When Night Falls

by Kayla Krantz

  I was no bigger than Kayanna had been, but I didn’t feel inclined to follow the police guidelines, like my classmates did. I didn’t have friends to help me anyways. Who would even notice if I disappeared? Besides, Kayanna was taken from her home, not the streets. It wasn’t likely that the killer would change his M.O., should he strike again.

  I slipped down the alleyways and backstreets, feeling an odd sense of peace; a blanket of security that had been ripped away from the rest of the town.

  Safe. The word echoed through in my mind. What did it mean to be safe in this situation, anyway? Happening to dodge the bullet of the would-be serial killer? Wasn’t that just luck?

  Kayanna’s house caught my attention, and I jogged across the street. The crowd was gone, but the caution tape remained, a grisly reminder of the horrors lying inside. I stood on the lawn for a while, staring up at the building. Once again, I had the urge to go inside and see for myself what remained of the girl.

  What happened to her? I wondered, finally forcing myself to walk the few feet home. Was her whole life really snuffed out just like that?

  I threw my backpack down with a thump that echoed through the empty house. My parents weren’t home, not that I was surprised. They spent a lot of time out of town, only coming back to check on me during special occasions. I sighed and tromped down the basement steps to my room. I stumbled through the darkness until I found the cord to turn on the light. I felt alone as I sat on my bed, cuddling my knees to my chest.

  Was it a serial killer? Was it a crime of passion?

  I wasn’t sure if my parents had heard about Kayanna’s disappearance or not. Would they come home if they did? Would they find a connection to it and my childhood incident? Uncurling myself, I lie down on the twin-size bed, picking up my book from its place on the floor. I tried to clear my head, but my thoughts wandered again to the disappearance. How could a girl be violently murdered without anyone overhearing it? Houses were close together in this neighborhood. Too close.

  It was all unsettling and suspicious.

  I threw the book down, clasping my hands to my forehead, trying to block out the thoughts. The faucet was on—there was no way to make them stop now. I closed my eyes, letting myself relax, despite the tension I felt all over. Before I knew it, I was asleep.

  Images flashed through my mind as darkness filled my brain. I inched forward through the fancy living room. I didn’t have to see to move; my feet were on autopilot. I heard breathing across the room that wasn’t mine. Heavy and pained, it sounded like a wounded animal. A scream pierced my eardrums, jolting me upright in bed, just as the feeling of blood drenched my hands again.

  I blinked to clear my eyes and held my hands up in the light. Porcelain skin sparkled back at me, clean and unmarked. I wasn’t convinced. I frowned, feeling like they mocked me with their cleanliness.

  I ran to the bathroom, feeling dirty and ashamed for a reason I couldn’t quite place. I hopped in the shower, scrubbing my skin from head to toe for so long that the water turned icy and my skin grew pink. I didn’t feel much better when I got out, though. With a defeated sigh, I dried my hair and I crossed the house, looking for a distraction. I passed a window on my way into the kitchen. It was night, but a bolt of lightning lit up the surroundings, illuminating the house next door.

  My curiosity peaked again at the sight of it.

  “Mom?” I called out. “Dad?”

  No response. My shoulders slumped as I slid over to the cordless phone on the counter. Since they made no effort to contact me, I would have to reach out to them. I dialed my mom’s number and held the phone to my ear. It rang, then cut to voicemail. I don’t know why I bothered to call her—she never answered. My father served as the gopher that channeled messages back and forth. I couldn’t remember the last time I spent one-on-one time with her. I hung up and dialed my dad’s number instead.

  “Hello?” his voice said.

  “Hi, Dad,” I replied.

  “Is everything okay, Melissa?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Did you hear about Kayanna?”

  “Yeah, I did. It’s all over the news here. Sounds like the town is about ready to shut down to weed out the person that did this.”

  “Yeah. Police are getting desperate. Do you think you and Mom will be home soon? I don’t feel good being alone, knowing the person that did it is still out there.”

  “I’m coming home first thing in the morning,” he promised.

  “What about Mom?”

