Watching her walk away, I felt my sense of hope go with her. Her long, tangled dark hair dancing in the wind behind her, as she made her way to the car, without so much as a backwards glance. The stinging, chilling feeling weighing down in the bottom of my stomach. She was gone. There was no hope calling out to her. Her mind was made up.
And I was alone.
Two weeks ago. Two weeks ago we were happy. Both fresh into our respective employment, we'd go to work each morning, kiss on the cheek and other couple cliches. Finishing university last year, we'd decided it was time to get serious, and move in together. So we found a house relatively central to where we both work. It was a nice house. Brick walls, white fence, small yard, two bedrooms with a sleepout. Linoleum kitchen. Chipboard. The cheap, affordable first home you'd expect fresh-out-of-study young adults to live together in.
Two weeks ago. It all started.
The bathroom. Typical, right? Perhaps its the ideology of water being the universal conductor, but there, in the bathtub, one morning. It said. A hairclip. With a large tuft of blonde hair caught in it. Just sitting there, wet, in the bathtub one morning. And it wasn't just any regular hairclip. It was very much a small girls. Pink. Glittery. Flower shaped. And it looked as if it had been ripped, quite forcefully, of a young blonde girls head, the way that blonde hair was still caught in there.
I asked my girlfriend, why the hell she put something like that in the bathtub, and where she got it from.
"I've absolutely no idea what on earth you're talking about?" she replied.
"Then what is it doing in here?"
"Maybe I should ask you the same thing?"
"I have not seen this before in my life. And it is creeping me out."
It was. There was something about this.. intruder to our world. This object. Something malignant, and unsettling. Swallowing the momentary silence in the room as we stood there, staring at it, I broke the magic of the moment, and picked it up, tossing it into the small bin we have next to the sink.
The room regained its usual calmness.
The two of us had never really experienced anything unusual, creepy, or 'paranormal', if you will, so we immediately seemed to just repress this occurence and go about our day.
The next day. Morning. A scream, from the bathroom.
Rushing in, I see my half naked girlfriend there screaming and pointing to the wall.
There on the white tiles, is what looks like a fingerpainting. A little painting of a house. With a fence. And there were four people outside. Three of them close together. And one on the other side of the house. The three looked happy. The one far away was a very sad little girl. My girlfriend grabbed my by the shoulder and asked what we should do?
"Do we call the police?" she frantically asked.
"What can the police do? What can anyone do?" I replied.
What could anyone do? Both of us, we were very certain about our firm non-belief in 'ghosts'. So faced with this. What can one do?
Wanting to calm my girlfriend, I walk over to the sink, and grab a washcloth, and wipe it off the wall. Rinsing the 'paint' out of the washcloth, I suddenly feel overcome with this terrible sadness. Every bone in my body is suddenly hollow and I just feel dread and grief and misery. My girlfriend must've noticed the change because she rushes to my side and holds me tightly.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't know."
"Let's just get out of this house today and forget about all of this."
So we did. A couple more days passed. Nothing happened. Everything normal. Back into the work routine, after the 'fingerpainting' sunday, we continued life, happy as ever, concentrating on work, on each other. Enjoying our lives.
Thursday. We'd both had a long day at work, and were quite drained. We arrived home almost at the same time, and with the usual greetings, quietly settled in for the night. A silent dinner. Drained conversation. Both of us just tired.
"I'm going to have a shower before bed, babe." she said.
"No problem, have fun" I replied with a wry half smile.
Giggling, she wiggled her backside at me and walked towards the bathroom, stripping as one would prior to a shower.
Sound of water turning on. My focus on the television. Nothing much on, typical thursday sports and reality shows. A piercing, anguished scream, unlike any I've ever heard breaks the calm. My heart stops in my chest for a moment, until I realise it's coming from the bathroom, and I grab the nearest thing I can, which ends up being a half empty wine bottle sitting on the coffee table, and rushing to the source of the scream.
My girlfriend is on the floor, and she appears to be sleeping.
I rush to her side, and shake her shoulder gently.
"Honey! Honey! Wake up! Babe wake up!"
She groggily comes to.
"Urghhhhhh."
"Babe, what the fuck are you doing on the floor"
She immediately regains full consciousness and begins to cry uncontrollably.
"Those eyes. Oh my god those eyes."
"Eyes? Whose eyes?"
"Those eyes. Oh god get me out of here."
"Whose eyes?! Calm down and tell me."
"Her eyes. Oh my god I can't get them out of my mind."
She was a mess. I couldn't console her. I pick her up, and carry her into the bedroom, still crying inconsolably. Mumbling, about 'her eyes'.
I put my girlfriend into bed, and she seems to calm down quite a lot, and starts to doze off. Picking up the half empty wine bottle, I guess as a makeshift form of protection, I return to the bathroom. Nothing is out of place. Nothing out of the ordinary. There is a scratching noise, however. I've never heard it in the house, before. We've lived there now for almost a year. And never, have we had any noises like this. Faint, tiny scratching.
Like a childs nails on a wall.
Coming from the inside of the bathroom wall.
I decide I can not stand to feel the unsettled uneasy dread I am anymore, and I get angry.
"JUST FUCK OFF!" I yell. Smashing the bottle into the wall where I estimate the scratching is originating from.
Silence again.
Not a single noise.
Eight more days pass. Two weeks from the hairclip incident.
We both are sitting about, relaxing. Without any warning, every door in the house starts slamming. My girlfriend just freezes, her eyes wide and paralysed with fear. I can't move, either. Just sitting there. Watching all the doors opening and slamming closed, over and over. Louder. And louder. And louder.
Footsteps, running all through the house. Tiny footsteps. Childrens footsteps.
My girlfriend screams, louder than I've ever heard before.
"HER EYES OH GOD THOSE EYES."
She's staring straight behind me.
I freeze, part of me too terrified to turn around, part of me following the gaze of my almost maniacal girlfriend, who is just screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming.
There is nothing behind me.
The doors stop. The footsteps stop. My girlfriend stops. Everything is silent. She gets up, not breaking eye contact with me, but instead of the usual face of happiness and joy and love I'm used to, her face is contorted into a horrific snarl of hatred and disbelief.
"She told me you did it."
"What?"
"She told me you did it."
"Did what? Who?"
"She told me you did it."
Her voice was empty. Deadpan. Cold.
She gets up, and walks out of the door. Watching her walk away, I felt my sense of hope go with her. Her long, tangled dark hair dancing in the wind behind her, as she made her way to the car, without so much as a backwards glance. The stinging, chilling feeling weighing down in the bottom of my stomach. She was gone. There was no hope calling out to her. Her mind was made up.
And I was alone.
It's been a long night, alone in that house. I can not sleep. I can not eat. I sit, here, in the dark. Clutching a knife. Jumping the moment I hear any noise whatsoever, outside or inside. But the house is silent.
The air is completely still and there is nothing.
Yet there I sit. Huddled on the floor, my knees in my arms, clutching that knife, its blade glinting melodramatically in the darkness.
It's been a long night, and the night has only just begun.
I've tried to call my girlfriend, but her phone is off. I can not contact anyone. Anyone I call, the phone line says busy.
I am alone.
I can hear scratching, and it's getting louder.
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For any /x/philes, I posted under Dionysus to avoid someone taking OP credit and 'ending the story' with 'den a skeleton popped out'.
Enjoy
