Winner 2021
Janey kicked her little legs over the side of the old wooden bench, looking out over the empty playground. There was a sheen to everything that turned the grass pale and made the colorful plastic glitter in the faint rising sun. Soon, the other kids would come, and the playground would be full of screams and laughter. Janey would get to play with all the other children. That was her favorite part, meeting new kids her age each day.
Janey was always here, at the park, ready to play. She waited every morning for the other kids to come and join her patiently on this bench, watching the dew burn off the grass in the first morning rays of the Sun. She smiled, wondering what games she would get to play today.
A small noise, like rustling, drew her attention behind her. Turning her small body on the bench, Janey grabbed the slatted back and peered over her knuckles at two people coming down the path toward her. An old man sat in a chair with giant wheels on its side, and a younger woman was behind him, pushing the chair forward.
When the pair drew within a few feet of Janey’s bench, the chair stopped, and the woman pushed something low down with her foot. The old man began to struggle with the little shelves his feet sat on until they lifted out of his way, and his shoes could rest on the ground. With a little help from the lady, the old man stood up. bent a bit at the hips, and shuffled down the path toward her.
Janey watched, nervous and excited, as he came around the side of the bench and eyed it, looking for a spot to sit down. She quickly spun back to her bottom and scooted as far over as she could so the old man could sit down with her. While Janey was nervous, she knew better than to talk to strangers; he didn’t seem mean or mad or anything.
“Can I sit with you, Janey?” The old man mumbled even as he lowered his tired old bones to the wood. Janey nodded but didn’t respond. For a few moments, they just sat, now both watching the first true rays of sunset, the dew a blaze of white and sparkling light. “It’s always so nice here in the mornings, isn’t it?” He said to the sky, his tired eyes pinched shut.
“Yep, but it’s better when the kids get here.” Janey is less nervous now since he can’t really be a stranger. While she can’t remember meeting him, he knows her name, so he knows her. If you know someone, then you aren’t a stranger.
“Are you looking forward to playing today?” His thin, time-worn lips curl into a slight smile as his eyes drift over the waiting playground equipment.
“Oh, yes! We are going to play every game I know, and maybe I’ll even get to learn a new one!” Janey’s voice grew with excitement at the thought of all the fun she was about to have. When she looked over at the man, his eyes had left the playground and locked onto the iron fence that ran along the side. A loud truck, the kind with too many wheels and a big old box pulled behind it, rumbled by. His mouth turned down at the corners, and he sighed. “You don’t like the big trucks either, huh? Yeah, they’re so loud. Sometimes I wish they’d just go somewhere else.”
The old man focused on the nearby road for a while, so Janey went back to daydreaming, kicking her short legs and waiting for her new friends to show up. “Look, Janey, birds. You always like to feed the birds, didn’t you?” The old man mumbled almost to himself, but Janey was close and heard him. Her smile was quick as she turned back to him.
“Oh, I love birds!” She squealed the way only excited, happy kids do, and looked for the birds he was talking about. There, on the sidewalk not too far from his side of the bench, was a small group of pigeons, maybe six, moving around in front of a mounted garbage can.
“Here, I brought something just in case...” The old man reached shaking fingers into the side of his coat and pulled a small plastic baggie of bread chunks from his side. “Would you like to watch me feed them?′ He said, as he pulled the plastic apart and reached into the bag.
Janey scooted closer to him as he pulled a large handful. “Ready...throw!” A second of hesitation before he tossed the bread crumbs onto the sidewalk near the hungry birds. While the six made their move, a dozen or so who had apparently been hiding in the trees above, swooped down to join them. Janey laughed and clapped her hands. “Throw the rest! Throw the rest!” The old man reached into the bag again and drew out another handful, tossing it amongst the gathered foul. Then he shook what little remained into his palm and tossed that as well. The bag emptied, he tucked it back into his pocket.
Janey watched, clapping as the little birds pushed and flitted all over the ground in front of her in search of tiny pieces of yesterday’s toast. When there was nothing left to find, but they were still searching anyway, she couldn’t resist. She jumped off the bench and ran into them, causing them to scatter from the ground in a french of small whooshing and flapping sounds. When at last the birds were gone, she turned back to the bench to see the old man once again gazing at the nearby road with a sad look on his wrinkled, though kind, face.
She climbed back onto the bench, nearer to him this time, and just sat. He seemed lonely, despite the younger woman who was sitting in his wheelchair and playing with something thin and black in her hands. The old man sighed heavily before reaching into his jacket again. This time, he pulled a very old, very worn photograph from inside.
Janey sat up as tall as she could and craned her neck, trying to see the picture without touching him. She didn’t have the best view, but she could see the image well enough to see a younger man smiling brightly. His hands were near his shoulders, wrapped around the ankles of little bare legs. In his hair were tiny hands, and behind his head was the body of a little girl, a bit younger than Janey. Her face was missing from the photo as time and wear had worn it in a few places. There were creases and stains all over it from being in his pocket, and the colors had faded almost completely away from age.
“Is that you? Who’s the little girl?” She asked, realizing the picture could be as old as the man next to her. He didn’t answer her question. She looked up to see his face. Tears peaked in the corners of his tired eyes as he ran a trembling finger over the little girl. “Oh, don’t cry, it’ll be alright.” She placed her small hand on his arm and he took a quick, started breath. He placed a hand over hers and closed his eyes.
“Th...Thank you, Janey. I...I needed that.” The tears still slid down the valleys of his cheeks, but a small smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.