  “She’s um…well, she’s unsure.”

  My heart clenched in disbelief. I could be in danger, but she didn’t want to make sure I was okay. She was indifferent to me. It was like I wasn’t even her child, but someone else’s who had been thrown on her.

  “What do you mean? Dad, does she not want to see me?”

  “It’s not that, it’s just that this whole thing reminds her of the incident, and it’s hard on her.”

  “Put her on the phone,” I said, trying to contain my hysterics. This was not the time for her to ignore me.

  “She won’t come to the phone, Melissa, you know that.”

  “Tell her it’s an emergency,” I said.

  “She knows what’s going on as well as I do. She just doesn’t think it’s a good idea for her to be around you.”

  “So she’s shunning me? Dad, I was a kid…I was sleepwalking!” I said desperately. “Why can’t she forgive me?”

  On the other end of the line, I heard him clear his throat.

  “I know that, sweetheart, but the whole thing makes your Mom uneasy. She just needs time.”

  “I guess that’s why she’s been avoiding me like the plague for as long as I can remember.”

  My dad was silent. “Don’t be so hard on her. I’ll see you in the morning, okay? Make sure you keep the door locked, and if you hear anything out of the norm, call the police immediately.”

  “Right,” I said, hanging up.

  I didn’t know why I bothered to call either of them. They weren’t real parents to me anymore. We were close once, but those memories were sparse. I felt a hole in my heart whenever I thought about them. My mother had been cold to me for as long as I could remember. I wasn’t even sure why. Whenever my father tried to explain it, he only used the phrase “the incident” to justify her actions. What had I done to so distance my mom from me that we were now practically strangers?

  Did she wish that I disappeared instead of Kayanna?

  I sighed and flipped my hair from my eyes. Could I earn back their love if I hunted down the person that had hurt her?

  I glanced out the window, again noticing the outline of the house in the darkness. I would be alone for another night…and so would the house. The tingle of excitement I felt at the opportunity pushed away the disappointment I felt a moment before. Tying my hair into a bun, I slid into my shoes and dashed outside. I crept onto the neighbor’s lawn and looked around for any signs of life. The caution tape crinkled eerily in the breeze as I slipped past it.

  I bolted up the steps, pausing on the porch to scan the neighborhood once more. The houses around were shut down for the night. There were no cars, which told me the house was still empty. I stepped inside. Sign of carnage were visible, even in the dark. Broken pots were scattered in the hallway and several puddles of blood were splayed across the living room. Someone had overturned the coffee table.

  “There was a struggle,” I whispered to myself, “a big one.”

  The deeper into the house I traveled, the louder my heart beat in my chest. Bloody handprints dotted the wallpaper in the hallway. I could almost see how it all played out in my mind. Piece by piece, I pictured how Kayanna died. It was noisy and intense—how had no one heard the struggle in time to save her life?

  I felt this nagging urge to get out—as if I would share her fate if I didn’t. I obeyed and ran back to my house, panting. I thought about what I had seen. Real images replaced the ones I imagined that morning. I couldn’t avoid the thoughts tha
t came with it. Where were Kayanna’s roommates when it happened? Were they even home, or were they gone long before? There was no trace of them, almost as if they were avoiding something—or someone.

  Did they know who harmed her?

  I trudged back down to the basement, trying to get rid of the new questions my adventure had inspired. I didn’t know what I had hoped to accomplish, but I was still unsatisfied. I wanted to wish the best—I wanted to believe Kayanna would come home, but I wasn’t an idiot. No one in town was. Obviously, from the state of the house, that wasn’t the way this story would go. I sat down at my desk, sketching a demon, eyes as red as the blood I had seen on the floor.

  It was the only thing I could imagine would want to hurt her.

  I crumpled the drawing and tossed it away without a second thought. I couldn’t risk giving my father more ammunition for my therapist in the morning. I lay down, and soon drifted to sleep, the images beginning to run through my mind again. They were vivid. Had I been here before?

