We went out.
Me, Jackie, Ron, Nazz and Mike.
I didn’t really feel like going but due to social pressure and all that, I went with it. And they kinda decided to kidnap me, telling my mom that I needed to relax before the finals, and she agreed … idiot.
There was a big carnival going on, roller coasters, cotton candy, fucking clowns for some reason, and all those 1960’s creepy-ass games. I didn’t get the clowns though, but God forbid I had a good night. Jackie was kind of a sugar junkie, and she liked to do her puppy eyes on me to buy her sweets in College and in general, but I guess I also needed a bit of energy so we went to buy enough garbage food for the group and then, Mike started screaming like an idiot, he had beat the record for the hammer game, gave him enough tickets to buy some sword, looked like a gladiator type but I couldn’t bother to pay attention. After all that Ron wanted to go on a ride in the roller coaster, I immediately said no, I wasn’t about to shit my pants in front of all these idiots, so they handed me their stuff and went.
A tall, old man approached me, hunched over, but still handsome, white hair, all combed back, comically well dressed for someone walking around in a carnival, like he was going to attend the Oscars or something. He asked me why I didn’t go with my friends… I felt a bit awkward… so, I just said that I didn’t felt like going. He then said that I should enjoy life, because once I get old like him, I might not get the chance, and went off… as he went, I noticed that he had a wedding ring. I went to him as he was walking away and asked him if he was alone.
He looked at his ring and chuckled, “That obvious huh”, I stressfully apologized and tried to laugh it off, but chocked on my soda like a moron. He smiled and said that his wife had passed away a long time ago, he liked to come to the carnival because they used to do that together … “ Beats sittin’ at home darling” …he laughed, he again told me to not be so serious and enjoy life more before going away.
Mike made the usual “is that your boyfriend” joke and since I ignored him, we moved on.
There was a stand that served beers and some salty snacks, I said I would buy a few rounds for the group and they looked at me like I had shit in my face or something, when I faked backing out they ran to the stand, with Jackie kissing me in the cheek for “embracing the chill”.
I couldn’t even say how many did we drink, but enough to take a unanimous vote that Ron wasn’t allowed to drive us home and since I drank the least, I was the newly designated driver.
Everybody was singing and behaving like a child, and for the first time in a while, I felt happy, with those idiots making all sorts of noise, I was driving slowly because I was a bit tipsy, the main road was blocked, Ron had brought us through the long road that connected the county and the forest. The thing was, the road was dark, Ron told me to boot the fog lights and floor it since there were no real turns, and we would pass both the forest and reach the county quickly, so I did it. 15 minutes into the forest I saw a figure, thinking it was an animal I honked the horn, with the idiots imitating the noise each time I honked it.
My guess was, either it jumped onto the car or I had lost depth perception because I didn’t have any time to react before hitting whatever was in front of us.
I promptly stopped the car, yelling and panicking, Ron and Mike tried to calm us down, but I panicked, even more, when I realized …
I had run over the old man that spoke to me at the carnival, he wasn’t breathing.
His neck was broken, his face was all open and bloodied from dragging in the cement, and his chin was poking his upper back, there was no way to save him, so I pulled out my phone to call the police when he coughed, Mike took my phone…
I looked back, Ron was comforting Jackie, she was crying and screaming hysterically.
I approach the body there was blood splashed all over the floor, but something wasn’t right. I heard him coughing and I stared at the old man for what it felt like five minutes… no breathing or reacting at all, he looked like roadkill. I started to panic looking at the body when Mike came to me saying to dump the body in the forest and get the hell out of there. I couldn’t think properly, I was in shock, so I did as he said.
I had a big blanket in Mike’s car, so I just ran to get it. We start wrapping the body and we threw it deep inside the forest. We heard the body hitting the floor and rolling downhill, when we finally heard a splash, immediately Mike screamed at me “Let’s go! Get in the fucking car come on!”.
