Helena

by Cassie Carnage

Helena

  Copyright 2017 Cassie Carnage

  All Rights Reserved

  "Mother, come home."

  "Mother, where are you?"

  Susan woke up in a cold sweat. She lay in bed, her heart pounding.

  What woke her up?

  Did she really just hear a little girl's voice?

  She lived alone. Her life in shambles after she discovered she could not have any children. Her husband didn't want to adopt or pay for a surrogate. Nor did he want to stay with someone that couldn’t get pregnant.

  She was devastated when he handed her the divorce papers.

  She kept asking him, “Why?”

  After a while, he said without looking her in the eye, "I need to be able to have a family. So I'm going to find the right woman who can give me a child."

  Her own mother was useless. She told her it was for the best, that he really didn't love her at all. But she knew, deep in her heart, that it was her fault. She hasn't seen her infertility symptoms, nor had she noticed her husband’s selfishness, his greed. His insane drive to procreate.

  She thought they had true love. She was wrong. So very, very wrong.

  Susan got up, creeped barefoot across the wooden floor to the bathroom to pee. No sooner than she was done and washing her hands did she hear it again.

  "Mother, please! Help!'

  She looked around, peeked out the window through the closed blinds, thinking maybe a kid was outside.

  There wasn't anyone there.

  She shook her head. "You're tired and hearing things. Go back to bed."

  No sooner did she put her head to the pillow did she hear it, a soft rhythmic scratching, like a cat at the door trying to get in.

  Beneath that noise, a fainter one, that of a child crying. It pulled at her heartstrings. She couldn’t ignore that.

  Susan grabbed her robe and ran outside. It was dark and foggy; the thick early morning mist was cold against her face. She walked all the way around her house. The scratching, it sounded like it was coming from the basement. It was louder when she knelt by the back door that lead to the cellar.

  It was coming from inside the house.

  Did an animal break in? She wasn't sure. It was too late to call animal control.

  Sighing, Susan grabbed a broom and turned on the cellar light.

  "Mother, help me!"

  It was a little girl. She was down there!

  "Hello?" Susan called and slowly walked down the steps, instantly regretting not putting on shoes. The cellar stairs were wood with no back-riser board, just a blank space between the steps. Anyone, or anything, could reach out, grab her ankles and yank her feet out from under her, sending her tumbling down to the basement floor to break her neck.

  She grimaced at the thought and steeled herself, trying hard not to jump at any sound as the old wood groaned under her weight.

  The scratching became louder.

  "Hello? Little girl? I’m here to help. Are you hurt? How did you get in here?"

  Susan looked around, the back corner near the water heater had no light. She had to go over and yank a pull-chain hanging down from a bare light bulb. She cursed herself for not getting the basement furnished before she moved in, but it was far too late for that now.

  The scratching changed from fast short scrapes to long, slow ones. Like little fingernails on a door.

  She looked over at the cellar door, expecting to see a girl huddled against it. There was no one there.

  Susan let out the breath she was holding.

  "Mother! Over here!"

  Startled she dropped the broom. It clattered to the floor, and the scratching stopped.

  She looked around cautiously, stooping to pick up the broom, imagining a small evil child hiding behind the water heater, waiting to pounce.

  A scraping sound came from behind her, from the other side of the brick foundation wall. It was enough to get her to grab the broom and race back up the stairs, slamming the door behind her.

  She leaned against the door, heart racing, thudding in her ears. It was too much. She clutched the broom, and tried to catch her breath.

  Could it be a rat? Could rats even make a sound like that?

  She tried to reason it away, but it was no use.

  Susan sat on the couch in her living room, all the lights on in the house, the TV blaring until the sun rose up.

  There was something really wrong about the entire thing.

  Could her house be haunted?

  Susan prided herself in being a very practical person. She honestly did not believe in ghosts or supernatural silliness. But this? She couldn’t really explain it.

  She didn't go down there until the sun rose that morning. She ate, put on a pair of hiking boots, jeans and a t-shirt, and went outside to her tool shed. She grabbed the shovel, and took it with her.

