Mom gasped and placed a hand on her chest, her eyes widening.
I held up my hands in a calming gesture. “I honestly don’t think it’s anything to worry about. I’m starting to think I’m losing my mind. I know she’s dead, but they seem so real.”
Dad glanced at Mom, his brow furrowed, and they shared a knowing look before he turned back to me. “What do you mean by ‘you see her everywhere’?”
I reached up and began to idly twirl a lock of my hair around in small spirals on my finger. “Well,” I began slowly, trying to think of a way to explain. “She visits me. It’s really scary. It’s like she came back for me.” I hated talking about the day I found my father dead more than anything, but I needed to talk about it now to make them understand why I was so afraid. “That day I came home and found…you know. When she saw me, she tried to kill me too. I only got away because I hid in the hiding space my dad had made for me. He always told me she was crazy and not to tell her about my secret place. Now I think she’s back to haunt me or get revenge on me since she didn’t kill me that day too. I know it sounds dumb, but I don’t know how else to explain it.”
The room remained silent when I finished talking. When I looked up from my hands, I saw Dad was holding his head in his hands, shaking it back and forth with his eyes shut tight.
“Call the police, Lou,” Mom said, pushing herself up off the bed.
I was definitely not expecting this reaction. I thought they were supposed to love me no matter what. I never thought they’d call the police on me for having hallucinations!
“Mom, I’m fine, seriously. You don’t have to call the police.”
She shook her head. “We should have told you the truth a long time ago, Logan. Your birth mother isn’t dead. We just told you that so you wouldn’t be afraid if we told you the truth. We wanted you to have some closure and to get a chance to move on. You were doing so well, and we thought your nightmares had gone away. We didn’t want to ruin all of the progress you made.”
Austin’s arm stiffened around me before he pulled me into his side, breathing deeply against the side of my neck. I was faintly aware of the fact that my body was shaking, but it didn’t matter.
“She’s alive?” I asked, needing clarification.
Mom nodded. “She was released a few days after your twenty-first birthday.”
My heart clenched at her words. My birth mother was out there somewhere. She really wasn’t just a mere figment of my imagination. She was real, and not even half an hour ago, she had been in my room. I shuddered at the thought of the things she would do if she got a hold of me somehow. Now that I knew she was still alive and wasn’t just a figment of my imagination, I didn’t know if I’d ever feel safe again.
Chapter Four
“When do you see her the most?” the police officer asked, his crinkled eyes regarding me thoughtfully.
I wrung my hands together. “Whenever I’m alone.”
He nodded, causing some of his graying brown hair to fall over his forehead as he scribbled something down on a notepad. When he finished, he stood up and tucked his notepad into his back pocket. “Okay, I’ve taken down all of the information I need. I’m going to file a report as soon as I get back to the station. For now, we’ll have a patrol car check on the house every hour on the hour. I’ve also contacted the station in your mother’s district, and they’re going to send someone out to her house tonight.”
Mom, who had her hands on my shoulders, nodded. “Thank you, Officer.”
“You’re welcome, Mrs. Wilson. Lock up behind me and make sure all of your windows and doors are shut and locked.” The officer shook my dad’s hand, and then he was gone.
I was still speechless. I didn’t know what to say. I hardly even knew what to think. It didn’t help that everyone was staring at me expectantly. There were so many things going through my head that the effort of even following a train of thought was wearing me out. I stood up and headed toward the stairs.
“Good night,” I murmured.
“Good night,” they muttered in response. They were silent until I reached the top of the steps, where I could hear them all talking in hushed voices below, but I was too worn out to care. I pushed into my bedroom and climbed under the covers, not even bothering to turn the lights off.
The next few days went by quickly. Not once did I see or experience anything out of the ordinary. My nightmares were even giving me a break for once. A part of me wondered if it was because there was a patrol car watching the house or because I was never alone. Austin and my parents were with me every second. I was surprised they even let me go to the bathroom alone anymore.
I was thankful I was getting rest and that the “hauntings” had stopped, but I also knew I couldn’t live like this for the rest of my life. I couldn’t live my life in fear, never being left alone and always being afraid to catch a glimpse of my birth mother when I looked out of a window or entered a dark room. I loved my parents and Austin, but constantly being surrounded by them was driving me crazy. I was ready to end things once and for all and face my fears.
My birth mother had killed my father and tried to kill me as well, and now I was going to kill her. In my mind, it was the only way I could think of that would end my pain. Killing her would not only keep her from coming after me, but hopefully it would also stop my nightmares. I would finally be able to move on.
When Sunday came and my parents left for church, I got to action. It wasn’t hard to make Austin believe I was sick and needed him to make a run to the nearest convenience store to buy me a list of items I needed, all of which I had tossed out days before in preparation. As soon as he was gone, I unlocked my window and lifted it up as high as it would go. Then I went into my closet, propping the door open so I could see her when she came in but she wouldn’t see me. And I waited.
