Casting her gaze from left to right she searched for the other her, the one with the pigtails. She found the young girl lying on the rocks, beaten and bruised. Her little body looked broken, her arm twisted in a strange way.
Dawn sat down beside her and pushed her dirty hair out of her face. Dawn’s hands didn’t pass through the girl’s brown strands like they had done with everything else. She was able to touch her. Perhaps she could talk to her too.
“I’m so sorry,” Dawn whispered.
The girl’s swollen eyes fluttered open. She stared up at Dawn and smiled, blood pooling at the corner of her mouth.
“Don’t worry, grandma will fix it,” the girl whispered. With a sigh, the young girl with pigtails closed her eyes and didn’t open them again.
“Hey,” Dawn shook her. The girl didn’t wake up. “No, please,” Dawn cried. “Wake up. It’s going to be okay. Wake up.” No sound left the girl, no movement, no indication of life. Sobbing, Dawn released the girl and wrapped her arms around her own body.
“Do you remember now?”
Dawn looked to her left and her right, no one was there.
“I think I remember,” Dawn called out, her voice shaking as tears rolled down her cheeks. She did remember. She remembered the pain, the anger. She remembered thinking that there was no one in this world who cared for her.
She remembered feeling alone. When she stared back down at the rocks the other girl was gone. She’d disappeared into thin air. A cold hand on her shoulder caused her to spin around. That was when she noticed it.
The girl that had been beaten and hurt by those two men was the same girl that had been haunting her for over a year. When Dawn had first saw her at the campsite she’d had on a cute brown shirt with brown shorts and a pair of tennis shoes.
After those men hurt her she was barefoot, bloody. Her clothes were torn and so bloodstained Dawn could barely tell what color they’d once been. But now she knew. Her mind was slowly putting the pieces of the puzzle together.
“They left us here,” the girl said.
“Who?” Dawn asked.
“Mama and daddy. When they woke up, they came looking for us. They found us here. Daddy checked to see if we were still breathing.”
Dawn swallowed, “Were we?” She already knew the answer. But she needed to hear it anyway.
Her mirage shook her head. “We weren’t. They left us here. They went home, packed up and moved. They tried to pretend we never existed. But gran heard us when we called. She came and she found us. She brought us back.”
“Brought us back from where?”
“The dead.”
Dawn tightened her arms around her. Was that why she was forever cold?
“It took three days for her magic to work. When she took us home, our parents were shocked to see us. Gran told them she found us in the woods, barely alive. They didn’t believe her because they knew we were dead when they left. But they had to take us. They’ve been scared of us ever since.”
“When did this happen?”
“On our birthday, last year. We begged them to take us camping and daddy finally gave in when granny sent us money.”
Shortly after her last birthday had been when the nightmares started and when she started seeing the apparition.
“If granny brought me back, why are you here? Why do you follow me everywhere I go?”
“A life for a life. Granny gave us life. She took it from the darkness. But it comes with a price. We have to give a life back. There has to be a balance.”
“How do I balance things and what do you mean we have to give a life back?”
“You know what to do Dawn. You’ve remembered. You know what they did to us. You have to make them pay. You have to give a life back.”
Before Dawn could ask the mirage who she was talking about, the darkness surrounded her again and again she felt like she was falling. This time when she opened her eyes she was lying in her own bed and staring into the eyes of her parents.
They seemed disappointed that she was awake. Her mom plastered a fake smile on her face while her dad looked away, mumbling incoherent words under his breath. Neither hugged her or said they were happy she was okay. A life for a life.
She knew what she had to do.
Chapter Four
~ Revenge ~
After her dad determined that she was okay, her parents left her room, leaving her to rest. Her mom told her to be more careful on the stairs. Neither of them wanted to be near her longer than they had to.
Now she understood why. They feared her. She was the daughter they went into the woods with that day but didn’t return home with. She was dead, or she had been. Until her grandmother saved her. Dawn sat up. No wonder she never cried. No wonder she was never tired or even hungry.
There was only one way to get the dreams to stop. There was only one way to keep the apparition from haunting her. She had to make them pay. Dawn walked over to her vanity table and stared into the mirror.
As always, her ghost stared back at her. This time it wasn’t frowning or calling Dawn’s name, trying to get her to remember. It was smiling. Dawn smiled back. The fear she’d once felt from seeing the apparition was gone.
Now, she felt a sense of sisterhood. The person staring back at her was the only one in this house who loved her. This ghost was the only one she could count on, other than her granny. Dawn didn’t know how long she stood staring at herself in the mirror.
All she knew was that it was daylight when she stepped in front of the mirror and dark when she finally turned away from her reflection. Her time looking into the glass had not been in vain. She and her ghost had shared hundreds of ideas with each other.
They discussed using bleach to do the deed since that was what her mother used to try and kill her when she was still a fetus. However, they both agreed that bleach would be too time-consuming.
Then they discussed using the baseball bat their dad kept in the basement. Unfortunately that wouldn’t be painful enough. Her parents deserved more than a good beating. They needed to suffer immensely until they gasped their last breath.
