C H A P T E R 4
C H A P T E R 4
MY NIGHTMARE
Puppet
I wake abruptly to the voices in my head. Screams down my ear that felt so real I questioned if it was a nightmare but I feel uneasy. I am usually such a heavy sleeper and this insulin knocks me out. How strange . My heart is still racing as I check my phone and its literally midnight? 12:32 AM. I lay there for a moment, trying to come up with a reason as to why I am awake at this damn time of night when I hear shuffling downstairs. But not them. Unless Dad's digging his way to China to find something.
What is going on?
I sit up in my silky white pyjamas, my legs flooding cold as I slide them out from underneath the duvet and make my way to the hallway. They must still be awake, all the lights are on? I go to knock on their bedroom door. No answer. They are usually in bed by now. Maybe they are having a horror movie night. If they are I'll be mad, they know I love horror movies, regardless of if I went to bed early. Blasphemy.
I make my way downstairs quietly and can still hear the TV, white noise now sawing at my ears. Maybe they have fallen asleep and forgot to turn the TV off? Walking into the living room they are both sitting on the sofa. Well… more, slumped? They look asleep. I creep my way to the coffee table reaching for the remote and press the power button glancing up to catch their reflection in the black screen.
Am I still dreaming?
I go to scream but nothing comes out. My feet are nailed to the floor, frozen in fear. Paralysed . Squinting my lids so hard I see stars as I reopen them trying to take away this nightmare I'm currently living in.
Come on Alora. Wake up. Wake. UP.
I turn my head slowly, terrified to admit this reality, hoping it was still in my head but this time it’s not in my head, it’s very much real, this can't be real. This has to be a dream. Why aren't I waking up? Both of them are sitting with two clean bullet holes through the centre of their brows, singular tears of blood leaking down the circumference of their faces, dripping onto their white attire, they are staring back at me with their eyes wide open, if nightmares walked among us this would be it. The white in their eyes bloodshot and dull of any glimmer, freeze frame faces, dripping with fear, like they had been frozen and on a tape, the expressions still etched into their lifeless body. Solid like stone. Pale. Cold. Stiff.
Dead .
Play - ‘That Home - The Cinematic Orchestra’
They are dead . I think I'm going to barf… I can't breathe, yelping in oxygen as my chest heaves. I lose all feeling in my legs as I collapse onto the wooden oak floor. The back of the sofa is bleeding red, seeping into the fabric and the stench of metal is tainting the air. I claw for their legs, struggling to steady my breathing as uncontrollable tears begin to flood my face. These bullet wounds are fresh, whoever did this is still in this house, that is what must have woken me up. My bitter face turns to the noises coming from the basement and my heart sinks, lower and lower until it sits in the pit of my stomach, wiping my wet lashes to clear my blurry vision, fumbling for my father’s phone. Shit . I don't know the damn password. FUCK . And I just touched crucial evidence, my fingerprints are all over it . I stand quietly, trembling to hold my weight as my eyes fix to the door down the corridor ahead leading to my least favourite part of the house. I suck in to hold my breath as cries try to escape my mouth. I can feel sweat forming like a rash all over my flesh, burning me from the inside out, adrenaline kick starting, causing my head to thump. I've watched enough murder documentaries to see where this is going. But watching it and actually partaking in one is very different and suddenly I can't think.
Think, Alora think!
I need a weapon. Looking over at the kitchen door, I swallow blades down the inside of my throat, building up the courage to move quietly and carefully towards the room. I'm quivering as the mix of fear and the temperature of the night sweep the back of my neck. Reaching the block of knives, I slide one out gently and I can't hear anything over the hollow drumming in my head and the static white noise grating at my hearing, it's nauseating. I'm on the verge of vomiting. Fear I've never experienced is now flooding every nerve aligning my body.
The door.
They got in somehow. The door must be open. Tip toeing lightly around the island I grab the door handle, squeezing my face up like a raisin as I twist it clockwise praying it doesn't make too much sound. I tug it towards me slightly and it jams. The bastard locked it back up. I tug it a little harder as my eyes run, cutting down my cheeks, closing my throat to sob silently into the window of the doorframe. I'm going to die tonight. And I'm not ready to die.
I don't understand. Who would do this? Why? What unorthodox deed did my father commit that led to his demise?
Footsteps begin to make their way up the basement staircase and I could have sworn my hearts stopped beating.
Alora. You need to move. NOW .
Shaking off my paralysis, I think of the next best thing. I need a gun. He always has... had … Guns in his office. But I haven't a clue what the safe code is. Please have a handgun in arms reach. It's lucky I am so small, you can barely hear me moving across the floorboards as I hover on my toes, sliding inside the room where I'm met with this now cold and empty space. A space he used to sit, a warm and inviting atmosphere now desolate with memories I have yet to comprehend the extent of. I have no time to grieve right now and that is weighing heavily on my need to stay alive. I want nothing more than to let the floor swallow me whole and give up this enviable fight, but something is telling me to fight. To keep pushing. That instinct in the back of your head that keeps you breathing and doesn't let you give up.