The young woman behind him cleared her throat, pulling him from the moment. He nodded to her and tucked the picture back into his jacket. “Well, Janey, it looks like I have to go now. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to visit again, but I hope you have fun playing with the other children here.” He took a deep breath and slowly pushed his body up onto its feet.
“Oh, I will. They'll be here soon. So many that you won’t even be able to count them all, and we'll play all day!” She smiled up at him as he looked at the back of the bench. Before he walked away, he ran his fingers lightly over the small brass plate at the top in the center of the bench.
He didn’t say goodbye, just, “See you soon, I expect, little Janey.” Then he turned and shuffled back to his wheeled chair and the waiting woman. Janey got back on her knees to watch him, her small hands gripping the top of the bench back, her palms against the brass plate. She popped up, head above the wood, and smiled at him.
“I’ll be right here on this bench when you come back! After all, it has my name on it!”
Winner 2023
Grace pushed back from her desk and stood, stretching before her computer—her half-written paper glaring at her. She wanted a drink and maybe a snack. Just beyond her door lay the rest of her dark home. Both her roommates, Nate and Maxine, were out at the moment shopping, or, at least, she hadn’t heard them come back yet. In the dark, she moved through the craft room, under the arch, and into the kitchen. She made her way instinctively to the refrigerator and pulled open the beast. The light made her blink and squint for a moment. She found the sodas in the door. Can in hand, she looked for a snack. Cheese and crackers, maybe? The instant, dissatisfied feeling made her change her mind. Leftover pasta from two nights ago? Nah, it hadn’t been anything to write home about when it was fresh; warmed over would probably be worse. How about some of Nate’s legendary homemade buffalo chicken dip? It was there, front and center, in a small container on the second shelf left over from the party he and Maxine hosted last weekend. She wondered briefly if it was still any good before deciding to give it a try anyway.
The thing about this chicken dip was that it needed to be hot to be enjoyed properly. Still, it was really good, and the thought of naan dipped into the hot, orange, meaty concoction made her stomach growl. She pulled the container from the fridge and closed the door, plunging herself into pitch darkness. Grace blinked a few times, waiting for her eyes to readjust before plopping her soda can on the counter and moving to the microwave. With a few button presses, the inside of the box began to glow through the brownish-tinted glass. She stood for a moment and watched the little bowl move slowly around in a circle before remembering the paper on her computer in the other room. Deciding this break would probably be for the night, she turned to head for her room to save and shut down.
Fabric, stiff and odd-smelling, hit her in the face as she tried to step through the arch. “What the fu…” She stumbled back, her heart leaping from a 2 to an 11. Her hand frantically fumbled with the wall to her right, searching for and finding the light switch. With a click, the barrier sprang to colorful life before her. She chuckled nervously, half out of relief and half from annoyance, as the culprit moved slightly under the craft room ceiling fan. Maxine’s terrifyingly mundane clown Halloween costume hung on a hanger covering the right side of the archway. Grace sidestepped the shiny, multicolored fabric, never taking her eyes off it. Around the other side, she grimaced to realize that the mask, a simple smiling clown with a small bulb of blue hair on the top of its rubber head, was also hanging with the suit. Even the shoes, oversized green affairs with exaggerated laces, were there, dangling at about the ankles. “For fuck sake, Maxine…couldn’t you have been anything other than a clown this year?” Grace asked no one. At least Max had picked a perfectly normal, innocent clown and not some deranged IT knockoff like she had wanted, Grace thought, though this was still not her cup of tea. She wasn’t exactly terrified of clowns, but she could absolutely live without them. Shaking her head, she went back to her task and logged out of her computer. Grabbing her phone, she turned back to the lit kitchen.
Two steps later, she froze. Had the clown costume…moved? It hung in the center of the arch, completely dark against the backlight. She stood for a moment trying to remember if it had been in the middle or to the side of the arch a second ago, her heart once again speeding up. She took a few more timid steps into the craft room and looked to her left into the living room. There was no one there, no sounds of life, no giggles from Maxine over this HILARIOUS joke…not that Grace was finding this funny. “Maxine? Nate? Are you guys back?” She called out to the house and waited. No response. “Maaaxxx?!?” Nothing. She was alone. Her mind ticked through scenes from movies and games with a similar vibe before she shook her head. This is real life, and things in real life don’t just move. It MUST have been that close to the center before, and she just FELT like it was on the side, that’s all there was to it. Determined to prove to herself that she was right, she straightened her back and marched right at it, stopping just in front of the smiling face. Being this close made her stomach turn, and she instantly moved to the side and shimmied past, doing her best not to brush against the shiny, stiff, striped cloth.
A strange sense of pride filled her as she began moving around the kitchen with over-dramatized confidence, getting her plate, the naan bread, and a spoon ready for her chicken dip tuck-in. The microwave beep was perfectly timed and, once the hot container was added to the plate, she lifted it, tucked her phone under her arm, and grabbed her soda. Turning away from the clown suit in the arch, she went around the other way, through the dining room, and into the living room. Smiling smugly to herself that she had successfully avoided the damn thing.
A few minutes later, she was sitting comfortably on the couch, watching videos on the TV, eating the slightly spicy, hot masterpiece Nate called dip, perfectly content and almost oblivious to the clown suit a few feet away, hidden out of sight around the corner. Almost. When her meal was done, she clicked the TV off, plunging the living room into semi-darkness again. The glow from the still-illuminated kitchen overhead seeped into the room from both sides, a crescent of which she sat firmly in the center.
