mind… was the treehouse.
I ran to my backyard. I had to be sure the ginormous treehouse from the nightmares wasn’t real. I had to be sure Athena wasn’t here. My body quivered. A thin cold hit me. Then I noticed a little mist—a little in the corner of the yard. I shut the back door.
It was Friday, so that meant school. I dreaded it. I was suddenly so weak. My stomach hurt again (and Athena’s words played over in my head, You’re sick). Soon I got ready for school, brushed my teeth, half-assed my hair, and put on whatever clothes I saw first. I looked out the window. I sighed. The grey sky… I just couldn’t look.
Rose messaged me that she was outside. I walked to Orion’s car looking down at my feet the whole time. I didn’t want to glance the demented sky.
I looked so bad… Even Orion asked what wrong.
‘Sick,’ I said.
He nodded, asked, ‘Need medicine?’
‘No.’ I sighed. ‘My head just hurts.’
Then we got to school. The day passed slowly. By lunch it felt as if the day should be over. I didn’t eat. I rested my head around my arms on the table.
‘How’s your head?’ Rose asked.
‘Well, nobody has complained yet.’ I laughed.
‘What?’ Rose said. She didn’t get it.
‘Kidding.’ I said. ‘My head kills.’
I was too sick. After school we didn’t go out anywhere, I just went home. I hurried to my room. My head throbbed. I jumped on my bed. I knew I was about to pass out, but I had to do one thing: I lifted my pillow. There was no knife. I checked the case. Still nothing. I smiled.
I slept.
I didn’t dream.
But I found the knife. It was only a nap. Under an hour. My left arm felt something hard beneath the pillow. Something was there, and I didn’t want to look. But curiosity took over. My hands gripped the pillow a little too tight so that my palms turned white when I squeezed them.
Then I moved it away in disgust.
He must’ve been in the walls. I don’t know how he gets in, I don’t know how he gets out, but he’s in them. He’s silent, but he’s in them. The man in my walls, putting the knife there just to fuck with me. I looked at each wall, I examined them top to bottom. I looked for trap doors and even moved my bed to look at the wall behind it. I moved my dresser next and found nothing. I looked in my closet—maybe he lived there. But nothing. No sign of the man in my walls.
Then I saw an ant crawling down the wall near the window. I walked to it, looked at it from inches away. It paused; it did not move when I looked at it so closely. But the ant was there, and I was then so angry, and I don’t even know why I was. I was just angry suddenly at the ant, angry at everything. Maybe it was the fragments of anger from my dreams, all piling up.
I smashed it with my forehead. It didn’t hurt to bang my head hard on the wall. I wiped his bits off my skin. I don’t know what came over me.
Maybe this was the wall he was in. The wall with the window. I hated it. And the man who lived in it. The Sunday Slasher. The man leaving the knife for me. What did he want me to do with it? Oh my God, what did he want me to do with it? What did he want from me?
Then I realized it was in my hand. I didn’t remember grabbing it. But it was there. I raised it up. It felt natural in my hand. I put it on my throat. A sickly chill ran through me.
Is this what he wanted? He couldn’t kill me in my dreams, so he wanted me to do this. He wanted me to do it for him?
Every thought made me shiver. I couldn’t take it. I collapsed as if all strength disappeared from my legs. My hair was in my eyes and blinded me momentarily. I moved it quickly away and looked up at the wall. I was sure I’d see him over me. The pervert. The sick fucker. The Sunday Slasher. I hyperventilated. I cried. I was good at crying.
Tears fell on the knife. I saw my reflection in them.
I stood up; it was hard to. Maybe I still had a little strength left in my legs. I left the room, looking over my shoulder. Scared he’d be behind me, like for Riley. I touched my neck again, making sure it was still there. I was scared of him. Still so, so scared.
In the kitchen, I washed the knife. I wanted to put it back in its spot. Then I thought about it. I put it on top of the fridge and pushed it and heard it thump against the wall. Nobody would ever look there. Nobody would reach there. Nobody would know but me.
I looked around to double check he wasn’t watching. The man in my walls couldn’t possibly see. I’d have heard him come down here. He won’t put this knife in my room anymore.
But that’s what brings me to today. To Saturday. It’s why I picked you back up again after a week. Because it came back.
Dammit.
It came back. It was dirty and dusty and he wants me to do something with it… and I don’t… I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I really can’t do this.
But damn do I feel a tad better writing this down. This is why I need you. You calm me. But I need answers. Why is he doing this to me?”
From Valerie Hart’s diary
“‘Rose?’ I said.
Rose looked away from the movie we were watching at my house, and said, “Yes?”