  If it was a rat, she’d slam the metal spade down on its neck and break it before it could attack her. Susan hated rats.

  She turned on all the lights in the basement, and looked around.

  There was a crack in the foundation wall, right near where she had heard the scratching. She stood there, staring at it, as it stretched out with a concrete-on-concrete scraping sound, to form an X-shape.

  “Mother! Here! Help me.”

  She ran over to the wall, put her hands against it. The girl, she could hear her breathing behind there.

  “I’m here! I’m here sweety. Just, tell me exactly where you are so that I can get you out.”

  “I’m stuck in a box. I can’t get out. They buried me. It’s getting hard to breathe. I’m so scared. Please help!”

  The girl started crying, it quickly turned into heart wrenching wails of hopelessness.

  Susan was tempted to call the police, but she was afraid they wouldn’t get there in time to help her dig her out. No, she had to act now, before it was too late.

  “It’ll be okay, baby. I’ll dig you out. Just…hold on.”

  The girl sniffled. “Thank you, mother.”

  Susan went to her garage, got out the sledgehammer that her ex-husband never came back to retrieve, and returned. She hefted it up, remembering what he told her; how to use the weight of it to get a good swing in to hit something hard.

  She started hitting the wall as hard as she could; the force of the blows reverberated through the handle into her shoulder. She gritted her teeth and kept hitting the center of the X-shaped crack.

  It took several hours to break it open. By that time Susan was out of breath, covered in dirt, and sore. Panting, she sat down on the steps and wiped the sweat off her brow with an arm.

  “Mother, I think I can see some light now.”

  “That’s because I broke through the wall.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh! Then please, let me out!”

  The girl started scratching again, it sounded like she was scratching against metal, or glass maybe?

  “One minute baby. I need to catch my breath.”

  “Mother! Let me out! Now!” She started screaming, it was one of those high pitched little kid screams full of panic.

  Susan bolted over and started digging, pulling out the dirt as fast as she could until the shovel blade hit something hard. The little girl was in there, screaming and kicking on the other side.

  The light couldn’t quite reach that deep in the hole, so she grabbed a flashlight from the kitchen and turned it on, training the light beam on the hard surface.

  What she saw there, made her blood run cold.

  It was a tiny coffin with a metal frame and dirt covered glass panels. She brushed the dirt off the glass and saw it held a corpse of a little girl, her angelic face perfectly preserved. She looked like a doll. White frilly dre
ss and matching cap, like something out of a Victorian movie.

  The girl blinked and waved.

  “Hi Mother! I see you!”

  Susan dropped the flashlight.

  “What…what’s your name?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I’m sorry sweety, mother is very tired.”

  “It’s Helena,” she said with a giggle. “Please let me out.”

  “I am losing my mind,” Susan muttered and shook her head. “Just..hold on baby. Mother will be right back.”

  She went up stairs, splashed water on her face, then took a long drink of vodka straight from the bottle.

  “What the hell is going on? I have to be hallucinating. I’m losing my mind.”

  “Mooootherrrr!” Helena called out. “Where arrreeee youuuu?”

  “I’m up here!” she said, instantly wanting to kick herself for speaking.

  Susan heard squeaking rusted hinges move. She envisioned the metal and glass coffin lid being pushed open and shuddered.

  She had to get out of the house.

  Susan ran to the door and stopped when she grabbed the handle.

  Footsteps. Tiny, unsure footsteps, coming up the cellar stairs.

  She turned around, dreading what she would see as the basement door opened.

  A stiff little hand gripped the side of the door.

  “Mother?”

  Susan slapped her hands over her mouth, unable to move as she stared in terror.

  Helena stepped out into the kitchen. She couldn’t have been more than five years old when she died.

  Her body was perfectly preserved, golden hair in ringlets that hung to her shoulders. It was matted in the back, where she had laid on it for years. Her eyes looked like a doll’s glass eyes. Blue, staring, no emotion whatsoever. Her lips, pink and soft, curled up into a smile when she saw Susan.

