Kara held the picture frame tightly as she laid haphazardly across her freshly made bed. Her long blonde hair spread around her in a halo, her echo filling the room with the sound of Halsey. Staring up at the familiar face Kara let out a sigh her index finger trailing along the image of the girl in the photograph, bringing it towards her face she could almost smell the vibrant flowers surrounding her look alike. The same blonde locks, the same blue eyes, peachy skin, and slightly hooked nose. But this girl had freckles and thicker lips. Close but not the same. Not to mention the photo 17 years too old to be the teen lounging in the Florida bedroom. Rolling onto her stomach Kara placed the photo carefully in her large blue plastic suitcase. Covering the precious item with more of the freshly ironed clothes Ida had prepared for her trip. The case barely able to close as she pulled on the thick metal clasps she trusted to keep her life safe. The 16 year-old's stomach swirling as she put the roller case on the floor pulling the handle out so she could safely rest the backpack on top securing the straps so maneuvering through the airport would be easier. She couldn't help but rummage through her bag double checking for the third time this morning that her passport, ID, banknotes, euros and ticket were still safely protected in their respective spots. It felt strange leaving her credit card at home, but it wouldn't do much in Berlin and she was just as likely to lose it than need it.
Kara rubbed her hands together nervously as she stared at herself in her bedroom mirror pulling her hair behind her ears as she tried to calm her nerves. It was finally time. The letters from her grandparents resting on her dresser. Their penmanship perfectly scripted German. She hadn't seen them since she had been an infant. Not since her father left with her and never came back. He still couldn't. The ghost of her mother haunting him even to this day, the memory of her sunshine excruciating in his heart.
Karoline would be 17 by the end of her trip, the same age her mother had been when she'd died. Complicated birth. Anja died and left behind something he hadn't been prepared for: his daughter. He'd been only a freshman at the time in college but had transferred just the same, taking Karoline with him and little else to his new college. Some of Kara's best memories were in their London flat where her school uniform was one of the most expensive things they owned. She sometimes found herself missing the rainy English weather. Those days where free time was spent curled up with a highly abused Judy Bloom while her father typed away at his outdated typewriter. "It's all part of the process, you can never gain inspiration from a computer, you have to feel the words," he'd always tell her when she'd laugh at him and try to get him to upgrade to something this decade. No, her father was forever a coffee loving, typewriting, hipster writer. Secretly working on what he declared to be the next Tolstoy, between popping out incredibly popular murder novels. So popular that the flat suddenly felt crowded and anyways her father now made more money than they could spend, his books appearing alongside Stephen King and Tom Clancy. So he'd deemed their next adventure exactly the middle of nowhere in Florida. "If it had been good enough for Hemingway," He'd always say, even though they'd ended up south of Miami not even that close to the Florida Keys. Yet, Florida had been good to them, the beach life suited them, salty air and seclusion. The house had not been suburban when he'd bought it eight years ago but the town had grown a little bit, which they always felt gave it charm even if he'd meant for an isolationist ideal stuck between beach and swamp... Which to give it credit it still was. Now though it was time to go back. At least, it was time for Karoline to go back. She needed this, the closure and the adventure of her homeland, the lights of Berlin, the opportunity to reconnect with her family and have the chance to get to know the woman who gave birth to her. She was a romantic, hoping it would help her figure out who she was. A Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants moment when the heroine goes off on a summer vacation to only realize she is in a coming of age novel. At least that's what Kara yearned for. She'd miss her dad, there was no one quite like him, or as eccentric to be perfectly honest... They never spent much time apart, he couldn't write without her, she was his lucky charm. She suspected that wasn't the case and for his publisher's mental health alone she held her fingers crossed. It might be hard to spend so much time away from him, but her suitcase was packed with his summer reading list for her. Heavy with Romantic period poetry. John Keats, William Wordsworth, and William Butler Yeats to keep her company when the loneliness might try and ruin her otherwise perfect adventure.
Grabbing a clip she snapped it into her hair to make sure the strands were kept in place, when she was satisfied that she looked every bit the heroine she wanted to be she called out "Alexa, quiet please," she smiled happly, the device listened to her for once. That had to be a sign in itself. The sound of Ida thumping around downstairs greeting her ears as she padded her way down the hall, her bare feet loving the cool hardwood as she took her time brushing her teeth and washing her face, dabbing on moisturizer as she heard a pan clatter downstairs. "Ida can we have pancakes? Gray might swing by," she called down the hallway in German knowing the burly woman would have no problem hearing her. Ida had been bugging her about needing something hardy before the flight, so they'd skipped breakfast and planned for brunch instead.
Not a big deal considering her dad rarely got up before 11. Even then he'd need an hour to read the paper and drink his sacred coffee before communication could occur. He was not a morning person. Not when he spent all night writing for his publisher. The next draft for his novel due Tuesday. This latest installment in his Briar Andrews series was irritating the hell out of him. But it put him up there with Patterson where sales went so another Detective Andrews book it was. He swore he was going to toss it at least 3 times a day but never did. Writers.
Padding down the hall Karoline let out a yawn, wiping away the sleep as she made her way down stairs loosing herself to another yawn as she stepped off the last step her arm brushing her face before her eyes filled with panic as her foot slid in something wet sending the girl sliding forward an inch before she fell backwards hard bracing herself with her hands as she hit the bottom steps hard causing a gasp to leave her throat she felt the stinging pain. Staring up she let out a whimper, "Ida did you mo-" that's when she saw it. The bubbling red, it wasn't water she'd slipped on but blood. And a lot of it.