Chapter Five
The window wasn’t even open for five minutes before she poked her head inside, her black hair hanging around her face, her dark eyes sweeping the room. My hands shook as I gripped the brick I had gotten from the garden in the backyard. It had three thumbprint hearts on it—mine, my mom’s, and my dad’s, from the day they adopted me. I thought it was only fitting that I ended all of this the way it had begun the day she bashed my birth father’s head in.
“Your mother is a crazy bitch, Logan. It’s just you and me kid,” he used to tell me, whispering while my mother prepared dinner.
“Why?” I would question, confused on why my mother, whom I loved, was considered in such foul terms.
Dad would just shake his head and glare at her. “Spencer. That’s why.” I never understood what he meant by that, but today, right before I ended things once and for all, I was going to ask her.
I chewed on my lip as I watched her scurry inside. She walked slowly across the bedroom, probably trying not to alert me to her presence. When she neared the closet, I kicked the door open and sprung out at her, swinging the brick wildly.
The guttural scream that escaped her mouth when the brick connected with her shoulder took me by surprise. The reaction was too human for someone who I considered to be so evil. I swung again, this time missing since she dodged my attack and then dove at me, throwing all of her weight against me and causing me to fall back. The brick fell out of my grasp, my skull reverberating off of the hardwood floor.
All of the air in my lungs came out in one big whoosh, leaving me gasping for air as my birth mother scrambled on top of me, grabbing the brick. When she had it in hand, she held it over my head and smiled down at me smugly.
“I’ve dreamt about this,” she whispered, as if she was talking to herself rather than to me. Her voice was much scratchier than I remembered it, but her eyes were the same, dark and emotionless.
I wiggled around beneath her weight while she sat on my chest. Even after all these years, she was still stronger than I was and able to overpower me, but I wasn’t giving up.
“Get off of me, you crazy bitch!” I screamed, trying
to get my arms free from where they were locked against my body by her legs.
The rage that burned in her eyes was so hot I almost got scalded. I wondered for a brief second if she was reminded of my father when I called her that.
“I should’ve killed you a long time ago. You’re an evil child. Everything happened because of you,” she spat, leaning over me.
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What? Because of me? You’re the psycho who killed my father. He was right about you. You’re crazy.”
This made her laugh, though the sound that came out of her was more like a bark than a laugh. “Your father used to beat me so hard I couldn’t even think straight, yet I’m the crazy one for killing him? Plus, you aren’t so innocent yourself. You killed someone when you were four years old. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, huh?”
I scowled and tried to get free again. The brick was looming too close to my head for comfort, and I was starting to have flashbacks of her bringing it down on my dad’s bloody, misshapen head. It had taken years just to get the wet suctioning sound as she pulled the brick back for another blow out of my head, and now I would probably be hearing it again, unless I was dead before I had the chance.
Yet, despite everything, I couldn’t ignore what she said.
“I’ve never killed anyone,” I countered, glaring.
She nodded. “That’s when everything changed. The day you killed your sister, Spencer.”
The name rung in my mind. Spencer. Dad had always said Spencer was the reason he called her a crazy bitch. Spencer was also the reason he gave when I asked why he hit her. It all came back to Spencer, but I don’t even remember having a sister. I had never even seen pictures of another baby besides me.
“Is it starting to make sense?” she asked, leaning so close now that the greasy tips of her hair were practically grazing my cheeks. “You and Spencer were taking a bath when it happened. I went to grab your towels, and when I came back, you were holding her head under the water. You told me you were washing her hair, but you didn’t know she couldn’t breathe. She drowned because of you, yet your father blamed me for her death. That’s when everything changed.”
“I was four. I don’t even remember having a sister. You were the one supposed to be watching us. She died on your watch, so it’s your fault.”
Her pale face flushed red with anger. Her arms began to shake, but I could tell the grip she had on my arms had gone slack.
“It’s all your fault,” I taunted.
Suddenly, she screamed loudly, bringing the brick down, but I was faster. I used all of my strength to shove her off of me and then barrel rolled until I was on my knees. Then I stood quickly and jumped at her, knocking the brick from her grasp. When I got her on her back, I sat on her chest and brought my fist down onto her face with as much force as I could muster. I kept hitting her until I heard the sickening sound of her nose snapping. When she stopped moving, her head lolling to the side, I reached for the brick and slammed it into her skull.
The sound of her head cracking was worse than the suctioning sound, but I couldn’t stop hitting her. It was as if some force had come over me as I brought the brick down repeatedly. Blood sprayed up, coating my arms and face as I let out my anger at her for killing my father and ruining my life. I didn’t stop until I heard my bedroom door creak open. I looked up from the bloody lump that used to be my birth mother’s face to see Austin standing in the doorway, his expression horror stricken.
“Logan, what did you do?”
The brick fell from my hands with a thump. I knew how horrible it was to be seeing what he was right now. I stood slowly, holding my arms out at my sides as I hesitantly walked toward him. To my surprise, he didn’t run like I expected him to. He grabbed my arm, leaving a handprint in the blood on it, and tugged me to the bathroom to get me cleaned up.