Empty plate in hand, Grace stood and turned for the dining room arch, deciding to go back the way she came and nearly dropped her dirty dish on the floor. There, in the center, the clown suit hung, silhouetted against the invading light. Her heart thundered in her ears, and her breathing became instantly labored. “You gotta be fucking kidding me…” she mumbled, though not entirely to herself. She looked to her right toward the doorway that led to the craft room and wondered if there was a suit still on that side of the kitchen. The light did seem dimmed as if partially obscured. She shook her head. This HAD to be a prank. Setting the plate down on the ottoman, she moved around the living room with quick steps to find that indeed the first clown suit WAS still hanging in the kitchen archway. Maxine must be playing a trick on her. She was here, somewhere, sneaking around in the dark.
Fear gave way to anger. “Maxine!!! You know how I feel about fucking clowns! This isn’t funny!” Grace turned and stormed through the dark living room, headed for the hallway. She marched past the closed door of the bathroom, pausing for only a second in front of Nate’s open bedroom door. The street lights were on this time of night, and since he had never bought himself any curtains, or taken a moment to close his blinds, the entire room was bathed in the yellowy glow of artificial safety. Satisfied that his room was probably empty, she rounded the corner to find Maxine’s door obscured by yet another copy of that infernal smiling clown. This time, Grace didn’t hesitate. With rage in her shaking fingertips, she grabbed the stiff fabric and yanked the whole thing down, snapping the hook off the plastic coat hanger in the process. “MAXINE!!” She banged on the door. “I know you’re here! This isn’t funny!” She banged again, harder this time. Her hand ached from the force. She listened for any giggling or movement, but only silence reached her. Huffing and realizing she shouldn’t pound on the door again, as her hand would likely ache for days as it was, she reached for the knob and turned, but it didn’t twist in her hand. The locked handle only made her more furious. She stood on her tiptoes and felt above the door. As soon as her fingers brushed over the small piece of brass, she exclaimed, “AH! Maxine, I’m coming in!”
The little key did its job, and Grace barged several steps into the room as soon as the handle gave way.
Instant regret filled every part of her. A practical joke or not, she was utterly horrified. Maxine’s room, usually a study in tones of pink and lavender, was wallpapered in that ubiquitous clown suit. Not only did the costume, face, and shoes hang from every available wall space and over both windows, but there were mannequins, 6 life-sized dummies, posed in different ways, standing around the room wearing the godawful stripes and the blue hair-topped mask. Grace stood frozen, panic and terror rising with each passing second. Her arms retracted to her chest, and her feet shuffled, but she just couldn’t move. She looked to her left to see one of the mannequins sitting at the edge of the bed. Shaking and praying, she reached trembling fingers out to its shoulder and pushed lightly. The stiff dummy moved a little before resettling into its posed position. A bit of her courage returned. Maxine was in here, probably posing as one of these dummies, and Grace was going to find her, unmask her, and give her a lecture the likes of which she had never heard before!
The next mannequin, standing in front of the bookshelf to her right, hand to its face as if it was deep in thought, selecting its next read from Maxine’s trashy romance novel collection wobbled so much when she touched it, Grace was afraid it was going to topple over. The one sitting at Max’s desk lost its head (quite literally) when touched, and the one standing by the window was inanimate as well. That left the one standing by the dresser and the one halfway in the closet. Grace studied the one by the dresser for a second, decided it was probably just a dummy, and turned her attention to the one partially obscured by the closet door. She took quiet steps toward what she was now CERTAIN was her roommate. Jumping forward, she slammed her hands into the mannequin’s side, yelling, “Gotcha!” only to have the dummy fall apart in front of her. She turned and stomped back to the one at the dresser, sad she had failed a 50-50 only to find that it, too, was a dummy.
Fear crept back in. “The bathroom…she must be in the bathroom..” she muttered to herself. As she left the room, she turned on the light and looked back. Somehow, the dummies looked far less alive in the light, and she wished she had done that first. Turning the corner, she was about to barge into the bathroom ranting, when the sound of talking found her. Drifting from the living room, the familiar tones of Nate and Maxine could just be heard over her terror and rage-filled mind. Foregoing the bathroom, she moved down the hall, flicking the lights on as she moved. The creak of the front door was followed instantly by full-volume conversation. Grace stormed around the corner to find Nate and Maxine, loaded down with grocery bags and arguing about some band they had just heard on the radio.
“Very fucking funny! You nearly scared me to death! I hope you’re happy with yourselves!” Grace was shaking and on the verge of tears, the adrenaline in her system at critical levels.
“Jesus, Grace, calm down! Do we have to call you now before we open the front door? You knew we were only getting groceries and we’d be back soon. Groceries, which, by the way, you didn’t help pay for...” Nate brushed her off completely, turning without stopping for the kitchen and walking through a completely unobstructed archway into the dining room.
“Wait! Where did it go?!” Grace changed directions instantly, rushing to the dining room entry and scanning around the floor as if the clown suit had fallen to the side somehow. “What did you do with it?” She asked as she all but ran to the other side of the living room to see the one on the craft room archway. “This one’s gone, too! What did you do with them?”
“What’s gone? Grace, what are you talking about?” Maxine had dropped her bags at the front door and moved into the living room, showing at least some concern for her frantic friend.
“The clowns!” Grace cried as she searched, in vain, for the costumes that were now missing.
“Clowns?! What the fuck are you talking about?” Nate leaned out of the kitchen to see her looking under the crafting table and inside the cabinet.