I couldn’t look at her. I kept my eyes on the movie and said, ‘I keep my diary in that spot under my dresser.’
‘Huh?’
�
��If anything happens to me,’ I said, ‘read it.’
‘Val? What’s wrong? If something happens to you—what? What do you mean? Huh? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ I lied. ‘Just read it. One day. I want you to read it.’
‘But for what?’
‘Just to read.’
‘You’re scaring me, Valerie. You’re scaring me. What do you mean?’
‘So I’m remembered.’
‘Val, you’re not dying until you’re eighty-seven or something and in the nursing home. Please don’t talk like that, I don’t like to think of things like that. Are you sure you’re okay? You’ve been strange lately. You were normal. And then Avery… and then… then you’ve been gone after. So—so different. What is wrong, Val?’
‘Rose, I…’
I told her I was scared to die. I told her it was on my mind. I told her that was bugging me. She… understood. Then she promised she’d read it if she ever needed to. And she told me where she kept hers, so I could read hers if it ever came down to that.”
From Valerie Hart’s diary
“It wasn’t the usual dream. No. It was different. Hard to tell if it was a dream. Like Joel, Lisa’s brother. When he saw her taken, and thought it was a dream.
I watched my sleeping body. It was the dead of night. Darkness clung heavily to me. Then a shape moved in the corner. It stopped at my bed, looking down at me. All I saw was a blob in the dark. Just a blob. Humanoid shaped. Evil. Corrupt. Otherworldly.
But I was frozen to my bed.
Disturbing breathing was loud in my ears.
Was it the man in the walls? I think so. Maybe he lived in shadows instead. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he wasn’t the man in the walls. Maybe he was the man in the shadows. The man in my dreams. Could that be it instead? No. A dream or a shadow can’t grab a knife. That doesn’t make sense.”
From Valerie Hart’s diary
“He was there again last night. That blob in the dark, standing over me and breathing. Impossible to tell if it’s a dream or reality. I can’t move. I can see it. But I wake up; it feels real. I’m just torn. The only constants are the terror and the knife. The knife is there under the pillow every single time.
I could be crazy. Maybe that’s it. My life took a sudden turn with this journal… and I never experienced anything like this before.
I saw a balloon outside flying into the black sky. Flying into the abyss. The balloons still scare me. I felt myself lift off into the air, even though I was in my bedroom, looking out the window. I felt my mind float with it. I don’t want to go up there. I don’t want to float into the sky. Don’t let me float into the sky. There has to be a… a cure? Can I call it a cure?
There’s a way to stop this all. I know there is. This can’t go on forever.
Lord help me.”
From Valerie Hart’s diary
“I dreamt of the treehouse; it was quiet. I stood below the massive trees that cradled it. There was no mist, only silence. Me and silence. I stepped onto the swirling staircase. It was taller than before. It neared the clouds.
I put my hand on the bark of one tree. It was surreal; I felt warmth and texture. Could it all be a dreamscape?
I yawned. Athena appeared next to me.
‘Athena!’ I said.
‘Hello.
‘Athena, what’s wrong with me? Why am I here? Why the treehouse?’
‘Didn’t you always want one?
Yes!’ I yelled. ‘Now tell me, what do the dreams mean?’
‘Dreams?’ Athena said. ‘Honey, this isn’t dreams. It’s real. And you’re sick. Oh, so sick.’
‘Sick with what?’
‘I’m sorry, I wished for it to be different.’ Athena shrugged. ‘I was sure one of us would be. One of us has to be. And if not you, then someone new.’
‘Tell me!’ I begged.
Athena looked at me, confused.
‘You know,’ she said. ‘Deep down, you know, Valerie Hart.’
I thought about it. I thought deep down. And I felt sick in my stomach and toes. It spread like wildfire.
‘You need to help me,’ I said.
‘I can’t help you. Nobody can.’ Athena frowned. ‘I wish it could’ve been different, but it isn’t. You’re very, very sick.’
My legs moved suddenly. I was going up, and so was Athena Hendrasen.
‘Where do I know you from? I asked.
Athena’s mouth was shut and blue in the corners. A stitch closed the right corner of her mouth. As we climbed and I looked at her, more stitches sprang out. In a matter of seconds, her mouth was stitched shut.
I screamed. I scrambled. And soon I was at the top. I looked back; there was no Athena. Only me and the door. So I opened it. Inside was brightly lit. The telescope was still by the window. I went to it, pointed it out the window, and put my eye to the lens. I had always wanted to look through a telescope in a treehouse. I was distracted.
