My name is Demetria, 2 weeks ago me and my sister decided to contact my mom on the other side. What we contacted isn’t human, and I think it has my sister.
A little backstory, My mom died in a car crash when me and my twin sister were 9 years old. Our dad always told us some junk about how it wasn’t our fault, and that he will never blame us. All of that’s a lie. I see in his eyes that he blames me. It’s my fault. I was the one crying. I was the one distracting her.
My wonderful father is a saint. He’s the strongest person I know. He owns a small party store in Barrington, Illinois. Elaine, my twin, helps him out after school for a couple of hours a day, in exchange he lets her use the car. Elaine has always been the prettier twin. I mean we both look the same but she was outgoing, her long ginger hair falling right above her waist. She’s the it girl in our highschool. Everyone wants to be her.
No one noticed me. I wasn’t a pretty girl. My large green eyes and freckled cheeks may look the same as Elaine, but we were polar opposites. I spent my time alone reading about history while Elaine went to the movies with her friends.
Having no social life means a lot of free time to learn and read books. That was my fun. I was able to go anywhere without having to leave my home. Books gave me an escape from my mind and put me in the place of others. That’s why history was my favorite. Reading about our founders and the small towns that have been buried under history gave me a sense of security against this damning world.
Although I could go on reading all day about why we have “Thanksgiving” a book always loses that value power over me when they get to ghosts. I’ve never been the skeptical type. When I see something move out of the corner of my eye there is always a logical reason behind it. My dad has always stapled in our head that there is no beyond what we see. Angels and devils aren’t real, ghosts and poltergeists are things of horror movies and scary stories. My sister on the other hand has always believed in ghosts and the paranormal. She believes that the soul cannot rest until it has fulfilled its true purpose. Your soul will wander behind a veil that isn’t able to be seen by “normal” people.
Elaine is a self diagnosed medium. She claims to be able to see what others aren’t. I have never believed her. Late at night she’ll wake me up crying asking to sleep in my bed because of nightmares where she sees our Mom calling for her behind the veil, and when she finally grabs her hand she is scratched by a being with bright red skin. I always tell her nightmares are just the subconscious pulling tricks on you, and that nothing is able to hurt you.
She does this 3 times a week. I’ve grown accustomed to it. When it first started we were 10 right after my mom passed away and I would be so annoyed I would wake my dad up. He would always come into the room and calm her down. He was always so gentle. He never showed fear in the unknown. His words have stuck with me.
“You are in power of your own my, my little Elaine, those scary stories your brain makes up in your head are just that. You will never be able to be hurt by your own mind, and when those scary thoughts take over just think, nightmares are just tiny spills of dreams.”
“And dreams aren’t real,” I said.
“And dreams aren’t real,” he echoed with a smile.
She still tells me about the thing she sees in our house. People she’s never seen before just showing up to tell her little secrets. She tells us the most frequent “visitor” is our great great memaw. Elaine tells me stories on how she visits to give us advice and that she misses us more than life. I always blew her off when our memaw died when we were 7 weeks old. She barely knew us or saw us at her ripe age of 102.
Still she insists she has a gift but quite frankly i don’t believe her. I always ask if she has ever “seen” Mom. It’s always a no. I scoff, that’s the one person that I would actually believe would ever visit us if that shit was real.
“She’s our mom.” I say “If you had a gift you would have been able to see her.”
“That’s not how it works, Demetria. She has to want me to see her.” She stands at my bed with her arms crossed.
“That shit just isn’t real Elaine, Dad has always told us that”
“Fine” She gets on the floor shoving boxes to the side underneath her bed.
“What are you doing?” I close my book “A Hell Called Ohio” and move to where she is.
“If you want to talk to mom so bad we can talk to mom.” She pulls out a box from underneath her bed.
It’s dusty and the box is collapsed and torn but you can read what it says. In big black letters OUIJA right across the front. She wipes it off and smiles looking up at me.
“No.” I protest. “I know what that shit does and I’m not doing it Elaine.” she furrows her brows and stands up.
“I thought you don’t believe in ‘this shit’” She makes air quotes with her open hand. “Don’t be a scaredy cat. Just do it.” Smiling, she sits on the floor starting to take it out of the box.
I sit down and release a big sigh of protest. She reads the box explaining each item as she pulls it out. Which is a whopping 2 items. The board with the letters on it and a thing called a planchette. I read about it in a book. It’s a communicator during a séance, it shows you the letter the “ghost” wants. She puts it on the board and gets up to turn out the lights. All there is is light from the bay window in our room. She puts two fingers on and tells me to do the same. I hesitate and she shoots me a “what are you a scaredy cat?” type of look. I furrow my brow and put my fingers on.
