by Jake Uniacke
“Daddy!” Alex cried. “Come here, quick!”
Chapter 9
The moon shone brightly through the window, making the room glow. It was the first time Georgia’s room had felt somewhat bright and cheerful. The walls were a grim shade of cream, with brown streaks down the centre. She was always disgusted by the walls, knowing she had to wake up every day and be greeted by the nasty colours and harsh smell. She sat on her bed, back against the wall and the moon shining behind her. Doctor Michaels was sitting in a chair opposite her, trying to encourage her to speak to him. He wanted to help. He really did. But Georgia was making it difficult for him.
“Please talk to me,” said Doctor Michaels. “I really want to help. All I need you to do is tell me what has been happening.”
Georgia didn’t say anything. Instead, she laid down and curled into a foetus position. She hated having the doctors in the room with her. The time she got to herself was great, and as soon as the doctors entered, she felt an overwhelming feeling of dread, knowing that she was going to be questioned about everything.
“Please leave me alone,” said Georgia. “I can’t answer your questions. If I do, I’ll be punished.”
“Georgia, you won’t be punished for answering my questions,” Doctor Michaels explained. “I just need some information so I can figure out the best way to help you. If you don’t participate, we won’t be able to help you and you’ll end up suffering in the long run.”
Georgia shot a nasty glare at him. How dare he speak to me like that?
Doctor Michaels knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of Georgia tonight. Maybe it was best to get a female doctor for Georgia instead. He thought that might be a better option, as Georgia might feel more comfortable speaking to another woman.
Mummy. Mummy.
Just as Doctor Michaels was about to open the door to leave, Georgia jumped from her bed and looked around the room, shrinking into the corner.
“Is everything okay?” asked Doctor Michaels.
Don’t tell him anything, Mummy.
Georgia’s eyes began to water, the fear overpowering her. She wanted the voices to stop You need to leave me alone! Georgia looked at the doctor, scratching her arm anxiously.
I’m warning you!
“I can hear her,” whispered Georgia. “She’s talking to me.”
You stupid cow!
“Who’s talking to you?” Doctor Michaels asked.
“Emma. My dead daughter.” I’m going to be punished for this, I know I am.
You’re going to pay for this! I told you not to tell him anything!
“What’s she saying?” Doctor Michaels sat back down on the chair and opened his notebook, ready to take notes.
Don’t you dare. You’ll regret telling him. I’ll kill you.
“She’s telling me that I’m going to pay for what happened to her,” whimpered Georgia. “She said I can’t tell you anything. She said she’s going to kill me.”
Mummy. Mummy, why are you doing this? Don’t you love me?
Doctor Michaels scribbled in his notebook, transcribing what Georgia was telling him. He nodded and hummed quite a lot as he wrote things down. Georgia kept telling him the things Emma was telling her. She wanted it to stop. Why is she doing this to me? I’m not the one who killed her!
“Please make it stop,” Georgia cried. “I can’t handle it anymore.”
Doctor Michaels nodded, a sympathetic smile on his face. “I understand. try to get a good night’s sleep. Hopefully by morning, the voices will have stopped at least for a while, and then we can do some more research into the best treatment for you.”
Everyone hates you! You’re stupid! You’re cruel! You let Alex kill me. If you had kept a better eye on her, I would still be alive. You will die. You all will.
“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Georgia screamed. “Leave me alone!”
Doctor Michaels rushed out of the room to find another doctor to help him calm Georgia down. He found Beth Lowe, and they both came back into the room. Georgia was pulling things off the sides and tables, destroying the entire room.
“Georgia!” yelled Beth. “Georgia, you need to calm down.”
Yeah, Mummy. Calm down.
“Just shut up!” Georgia shrieked.
Beth took hold of Georgia and restrained her, both of them collapsing to the floor as Georgia gasped for air, panicking. “It’s okay.”