I sat in the tub, frozen, while he poured water over me and scrubbed the blood off of my skin. As he wiped my face, he said, “Is that who I think it is?”
I nodded.
“Well, I’m glad it was her and not you.”
Once I was washed and changed, we went back into the room to clean up before my parents got home. We decided it was best to get rid of the body and pretend none of this had ever happened. We wrapped her body in trash bags and carried her to the car, where we shoved her body into the trunk. The plan was that Austin would dispose of the body somewhere while I cleaned the blood off of the floors.
As soon as he pulled out of the driveway, I hurried up to my room and got to work. The first thing I did was shut and lock the window before I started scrubbing the floor. I was on my hands and knees on the floor with my head down when I heard it—the sound of a floorboard creaking from the corner of my room. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I raised my head slowly.
At the sight before me, I screamed and threw the bloody sponge at the figure standing in the corner of the room, but it passed right through it. Unlike before, when I was unsure of whether I was hallucinating or not, now I was sure that I was. My head swam as I stared in disbelief into my mother’s cold, hard eyes for a moment before black fuzz invaded my vision and everything went black.
About the Author
Taylor Henderson, a Northern Virginia native, is a psychology major at the University of Mary Washington. She has been a voracious reader since she was young. Mesmerized by the worlds and characters that other authors have brought to life, she decided to become a writer. Although her writing so far has been mostly in the young adult arena with leanings toward suspense and intrigue, Taylor intends to continue writing and has plans to incorporate psychological themes into her future works.
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Into Mama’s Lair
By Elizabeth Roderick
The birthday from hell turns out to be the birthday from heaven.
Chapter One
Happily-Ever-After is Just the Beginning
John apparently thought torture was the best birthday gift he could give me.
When we walked into the restaurant, a ruckus of felicitations erupted. They’d had to move four tables together to accommodate every-freaking-body: his parents, grandma, aunts, Sally and Helen from the main office, even my old o-chem lab partner. I wondered if he’d invited my gynecologist and she just hadn’t decided to show.
John met my furious side-eye with his boyish grin. “Happy birthday,” he said.
“Happy sleeping on the couch tonight.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, and I think if he weren’t black, he’d have been beet red. “It’s a big occasion, your birthday and your college graduation. Just thought we’d make a party of it, that’s all.” I wrinkled my nose, and he kissed my temple and gave me a pat on the behind. “Get your fine butt up there, Tara Faith. It’s not a party without you.”
I bumped his hip with mine…maybe a little harder than I needed to.
John Senior stood up and gave me a good squeeze as I went to sit down. Next came John’s mama, Rosine. When she pulled away, her eyes were shining.
“You okay, Rosine?” I asked. “Your allergies acting up?”
She laughed, dabbed her eyes with a napkin, and sat back down. I shot John a look, but he was examining his menu like he couldn’t wait to see what happened in the dessert course.
When the wait staff had taken all our orders, John stood up, tinkling his fork against his beer glass. Everyone fell silent…not only at our table, but the whole restaurant. My face heated up like a welding torch, and I resisted the urge to yank him back into his seat and clamp my hand over his mouth to keep him from saying whatever bullshit he had in mind.
“Good evening, everybody,” he said, smiling around at the table. “Thank y’all for coming. It means so much that
you’d be here to celebrate the occasion of Tara Faith’s birthday and her recent graduation. If anyone has failed to hear,” he rocked on his heels and lifted his chin proudly, “she graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in biology.” People clapped and hooted like yahoos. John’s gaze fell to me and stayed this time. Although I wasn’t sure why, I got a surge of adrenaline. I narrowed my eyes at him. His lips twitched in a faint smile, and he continued.
“You all know that Tara Faith is a special woman. In fact, she’s so special that I risked my job at my dad’s firm in order to get me some of that back when she was my paralegal.”
“Ohmygod,” I blurted. People erupted in gut-busting laughter while I hid my face in my hands, glaring between my fingers at John, who gave me his dork smile.
“Anyway,” he persisted. “I’m gonna bring it down to the bottom line here.” He paused, running his palm over his hair, his brow furrowing slightly. It was so quiet you could hear the cooks joking with each other in the kitchen, and I wanted to curl up like a hedgehog. “Those of you who knew me when I was little know I was a handful.”
“You know that’s right,” his grandma said.
“You were a little devil is what,” John Sr. said, and his wife shushed him.
“When I was little, I never wanted to grow up. I couldn’t imagine doing all the boring-ass stuff y’all do every day, mowing lawns and watching the news and working in your stupid offices.” He smirked at his lawyer father, who was shaking his head in mock disapproval.
“Anyway, for some reason, probably because my dad is bossy, I ended up going to law school, even though the little boy in me still wanted to be building towers of furniture so I could climb up and swing round on the ceiling fan.”
13 Night Terrors Page 6
