BILLIE JEAN ( eddie munson.. ) ✔

004. In the Southern Nights..

Sam's wrenching scream cut through the night.

"What did you do?" Billie burst out of her room and met eyes with Devin in the hallway.

Devin looked at the stairs immediately after throwing a half worried, half glaring glance at his sister. He was the first to rush down. Billie was right behind him. And everything happened painfully fast.

Their father's office was across from the living room. He was home, deep in his projects, deep in his studies which he was behind on. Having heard the commotion happen first, he was perhaps the quickest to try and respond.

Anthony Carter got to the door, pushed it open and it immediately slammed back, forcing him to slam into it, on the sound of Sam's scream. The door locked. He was trapped behind a door which wouldn't budge.

Once Devin and Billie entered the downstairs area, they became aware of the panicked pounding on the locked door of their father's office.

Damn, those sturdy doors.

But that was only the very first detail which clogged their attention once they descended three steps down. Second came the clear sense of wind picking up inside the house. It wasn't just a mere little draft sneaking through one too many windows, because every single exit was sealed anyhow.

Devin was four steps ahead of Billie when she watched that not-draft push her brother into the railing to their left side. An unseen force came from the living room, it clearly grabbed onto his shirt, pulled on his arm, lifting it up.

Sam's second scream joined Devin's cry of pain. He was pulled back like a ragged doll while Billie's eyes widened helplessly. Violence has never been an environment for her to be used to and to try and fight something she did not understand nor see...

Devin was smashed into the railing one more time and she heard more than just the wood crack as he fell over the broken railing. Holding his broken left arm, tears rolled down his cheeks.

Billie was petrified for a moment too long. The haze made her stumble a step forward and hope for the best.

"Mom-!" Sam's choked voice made her look to the right, under the ceiling. The lights in the living room turned blinding before dimming. The house itself caught a pulse through the breathing flickers of the electricity, but in the highs of voltage, it was as clear as daylight that it was Sam down there, being choked by their mother.

Their mother... Billie's mother looked weird, beyond just uncharacteristic with her actions. She looked pale, faded, dead.

"Help...," Sam's voice thinned. From there, Billie no longer tried to explain to herself what she saw. She released the part of herself which was her father's analytic rationality and took things for what they really were: their mother was no longer their mother, she was trying to kill Sam or worse.

The monstrous woman's mouth opened as wide as humanly possible, then a notch further. The commissures of her mouth broke and cuts delved into the skin of her cheeks to allow the spread of her mouth to happen. Her jaw continued dislocating mindlessly and gums, helpless, popped out a few of her teeth. They fell like bullets out of her mouth, bleeding while it opened towards Sam, horrified and screaming.

He pissed himself in between shakes and jolts, some conscious, others warnings that the hand wrapped around his neck was starting to cause damage to just how much air really got to his brain.

Inside the office, Anthony made progress, relentless, as any father trying to get to his child. Shouts weren't helping, so he saved his breath and focused on getting out there and stopping the cause of his sons' suffering. He was about to break out of his office successfully by picking the lock so a sudden melodic creak was the not-mother answering.