We got in the car and Jackie was surprisingly asleep, she was a weak drinker, after all, she must’ve passed out. Nazz started asking questions about what happened and why it took so long, I couldn’t explain anything, I was so nervous that I couldn’t form a godman sentence, Mike simply said that it was taken care of and not to worry, but kept she pressuring, telling that we fucked up and stressing. I abruptly stopped the car and yell at her “what the fuck did you want us to do?! You wanna go to jail and spend the rest of your life in there?! Huh?!”, she just looked at me scared of my reaction, I turned around and started driving again.
The atmosphere was heavy, everyone was quiet until we reached our city area, since there were a lot of people, due to the festivities, we had to blend in and pretend that we didn’t just murder an old widow and dumped his body in a pool of shitty water.
So, we decided to stay in a bar near my house to try and not attract the wrong kind of attention. Jackie was the last one to get out of the car, she had a massive headache, and was kind of falling over, Ron went to help her as she leaned herself into the car with her left hand, and I realized that part of the car had blood stains from the collision.
I grabbed my beer and walked over to the car, splashed some on to the stain and wiped it with my jacket, and threw it inside the car.
Ron asked me where my jacket was, it was cold and I was clearly freezing, but I shrugged it off saying that I felt hot and got back inside the bar.
It was around 1:30 am so Mike decided that it was time for the girls to go home, which was fine by me since I didn’t want to go out in the first place. I obviously refused to drive so Mike took us home, he wanted to take Jackie and Nazz to their respective houses, but Ron had the idea to send them to sleep in my house instead, since we were approaching the finals, “girls’ sleepover would be something nice for you girls to relax” he said.
I didn’t say anything because the idea was for an obvious reason, so Mike and Ron went on wherever, and the girls stayed at my house for the night. Mike then texted me saying to “Forget the whole night and delete this text, night girls”, I deleted the text without answering him.
During the night I woke up, usually, I hear my mom waking up around 5:00 or 05:30 am, but today there was no movement, so I went down to the kitchen.
The old man’s image was still fresh in my head. I sat down in the kitchen with the lights off with a soda when I felt something heavy hovering over me like a someone was behind me, my heart started pumping fast and all my body wanted to jerk off the sensation of being watched, but I calmed down and turned over… the fucking fridge was open, the cold breeze was going off. Fucking fridge was making get high blood pressure, shit.
I closed it and right after I looked at the back door for no reason … I felt death looking at me, I didn’t know what it was, I just couldn’t move …There was somebody outside, whatever it was, it was tall, crouching down and with one hand on the blurred window, the worst of it was the eyes, I don’t know-how in the godly fuck I could see those white, blue-ish dead eyes and then …a grin started to appear, a big smile, it was the size of my face, I wanted to leave but I was too afraid that if I moved, whatever that was, was going to come inside.
My mom turned on the lights and saw me, just standing there, asking me why I was holding the fridge door open, I looked at her, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, what’s going on honey?!” she asked worriedly. I looked back at the door and just saw the moon reflection there… probably shouldn’t have drank that fucking soda.
I got back to my room again and tried to fall asleep, my anxiety kicked in, I felt like I was being watched, I was laying down in the middle of both those crying idiots, both were in a deep sleep, I don’t know, how but whatever. I texted Mike explaining what happened and he answered almost immediately. I wasn’t expecting him to answer so fast because was too early and he would be asleep, fucker drank enough for the entire group.
I unlocked my phone to check the text, and something was off, I sent a fucking texted explaining everything that happened, detail by detail, and he asked me, “Did you find my ring?”.
What did he mean by this, I didn’t understand.
So, I called him asking why he had texted me that, but apparently, he didn’t know what I was talking about, and his voice sounded like he had just woken up. I told him about the text he sent me, and he said he didn’t send anything, he was sleeping. I didn’t know what to say so I just hang up the phone and when I got back to the conversation the text wasn’t in my inbox.
