Last week, at the end of class, My English teacher Mr. Collins gave us an assignment. He told us that we were to write a fictional story that would count towards 20% of our overall grade. The story that I've decided to write isn't fiction, but Mr. Collins won't know that. I've waited almost ten years to get this off my chest. I can't tell anyone about it because if I did, they would think I was crazy. I've had enough therapists over the years; I don't want to see anymore.
I suppose I should give you a little background. My name is Eric Peters and I'm fifteen years old. I currently live in Dallas with my fifth foster family, the McLain's. My foster parents are wonderful people. They don't press about my past and they don't treat me as though I'm some delicate flower. They treat me like a regular teenager and for that I'm incredibly thankful. In all honesty, there isn't much to say about me, I like basketball, video games, and junk food. I have a girlfriend named Julia and a dog named Bruce. I like Pizza, movies, Facebook and the occasional TV show.
Besides the frequent nightmare and crippling fear of the dark, I'm your average American teenager.
The following is my story; I don't care if you believe me. I'm not writing it down for your approval or sympathy. I'm just writing it down because I think it might be good to get it out, who knows, I might not even hand it in to Mr. Collins.
When I was five years old my mother and I moved into a single story house in a small town just on the outskirts of Wyoming. It was just the two of us, my father had walked out on my mom a few months before I was born so I never knew him, I never really wanted to.
The house was nice, I once overheard Mom telling one of her friends that it was worth way more money than she had paid. She never told me why the people who had previously lived there moved out and I never asked. The house was bigger than the apartment we'd lived in before; we had a small front yard and a larger one at the back with a tree house at the far end. I loved it from the second that I saw it.
A storm hit on the first night that we spent in the new house, preventing the moving truck that my mother had booked from delivering our stuff. Luckily the people who had lived in the house before us had left their beds behind and Mom had brought some blankets with her in the trunk of the car.
There were three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a living room/kitchen. Mom, of course, got the biggest bedroom, I chose the one that was directly across from her, we decided that the smallest one would be used as storage until we decided if we would turn it into a playroom for me, or an office for her.
The movers had called Mom around 6 o'clock, telling her that they wouldn't be able to bring our stuff until tomorrow. Mom had understood there were severe weather warnings and the snow was so heavy that half the car was already hidden by it, but before Mom could arrange a time for the van to come tomorrow the service on her phone cut out.
When I woke it was dark outside and the house was completely silent, the only sound that I could hear was the wind as it whistled harshly through the house.
I climbed out of my bed and tugged at the blanket until it slid from the mattress. I wrapped it around myself as best I could, I was five and it was heavy, I wasn't able to carry it all so part of it dragged against the floor as I made my way to my mother's bedroom.
I couldn't see a thing in the dark, but I remembered where my mother's bed was, so I made it there relatively easily.
"Mommy?" I said quietly, I wanted to wake her up, but I didn't want to give her a fright while doing so.
"I'm cold," I said and shivered. "Can I sleep in with you?"
I heard the rustle of fabric as the covers shifted and waited.
"Sure, sweetheart, " Her voice a quiet whisper in the dark that surrounded us. "Climb in" The mattress squeaked and creaked as I moved but eventually stopped once I lay down. Now that I was closer I could see her a little clearer. She lay with her back to me, huddled up in a blanket,
I wrapped myself up as best I could, curling my little limbs up until I was cocooned in the soft fabric. I shifted a little closer, pressing my small frame against her back until I found a position that was comfortable. I remember thinking that she felt cold so I pulled one of my arms out from my blanket and slid it around her waist. I gave her a squeeze and pressed my cheek to her spine as I closed my eyes. Sometimes I think I can still feel the knobs of it against my skin. She felt so thin.
I was almost asleep again when something woke me; I wasn't sure what it was at first until I heard it again. I blinked a few times until my eyes adjusted to the dark and shifted back a bit.
She was jerking a little, small movements that weren't quite
enough to make the bed move. She was breathing funny too, long high-pitched wheezes that seemed to echo through the room.
"Mommy?" I'd said, scared. I thought she was dying or something! "Are you okay?"
"Yessss," She said, her voice rising in pitch as she spoke. I felt her hand close around my own, her fingers bony and so cold that it made me inhale sharply.
"I'm fineeeeeee."
She rolled over just as lightning flashed outside. It lit up the part of the room and allowed me just enough light to see the thing that I'd been cuddling up to only seconds before. I'll never forget that face for as long as I live.
It was pale, almost paper white with beady little eyes in sunken black shadowed sockets. It grinned at me, its lips stretched wide over teeth that seemed too big for its face. I'm not ashamed to say that I pissed myself.
I screamed and jerked my hand away from it. I scrambled off of the bed, leaving the blanket behind as I ran from my mother’s room.
When I reached my bedroom I turned back, I didn't want to look, but I had to, I had to know if that thing was following me.
It stood in the doorway of my mother's room, the blanket still wrapped tightly around it, one shrivelled hand holding it closed. It had its head cocked to the side as it stared at me, that same too big smile plastered over its face.
"Come to Mommy." it said, its voice was so low now that I could swear that I felt the vibrations of it through my feet.
"Play a game with me." as it stepped closer I slammed the door closed and hid in my closet.
I heard the door to my room open a few seconds later and the unsettling sound of its voice as it hummed, changing from low to so high that I thought my ears would begin to bleed. I hoped a neighbour would hear and come to investigate, I was so scared. I could feel hot tears roll down my cheeks. I hunched myself up, ignoring the wetness on my thighs as the pyjamas clung to my skin.
I'm not sure how long I stayed in there until I fell asleep, the last thing that I remembered hearing was the sound of birds chirping outside of my window, but I was too afraid to leave the closet because I was sure that that thing would be waiting for me. I was too scared to call for my mother because I didn't want whatever that thing was to get her, although part of me already knew that it had. It had the blanket that I'd seen her take to bed earlier that night wrapped around its shoulders.
I woke cradled in a man's arms. He had a uniform on with a nametag that I couldn't fully read, but I figured out pretty quickly that he was a policeman. Both my pyjamas and hair were covered in a dried crusted red substance that I later learned was my mother's blood. It clung to my head in a matted mess that hurt when I tried to tug it loose with my fingers.
The cop who had carried me out that night has stayed in touch over the years. My mother's case is still open, they haven't found her yet, although everyone thinks that she's dead, they don't say it, but I know they do, I can see it in their eyes when they look at me. There was no sign of forced entry and the previous owners of the house couldn't be tracked down either. It was the guys from the moving van who'd found me, they said that when they arrived at the house one of them had spotted me through the bedroom window, in my mother's bed. I don't know how I got there, though, part of me doesn't want to.
Anyway... This is my story. I lost my mother that day and gained a fear of the dark that I'll probably never get over. I don't know what that thing was or why it targeted my mom and me. I don't know why it let me live either, all I know is that I'll never in a million years be able to get the image of that thing’s face out of my head. I see it every time I close my eyes...
Ha, writing this down hasn't helped. It's got me on edge if anything. I'm shivering and there's Goosebumps all over my arms. If I didn't know any better I could have sworn that I heard my foster Mom calling me from downstairs, that's impossible, though, my foster parents are at a wedding two states away…
----by reddit user AdrianNight via: reddit.com/r/NoSleep
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