Now that Dawn remembered what happened to her, she wanted her parents to feel exactly what it was like to be alone and hurting. She wanted them to know what it felt like to sense that death was near and there was no one around to hold your hand.
Though it took her and her ghost a long time to come to a decision, the one they ultimately made was wonderful. This was as close to happy as Dawn had felt in a long time. She left her room and walked into the hallway.
The light was shining from under her parents’ bedroom door. She walked down the hall, tiptoeing. She eased the door open and peeked inside. Her mom was asleep. Where was her dad? Moving away from the door, she made her way over to the staircase and walked down the stairs, moving quietly.
She grimaced each time a step squeaked underneath her feet. Her dad was not in the living room. She strode into the kitchen only to discover he wasn’t there either. She found him sitting on the back porch, smoking a skinny brown cigarette. He had music playing from his headphones and was rapping along to the beat.
He didn’t hear Dawn lock the patio door, locking him out of the house. With that done, she crept over to the sink and pulled a long knife out of the dish rack. Knife in hand, she crept back upstairs, growing more excited with each step she took.
At the top of the stairs she stared down the long hallway that led to her mother’s bedroom. Numerous times she’d stood in this hallway, late at night, unable to sleep, wanting to be comforted.
There had been plenty times that she’d knocked on her parents’ door, hoping they would let her in and maybe tell her a bedtime story or just talk with her until she grew tired. They never answered her knocks.
Slow determined steps carried her to the bedroom door. Pushing it open, she entered the room. She stood over mother’s bed, staring down at her with the knife hidden behind her back. It would be easy to slip the knife into her mother’s b
elly without awakening her.
However, Dawn wanted to stare into her mother’s eyes when she killed her. Her mother needed to be awake for this. She needed to know that in the end, it was the child she wanted dead who killed her, beautiful irony.
Dawn stared across the room where her mother’s mirror was. Her ghost stared back at her, grinning from ear to ear. So was Dawn. The ghost nodded then stared down at their mother. It was time to do what needed to be done.
Dawn bumped the bed. Her mother mumbled something in her sleep but didn’t awaken. Dawn bumped the bed again, this time a little harder. Her mother stirred then slowly opened her eyes. Dawn didn’t miss the fear that registered in her mother’s gaze before her mom blinked it away.
“Dawn what is it? What time is it?”
“You let them hurt me.”
“What? Who?” Her mother rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “What are you talking about Dawn?”
“The men in the woods?”
That got her mother’s attention. “Who told you that?” Eyes wide, her mother moved to sit up.
Dawn sank the knife into her stomach. She pulled it out quickly then stabbed again, and again. Screaming, her mom pushed her away. Dawn stumbled into the wall while her mother clutched her bleeding stomach and tried to get out of the bed.
Regaining her footing, Dawn rushed back to the bed. This time she stabbed her mother in the face, moving as fast as she could. In… out… in… out. Blood spurted everywhere, coating Dawn’s hands, chest and face.
It felt good. For the first time in a long time she was able to feel something other than the cold. She felt joy and it was wonderful. It bloomed in her chest then spread through the rest of her body, warming her.
She felt warm.
It was a marvelous feeling. It reminded her of all the things she missed: nice hot bowls of soup on cold winter days. Warm slices of sweet potato pie on Thanksgiving. Large cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows.
She kept stabbing until she wore her mother’s blood and guts as a second skin. Once done, she stepped back to look at the art she’d created. It was beautiful. Dawn trailed her hands over the bumpy display that was once the woman who gave birth to her.
Her mother looked better this way. She no longer had to worry about if she was too slim or too fat. She was perfect, thanks to Dawn. Dawn grabbed a handful of her artwork and walked over to the mirror.
She smeared the remains over the glass. She wanted to share with her ghost. Her apparition leaned closer to the glass and sighed, enjoying this just as much as Dawn was.
“So pretty,” the ghost whispered.
That was Dawn’s thoughts exactly. But Dawn didn’t have time to play with her mother anymore. She needed to turn her dad into a beautiful creation also. With the knife in her hand, Dawn made her way downstairs, leaving behind her bloody footprints.
She walked over to the patio door to find her dad still outside, staring off into the distance as he smoked. He had headphones in his ears. The music was so loud she could hear the bass pumping from the headphones. Dawn smiled. No wonder he hadn’t heard his wife scream.
She unlocked the door. Click. He didn’t move. She slid the door open. Still he didn’t turn around. She stepped onto the porch without him noticing her. Now standing behind him, she lifted the knife high above her head.
“Dad,” she whispered. No response.
Dawn used her free hand to jerk one of the ear plugs from his ear. He turned and stared up at her, his eyes widening as a puff of smoke billowed from between his lips. With a yell, Dawn brought the knife down.
The blade stabbed through his eye. He fell back and Dawn, still holding the knife, fell down with him. Together they tumbled down the steps. Her father landed on top of her. Blood from his wound coated her, mixing with the blood she was already wearing.