Horror plastered the girl's face as she realized she was laying in a pool of blood. Confusion flowing over her as she shook her head. Splattering droplets of blood as the tips of her hair let out the soaked up substance. Her feet and hands soaked in the red as well as the back of her pjs as she tried to evaluate the damage. Whose blood was this?! "Papa?" She croaked grasping at the banister smearing the blood on the white surface as she pulled herself to her feet trying to ignore the squishy feeling between her toes. Maybe it was paint? She felt her empty stomach twist and turn as her heart beat exploded in her chest.
"I-Ida?" She sputtered, taking a tentative step forward following the trail of blood that led around the corner towards the kitchen. Her eyes darting around, was this an intruder?
She needed to hurry, Kara's body literally shaking as she tried to wipe the blood that coated the bottom of her feet off on the floor so she wouldn't fall again. Her eyes searching the small circular space set up for the staircase, her eyes falling on the too large lamp, then her father's writer's award he'd received from the University of Florida the year before. A simple trinket they had made for his creative writing class he'd taught for eager students looking for stardom. He joked about the small thing, the awkward award finding its way onto the hallway table instead of his office. Grabbing her father's trophy she white knuckled it as she made her way slowly around the corner.
An ear-piercing scream ripping through her like she'd been stabbed, as the horror unfolded around her like a nightmare. Her previous thoughts of fighting leaving her as the trophy tumbled out of her fingers as she stared agape at her father's spiraled body on the floor. Ida's hands and face buried into his stomach ripping and devouring flesh, her father's intestines slipping between blood drenched fingers and jaws as she devoured him. Kara couldn't breath, she couldn't think, she felt like she was being forced underwater, drowning as she flailed towards the wall impacting hard enough to send pictures crashing towards the floor. The horror intensified as she realized the grotesque truth that he was still alive, his face pale and in a silent scream as he blinked. His eyes as well as Ida's snapping to her as she screamed. "Ppapa!" Karoline sobbed wanting to race to him but finding herself stuck.
Ida. Ida. Ida. Why. Why. No. The woman was the closest thing she had to a mother. How could she- how could she... if there was food in her stomach she would vomit instead she retched falling to her knees as she crawled through the blood towards them.
"No!" He spoke now, blood escaping with the words from his lips. "Un" "Un" "Ggun" he gasped at last his eyes rolling in his head as an animalistic growl left Ida's throat. Kara let out another blood curling scream as Ida rose from her father's decimated body her movements jerky and slow as she made her way to the fresh food in sight. Karoline crawled back across the blood as she continued to scream before twisting and trying to throw herself to her feet only to tumble to her knees making it up on the second try as the woman reached for her swiping at Kara, missing by inches as the girl ran as fast as she could for her father's room closing the door and running to the safe her heart thundering. There was no lock on the door only on the gun case he kept in the closet. Throwing open the door Kara rammed aside her father's dress shirts sobbing as she heard Ida banging on the bedroom door behind her. Kara's fingers shaking as she typed in her birthday to the keypad. Shaking like a leaf she she pulled out the loaded gun from the safe. Kara had regularly gone shooting with her father. It was his hobby, something he did to de-stress, after a particularly annoying deadline. Trying to calm her breath Karoline checked to see it was actually loaded before clicking off the safety the 9 millimetre handgun smooth in her hands as she pulled it up pointing it at the door.
She didn't want to shoot Ida. Gods no. But.. Her father. He had spoken to her, he might make it but not if Ida was still attacking him. Or her. Karoline's phone was still upstairs on the charger and useless to her. She could run for help but she couldn't shimmy out of the window like a coward while her father was stuck with Ida who'd obviously lost her mind!
The gun shook in her hands. The grip slick with blood; her father's blood. Her heart pounded in her head like a drum, refusing to slow, suffocating her. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think. The hearty German woman's body slamming over and over again against her father's bedroom door. Karoline's sobs and sniffling only making the woman frenzy more. Ida had... Ida had done this thing, this horrible blood curdling thing. The memories of what she'd seen threatening to undo her. Kara wasn't sure who to point the gun at, Ida or herself? She couldn't help herself, the pounding, it wouldn't stop. Ida wouldn't stop. Why was she doing this?! How could she? She'd lived with them for 8 years! She'd been her mother in every way but the name. She'd kissed skinned knees, packed her lunches, drove her to horseback riding lessons, and even taught her about her first period and how to use a tampon. Ida was more than a housekeeper she was her mother and her mother wanted her dead. Karoline's knees wobbled giving out as she let out a soul crushing sob. She couldn't do this! She couldn't do THIS. No, she couldn't...She Just- Karoline raised the gun. The barrel pressing against her trembling chin. She knew her father wouldn't make it, he couldn't. She wanted this over, whatever came after at least it wouldn't be th- The lock broke, wood splintering as the door burst open and Karoline fired.
The shot hitting Ida in the chest. Blood and body matter flying through the air, splattering Kara's body. Shock glistening in her eyes as she stared devastatingly at the gore covered woman who was perched on her knees. She'd shot Ida. She hadn't meant to, but she'd reacted, oh God what had she don- Ida's body rose. Jerking as a monstrous growl split from her lips. The Housekeeper lunging forward catching Karoline's hair in her cold, stiff fingers. They coiled in her long blonde locks pulling her new found prey closer. Her eyes bloodshot and blank as she mashed her teeth. Pieces of her father's flesh caught in her mouth like the remnants of a steak dinner. This wasn't her mother. As the teeth came close Kara let out another scream this time of anger as she shoved the barrel of the gun into Ida's awaiting mouth an fired. The blowback flinging the gun from her hands and Ida's body backwards Karoline's hair still in her stiff hands, the girl falling on the now motionless corpse. Kara shook as she frantically tried to get her hair out of Ida's grasp and away from her body. The teenager unrecognizable under the gore of her father and Ida.