“The clowns! The clown costumes that you guys hung all over the damn house to scare the shit out of me! You know! The CLOWNS!” At this point, Grace was in a frenzy. She couldn’t breathe and was completely unaware of the fact that she was crying hysterically.
“Grace, Grace, calm down…” Nate’s voice had changed. Concern and sympathy replaced his earlier aggravation. She felt his hands on her shoulders, and she resisted for a second before allowing herself to be drawn into a hug. The second he was wrapped around her, she shattered.
She sobbed, trying as best she could to tell them what had happened to her. He and Maxine listened but didn’t comment until she was finished. As soon as it was done, Grace felt better. Pulling back from Nate, she did her best to wipe her face clean of tears and looked at her friends. They seemed concerned and confused.
“So, what did you do with them? And, why would you do that to me? You know how I feel about clowns. I hope it was worth it...” Her voice trailed off into hurt and sadness.
“Grace, there is no clown costume.” Maxine reached out and touched her arm as she said it. Grace yanked back, away from the deceitful touch.
“Goddamn it, Max, I’m serious!”
“She is, too!” Nate came to Maxine’s defense. “We took it back this afternoon, and she picked a different costume since she knew it bothered you knowing there was a clown in the house! There is NO clown!” He sounded half angry, half sad.
“But...it was there!” Grace pointed at the doorway behind him, “And over there,” she moved the pointed finger in the direction of the dining room archway, “and your room was FULL of them!” She looked Maxine straight in the eyes as she finished.
“There’s no clown in my room.” Maxine was trying to be reassuring, but Grace was having none of it.
“Yes, there fucking is!” She pulled away from her friends and hurried toward the hallway, both of them close behind her. “There was one on your door, and like 20 in your room! And where did you get life-sized dummies!?”
“What!?!” They called out together behind her as they struggled to keep up. She turned the corner and only half noticed that the costume she had ripped down was no longer piled on the floor. She stormed into the lit bedroom only to be surrounded by pink and lavender and an extremely noticeable lack of clowns.
“See!? NO CLOWNS!” Maxine’s voice was unwelcome.
They seemed really annoyed now, but Grace didn’t care. “No…no, no, no! There were clowns everywhere! Here!” She pointed at the end of the bed. “There was one sitting here! An…and the desk, there was one there, too! And standing at the bookshelf...” Now even she could hear the sheer insanity of what she was saying, but it didn’t matter that it was crazy, because it was real! Wasn’t it…
Nate and Maxine shared a look before they took her by each arm. She didn’t resist them, too defeated, confused, and terrified to fight. “Come on, let’s go back to the living room. I’ll make some tea and we can just…talk about it, okay?” There it was. The therapist's tone that Maxine had learned during her psychology classes. Grace hated that tone. It was always followed by a half-assed session of Maxine trying to fix her. Maybe this time she needed fixing, she thought, sarcastically. The trio rounded the corner toward the living room. Both roommates stopped simultaneously. Grace sighed and looked up at Nate. His eyes were transfixed ahead of them. “Grace…?” Maxine whispered to her left.
“What?” Grace looked straight ahead. The bright light of the hallway opened into darkness. All other lights in the house had gone out, but the dark was not what had her roommates locked in terror. There, at the end of the bright hallway, was the clown. She watched, cold defeat swallowing her heart as its arm lifted slowly toward the light switch. Click.
Submission 2022
Amber gripped the closet door handle, holding it closed. Heartbeats thundered in her ears. As loud as the pounding was, the heavy, erratic footsteps just beyond the white wood slats were even louder. The out-of-rhythm thuds marched back and forth down the short hallway just beyond her cover. Amber watched as the flashlight she dropped just inches away flickered wildly through the slats, casting odd shadows and adding to the stress and terror of the moment. The buzzing vibration of her phone at her side made her jump and a small sound of shock escaped her self-control, but that was all the stalker in the hallway needed. Grotesque, rotten hands reached putrid fingers, flesh peeling, pale and discolored, around from the edges of her vision, before she was yanked backward into darkness. A light flicked on. A single naked bulb, swinging its small circle of glow back and forth, revealed the decay surrounding her. Bodies hung from the ceiling on metal hooks. The walls and floor undulated, constructed from the flesh of the dead, still seeming to feel pain. Then, under the cone of light, a small figure appeared; a monster in the guise of a child. The size and shape of a young girl, wearing a filthy, pale pink nightgown, the creature possessed no face. A large gaping maw filled with rings or razor-sharp teeth peered at her from across the room.
Instantly, she was back in the closet, only now light seemed to emanate from everywhere. A pal,e misty blue fog illuminated every corner. The doors had all disappeared. She could see the whole of the hallway beyond her failed refuge. Looking down, her own twisted corpse lay at her feet. Bent in unnatural and almost comical ways, it seemed she simply crumbled when death had come for her.
“Yeah, I found her.” Just beyond the closet doorway, her friend Kasey stood, shining her flashlight at the remains.
“I heard her sort of squeak. I guess the ghost heard her, too.” Marco chuckled as he joined Kasey and Ryan standing over her.
Amber sighed, nothing more she could do this round. She pushed her chair back from her desk and lifted the headphones off her ears. Stretching her arms over her head, she groaned. Remembering what had gotten her killed, she grabbed her phone and checked her notifications. It was a message from her dad. The doctor still hadn’t come to see them, so there was no timeline yet for when they would be able to come home. Amber took a deep breath and pushed away from her desk completely. She stood slowly and stretched before making her way out of her bedroom and into the dark common spaces of her house. Across the great room, the clock on the microwave read 11:15. Something brushed her ankle. Al, the fluffy calico that accompanied their permanent house guest, was rubbing against her leg, a gentle, but insistent reminder that it was past dinner time.