“Okay so we have to move it in a circle around the board two times because there’s two of us.” and that’s what we do. She looks at me and stiffens up. “Okay, Are there any ghosts who would like to contact us today?”
She looks up at me and the planchette doesn’t move. She makes a face and opens her mouth to speak.
“Mom, if you’re here, what’s the thing I told you the last night that we were together.” I interrupted Elaine. She smiles and I feel a sudden weight change in my arm. I look down to see the planchette moving. My eyes widen and I almost let go of it. Elaine stops my hand.
“No! You can’t, we have to say goodbye before we take our hands off” I shake my head.
“You’re moving it!” I shout. She looks at me with a grim face. She’s not moving it. So what was it?
“Y, O, U” Elaine starts to read off, “W, I, L, L, A, L, W, A, Y, S.” She looks up at me looking a little confused. “You will always what?” I start to feel my eyes get tight in my head, a symptom I’ve always had before I cry.
“B, E, M,Y, H,E,R,O” I read out. “Be my hero” My sniffle as Elaine has a puzzled look on her face. “It’s mom.” I wipe my nose, snot starts to drip down my nose.
“Why haven’t you contacted me?” Elaine said once the piece moved back to the middle of the board. It doesn’t move. “Why haven’t I been able to see you beyond the veil?” she says a little louder as she’s looking around. It still doesn’t move. “Is there anyone in the room with us?” She looks at me puzzled.
It moves. “Yes.” She clears her throat. “Is it you mom?” “Yes.” again.
“I Miss you so much,” she explains. “Are you passed on from this world?” she waits and it starts to move. I feel weird about this. There has to be a logical reason it’s moving. If Elaine isn’t doing it someone has to be doing it.
“S, T, U, C, K” She says out loud. “Stuck? You’re Stuck here mom?” she asks. The planchette moves. “E, V, I, L” she whispers.
“What?” I say. “Elaine, I have a weird feeling that I don’t like.” She ignores me and asks another question.
“What Evil? Something that’s evil to you?” She exclaims. The planchette moves “W, A, N, T, S, E” I pull my hand off.
“That’s enough” Elaine shoots her eyes widened by my sudden gesture. “This shit isn’t real, Elaine, Quit bullshitting me.” I get up and she keeps her hand on the board, eyes wide staring straight off into space. “Elaine, Come on. I’m done with your games.” I push her shoulder. She’s ice cold.
I kneel down to get on her level. She’s my sister but her eyes aren’t green anymore they’re white. You’ve seen those dead bodies, the ones that sit there for a while and their eyes film over. Those eyes. I start to sweat and shake her vigorously.
“Elaine this shit isn’t funny!” I yell, I give her one push of the shoulder and she looks at me. Her face has a terrified demeanor on it. I stopped.
This girl wasn’t my sister, she looked dead. She looked like Mom. I get up and stumble back. She follows with a quick swift move and is inches away from my face. My head is against the drywall. This creature is getting closer and closer as I try to sink into the wall. Right as it’s about 1 inch away from my face it opens its mouth. Never have I seen something so defiled. Its mouth was an abyss of cuts and blood, its teeth blacker than coal and the stench I can only explain as a landfill of dead bodies. The creature screams as I’m filmed in a black green goo coming from its mouth. The scream is deafening, louder than 1,000 trains. I scream back in fear and it stops. As soon as it started it was over.
Elaine, the real Elaine, stood in front of me, her mouth black and her eyes the green I knew them to be. She whimpers as she falls straight back. I scream and cower to the corner as I hear heavy running footsteps coming from down stairs. My dad busts in the door and sees Elaine first he runs to her then looks at me.
“What happened?” he screams at me. I can’t speak in frozen. My whole life I’ve believed there’s no in-between. There’s no veil. What I just saw was impossible, the shit you tell psychologists when youre getting pinned for a murder. This shit is for crazy people.
He pulls out his phone and calls 911. He stands by her side. I cower in the corner crying, staring off into the dark closet. I stare and I can’t help but to feel watched, this unforgettable feeling gets stronger. As I turn around to look at my sister. My dads standing up talking to the police. I look at the floor where my sister is
I stiffen, where my sister’s head has been replaced by a skull with red skin. It has hollow cheeks and has white eyes, Its gaping mouth is pointed at the sides.
It’s smiling at me.