  “There you are! I found you!” she said and giggled.

  Susan’s knees gave out and she sank to the floor.

  She stared as the girl staggered forward on legs not quite moving right, making her rock back and forth with each step. And she realized that it wasn’t her legs, it was her back. The girl’s back was broken. She could hear the vertebrae scraping together, crackling from deep inside her body.

  “You’re…dead,” she whispered.

  “Not any more! Look! I can walk, and breath, and speak! All thanks to you mother!”

  Dirt from the hole had soiled the bottom of the girl’s white dress. The back of it was cut open, and it started to slip off the front of her body as she walked to her new mother.

  The dress fell off completely, showing the T-shaped autopsy incision that was stitched shut. Her porcelain skin was black and purple there. Her chest bruised, in the shape of a horse’s hoof. She was kicked, and it killed her fragile body.

  “Oh my God.”

  “Mother, my dress…” Helena stopped, tried to pull it up, and frowned, not realizing that she was standing on it and that was why she couldn’t pull it up.

  “Hold on honey,” Susan said, and before she could stop herself, she crawled over and helped her lift her weak, purple mottled legs up, and put the dress back. “Turn around.”

  Helena wobbled and slowly did a three-point turn. “I’m a dancer!” she said with a giggle.

  “That you are. So graceful.” Susan’s eyes teared up. The poor thing. She didn’t even know that she was dead. She had been locked up in that coffin for God knows how long; alone, in the dark, scared out of her mind.

  “Why are you crying mommy?”

  “I’m just so happy to see you,” Susan said, choking up. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. She would’ve been a great mother. He never gave her the chance. He didn’t really love her. Did he?

  Helena bobbled and turned around to face her, gently wiping the tears off her face with a clawed, stiff hand.

  “Don’t cry. You’re too pretty to cry,” she said and Susan bit her lower lip, trying to stifle her tears.

  The girl’s body was ice cold, not even room temperature. It smelled of chemicals, and potpourri. She didn’t know exactly when Helena died, but she was pretty sure they didn’t use formaldehyde back then. They had to bury bodies fast before they started decomposing. So why did she smell like a chemistry lab?

  “I’m hungry mother.”

  “Oh…what would you like to eat?”

  “Porridge and jam.”

  “I might have that.” She stood up and took Helena’s good hand, the one that still opened and closed, and walked slowly with her back into the kitchen. She picked her up and put her in a chair at the table. “Just a moment, let me look.”

  Susan found instant oatmeal and strawberry jam. “I have oats for porridge and strawberry jam, would you like to eat that?”

  “Yes please,” Helena said, sitting there, trying to not jerk and wobble too much, but her broken back made that nigh impossible.

  Susan made her food, wondering just what the hell was she doing. Her emotions were all over the place. Did she really want a baby so badly, that she’d take care of a dead little girl?

  Yes. Yes she did.

  Susan took out a small spoon and sat the bowl down in front of Helena.

  “Here you go.”

  “Thank you mother,” she said and grasped the spoon handle awkwardly, and scooped up some of the oatmeal, starting from the center where the blob of jam sat. She lifted it to her lips and the food spilled off onto her lap. “I’m sorry!” she said and started to cry.

  “Hush. It’s all right,” Susan said and cleaned it off. A red smear of strawberry jam remained on the white cloth.

  “It’s ruined!” Helena sobbed.

  Susan smiled. “A good soaking will get that right out. Don’t you worry.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup. Here, let me feed you. Your arm is misbehaving.”

  Helena smiled through her tears. “It is.”

  Susan scooped up a spoonful and held it in front of her lips. Helena took a dainty bite, made a face and spit out out.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It tastes yucky!”

  “It does?” Susan tried some. It tasted fine to her. “Is it not sweet enough?”

  “No. It’s bitter.”

  “Maybe we should try something else?”

  “All right,” Helena said, disappointed. “I really wanted that jam.”

  “I know sweety. But it just isn’t agreeing with you.”

  Susan made her eggs, toast, cereal; nothing tasted right to her.

