At midnight, I will no longer be me. You see, every time I moved into a new apartment, I felt that same presence, a presence that feels my fear and attacks me. And every New Year’s Eve is when this presence makes its move.
Tonight, I felt more of the same dread. When the clock strikes twelve to ring in January first, I fear I know I will no longer be Gail Pederson.
My best bet has always been to move elsewhere before the end of December. That’s been my strategy so far but it’s nothing more than a temporary fix. The thing is I can’t escape. And I know these aren’t the same spirits attacking me either. This presence presents new faces and new people in this cryptic cycle.
I don’t know why the presence keeps following me. I wasn’t conventionally attractive given my lanky physique and pale skin. I wasn’t anything special considering I was a part-time clerk living off my mom’s inheritance. But then again, I guess you aren’t targeted by looks. In fact, no one has ever offered me a reason at all for why the presence is so fixated on me.
Right now, I was staying at yet another cheap apartment that had nothing but the bare essentials: an uncomfortable bed, a modest kitchenette, and a bulky T.V. that still had rabbit ears. The lone window I had offered me nothing more than a third-floor view of the urban decay looming outside.
But at the moment, that view nor the New Year’s Eve show on T.V. were what held my attention: Rebekah did. I saw her in the small mirror hanging on the wall, the reflection showing Rebekah standing completely still and upright in a corner of the room. Rebekah was quite different than me given she was conventionally attractive, her skin dark and smooth, her face rounder rather than angular, her style consisting of a tight red tank top and ripped jeans rather than the leggings and tee shirt I wore. The baby blue Converses she wore and the flamboyant piercings made it clear she was from the 1980s youth… even though as we were on the cusp of 2019, Rebeka was a teenager and almost ten years younger than me.
I looked on in horror but not shock. There by the window, I brushed my bangs aside for a better view of Rebekah’s reflection since that was the only way I could see her given I saw no one standing in that corner without the mirror. After all, mirrors were how I often saw the presence.
The attacks from Rebekah this year were similar to what I’d suffered throughout 2017. That version of the presence was much different: a tall Southern Gothic socialite. Every day, I felt her presence, and in the mirrors, I’d see her stalking me in that flowing gown that likely dated back to the early twentieth century.
“Midnight,” her Georgia accent would tease me all year long. Then on December 30th, 2017, the presence had become strong enough so that the socialite could run her gaunt fingers through my hair. “2018 will be our year, dear,” she told me. But that New Year’s, I managed to get a new apartment seemingly hours before that deadline of the dead. I was still Gail.
But inevitably Rebekah came along on New Year’s Day 2018. She was a 1980s New Wave warrior and even more aggressive than the socialite. Rebekah would yell at me. Taunt me. Her harsh punches and shoves sent me to the floor many times over these past twelve months. Above all, she fucking terrified me.
Only I was broke this year. Real broke. I couldn’t go anywhere else but apartment twelve here at The Ashby House. I had no friends much less a boyfriend in Atlanta, I had nothing save for those evenings and late nights spent with the presence’s latest form: Rebekah.
“New Year’s Eve,” Rebekah would tell me before wrapping her hands around my throat. “Midnight, bitch,” she’d sneer.
Now December 31, 2018 had arrived. I knew I’d have to fight for my life in my latest apartment just as I had done these past few years. You see, the move last year didn’t protect me. It just delayed the inevitable.
I knew I only had a few hours left as Gail Pederson before becoming Rebekah: unless I found a way out. Shivering in the cold, I paced around the apartment, doing my best to avoid Rebekah’s sneer in that mirror. My fourth glass of vodka did nothing to alleviate the anxiety.
“There’s not much time left, girlie,” Rebekah teased me behind a hungry smile. “Then I take over.”
“No!” I yelled out without dare looking at that mirror. “You’re not taking me!” Stumbling back, I reached toward the door, keeping my eyes straight ahead even though I saw no sign of Rebekah in the corner.
“Midnight,” Rebekah’s voice followed me. “I’ll take over at midnight.”
I ran out the apartment and slammed the door behind me. Alone in the hallway, I scanned the desolation, knowing good and well there were no other tenants here at The Ashby House. Open windows let the chilling Atlanta air further unnerve me. I saw darkness out in the city streets that wasn’t much different than the dim lighting in here. Amidst the growing fear, I looked around at the cryptic portraits surrounding me on those old white walls. One of them showed a glowering southern socialite, the same woman I knew all too well from 2017.
Terrified, I looked over at apartment eleven. That was the same apartment I stayed in last year and the same room where the socialite nearly possessed me. I caught another chill. I felt tears in my eyes. There wasn’t enough time. The Ashby House was a two-hundred-year-old boarding house that may as well have been a brick cemetery. I’d escaped the previous eleven spirits that the presence had absorbed in this building over those two centuries… all eleven spirits that had no chance at escaping The Ashby House unless they possessed someone else: me.
“Oh god…” I said helplessly. I brushed away the tears but couldn’t brush away the horror. Left with no other choice, I confronted apartment twelve. I heard desperate pounding coming from the other side of the locked door as the brass knob shook with ferocity. I truly had nowhere to go even if I left The Ashby House right now. My time was up: apartment twelve was the last room.
“Midnight!” I heard Rebekah’s scream careen through the empty house. “At midnight, you’re mine!”