I felt shivers in my entire body and suddenly a water droplet fell in my face, I was like, what the hell?! Then another drop, and another, I was so confused so … I looked up to the ceiling I saw it again … looking at me, those eyes were… haunting… both looked like they were washed with bleach but retained some of its blue color and then buried into its skull, I couldn’t make anything of its body, it was darker than the darkness of the room, but it occupied a good portion of the ceiling. I couldn’t move, I tried to scream but it felt like I was detached from my own body, so I just stood on top of the bed when it grabbed my head. Suddenly I woke up.
Jackie and Nazz woke me up both with a terrified face, I was sweating, standing up in the bed, still in the middle of both with my head towards the ceiling the whole time. I just jumped down without saying a word and went to the bathroom.
I looked in the mirror, asking myself “what the fuck was that? What was all that!” I couldn’t stop asking myself the same question. I panicked, I needed to scream or cry, I felt this horrible heat inside my throat, and I couldn’t stop shaking.
I went to the kitchen and my mom was there, she had stayed home because it started to snow and there was no way for her to go to work. I asked her if she remembered seeing me by the fridge last night, she said that yes but that I was probably sleep-walking.
I thought that maybe I was too stressed out from the finals, I had stopped the medication so I could focus more but apparently, it wasn’t a good idea.
The girls eventually fell asleep after my mom told them that I usually sleepwalk.
Around 1:30 pm everybody was up, I was already in the living room trying to understand the whole event of last night, I was like in a paralysis state, reliving the accident, Mike yelling at me, the girls panicking, the old man’s broken body, the whatever the fuck it was outside the kitchen door last night, everything. The TV was on, but it was distant, I couldn’t really hear anything until they came down, my mom came back from the grocery store at the same time.
Nazz asked me if I was ok, she knew that I was having a hard time sleeping and according to Jackie I looked like a corpse…. Jackie didn’t seem to remember the accident, she’s a light drinker and had overdone it last night so Nazz told me to just try and forget what happened, there was nothing else that could’ve been done. She was right, I couldn’t let myself fall back to my old habits, I was finally doing great in school, high grades and all that stuff that made my mom proud, and she kinda needed that.
Looking back, I now realized I wasted my time acting like a moron after Dad died, it became much easier when I began to get along with my mom. I had little to no sleep because as soon as she got in the house, it was sitting on the small couch, hugging my knees looking at her with a dumb smile on my face. She smiled back saying that I need to sleep and carried on to the kitchen.
I told the girls to feel at home, I just needed to take a power nap, so I went back upstairs, and I guess the warm sun was enough to make me fall asleep. Suddenly I woke up and it was almost nighttime, the feeling of being watched came back so I jogged downstairs, the girls were watching TV and my mom was on her laptop when someone rang the doorbell.
Two police officers at the door, my heart pumped so much blood it hurt, Nazz chocked on her food. My mom got up and joined me at the door greeting the officers and asking them what the problem was, the whole time I just stood there, eyes wide open, waiting to be arrested for what I did.
The officers just told us about an old man that’s missing for a day, according to them, he had a routine and the person usually drops food for him every day said that the house was empty, which was weird because since his wife died, he would never leave the house during the day, he would always wait for noon or night to go on walks and this was an on-going thing for the past 9 years.
At this point I’m holding my tears and fear with a somewhat surprised face and asked them if they know anything about his whereabouts, to which they say no, that’s why they’re here, to let everybody know about the situation and to report if they see something. My eyes drifted from the officers and I see a bunch of police cars in the neighborhood, other policemen were talking to everybody else. The county was going to start a rescue mission for this old man.
Mike texted me, asking if we could meet at the bar again, I said yes and told the girls to dress up, mom asked me to bring some milk on the way back. So, we went, I drove slowly the whole time to look around and understand the situation, everybody was hanging up signs, talking to the cops that were still patrolling the streets.
Jackie asked us what was going on, Nazz told her that some guy left town and he had some debt or something,
just to brush it off due to my reaction.
We arrived at the bar, the girls got out before I parked the car and saw the boys, so they went towards them. I turned off the car and was adjusting the rearview mirrors from my side and the one inside the car respectively, when I looked into the inside one, I saw it, the same blue eyes, the same grin, only this time, he was outside the car, I could see his face.