“Okay, fuzzball, let’s go.” She bent down, lifted the cat into her arms, and turned for the stairs. Shuffling carefully in the dark, she took the first flight down to the entry landing and paused to peek out the window next to the door. The porch light had been left on, and a large collection of fall insects was dancing in the yellowy light. Her parents’ car remained absent from the driveway, though she already knew it wasn’t going to be there. Checking to make sure the deadbolt was secured, she turned and opened the garage. Her car was closest, parked casually next to shelves holding holiday decorations and her dad’s tools. Her great aunt Helena’s older boat-like sedan, covered in over two years’ worth of dust, occupied the other spot. Making sure she had remembered to shut her garage door, she sealed the room and headed down the other flight to the basement.
The family room, shrouded in shadows, greeted her at the base of the stairs. She glanced down the hall to her left before moving right into the now-underused room. She used to host slumber parties here. Six to eight of her friends would crowd into sleeping bags, watching romantic comedies or horror movies well into the wee hours of the morning, but not anymore. All of that stopped when Aunt Helena came to stay. Too noisy for old ears, apparently. The cat’s food and water station was in the corner. Dropping the cat softly onto the couch, she quickly fed the meowing kitty, pacing back and forth, and stroked her soft fur. “There ya go, you greedy little thing.”
Smiling, she turned and hurried back to her room, wondering if they had left the mission yet and were waiting for her in the lobby to start another case. The second she stepped into her room, she knew they hadn’t. The blue misty hallway was still on her screen. As she was sitting down, the creepy little demon child that had ended her flashed past, no doubt stalking one of her friends. She heard Ryan yell something rude as soon as her headphones slipped over her ears. She laughed. “Welcome to the land of the dead!” She managed between her chuckles.
“Goddamnit! How did it find me!” He was laughing despite his grim situation. It only took a few seconds to find his collapsed body in another small closet just down the hall from hers. Ryan’s ghost popped back into the game right in front of her. “Hey, Amber. I forgot to turn off my flashlight, haha. My bad, but what happened to you? How did you die?”
“My phone buzzed, and it startled me. I made a noise and it must have heard me, I guess.” Amber sighed as she leaned back in her chair.
“Open mic? That’s why I use push to talk.” Ryan moved past her out of the closet and toward the small living room where their two living friends were milling around. “Was it about the hospital and your grandmother, or whatever?”
“She’s not my grandmother, she’s my great aunt, and yeah. They don’t know when they’ll be able to come home. All alone, once again.” Amber moved out of the way as Kasey moved toward her and then immediately felt stupid. Not only was she dead, but there was no player impact in this game. A noob mistake she hoped Ryan didn’t notice. She continued. “I’m getting used to it. The only part that really sucks is buying the groceries, haha.”
Ryan chuckled lightly and then asked, “What is a great aunt? My mom said that the other day on the phone with one of her friends, and I don’t know what it means.” His voice had taken on a somber tone, and she knew he was genuinely asking. He could do that, switch from joking to serious on a dime. Maybe that’s why she liked him. She had heard at school that he was something of a gamer, so she invited him to join their game time, hoping something more might lie ahead.
“It’s, like, the aunt of your parent, I think. Helena is my dad’s dad’s older sister.”
“Dad’s dad’s? That’s a mouthful. Why is she living with you? Doesn’t she have, like, kids or friends of her own? Like, I get having your grandparents move in, but it seems weird to me. She close with your dad or something?” Honestly, Amber didn’t really want to talk about Aunt Helena. It was a sore subject to be sure, but Ryan was new to their little group and hadn’t been there for the last two years of drama swirling around Helena and the favor her dad had been called upon to honor.
“Not really. Helena moved overseas right after high school, like FOREVER ago. She only stayed in touch with my grandpa for like, her whole life. Not sure why her family disowned her. I think she got pregnant in school or something, but if she has kids, I have never heard of them. Anyway, she moved back to the States after she got diagnosed with dementia and started living with my grandpa. That only lasted a year before Pop-pop had a bad fall. He never really got better and died a couple months later. He, like, made my dad swear on his deathbed that he would take care of Aunt Helena after he was gone. So…here we are…taking care of her.” Amber and Ryan followed as Kasey and Marco headed for the door, having apparently given up on the mission that had cost them half their team already.
“Damn, that sucks.” She had heard that a lot over the last two years, but Ryan actually seemed to mean it.
“Eh, it honestly wasn’t that bad, at first, anyway. She was kinda funny when she first moved in. They put her in the room next to mine downstairs so they could get her wheelchair in and out easily, so I talked to her in the evening sometimes. She had this, like, really dark sense of humor, and she had some really badass stories about all the shit she got into in Europe in the 60s and 70s.” The screen went completely black with nothing but the word LOADING… scrawled across it, cutting her off mid-thought.
She expected the conversation would be over once they all loaded back into the lobby, but Ryan immediately asked, “Oh, yeah? Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, huh?” Amber just laughed.
“What the fuck were you two talking about as ghosts?” Marco’s crass words made her stifle her laughter.
“My great Aunt Helena. You know the shit she used to share with me.”
“Oh, yeah. Too bad she went nuts.” Kasey immediately squashed Marco. He could be so rude sometimes, and Kasey was always trying to keep him from upsetting everyone. Amber rolled her eyes, still not sure why her friend was dating him.