She wriggled trying to get from under him. It took her a few minutes to push his heavy body off her. She finally rolled him onto his back. The knife was still stuck in his eye. But he was dead. Dawn frowned.
She’d wanted to play with him the way she’d played with her mom. There was still time. Dawn reached for her knife and with a yank, she freed it from his eye socket. Staring down at him, she was undecided of what she should do to him. Her apparition appeared in front of her.
“You pushed the knife through his brain. He didn’t even suffer,” the ghost pouted.
“I know,” Dawn frowned. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know he was going to fall like that.”
“What are you going to do now?”
Dawn shrugged, deep in thought. She could do anything she wanted to him. The down side was that he wouldn’t feel it. That didn’t stop her from dropping to her knees next to him. With the tip of the blade positioned over his good eye, Dawn pushed using all her weight to get the knife all the way in.
Her ghost clapped, encouraging her to do more. What to do, Dawn thought as she pulled the knife out. She could cut off his fingers and put them in his mouth. He was always telling her to eat her food, not caring that she wasn’t hungry.
It was time for him to eat his food. She spent the next ten minutes chopping off his fingers and shoving them into his mouth. She arranged them so they’d look like he’d shoved a bunch of French fries into his mouth. Greedy man.
Happy, Dawn stood up. To her ghost she asked, “What now?”
“You have to call granny. She has to come get us now.”
“Okay,” Dawn nodded. “Wait, daddy has a tattoo of mom’s name on his chest.”
“So?”
“I want it.”
“Why?”
“You know, for like a reminder or something.”
“Okay. Get it.”
Dawn dropped back to her knees and lifted her father’s shirt. His mother’s name was etched into his flesh surrounded by the drawing of a heart with arrows sticking out of it. It took Dawn longer than she thought it would for her to cut the tattoo away from him.
Once she was done she stared at it smiling. Now she would have a part of her mom and her dad with her forever as a reminder of the fun she’d had today.
“Okay, I’m ready to call granny now.” Dawn raced into the house. She grabbed her dad’s cell phone off the kitchen table and called her granny. Her granny answered on the first ring.
“I had a dream about you child,” Donna said.
“How did you know it was me?”
“Your granny has been watching you in her ball ever since you had your tumble. Are you finished, are you ready for granny to come get you sweetie?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Okay baby, I’ll be there in a few hours. Lock the doors and stay inside. I’ll be there before the sun rises.”
“Okay, granny.”
“And Dawn.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You did good sweetie.”
Dawn smiled. “Thank you granny.”
Dawn hung the phone up then ran back outside. She still had time to play with her daddy some more. She used the blade to carve up his body. She sliced over and over again until she reached bone.
During the whole thing her ghost danced around the backyard singing and laughing. Once Dawn was finished she went upstairs and washed up. She didn’t want to dirty up her granny’s car. Finally clean Dawn went back downstairs.
Dawn sat down on her couch and watched cartoons while she waited on her grandmother to come get her. She didn’t know she’d fallen asleep until she was startled awake by a loud knock on the door. Dawn sat up. Her ghost was already at the door, peering through the peep hole.
“It’s granny,” she grinned back at Dawn.
Dawn stood up and grabbed her backpack. When she opened the door, her grandmother was standing there with her black cane in her hand. Her granny gifted her with a sweet smile.
“Ready?”
Dawn nodded.
“Come on, we’ve got another stop to make before we head to the bayou.”
Dawn closed the door behind her and follow
ed her granny down the porch steps. Her ghost hopped along next to her singing, to grandmother’s house we go.
“Granny what other stop do we have to make?”
Her granny opened the passenger side door for her and then walked to the back door and held the door open for her ghost.
“You see her?” Dawn asked shocked.
“Of course I see her. She’s part of you now sweetie.”
“We’ll be together forever,” her ghost sang from the back seat.
Smiling Dawn climbed into the car. It would be just like having a sister. Finally, she was going to have a real family.
“Granny, what other stop do we have to make?” Dawn asked again once her granny got into the car and closed her door.
Her granny turned to her, face serious. “It’s time for those men to pay. It took me a long time to find them. But I have.”
Dawn didn’t have to ask who she was talking about, she already knew. Dawn smiled and leaned back in her seat, finally understanding why she was different, why she was so unlike the other children. It wasn’t because she was crazy. It was because she was dead.
And the dead never returned the same.
“Granny can I get some ice cream after we finish.”
“Whatever you want, sweetie.”
She wanted strawberry ice cream with huge chunks of strawberry in it to remind her of how her mother and father looked when she last saw them. The same way her killers would look when they finished with them.
That thought put a huge grin on Dawn’s face. So this was what it felt like to be happy. Dawn liked it, she liked it a lot. Together she and her ghost sang as they rode away from the house that had been more of a morgue than a home.
“Over the hill and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go. But first we have to stop and kill and that will make four in a row.”
THE END
Epilogue
Dawn (When They Return Book 1) Page 3