The nurse’s grip on Georgia loosened and Georgia flopped to the floor, frozen and traumatised. The voices had stopped, but the pain was still there. Blood oozed from her arm in large streams. During her moment of stress and anguish, she had caught her arm on something sharp. Doctor Michaels and Beth helped Georgia to her feet.
“Come on,” said Doctor Michaels. “Let’s get you to the medical room so we can get your arm cleaned up.”
They held onto Georgia, guiding her from the room. Georgia dragged her feet across the floor, not having the energy to walk properly.
“I can’t do this anymore,” said Georgia. “I want to die.”
***
Mick’s phone buzzed on the coffee table. He rushed into the room to answer it, and he held it up to his ear.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hello, is that Mick?” asked the caller.
“It is.”
“Hi Mick, this is Doctor Michaels. I’m calling from Oaktree Hospital. I’ve decided to call you because after a chat with your wife, Georgia, she has been telling me that she is hearing the voice of your deceased daughter. And then she said she wants to die.”
Mick’s heart raced. How could he let it get this bad? He had to stop his wife from feeling that way—somehow. It suddenly occurred to him that he had gone quiet while still on the phone to the doctor.
“Are you still there?” Doctor Michaels asked.
“Yeah, sorry. What can I do to help?” Mick said. “I need to stop my wife from thinking like that.”
“Please be assured that we are doing everything we can to help your wife. We have a psychiatrist on site who will be having regular meetings with your wife. What we need you to do is bring some of her belongings in. Things that will make her feel more at home.”
“Okay, yeah. I’ll do that.”
Mick ended the call and sat down on the sofa. He couldn’t believe that his wife would say such a thing. Why did she want to die? The answer didn’t quite occur to him, but he knew that he had to do more to help her. Taking her belongings into the hospital would do absolutely nothing to help her, he thought. Objects don’t help. He needed to do more. He just didn’t know what. Knowing what Georgia had said, Mick instantly knew the right thing to do was report the truth to the police. It was only fair. If the police knew the entire truth behind Emma’s death, then maybe that would help Georgia move on. And it would also help Alex move past her guilt.
He went upstairs to Alex’s room and smiled as he saw her playing a tea party with her teddies and dollies. Alex looked up and offered Mick a plastic cup with pretend tea in it.
“No thank you, sweetie,” said Mick. “I need to talk to you about something important.”
“Okay,” Alex replied.
She put her toys down and sat on her bed. Mick sat next to her and sighed. He couldn’t quite get the words out. He wanted to make sure he told her what he was going to do in a way that was kind, yet firm.
“Mummy is very ill,” said Mick. “And we need to help her in every possible way. Right now, there is only one thing to do that is the right thing to do.”
“What’s that?” asked Alex.
“We need to report what really happened to Emma.”
“No!” Alex burst into tears.
“It’s the only way to help Mummy. She is very ill, and we need to help her. If the police knew what happened, then it could help her move on. It could help you forgive yourself, and it could help Mummy forgive you too.”
Alex tried to plead with her father. “Please, Daddy! Don’t report me! I’ll get int
o trouble and everyone will know what I did, and they’ll all hate me!”
“You won’t get into trouble. You’re just a child and you didn’t know what you were doing. But reporting it is the only way to move past it all.”
Mick got up and left the room, leaving Alex screaming and crying in her bedroom. She wanted her mother to forgive her. But she didn’t want this to be the only way that she could be forgiven. The police could not find out the truth. She would have to make sure of it.
Chapter 10
Night fell, and it was time for Alex to go to bed. She had since calmed down from Mick’s announcement earlier, but she still needed to figure out a way to stop him from going to the police. As she lay in bed, Mick pulled the duvet over her and tucked her in.
“Please don’t tell the police what I did,” pleaded Alex. “I don’t want to go to jail.”
Mick stroked her face. “You won’t go to jail. You’re too young. But you will learn a very important lesson. You will learn why it is important to tell the truth, and why it is important to never put your hands on someone in a violent way, no matter how much they wind you up.”
“It was an accident.”