  I felt the handle of a knife cut into my flesh as I clutched it with all my strength. Adrenalin shot through my veins; the decision to fight was etched in my mind. I was hunting someone…but who? I trudged through the same darkened room I visited in my last dream. The screaming pierced the air again and warm blood splashed over me once more.

  No face matched the sound.

  When I opened my eyes, I expected to see a gray ceiling with a trickle of light from the tiny window above my desk.

  But I wasn’t in my room this time.

  Wind whistled through my hair and through the nearby trees, leaving goosebumps on my skin. The scenery swirled about my vision. Where was I? I swallowed hard and stared into the night. Glancing down, my eyes grew wide. A gritty, uncomfortable paste of blood and dirt coated my arms and neck. My hand tightened around the wooden handle of a tool. I looked at the ground, only to see the empty pit the shovel was stuck into.

  Then I saw the body at my feet. I screamed, dropping the shovel as I jumped back. That’s when I noticed the line of graves before it.

  The blood hadn’t been in my dreams.

  With the good must come the bad; for every wish? A curse.

  The Curse

  CHAZ’S ILLNESS CAME on quick—sudden. One day he was fine, and the next? He lay on his deathbed, barely able to move. All he could do was groan, in long, agonizing bursts. I wished I could say it took about a week, but even that seemed too long.

  Grabbing a rag, I dab at the sweat gathering on his brow. He tries to look at me through glazed eyes, but I can’t seem to gather a shred of optimism. I see his suffering, and for his sake, I hope his struggle will come to an end soon. He’s gone through so many different stages of consciousness in the last hour that I wonder if he even knows I’m here.

  Watching him shrivel away is hard. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my twenty years of life. I wonder how much longer my watch will last.

  We care for him in shifts—my other brother, two sisters, parents, and I. Chaz’s end was near, and we didn’t want him to be alone. Though, I’m not sure he’ll be able to tell the difference when that moment comes. He’s the second member of the family to grow ill within a few days. My dad was first, with a persistent cough that had him bed-ridden as well. Luckily, the Medicine Man had found a cure for his illness. No sooner had he gotten back on his feet, my brother took ill, less than a day later. However, this disease had him wasting away to nothing.

  We sought out the Medicine Man again, but his herbs were of no use this time. Whatever ailed my brother, the Medicine Man had never seen before. Of course, we tried our own batches of herbs, but each poultice only seemed to hurt him more—especially when they made him throw up.

  Chaz draws in another ragged breath. My heart hurts to watch him. He won’t last the night. I’m not sure I want to be the one on watch when he slips away—I don’t think I can handle it. Yet, I push away my reservations and look at him. His face is sunken in from days of puking up what little food he managed to get down. I can almost see the shape of his skull. He had always had a chiseled face, but never this severe.

  He breathes in again, and I can hear the liquid in his lungs a moment before he coughs, spraying droplets of blood across the white floor.

  I offer him another gentle smile, trying my best to comfort him, before I dash to the living room to gather the other family members. In my head, the last few seconds of Chaz’s life ticks away on an ugly clock. We converge around his bed, just as he takes his last breath. I stare as his brown eyes fall open in the blank stare of death. He looks unreal, almost like a wax figure. I bow my head, tears stinging the corners of my eyes and dripping down my face. Before I realize I’m crying, it stops.

  From his place beside Chaz’s bed, my father utters a prayer. Lána, my older sister, pulls a blanket over his lifeless body, covering his now sightless eyes. It’s an odd scene to watch, and I’m not sure how to feel about it. I should feel sadder than I do, but his death is something I’ve prepared for since he got sick. Now that it’s happened, I’m glad his suffering is over. I’m numb—and not sure if that’s a good or bad thing. No matter how much I want to look away, I can’t ignore the blanket that hides my dead brother.

  “We’ll bury him in the morning,” my mother, Tonya, says.

  I nod and turn to leave, the first to do so. The feeling in the air is too heavy for me to bear. Kai, my younger sister, is the only one missing. Where could she have gone at such an important time? I use that as my excuse to head outside and breathe in enough fresh air to wash away the numbness.

