As I stopped to catch my breath he came closer and closer. A few seconds later he was so close that I could hear his heart beat, every beat was like a drum ringing in my ears. The tress seemed to move free from the ground. Shadows were floating in every direction, and then one catches me. I try and scream but something is covering my mouth. I break free and stumble to my feet, and then everything goes dark...
I was 16 when my idiot of a father left me and my mother. We had no house, and no food. So once the court date was over we had to pack up the very few things we had and left the only place we ever known. We didn't really know where we were going, but we got in the car and drove till we ran out of gas and that's what we will call home. We came up to this old house, in the middle of the country. It was a nice little house, we didn't have to pay much for it, and that's what we would call home sweet home.
A few months passed and mom and I both got a job and we started fixing the house up little by little. we started ripping out the walls and we found this old looking note. It read: once in you will never leave. If you try you will never succeed, this house is cursed and now that you are reading this so are you.
PS. when you enter this house, you die in this house.
"Ok so that wasn't the best thing to read, but it's probably just some kid trying to scare people away so they can hang-out or something" I said to my mother. She looked like she had seen a ghost.
She swallowed hard, and said, "Yeah probably...I guess"
We just clean up the dust and took the rest of the day off. An hour or so passed and we had a knock on the door "Hi, Mrs. Peterson! My name Is Bradley Cummings but you can call me Brad. I'm your next door neighbor and I just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood!"
I just look up and smiled. "Hi, I'm Crystal Peterson but you can call me Chris. And I think you looking for my mom, not me."
"Oh, I guess so. Where is she?"
"I'll go get her. I'll be right back and you can have a seat in the living room, if you want," I told him.
"Sure, thanks."
As I ran up the stairs I heard a loud crash and ran towards one of the bedrooms. I swung open the door and saw my mother lying on the floor with shards of glass going through her arm. I scream and a second later Brad busted in the room.
"We need to get my mom to the hospital, do you drive?" I asked in a panic.
"Yes, I drive. Hurry, she's already lost a lot of blood!" he said, helping me lift my mom off the floor. As we got in the truck, my mother started to throw up a bit of blood. We got in the pick-up truck and drove as fast as we could to the hospital.
We burst in the hospital's ER doors and scream for help. My mother was taken into surgery to remove the glass. A few hours passed and we were waiting for her to wake. I look at Brad and said, "I'm glad you were home when all this happened. I don't know what I would have done without you."
"I'm glad I was there too. Some people say there's a curse on that old house, but I don't think so. This was probably an accident."
A pale look came over my face" Oh, really?" I paused. "I think you can go home now. We'll find a way home. Your wife is probably missing you by now."
"Oh that's fine, I can stay." A few moments passed, then he said, "there is no wife... she passed about a year ago."
"Oh! Sorry, I didn't mean..."
"It's ok," he said, cutting me off. We waited for a while longer and then we went for snack downstairs, in the cafeteria. We talked for a little while, about things that go on in the summer around town...well whats left of it anyway. What they call "town" is a hospital, drugstore, bars and a grocery store. "It's not much, but it works," he said smiling.
We went back up stairs to see mom, who was still sleeping. A few minutes passed, and the doctor came back in the room. "Hello, I'm Dr. Davis. You should probably go home; she won't be awake anytime soon."
"But I don't want to go home," I tell him. "I want to stay here with mom. I don't care if I have to sleep on the floor, I want to stay here."
Brad said, in a firm voice, "Well then I should stay too, to keep the little one company."
"I'm not little," I grumbled.
It was barely past 3 AM when she finally woke up. Brad was still awake and kept her company when I was still sleeping. They didn't want to wake me up; they thought I'd had a hard enough day as it was. And it had been, what with the note and her getting hurt. It kinda made the note come true, and it was very scary.
That afternoon she came home with some meds to keep her calm until the cuts start to heal. When we got in the house, she said, "I know I just came out of the hospital and I slept most of the time I was there, but I'm really tired. I think I'm going to go to bed for a bit. Brad you can go home now, we will be fine."
"That's ok, Miss Peterson. I'm glad I was here to help you. I think I'm going to stay here for a little bit to make sure that everything well be fine, if you don't mind me doing so?"
"Oh, that's fine, make yourself at home! There is some food in the kitchen, there's not much but it will fill the hole. You must be starving by now!" Mom replied.
"Thanks! I think I'll have a bite to eat," Brad said, with a smile on his face.