I scurry for the desk nearly fumbling over, my balance is totally off right now. I physically cannot feel anything but pins and needles lacing every pore in my skin. I reach for the little drawers sitting either side of his office chair, the varnished wood making it hard to grip with my wet and sweaty hands as I attempt to pull them out. Nothing. There is nothing but paperwork and stationery.
As solid taps turn into shallow thumps exchanging levels between the basement and the first floor, heavy boots echo down the corridor making their way straight to the office where their feet cut off the light source leaking in underneath the door from the hallway. I duck behind the desk, covered by only a small barrier of plywood where the legs rest. Placing my hand over my mouth, I begin to push so tightly I nearly cut off my oxygen supply as the door creaks open.
They are in here and I have no way of getting out if they stick around. They are homing in on me and all I can do is close my eyes and pray. I'm not a believer but please, hear me now. My pyjamas are literally stuck to me, soaking with sweat and my hair is smothering my damp cheeks. I'm completely still, like someone has injected aconite into my blood, static electricity coursing through me as I grip tightly to the knife glued to my chest. So focused on being silent that I suddenly notice the silence. They have stopped moving but I can feel them glaring at me through the wood, like they can smell my presence in the room with them. Horror movies aren't so fun in real life. I don't ever wish to star in one.
They shift again, and by the sounds of it they are moving away from me. The hall light that was illuminating the room has now dimmed, leaving only a sliver of light slicing up the wall and ceiling behind me. Maybe they are leaving? I feel like a shell. The body that once inhabited me is no longer present, a cavity replacing the fleshy parts of me, the parts of me that cannot be replaced. I've lost everything I once knew and gained trepidation of the future that I may possibly never even live to see. Even if I do, what now? What's left for me besides mourning for that missing part of me that made me whole. My life will never be the same. How are you supposed to move on when your heart is stuck, beating for a life that doesn't exist as you sit braindead in a void of infinite emptiness. I knew I'd lose them one day, but I wasn't ready for it to be so soon.
The silence is becoming deafening as the space between me and them grows. I have a gap. I need to get upstairs and use my phone. Crawling out from underneath the confinements of the desk, I make my way to the exit, heart in my mouth trying not to vomit it up. My stomach is physically aching as I grip the door to peep out into the hallway. It seems empty and I hear no movement. Now is my chance.
I push for the stairs, creeping up them like a kid at Christmas trying to see Santa until I get to my bedroom, the door is still open and I run for my phone which I now realise I forgot to charge. The damn thing is dead. You’ve got to be kidding me. The last option I have is my window which leads out onto the roof. It’s one you have to push up and it’s always jamming so I don’t know how the hell I’m going to do this quietly. I cup the wood and push it as gently as I can, the wood grinds against the window frame, the belt squeaking without lubrication as it inches open, barely enough to get my hands through as I grab the bottom and pull it up, cringing at how damn noisy it is in the desolate silence that surrounds me. Everything is two times louder at night.
A sudden surge of heat burns into my legs directing my focus to the tears of crimson running down my outer thigh, I must have caught myself with the knife. Rubbing the warm liquid against my salty skin I follow the trail all the way down to my foot and my heart sinks to the bottom of my abdomen when I peer down at the carpet beneath me, a perfect blood trail haunts me through the bedroom door to where I'm now stood, cutting the room in two like an earthquake. I can't hide, I've just led them straight to me. My muscles seize, growing tighter against my bones as I tense.
Boots begin to climb the stairs, breaking the floorboards beneath them and all I can do is lock this door. I run for the handle, turning the lock anticlockwise until I hear it click before backing away slowly, light on my feet, holding my breathing so tightly I'm beginning to feel lightheaded, and it feels like I've just jumped fully dressed into a pool, heaving in painful silence, fixated on the handle as their thuds becomes deeper.
They stop. Silence filling the grave around me, boxed in with nowhere to go, already making my bed in a coffin. I glare at the window and scan the room for something heavy. A stack of books are perched on the corner of my bedside table. I need to distract them . I pick them up and throw them with all the power left in me, shattering the glass until my carpets smothered in shards.
They are still silent. A few minutes go by and I find my feet again, creeping towards the door, the eerie stillness peaking my curiosity as I press my ear gently against the door, listening for any signs of life beyond the dirt. My eyes rattle at the nothingness , only the sound of my beating heart tunnelling my ear drums bouncing back against the wood. Are they gone? Did they fall for my decoy?
I press a little harder, cracking the lining of the door slightly before heavy duty nails pierce the barricade just centimetres from my nose pushing a yelp up my throat, throwing my hands flush against my mouth as I leap back from the door.