His bloated black skin, covered with bite marks and blisters, his eyes, veiny and wide open with no visible eyelids, his teeth were long, no gaps, all of them the same, no canines or anything, white, so white that looked like they were a light source somehow. It got up, leaning itself in the truck of the car, its arm was the same length as my whole body, with long, skinny fingers, missing the ring finger in its left hand.
I started crying silently. I was going to die, that thing was going to eat me alive.
Ron threw a beer can at my car, startling me, “Come on!” he yelled, I wave at them smiling, cleaning my face while looking that the mirror again, seeing nothing, I was going insane, that was the only explanation.
We went inside, the bar was moderately full that night, probably a football game or something useless that these people liked to scream at. Ron and the girls went to get food while Mike and I found a table big enough for all of us, I then asked if the police went to his house and he said no … Detective Steve went there, apparently, the Detective was on to him for a while, Ron overhead this and chimed in, the girls also sat down with enough French fries for a football team and 8 cheeseburgers.
He explained that a few weeks ago Mike and him, got into a fight with some guys inside a liquor store, and Mike broke one the guy’s neck by elbowing him square in the jaw.
We stood there looking at him with the “mother look” while he ate the one the burgers. Ron then said that the guy nearly died in not for himself kinda forcing the neck back in place while his friend ran from the store, they both got arrested but Mike was the one that got on the record, so Steve was kinda onto him since then because his attitude while inside the precinct hadn’t been the best as well.
Mike simply said, “I regret nothing” and kept eating, we shrugged off because that was Mike’s typical behavior. We stayed the rest of the night, watching the guys and the rest of the people yelling at the TV because their team lost, making fun of them and talking about everything.
Around 1 a.m. my mom texted saying that she was going to meet a friend and going away for the weekend, there was enough food at the house, and told me to be careful. I texted the smirk face emoji and told her to have fun, which made me even happier because she was trying to move on.
So, we decided to go back home as well around that time, Ron was driving, we planned to go to my house since my mom wasn’t there and spend the rest of the night there. The main road was apparently fixed during the week, which was funny because when we got there, there were three cop cars, a fire truck, an ambulance, and three wrecked cars. We slowed down and Ron asked the officers what had happened, one of the officers said that there was an accident we had bears around, there was a deer carcass in the middle of the road.
I honestly didn’t think about it too much until Nazz pointed out that the carcass was way too mangled, and it looked fresh, which made me look over.
Fucking. Disgusting.
I’ve never seen that shit in real life, didn’t want to anyway. It was a big deer, probably male since it had the massive horns, I’m not a deer specialist so I don’t fucking care. It was a mess, its horns were broken and were inside its stomach like something broke them and use them to stab the animal with them, there were slashes all over its body, deep slashes, something I doubt a bear would do to a deer for no reason. Its torso had holes like something punched it until the bones and skin gave out and got pierced over and over, the eyes were gone, so was its tongue and lower jaw.
Ron pointed out to the officer that the deer wasn’t eaten, at least not as it should, he said that its body mass, the muscle was mangled but intact, there were no bite or tear stress marks on the flesh beside the slashes, the officer took a closer look and realized that he was right, so he called for backup and told us to go home.
Jackie, being the idiot that she was, took some photos of the deer during the time that Ron was talking to the officer. She likes that stupid gross stuff. Mike was uncharacteristically quiet, I asked him what was with him, he didn’t answer as he had just flat out ignored me. Nazz brought him to reality, he then smiled at us and changed the subject by asking how long we were from my house…” I need to take a massive shit”, his words … dick.
We arrived 15 to 20 minutes later, my front door was open, Mike immediately got out of the car and pulled out a fucking Desert Eagle, we freaked out, Ron asked him was the fuck was he doing, and he pointed the gun at us and told us to lock the car door, I got scared because Mike was scared, I’m talking about a guy that once beat the shit out of a man twice his size over some food, now is scared shitless over an open door.