  In a weird way, I want to be sad. I want to mourn, rather than feel this calm acceptance. It may make the situation easier for the moment, but it comes at a price.

  I lean against the house, eyes focused on the hole in the ground beside the great oak tree. For generations, our plot of land is also our prime burial ground. Over a decade has passed since the last funeral—so long that I was only a few years old when it happened. I slip toward the new grave, observing the shadows cast through the pit by the evening sun. Standing beside it, I feel better than I did inside the house.

  The thought of Ghost Sickness makes me wary of ever going back inside. If I had a sleeping bag, I would sleep outside for a few nights. I can’t believe my family let Chaz pass in that cage of a room, rather than under the open skies outside. They knew the risks as well as I did. Yet, none of them made any attempt to move him in those last few moments.

  They’re all worried about getting sick, I remind myself. I frown. The risk is higher now.

  “Doing the vigil tonight?” Gary, my youngest brother, asks suddenly.

  I jump at the sound of his voice—I thought I was alone.

  “I don’t think I can handle it,” I admit, locking eyes with him.

  He nods, and the shadows exaggerate his sharp cheekbones. “It’s okay. You took the last shift. I’ll do this for him,” he offers, setting his hand on my shoulder.

  “Have you seen Kai?”

  He tilts his head, pulling up the corner of his lip in a grimace. “I think she’s asleep. Should I wake her?”

  I shake my head. “Let her sleep. It might be the last good rest she gets for a while.”

  “I don’t want to be the one to tell her.”

  “Me neither. We’ll leave that to Lána. I’ll take to the mirrors if it hasn’t already been done,” I offer, sliding back inside the house without waiting for his response.

  I blink at my mother, collapsed on the couch wiping her eyes as sorrow takes a hold of her. Her straight black hair hides her face as she sobs into a handkerchief. Though we were all born within a few years of each other, Chaz was the first of the five of us, and for that fact, her favorite. None of us would burden her with funeral arrangements—she was tortured enough already. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to outlive your child. I hope I never find out.

  It broke my heart to see her in distress, but nothing I could say would help, so I stayed si
lent. She would have to work through this on her own. I turn my attention to the black cloths spread across the couch beside her. At least one of the after-death arrangements would be made simple. I pick them up and go to work, covering each of the mirrors throughout the house, before I move back to the living room. I stand in the center as if I don’t know what to do with myself.

  I actually don’t.

  Never before have I witnessed the death of someone so close to me. Watching someone pass from this world into the next is odd, but it’s nowhere near as weird as watching the rest of my family lose themselves to their sorrow.

  Lána steps into the hall, closing the door to Chaz’s room behind her. Her long braid swings about her shoulders as she stands in place for a moment, her face grim. I wonder what exactly she said to him in her goodbyes. Her expression straightens, as if she heard my thought. She seems to be maintaining her composure better than the rest of us. Catching my gaze, she gives me a brief nod, before coughing into her hand and stepping past me. My heart skips a beat. “Lána, you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Iri, it’s just a cough,” she says, glancing at me through unamused brown eyes.

  “How could you say that? That’s how Chaz’s illness started!”

  She frowns at me. “Maybe, but I can’t think about that right now. I’m doing the vigil with Gary, and I want to say goodbye to Chaz. We can worry about me tomorrow.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not Ghost Sickness,” I mutter.

  She pulls her eyebrows together and stares at me. “Don’t worry about that.”

  “If you’ve caught it you may as well be about to do your own vigil.”

  Lána shakes her head, but says nothing more as she slips outside. If I didn’t know any better, I would assume she thought I was crazy. I purse my lips, wanting to follow and convince her to join me on a trip to the Medicine Man, but I decide against it. It’s an odd time to be hardheaded, but everyone handles grief in their own way. If she’s more focused on Chaz than herself, then so be it. I stare at his door for a long time. I should go back inside to say my final goodbyes, but when the image of his soulless eyes enters my mind, I reconsider. My gaze shifts to my mother, and then finally comes to a rest on the black surface covering the nearest mirror.