CHRISTMAS HAUNTINGS

ENTRY 14: Ready, Aim, Fire

Title: Ready, Aim, Fire

Pen Name: Viktoria Love

Word Count: 987

Story:

"Run, little girl, run! HAHAHAHA!"

The butcher's hideous laugh rang after Lili as she ran through the tall grass. Her knees wobbled and the soles of her feet ached, but she dared not stop. She knew what awaited should the horrid man catch her, and she would rather die than let him have his way with her.

"Oh c'mon now, girlie!" he called after her. "It's Christmas eve, after all! Isn't the spirit of Christmas all about giving? Why don't you be a good girl and stop resisting?"

She only ran even faster. She forged ahead, not once looking back. She was so fast she was barely breathing. She didn't even notice when the ground beneath her shifted. When the dry soil became rich and dense, or when the tall grass disappeared into curling vines She didn't notice the moonlight dimming, nor her torn flesh and bleeding feet. She would have kept on running had she not tripped.

Cradling her hurting ankle, she finally stilled and noticed her surroundings. Birds of prey scrutinized her from their perches; their huge eyes were stark against the dark foliage, and they glimmered with something so alarmingly human. One of them hooted and glided over her head, and without fully thinking it through, she limped after it.

It led her to a dilapidated building. A house—no, a mansion—dark and foreboding and out of place.

It intimidated her, and she wanted nothing more than to turn back, but something started dripping onto her head. Raindrops. Getting bigger and bigger, falling faster from the sky. She had no other choice but to enter.

Stepping into the creaking floorboards, she shivered. 'Eerie' couldn't even capture how the house felt. There was something very wrong with it. It was at once new and familiar, ruinous yet hauntingly beautiful. She felt a little like trespassing and a little like coming home.

Just then, a grandfather clock chimed. The doors locked behind her. The walls shook and a gust of wind blew through the windows and lit the chandeliers up. When it stopped, some silver mist hovered over her, its silhouette almost human. It glided up the staircase, as if willing her to come.

She followed hesitantly. The stairs were falling apart, so she had to be careful where she stepped, but she managed it. Soon, she was standing in front of a large open room, almost untouched by time. If it weren't for the dust, you'd think that someone still lives in it. There were books and clothes everywhere, and the bed was unmade, as if the owners had every intention to return to it.

She didn't have to be asked to look around. She opened the wardrobe, the dressers; she caressed the books and the wilted flowers, ran her fingers through the bed curtains. And then she saw it. A crib made of silver birch, a mobile of painted wooden birds hanging over it.

She could not explain why, but she was drawn to it. She found her feet moving on their own, her hands reaching out to it of their own accord. As soon as her skin made contact, a jolt ran through her. Images floated to her mind of a woman with fair hair. She had almond eyes and thin cherry red lips and a smile that lit up the room. A man stood beside her—chocolate-haired with an equally chocolate mustache and thick brows.

They were smiling. At her. Laughing even. Then she felt hands wrap around her, pull her up. But this was... warm. Safe. Loving. Then a voice. Lovely, soft, sweet. Singing her to sleep.

The memory faded, and she turned around just in time to see a newspaper blown into the room by a gentle breeze. She dashed for it, flipping to the headlines.

November 26, 1903.

Dead Aristocrats: Lord and Lady Summers were found dead, Saturday, in their summer house in Wiltshire. Their heads were severed from the shoulders while the rest of the body was hacked into pieces. Their daughter, young miss Liliana Summers, age one and a half, has vanished without a trace. The suspect is still unknown but local constables are working the case.

The paper showed the image of the daughter: golden hair, almond eyes, delicate jaw. Much like her own. Suddenly, it all made sense.

Two silver figures floated towards her, and Lili stood up, paper crumpled in hand. Looking closer, she recognized the almond eyes and the thin lips, the mustache and thick brows. She held out a hand to the figures. "Mother? Father?"

The figures turned away from her and dashed to the edge of the bed. They seem to be pointing under it. Confused, she bent down and looked. Sure enough, there was a chest. She fished it out and opened it, revealing a gun. The long kind, the one used for hunting. A kind gentleman passing by their village once taught her how to use it.

"I don't understand."

A loud noise downstairs brought back her alertness. It was the butcher. He had tracked her somehow and had just broken into the front door of the house.

"Ah... I see you found the old place. Well, you can run, girlie. But you can't hide. I had my way with your mother before I killed her, and you'll be no different, I promise you that." She could hear him drag his axe across the old wooden floors, and for a moment she froze up.

But then she felt a hand on her shoulder, and heard a crisp clear voice in her ear. "Fight."

Fight.

Liliana understood perfectly. There was a reason she was led to this place. She was home so she could learn the truth. To give her the courage to do what she needed to do to survive.

All her life, she survived by running. But not this time. Not anymore.

With a steady hand, she aimed, and fired.