He got in, Ron told us to stay put and Nazz to have her phone ready to call the police, I texted my mom asking her if she forgot to close the front door, she didn’t answer, which is to be expected. She wasn’t in, that much I knew.
Suddenly I got a feeling of dread, I had a vision that Mike was going to die inside, I looked that that car door and Ron didn’t manage to lock it so I got out, with the girls yelling at me to come back, I think Ron came after me as well.
I got inside the house, Mike was there, bend over backward, like his back was going to break, the same “thing” I saw a few days ago, grabbing him by the face and bending his back backward, but he wasn’t reacting, his eyes were white, he was drooling, and it looked like he was dead.
The thing then looked up, I couldn’t see it, just it’s white-bleached eyes, then this grin started to shine, its big teeth, that disgusting smile, as wide as an arm.
The thing grabbed Mike’s hand, the one that had the gun, and while smiling, with the gun upside down, and then shot, at first I thought It had aimed at Ron, but he started panicking, took off his jacket and pressed it against my shoulder, I couldn’t understand why, I felt a burn on my neck, so I coughed, I coughed blood, Mike shot me, that thing made Mike shoot me. I felt sleepy, Ron’s voice was getting more far and far away, I could hear Nazz and Jackie crying and screaming, but I was getting too far away, I couldn’t maintain myself awake for some reason.
I woke up in the hospital, my mom was next to me crying and smiling, I wanted to ask where everybody was, but my voice wasn’t coming out, my neck felt like it was going to burst, I coughed again.
My mom told me what happened, that Mike was drunk and got violent against us and shot me out of anger, he was detained, Ron, Jackie, and Nazz were being questioned for more details. The messed-up part in all of this is that my mom saw my confused expression, but I couldn’t talk, Mike was innocent, but the how fuck would I explain what I saw, what I’ve been seeing.
So, I just started to cry, angrily, Mike tried to defend all of us, and he was being accused of something he didn’t do. So I got up, wasn’t a good idea since apparently, I had lost a lot of blood, the butterfly that was hooked to my hand was ripped when I fell, ripping a bit of my skin too which my mom panicked and tried to help me up.
The whole commotion made the nurses come in to help me up, and detective Steve followed after, he waited until the nurses patched my hand up, and stabilized me, he stood there, the entire time, just looking at me with a stern, almost angry look, not moving, not a single word.
After the nurses were done, he politely asked them to leave for a while, and even my mom, I grabbed her hand, I was afraid of him, I didn’t trust the guy, he looked like an average beer belly uncle that gets too comfortable around minors. Mom said to relax, she would be outside if I needed anything, I pointed at my neck, making a “resting bitch” face, to which she said jokingly “You know what I mean honey”, kissed my forehead, and left.
Detective Steve kept looking at me, he said that it wouldn’t take long, and he would let me rest, he grabbed a chair and moved closer to me, sat down, and handed me over a pen and notebook, he knew that I couldn’t talk so he told me to write simple answers to be quick. He asked me if we had any alcohol or drugs before going home.
“No”. I wrote.
Next was if we had any recent problems or events that might have pressed Mike to become violent in some way. “No,” I wrote again, but I hesitated, and that hesitation was enough for him to put his hand on top of mine, and he told me not to hide anything, that if Mike was my friend, he wouldn’t shoot me.
The fucking nerve on that guy… I moved my hand away, he apologized and told me to rest and left, I managed to get up, grabbing everything that I could to avoid falling, and managed to reach my bag to get my phone, I texted Nazz asking “What the fuck is going on?”. She immediately called me.
I refused the call and told her I couldn’t talk, my neck was sore, so she explains through audio that they were interrogated by the cops, trying to know why Mike had tried to kill me, and I’m there like… what did she mean by “tried to kill?”. I got dressed, mom came in asking me why I was dressed, I should stay in the hospital, so I showed her the texts with Nazz and wrote that they were wrong.