“Not nuts, just…her dementia has gotten really bad. She can’t really tell stories or even really talk anymore. She just hums all the fucking time.” Amber’s voice trailed off. She had lost all interest in this conversation now and just wanted it to end.
“Yeah, cutting you up real bad isn’t NUTS at all, right? That’s a totally sane response to someone helping you when you fall down. Uh-huh.” Marco started laughing, and Amber’s stomach turned. Reflexively, her eyes moved to the six-inch scar on her right forearm. Wrinkling her nose in disgust, she tugged the sleeve of her nightshirt down over the scar and looked away.
“Marco, seriously? Shut the fuck up! Amber, I’m sorry my boyfriend’s an asshole!” Kasey moved her character in between the two of them as if this were real life and that somehow would make a difference.
“Holy shit! She cut you? Like, what? Like, with a knife or something?”
“Nah, bra, with fucking scissors! You ain’t seen that mad scar on her arm?” Kasey was stuttering, trying to end the conversation, and Amber just sat in silence as it continued.
“Oh, shit, for real? Why is she still living with y’all? I know that would have been it for me! I’d have been, like, NOPE!” Ryan had effectively put the ball in her court, and to Amber’s surprise, Marco seemed to be letting her take her time with her response. Which meant, unfortunately, that she would need to give one.
“Yeah. It really freaked me and my mom out. I mean, I was trying to help her. She fell out of her wheelchair, like, four months ago, and I heard it in my room. I went to help her u,p and she lost it. Like, totally didn’t know who I was and panicked. She grabbed her knitting scissors and stabbed me in the arm. It was pretty bad, and my mom almost, like, left my dad over it. They decided to switch rooms with me until they could find a nursing home for her. But then my mom got laid off, and they couldn’t afford to put her anywhere else anymore.” Well, she thought to herself, that killed the mood. All four teens stood in awkward digital silence for a few seconds, no one really knowing what to say next. Then Marco found exactly the wrong response.
“Bet you wish she dies this time, huh?” Kasey and Ryan both began yelling at him to shut up, and how could he say something like that, what an asshole he was, and how he was being a real dick. Amber just sat in silence, not responding. It was so horrible, so disgusting, and so….true. She hated to think it, but she DID think it. Deciding that she had better stop before things got any worse, she announced suddenly over the two against one argument in the chat that she was done for the night, and quickly closed the game. Her phone began to buzz repeatedly on the desk next to her as she checked a few things and shut down her PC.
She responded to Kasey’s repeated apologies that everything was fine, she was just tired, and gave Ryan a thank you when he wished her a good night. Marco received the cold shoulder to his it was only a fucking joke text. She popped her phone into do-not-disturb and crawled into her bed. It was too late for her parents to message her anymore, and she would hear them when they came home anyway. No one else needed her that badly now, and she just wanted to sleep. She buried her head into her pillow and tried to silence the voice in her head, well, you do wish she’d just go away….you know you do…
Al’s nose was cold and wet as she sniffed Amber’s ear. Her eyes opened into the darkness to find the fluffy nuisance standing on her pillow waiting for attention. How long had she been asleep? Amber lifted her head to see her clock. 3:23. “Shit. Really, Al?” Even as she scolded the kitty, she gave her what she wanted, running her hand over the cat’s back a few times. The soft hum of Al’s purr seemed distant even though the cat was just inches from her face. Wait…that wasn’t Al. Amber sat up on her elbow and strained her ears. The humming wasn’t purring; it was actually someone humming, and it was coming from outside her room. Moving the small cat to the other side of the bed, she sloughed the covers off and sat on the side of the mattress to get a better listen.
Soft but distinct sounds of a woman’s voice humming in a minor key drifted into her room from somewhere else in the house. Amber rolled her sleepy eyes. Aunt Helena hummed all the time, and the sound had become all too familiar. Sighing, she stood and decided to see if her parents were still up downstairs. She shuffled, heavy-footed, out of her room and into the living room. No light. Amber raised an eyebrow but shrugged and turned for the stairs. It wasn’t until she was halfway down that she noticed the front porch light was still on. She paused on the stairs, a twinge of fear starting to grow in her core. Maybe it was just so late and they were just so tired that they had forgotten to turn the light off. Surely that was it. Doing her groggy best to brush the fear aside, Helena’s humming, still drifting its way to her reassuringly, even if eerily, she moved down the stairs and reached for the switch. As she flicked it off, she chanced a glance at the driveway. Instantly, she flicked the light back on. Moving closer to the glass and through the light rain filling the night air, she scanned over the driveway again.
Nothing there.
No car.
Her parents weren’t home. That couldn’t be. She moved across the entry in one step and opened the garage. Even in the dark, she could see the same two cars sitting in the same two spots. If her parents weren’t here, then neither was Aunt Helena…so, who was humming?
Panic locked her muscles, and her breathing became labored. What should she do? Should she just leave? Her car was right there in front of her. Shit…her keys were upstairs on her dresser. She could just go out the front door. Run down the street to a neighbor’s house. In her thin nightgown…in the cold…in the rain…not option one. Deciding that she should at least try to make it back upstairs to get her keys and her phone, she turned on her toes. While her trip to the landing had been relatively silent, she now heard every board creaking under her weight. Each tentative step seemed to be making the house scream. Each stair groaned melodramatically as her bare foot touched it.
Meow. Al met her at the top of the stairs, lazily asking for more attention.