“I know it was. Anyway, if anyone is going to prison, it would be Mummy and myself for lying to the police.”
Alex began to cry again. “Please. Don’t do it. I don’t want anyone to go to jail.”
Mick kissed Alex’s forehead and switched off her bedroom light. “Goodnight. Try not to think about all the bad things that have been happening recently. And don’t worry about the police.”
Alex watched as Mick closed her bedroom door. She didn’t want to get into trouble. She couldn’t get into trouble. What if all her friends hated her? The family already hated them. In fact, the only person who didn’t hate them was Grandma Dorothy. Alex suddenly had a thought. I need to take his phone.
As quietly as she could, Alex crept out of her room and across the landing. She peered around her father’s bedroom door. He was fast asleep. Dead as a doornail. She snuck into his room and took his phone off charge. She picked the phone up from the bedside table and then crept out of the room and back to hers. Alex turned the phone off so that it didn’t make any noise throughout the night and then hid it in her wardrobe where her father would hopefully not find it. It was for her own protection. The police could not find out the truth. Alex got back into bed and pulled the duvet right up to her neck. Her bedroom was freezing. She felt like she was in the North Pole. She closed her eyes and started to drift off to sleep.
A gentle breeze brushed through the room. The curtains waved gently, like feathers falling in the wind. Alex found the temperature soothing, and it made her even more sleepy. As she dozed off, her bedroom window slammed shut, causing her to jump awake and fall from her bed. She thumped on the floor and she quickly stood up and got back into bed. She didn’t bother opening the window again—it was too cold for it to be open anyway. The room was at a nice, crisp temperature and Alex soon dozed off to sleep again.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Alex was woken by the sound of gentle tapping on the glass. She stirred and opened her tired eyes slowly. Getting up, Alex heard the tapping again, only this time, it was a lot louder. She drew her curtains open ever so gently, but all she could see outside was the darkness of the night. No one was there. She closed the curtains again and got back into bed. Only this time, she kept her eyes open. There was no way she would be able to sleep now until she was sure she wasn’t going to hear any noises again. A heavy breeze struck the room as the window was swung open with force. Alex wanted to scream, but she covered her mouth so not to wake her father. If she woke him up with a scream, she was sure she would get into trouble. It was as if the room had been filled with snow. The cold, damp air made Alex’s skin glow a bright pink. She closed her window and locked it, ensuring that nobody could get in.
As she turned around, she noticed something sat on her chair. She couldn’t quite make out what it was. She turned her bedside lamp on and saw that it was just her doll sitting on the chair. Hang on. That doll was broken in the kitchen only yesterday.
Alex scurried to her bed and threw herself under her duvet. Emma was in her bedroom. Alex lifted the duvet slightly, so she had a gap to breathe through. Suddenly, she could hear shuffling.
Alex lifted the duvet a bit more until she had a full view of her room again. The shuffling had stopped, but everything seemed a lot darker and a lot scarier. Creaking started, followed by the shuffling, followed by whispers, and followed by laughter. Alex whimpered as her room became a cave of noise. She wanted to scream. She wanted to alert her father that she was being hurt again. But he wouldn’t believe her. By the time he made it to her bedroom, everything would be back to normal and there would be no proof of any hauntings.
All the noise stopped. The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies began playing as the lid on Alex’s music box lifted and a little ballerina inside began twirling in a clockwise direction. The laughter, the whispers, the shuffling, and the creaking started again. The doll rose from the chair and floated in the air for a few seconds, glaring at Alex. Its eyes glowed a bright white, before changing to a dark, blood red. A shriek. Suddenly, the doll darted towards Alex and grabbed her face, pulling her mouth downwards and head-butting her. Alex tried to scream. But the shock and the fear stopped her.