The cops stopped us; they didn’t want me to leave the hospital for some reason. At this point I was fuming, fucking bastards weren’t explaining anything, so I went back to the room and went straight to the bathroom and video called Nazz but kept texting, I was using earphones because I was sure that the room was bugged or something.
Ron answered this time, the three of them were together coming to see me, I wrote that they probably wouldn’t be able to see me, there was police inside and they didn’t let me out.
I asked them what had happened with Mike, the girls wouldn’t answer so I wrote again in all caps, don’t know why, so Ron, again, explained that Mike was detained and probably was going to jail due to what he did to me. To which I asked Ron what did he meant, he saw the same thing as I did, Mike was being grabbed, “And how are we going to explain that to the cops or your mom?”.
That question was calming and alarming at the same time, I wasn’t crazy, Ron saw the same creature I did but he was right, how were we supposed to explain what made Mike shoot me.
So, we just decided to let it go, for the time being, Ron said that Mike was silent, he didn’t say anything, he wasn’t reacting, I said good, let him be quiet, it was better than him talking bullshit to make his situation even worse. I told them to stay together, I would probably be able to leave tomorrow, and we would meet up to talk this through.
My bathroom door wasn’t fully closed, I felt someone watching me so looked up, there was a small gap between the door and the wall, with a blue eye and a grin looking in, and I immediately jumped off the toilet and kicked the door open, took me a few seconds to walk out and when I did I saw a frame of someone closing the room door, leaving the room, I tried to run but my legs decided that they needed a break and I fell on my face, the sudden bump against the floor made the air inside my lungs burst out thought my neck and mouth, it felt like my neck blew up, I coughed up more blood, couldn’t even breathe right and I guess my mom heard the bump and she came in, scolding me for trying to move around so soon. I asked her through the note that Detective Steve gave me if she saw someone coming out of the room, she said no, she was sitting next to the door and came in because she heard the bump. Great.
I was discharged the next day morning, the guys were there, my mom drove all four of us to my house, Jackie and Nazz helped me inside while Ron helped my mom with some groceries, she had bought the day before apparently. Jackie sat down with me in the living room while Nazz went outside to help my mom and Ron outside.
Jackie was down, really down, she had been crying for days, I could tell, she has big brown eyes, her eyelashes were so big that looked fake, a round face with big red cheeks, small pointy nose, and curly brown hair, all the way down to her ass, she looked like a doll, my “baby”, these past days had been a shit show, she hadn’t been sleeping well, her dark circles tend to show up after a few days without sleeping, last year during the exams, she got so stressed that even her hair lost volume, she can’t handle stress, I just kept looking at her and smiled, she’s such a good friend that sometimes I ask myself how in the fuck does she put up with me.
I guess me thinking about her while looking at her and smiling made her cry because I was honestly joyful, I had friends, good friends, she hugged me and I hugged back and placed her head onto my lap where she instantly fell asleep.
Mom and Ron finished unpacking everything, and she told Ron and Nazz to relax and sit, she was going to try and clean the bloodstain and hopefully get it out, so Ron sat down, first time we saw each other after all that shit. Nazz sat down on the other side of the couch, next to Jackie’s feet.
Nazz turned on the TV, we decided not to talk about the situation because my mom was behind us scrubbing the floor to clean my bloodstain.
I got up slowly and left a pillow on Jackie’s head so she wouldn’t wake up and went to help her, she was crying, silently, while scrubbing the floor, I was surprised, I almost died, she was out, probably feeling like she wasn’t able to protect me I bet. I grabbed a towel and threw it on top of the stain and reach out with my hand for her to get up and smiled, she cleared her tears and went to sit down with us, grabbing a nearby blanket to cover Jackie and watched the movie with us.
It was around 4a.m, I dozed off. The usual tele sales were on, showing one of those devices that vibrate your abs while you’re sitting down not doing what you’re supposed to get said abs.
My mom wasn’t in the living room, the rest of the guys were sleeping, Ron was on the floor with his legs up the couch, Jackie hadn’t moved from the same position that I left her, neither did Nazz…bitch was asleep sitting down. I left them there and went up the stairs to check on mom, it took me a few moments to gather up the energy and mental fortitude to go up the stairs, I felt like I got hit by a truck, but only on my neck but the pain had been spreading through my whole body, sleeping on the couch did not help.