Shh. She reached out and snagged the cat, pulling her in close against her chest to silence the meows. Why wasn’t the cat concerned with the intruder downstairs? Surely cats would be upset by that, maybe not as much as dogs, but at least a little bit…right? Holding the cat and still trying to be quiet, she slipped into her bedroom and closed the door. She pushed the little button on her doorknob, putting too much trust in such a simple lock. Dropping Al on the bed, she quickly slipped her nightgown off and pulled on the clothes she had shed hours earlier. Once she pulled on her shoes, she grabbed her phone and then her keys. Deciding that Al didn’t deserve to get left behind with whoever was downstairs, she picked the cat back up and moved to her door. Amber pressed her ear to the wood.
Silence.
The humming had stopped. Was that good or bad? Had whoever was in her house just left? Or, more likely, had they heard her? Were they now sneaking around looking for the other occupant of this dark home? This seemed far more reasonable than the just-left idea. Swapping ears, she held her breath. Hoping to get some small sign, a stray footstep, a creaky floorboard, something to give an indication of where the other was and if they had any notion of where she was. A loud click of sorts sounded right on top of her. She took a jagged step back, squeezing the cat in her arms a little too tightly and causing her to squirm for freedom. A scream crept up her throat, but she immediately locked her teeth. The odd clicking sound rang out again, only this time it came complete with movement. Her door swung slowly away from its jam. She backed up even farther, shaking her head aggressively, desperate to wake up from what was easily the most terrifying nightmare she had ever had.
“Ah!” The cat hit the ground with a soft thud and bolted through the now-open door as Amber grabbed her hand. She must have really been squeezing for Al to bite her like that. The flash of pain distracted her for half a second as she rubbed the sting radiating through her hand, then reality ripped through her.
IDIOT!
How fucking stupid are you?!
Her own voice screamed in her head. There’s someone in your house, and you give yourself away like that? It, she, had a point. Struggling to breathe against her fear, she stood perfectly still for seconds that seemed like minutes in the middle of her room, waiting for whoever, whatever, to come and get her. Surely they knew where she was now. Any second, the doorway would darken and the intruder would be standing there, ready to attack. But nothing happened. Silence and stillness stretched through the house beyond her open door. Her panic still screamed in her head, but another voice, the rational, logical side of her mind, was gaining ground. If they weren’t coming to get her, then she needed to LEAVE. This was her chance. Stand here any longer and miss it. One small step closer to the door went unnoticed, so another followed, and then another. Reaching the doorway, she leaned out into the hall slowly, her heart pounding in her ears. Empty dark. Taking a ragged breath, she stepped halfway out and waited one more time for some reaction, but again, silence.
Still terrified, she made the decision to just go. Two steps outside of her room, and the distinct, disjointed clicking sound echoed again from behind her. She spun on her heels, the skin of her palm tearing from the keys clenched within. She didn’t feel the pain but could feel the warmth of blood beginning to slip down the side of her hand. The hallway behind her was void. The door to the tiny linen closet at the end of the hall drifted slowly open with no apparent cause.
Wait. I know that sound.
Recognition shoved its way past the panic and anxiety crowding her fear-addled mind. That was a sound effect from the fucking game! The door touch sound! She had heard it so many times over the hundreds of cases she and Kasey, and Marco had played in the last year.
MARCO!
His last message, it was just a fucking joke, thundered in her brain. Recognition gave way to realization, which fell instantly to rage. How could he do this? WHY would he do this!? He was always an ass, but he had never been this cruel before.
“Marco! You dick! Where are you!? How dare you do this! Break into my fucking house? Is this just a fucking joke, too?! I should call the cops!” She stomped her way into the living room and down the stairs. She didn’t even pause on the landing, turning immediately down and into the basement. She flicked on the light and scanned the hallway, expecting him to step out of one of the rooms, laughing in his smug way as if he had pulled off the most epic prank and she was just being dramatic. When he didn’t appear instantly to gloat, she lifted her phone and opened her messages. Typing fiercely with angry fingers, still trembling from what she had been through, from what he had put her through, she texted him a tirade of unpleasant words and accusations. No response. Having had all she could stomach, she clicked the phone icon and put the phone to her ear.
The call began to ring. Pulling it away from the side of her face slightly to listen. She rolled her eyes at the silence in her house and returned the phone to her ear, muttering sarcastically, “Can’t pass chemistry, but you can remember to silence your phone when you’re giving someone a heart attack.” It took five rings before he finally picked up. A groggy whispered hello unleashed all of her vitriol. She started screaming all the colorful phrases she had texted him only seconds ago.
“Whoa! Amber? What the fuck!? What are you talking about?! Are you fucking crazy? I’m not at your fucking house! I’m at mine. ASLEEP!” His voice went from really freaked out to super pissed.
“Yeah, right! You aren’t at my house trying to scare the shit out of me. That’s not you playing game sounds to freak me out. Right!” She was still sure it was him, but the fear was beginning to peak around the corners of her mind again.
“Why the fuck would I do that? Any of that? Reality check, Amber! You don’t matter enough to me for that. Like, at all. If someone is in your house, call the fucking cops and leave me the FUCK ALONE!” Marco hung up on her, leaving her standing in her family room, staring down a dark hallway all alone with a stranger. A stranger who definitely knew where she was now.
The door click sounded upstairs as if to confirm both that it wasn’t Marco after all and that it wasn’t over.