He was behind me. The Sunday Slasher. The man in my walls. The blob in the dark.
His arms were around me. He squeezed me tight. I felt I’d snap between his scummy fingers and wormy grip. He was a bastard pervert and I wanted him to die. I wanted to be far away from him. I wanted to be gone—and then I was.
I was Reagan, his next victim. The woman in the dumpster… I was her. I was naked. And the lid of the dumpster was miles away in the nauseating darkness. There was no sound of the whistling winds hitting the dumpster. I had a layer of frost over me. I had been here for a while—every part of me was numb. I was confused, dizzy, and my eyes were slipping shut.
I needed to sit up. All I had to do. Just sit up. Reagan, sit up, come on, please! Just sit up, Valerie. Sit up. Come on. Sit up and reach for the lid. You can do this. Stop lying here! Stop lying here!
It felt like icy teeth of snow monsters were biting me all over. Devouring me. But I was alone—it must’ve been just the frost. I was freezing to death. Naked, frozen, dying.
How did Reagan get here?
Then my mind gave. I couldn’t think. The darkness hovering above me drifted farther away, like the balloon against the black Carpenter sky.
The darkness spun. My body felt as if it would float, as if I’d drift away with the balloons. I wished I were hiding under my parents’ bed again, just like I did when I discovered my fear of balloons. But Mom and Dad were nowhere near. Nobody here to save me. I was dying, and the killer wasn’t near. The man in the walls wasn’t here to hurt me.
I died; drifted in the cold shell of death; then later I woke up when light shined in the dumpster. Someone was opening the lid and was about to find Reagan.
And the knife was under my pillow.”
From Valerie Hart’s diary
“Rachel Moore was his final victim.
She was the most gorgeous victim. Her body was sexy and it was mine. I was her. I was Rachel.
Rachel worked at a little antique shop. It was winter, so there weren’t many customers… until he stepped in. The Sunday Slasher. And she was the only other person in the store. She was nervous; she had a bad feeling about him. Rachel kept a gun under the counter. She eyed it. She knew. Somehow, she fucking knew. And never said a word. I almost hated her. Almost. But she was a victim, too. She would be dead soon. And I was about to see it all and feel it all.
He picked up a photo album. Dust was on his fingers. It reminded me of the dust on the knife. He flashed her that sinister grin.
‘Rachel.’
‘How ya doing?’
‘Great,’ he said, ‘and you?’
I felt the disgust building up in her. She knew. Her hands were shaking, and she held them together to hide it. She bit her lip. She tried to remain calm. She’d never had to use the gun before. Not like this. Not in real life. She wanted to shoot him right then and there.
‘I’m—I’m okay,’ she said. ‘A bit under the weather.’
He set the album down, still grinning, and walked closer to her. My heart raced. Rachel wondered if she should
shoot. She wanted to. She knew it was him. It had to be. Rachel watched. Rachel knew. And she was scared.
He leaned over the counter.
‘My, my, you are a pretty one,’ he said.
‘Th-thank you.’
Then he climbed over the counter too fast for her to react. I remember her saying ‘Please—‘ then screaming when he pulled the pocket knife out. She hit him before it could open and knocked it out of his hands in their struggle. He smacked her, she hit him, and he kicked her to the ground. Rachel twisted her ankle as she came down atop a pile of junk.
Her eyes moved to the gun. So far away. She wished she’d shot him when he walked through the door. He looked at the gun, laughed, then grabbed the newspaper Rachel read that morning. He lay on top of her. She felt so violated, then with a burst of energy and fear, she bit into his shoulder.
He pushed her away then shoved a piece of paper into her mouth. She resisted. He punched her stomach. Her mouth flew open and she gasped for air, and he stuffed more paper into her mouth, further. She choked; her throat burned.
Then he took another page. He balled it up and stuffed it in. Then he ripped a third page and forced it down her throat.
I did not fully experience her death, as I woke up to my grandma shaking me. Why the hell was she here in my room?
‘Grandma?’ I said.
Dad was behind her, ‘Look who came to visit, Val.’
‘Oh, my little Valerie, I’ve missed you,’ Grandma said, then hugged me.
‘I’ve missed you too,’ I said. And so has the fucking morgue.”
From Valerie Hart’s diary
“I put the knife in the garbage.
It was under my pillow by morning.
It’s Saturday. I don’t want to get out of bed. My head hurts again. It feels like an anchor. I couldn’t lift it. I didn’t want to. I wanted to sleep. But I couldn’t. Sleep didn’t come. So here I am. Writing to you. The knife is next to me. It’s dirty with gunk from the trash.
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