After what it felt like 3 years I managed to reach her room, I didn’t realize that her boyfriend was sleeping beside her, when I was about to close the door when I heard a noise coming from the room, I couldn’t see well, it was dark so I looked inside to try and see if I could make something out of the darkness, as my eyes adjusted to the dark I noticed her boyfriend was moving a lot, he was trying to stretch his legs and it got into a point where it looked like he had something trying to break his body.
His legs started to stretch out the bed, his feet became elongated, so did his arms, his whole body grew out like something was pulling it from his head, arms, and legs, I tried to warn my mom but at that exact moment he opened his eyes and looked directly at me, with white, blue’ ish eyes but his face was still normal like he has asleep with his eyes open.
I was mostly curious but still scared, I thought it was the meds plus me going up the stairs messed me up, maybe a sudden rush so I scratched my eyes and pressed them to move the blood to my head. I opened my eyes and saw It again, I stood there, holding the doorknob, locking eyes with it, it slowly started to show its grin, but it seemed different, only its face has black, the rest of the body was full of stretch marks, the ones that almost look that the skin is going to rip apart, but the skin color was intact.
It got up on top of the bed slowly, its head was tilted to the side because of how tall it was. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t even mutter a single word or sound, I was afraid to run because that thing was standing in the bed with my mom beside it, I wasn’t just gonna leave my mom there but I also was to chicken shit to get in.
It started to move its left ring finger while it slightly opened its mouth, drooling, and let out a calming, slow, and low growl, and then it dawns on me… I panicked, the thing started to reach for my mom with the same finger and I had the idea to turn on the light.
Mom woke up asking me if everything was ok, she was alone in the room, so I definitely needed to calm the fuck down. I nodded and turned off the light, closed the door, and as soon as I turned around, I felt a hot, disgusting breath on the right side of my face…
I fully stopped moving, I peed myself, that thing was in my face, squatted down, grabbing my ear, smelling like a mix of rotten eggs, hot baby shit, and spoiled milk. I was trembling, crying, frozen, I didn’t know what I should do and it drew its mouth closer to my ear and using its raspy, dry low voice, asked me a question that sent me into a panic attack… “Did you… find my ring?!” I kept looking forward, crying, realizing this thing was the old man, I closed my eyes, my guilt, anger, disgust came flowing through.
Suddenly I heard a bunch of noise coming from downstairs, I heard Mike yelling at them to wake up and running up the stairs with a flashlight. They saw me standing there with the old man, or what was left of him crouching beside me, looking at them, always with the same smile.
Mike yelled at me to move, which made my mom jump off the bed and storm out of the room with a gun herself when she saw it besides me, this time the old man slowly shifted his gaze to my mom, making her swallow her spit out of fear, she still shakingly pointed the gun at him, so did Mike.
I closed my eyes again because nothing good was going to come out of it, so at this point, I was beginning to accept whatever was going to happen.
The flashlight died, I could hear his growls, Jackie panicking while Nazz tried to calm her down, Mike scream at me and my mom to duck, he fired three shots around the area that he last saw it. Ron yelled at him to stop shooting and managed to find the light in the hallway.
It’s weird, my mom looked at me like I was laying down on the floor, then the ran to Mike furious and crying. Jackie was crying her eyes out while Nazz was trying to cover my neck and chest. Ron was trying to separate my mom from Mike. I tried to tell them to stop, I couldn’t speak, my voice wasn’t coming out…
The old man was back, but in the same way he was when I first saw him in the carnival, he asked me if I could help him find his ring. I felt at peace, so, I said yes, he helped me up. I could still see Nazz covering my neck and my mom crying but he told me that I wouldn’t take too long.
I grabbed his arm and went with him; it was the first time that I felt this safe since Dad.
Hopefully, I would find Dad along the way as well.