She started to hyperventilate. She lifted her hand to cover her mouth and felt the cold scrap of her car key on her cheek. Option one screamed back to life in her head. Turning, she bolted up the lower flight. Just as she grabbed for the garage door, the click of the lock split the air. She turned the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. She turned to the front door and tried the deadbolt. It was too stiff to turn. She tried again, gripping the paddle of metal so tightly her fingers ached, but it wouldn’t budge.
Above her, she heard the game’s erratic footsteps. Someone or something was moving down the hallway toward the living room. Instinct kicked in, and she flew back down the stairs and down the hall. She slipped into her old room and closed the door before hiding between the edge of her parents’ dresser and the wall. This could NOT be real. She closed her eyes, shutting out all of the useless phrases circling in her mind. It didn’t matter that this couldn’t be real, that she must be dreaming, that things like this don’t happen. It was happening, and for all her brain’s platitudes and theories, this was her reality right now, so she had to deal with it. She heard the humming even before the footsteps entered the hall. The twisted version of her Aunt Helena’s favorite tune did not keep time with the heavy thudding footfalls. The sound of the bedroom door opening made her suck in a shocked breath. The broken pace circled the space at the end of the bed. She didn’t dare take a peek. Amber closed her eyes and repeated go away, go away, go away over and over in her head.
As if she had said the words out loud, the intruder moved back into the hall and returned to the family room. She exhaled as softly as she could manage, listening numbly to the footsteps down the hall.
Then, midstride, the stalker vanished. As soon as the steps ceased, Amber jumped up. If this were like the game she had only seconds before, it would hunt her again, and she was determined to live! She bolted through the open bedroom door and up the stairs to the entry. Sucking in a deep breath, she reached trembling fingers to the deadbolt and doorknob simultaneously. Closing her eyes, she turned the lever, and miraculously, it gave way. Yanking the door open violently, she lunged her body out the door and into the cold, rainy night air.
As soon as she was through the doorway, everything changed. It wasn’t until it was gone that she noticed the drone, the low base note that had been constant through the entire ordeal, was gone. The sounds of the night were so loud without it. The rain on the driveway, the wind in the bare branches, and even her neighbors’ windchimes found her pure and unmolested by the tone playing low in the house behind her. She took a few breaths, trying to steady her nerves and her hands. She was safe now. She was outside, and those were the rules of the game. She took the first few steps and sat down on the rain-soaked tread, feeling the freezing water instantly soak through her pants, but she didn’t care. She took out her phone. 3:41 am. Eighteen minutes of hell, she thought before unlocking it and looking through her notifications. She had several messages from her parents and one missed call in the last 12 minutes. The last message was from her dad telling her that she didn’t have to go to school tomorrow if she was too upset by Helena’s death to manage. So, she thought, she’s gone. A sadness washed over her. Helena had become a part of life, not always pleasant, but always present, and she realized now that she would miss her. Sighing, she clicked on the notification for the missed call. It was a number she didn’t know, and it called her at exactly 3:23 am. There was a voicemail.
Amber looked around, suddenly feeling very uneasy, but not enough to go back into the house. Every part of her was screaming to just delete the message, but she clicked the play button. The bar began to move, but she didn’t hear anything. She cranked up the volume, and the low drone leaked from her phone into the night. She was just about to turn it off when Helena’s humming split the monotonous tone. She threw her phone to the sidewalk in front of her. She stared helplessly at the phone as the play bar neared the end of its line. Then silence. The message wasn’t over, but all of the sounds, the drone, the humming, all stopped. Then, just as the message was finishing, a whispered voice played into the night.
“I’m right behind you.”
Amber’s parents pulled into the driveway at about 6:45. The night had been hard, and neither of them had gotten any rest. Between Helena’s passing, all the hospital’s paperwork, and the funeral home pickup, they were totally drained. It wasn’t until they were starting up the damp sidewalk to the front porch steps that they noticed the door standing wide open. A quick, panicked glance at each other, and they bolted up the steps. Amber’s mother ran straight into the house and up the stairs, yelling for Amber, while her father stopped to pick up Amber’s car keys from the step and her cracked phone from the ground. It was dead, soaked through with rainwater. He immediately looked around, as if expecting to see her lying somewhere on the grass like her phone, but she was nowhere.
“I can’t find her!” Amber’s mother stood in the doorway, wringing her hands. “Everything in here is fine. There wasn’t a break-in, but I can’t find her!” She pleaded with him for help with her exhausted eyes as tears of panic streamed down her cheeks. Without waiting for him to respond, she turned and ran down the lower flight, resuming her calls of Amber’s name. He moved into the house, an unwillingness to accept what might be happening causing him to move slowly. His mind fought the emerging reality that his daughter was missing, insisting, against evidence and reason, that she was fine. Then confirmation found him, and he nearly collapsed under the relief.
“She’s here! She’s in here!” His wife’s voice, half terror, half joy, called to him from down the basement hallway. He tripped over his own feet as he moved faster than he ever had to the place where she stood, looking in through the door to Helena’s room. There, curled up on top of the bed covers, lay their sixteen-year-old daughter, fully clothed, with Al purring softly at her feet. They took a deep breath in unison and shared a glance. Nodding at each other, they turned and moved away from the door, agreeing without words that she must have been so upset by Aunt Helena’s passing that she had thrown some sort of fit, but it seemed she was calm now. They closed the front door and climbed the stairs to get some rest in the living room before they would need to start making calls and arrangements. As they settled down on the sofa, a soft sound drifted up the stairs. A melody hummed in a minor key. A tune they knew all too well.