  Helena slid off the chair and wobbled over to the fridge. She opened it with much effort, sticking her head inside.

  “There, that smells good,” she said and pointed to the raw hamburger.

  “You want…beef?”

  “Yes.”

  Susan went to cook her a plain burger, and Helena dragged her chair over to the stove and stood on it. When Susan looked away to grabbed a spatula, Helena took a big fistful of the raw meat and shoved it into her mouth.

  Susan turned and saw her gobbling up the raw meat. She dropped the spatula and backed away. Helena sat down in her chair, put the bowl in her lap, and began happily eating the raw meat.

  “This tastes good!”

  “It does?”

  “Yes. I love it.”

  “All right then…you can eat it.”

  Susan frowned, her heart pounded. It reminded her of those old movies she used to watch with her father; those black and white monster movies, where men became ghouls and ate people’s hearts.

  Helena finished the bowl and slid off the chair. “I’m still hungry.”

  “Oh…I’d have to thaw out more meat. It’s in the freezer.”

  “No! I want more! Now!” Helena screamed, throwing a hissy fit. “Give me more!”

  “All right, all right. Just, please, stop screaming. I’ll go get you more food. Can you wait for a little while until I get back?”

  Helena pouted. “I suppose.”
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  “Just sit in your chair at the table like a good little girl, and mother will run out and get more food for you.”

  “Make sure it is warm this time.”

  Susan grabbed her keys and ran out of the house. She got in her car and raced down the street, not bothering to stop at traffic lights as she went, almost causing an accident in the process. A man yelled at her and she kept right on driving, deep in her thoughts.

  She parked the grocery store and sat in her car, gripping the steering wheel.

  What was she doing?

  Why did she immediately do whatever Helena asked? Did she have some sort of power over her?

  Now alone, Susan’s head cleared, giving her a chance to think.

  Helena had died. Someone did something to her corpse, then buried her near the foundation of a house and left her there for someone else to find.

  But why?

  What was she supposed to do? She had to help her. She was just a child.

  Susan shook her head, and got out of the car.

  She bought several pounds of hamburger, and returned home to find the front door wide open. She was in such a hurry that she had forgotten to lock it.

  “Oh no,” Susan rushed into the house. “Helena? Helena! Where are you?”

  She was nowhere to be found. Panicked, Susan ran down the street, screaming her name until she heard, “Over here mother!”

  It came from behind her neighbor’s house. The one with the big nasty dog that she hated.

  Susan swallowed.

  No. No. She didn’t…

  Susan walked around to the back of the house. The dog fence gate was wide open. Somehow Helena had managed to reach up and open it. The girl was kneeling on the ground, her dress and face drenched in blood. The dog, dead. She was eating it. She had torn out its throat with her teeth.

  “Oh my god. What did you do? What did you do!”

  “I’m sorry mother. I got so terribly hungry. I couldn't wait anymore. My tummy hurt awfully bad.”

  Susan looked around. It was the middle of the day. Just about everyone was at work. It was possible that no one saw her.

  She took off her jacket and wrapped it around Helena.

  “Come on sweety, we need to clean you up. People will be upset if they see blood on you.”

  “Oh…I made another mess. I’m sorry. Am I going to be punished?”

  “No. We just need to get back home.”

  Susan carried her back to her house, ran the meat in and locked all the doors and windows. She was going to have to child-proof the house.

  “Let’s get you in the bath and clean you up.”

  “Yes, mother.”

  Susan took off the girl’s burial dress, her little shoes and lace trimmed socks and turned on the bathwater.

  Helena stood, leaning against the sink drawer. She started slowly pulling the drawers open to look inside.

  “You have so many pretty hair pieces in here.”

  “Thank you.”

  Susan hoped she didn’t open the drawer with the hair scissors, or managed to find her razors. She really would have to hide a lot of sharp things from her. Just in case.

  Susan turned off the water, not noticing Helena moving slowly behind her back, grabbing her hair shears and picking them up. Helena liked how bright and shiny the metal was, and how sharp and pointy the scissor legs were. So