Alex grabbed the doll and threw it across the room, before it hit the door with a loud thump and dropped to the floor. The doll lay still on the floor. Alex held her chest and gasped for air, her breathing pattern rapid and loud. She lay back on her bed and caught her breath back. The doll jumped from the floor, metamorphosing into Emma, and tackled Alex, groping her legs and pulling her from the bed. This time, Alex screamed. She screamed as loud as she could in order to wake her father. Mick stormed into the room and spotted the mess. Alex was sprawled on the floor and her duvet was scrunched on the bed. The music box was still playing The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies.
“What the hell is going on?” Mick fumed. “It is two in the morning! Why are you screaming?”
Alex couldn’t speak. She couldn’t quite explain what had just happened. All she could say was “Emma.”
Mick stepped over his daughter and shut the music box. He told Alex to get off the floor and to get back into bed. She couldn’t move. The doll was back in the chair, glaring at her with its creepy eyes. Mick hadn’t noticed the doll, but Alex knew that if he did, he would wonder why she had fished it out of the bin. The doll winked. Alex gasped and jumped onto her bed.
“What is the matter with you?” Mick snapped.
Alex pointed to the doll. “It just attacked me. Everything that has just happened was Emma. The doll just turned into her and attacked me, the music box playing the music, and the window swinging open and shut.”
Mick shook his head. He still did not believe his daughter. He hadn’t witnessed anything, so in his mind; it was all made up. Mick planted a kiss on Alex’s forehead.
“Just go back to sleep. And no more screaming,” he said.
Connie began crying in the room next door and Mick huffed. “Now you’ve woken your baby sister.” He left the room and closed the door gently behind him.
Alex curled up and faced her wall. There was no way she was going to be able to get to sleep now.
Chapter 11
Georgia flinched as Doctor Michaels opened the door. He smiled at her as he closed the door, but she refused to return a smile. She knew exactly why he was here, and she wasn’t looking forward to it. The idea of being asked loads of questions frightened her as she didn’t want people to get inside her mind. She wanted to keep it all to herself. Emma would hurt her if she didn’t.
“How are you feeling today, Georgia?” Doctor Michaels asked.
“Fine,” Georgia replied.
“That’s good. I hope you don’t mind, but I would like to ask you some questions. I tried when you were first admitted here, but you weren’t in the best mindset to answer them.”
Georgia rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She didn’t say anything else other than that.
Doctor Michaels opened his notebook and read from the page. “Please could you tell me about the first time you started to hear voices?”
Georgia looked away from him and buried her head in her arms. She couldn’t find the words to explain the situation. It was a difficult situation to explain.
Don’t tell him.
Georgia started as the voice pierced through her ears. She scratched her arms anxiously and her eyes flitted in all directions as she tried to figure out where Emma was.
Doctor Michaels watched on worriedly as Georgia looked around the room while swatting her arms, trying to get rid of something.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“She’s in here,” said Georgia. “Emma’s here. Can’t you see her?”
Doctor Michaels shook his head. “No. Can you tell me where she is?”
Georgia shook her head. She couldn’t tell him because Emma wasn’t actually in the room. It was just her voice. Instead, she tried to follow the direction of the voice. She found the voice to be coming from directly next to her.
“She’s next to me,” said Georgia. “Directly next to me. But I cannot see her.”
Doctor Michaels took some notes and then looked back towards Georgia. “And going back to my first question, are you able to tell me about the first time you heard the voices?”
Georgia teared up, and her eyes turned a bright red. She couldn’t handle the questions. The fear of Emma hurting her raced through her mind; all the different ways in which she could be hurt or killed or traumatised. But she wanted it all to stop. She wanted the voices to stop. She wanted Emma to leave her alone. Georgia took a moment before volunteering to answer the question. Doctor Michaels poised his pen as Georgia explained the very first time she heard the voices.
“I was in the bathroom at home,” Georgia said. “I think I was brushing my teeth at the time. And suddenly, I heard the voice of a young girl singing.” Georgia sang the words of Ring Around the Roses in a shaky, high-pitched tone. “It sounded like it was coming from the sink, so I looked in. And it stopped.”