As mom went up to bed Brad and I had lunch. After lunch we did the dishes and he offered to clean around the house to help mom and me out. "It's not like I have anything to do home, I should help. It's the only thing that I could do for you and your mother," he said. So we carry on cleaning, trying not to make too much noise.
When we were finished, we started talking about more things that happened around town, and other things, like family. We talked for a while and then I asked, "If you don't mind me asking, how long were you and your wife married?"
"we were married for 3 years and had 2 children"
"Had?" I asked, cutting him off.
"Yes had, and I don't want to talk about my personal life with somebody I have only known for barely 12 hours!" he shouted, almost yelling in my face.
"Then if you don't mind, I would like you to leave. I don't like people yelling at me," I said firmly.
"I'm not leaving somebody who just came out of the hospital with no car, so you're going to have to deal with me for a little bit longer", he said in a calm but demanding voice. "And you should get used to getting yelled at; it will happen a lot in your life!"
We go quiet, about two seconds after all we hear is a thumping noise and mom yelling, "What are you yelling about down there?! It's really hard to sleep while you guys are having a yelling contest!" We just froze in silence. "Well aren't you, going to apologize or something?" We still stood in silence, just staring. After a few moments, we apologized. She went back to bed, and we went back to the living room.
Mom woke up a few hours later and mumbled, "Now that I'm up we, can have a good supper and I'm cooking. I don't care what you guys say, I have to do something." We agreed and then she said, "By the way, Mr. Cummings, I never had the chance to thank you properly."
"That's ok, I was just glad I was here to help you," he said, kind of blushing, with a smile from ear to ear. I knew right at that moment things were going to change... for better or for worst, till death do us part.
A year or so had passed. Mom was doing fine, and Brad was now my new step father. The wedding was amazing. We had continued to clean and fix up the house. Brad moved in and everything was going fine. It was kinda like having dad back, but Brad was a lot nicer and I liked him. He was a good person for my mom and mom seemed to be a lot happier, way happier than she was with my father...
It was about mid-fall when things started to get weird. Brad was always asking me where I was, what I was doing, and who I was with. He was kinda weird with mom, too. He would always be getting mad at her and sometimes would call her by the wrong name; I think the name was Katie.
So, I got really nosy and went to the library and looked up women who have been killed within the last year. I found the one name I was looking for, and I was right, it was Katie. She'd been murdered with her two kids, Sarah and Carrie. The file I found said that she'd been stabbed multiple times, and it was same with the children. There was a comment from the police in the file that said, "no one will ever know what truly happened on this day." They never found the killer, or the husband that was on a trip out of state.
This got me thinking that Brad wasn't who he said he was, and that maybe, just maybe he had been Katie's husband. I mean, he'd called me Sarah more than once. Maybe he was getting us confused. I thought I would do more research on the husband out of state. His name was Brandon, according to the file and computer at the library. The names are close, but the file said he had blue eyes and blondish hair. Brad has brown eyes and dark brown-almost black-hair.
As I was looking through the file, the librarian was watching my every move, like I was doing something wrong, and she was just waiting to call the cops or something. She was just sitting there staring at me, like a hungry wolf waiting to pounce on his pray. She scared me a little, and it made me start to think that she somehow is involved with the murder, or maybe she knows the truth about what happened to Katie and her daughters.
I went home with the information I got. I wanted to bring it to my mom's attention, but she wasn't home. Brad was, of course. "Where have you been? I have been worried about you Sara; you have to let me know where you're going! You can't just up and leave and think everything is fine!" he shouted, with rage in his voice and fire in his eyes.
"You have no control over me, you're not my father! You have no right to talk to me like that!" I retorted.
"I'm responsible for you just as much as your mother is. I may not be your father but you have no right to talk to me like that!" he said, raising his hand. Then it happened; he hit me. "Sara, we have been through this before. Now I don't want to hurt you, but you have to learn your lesson," he said with a smirk on his face. He hit me, again and again, and again.
When he was finished, I was bleeding. He broke my nose, and fractured my jaw. He slit my eyes brow open and he looked down at me almost laughing.
"You should have known better than this Sara. You shouldn't have been so stupid."
I looked up at him, and said, "My name isn't Sara, its Crystal!" He looked down at me and hit me again.
I woke up in a hospital bed. I couldn't move. My head was pounding, the lights were blurry. Everyone around me seemed to be shadows. A few minutes later, my vision came back and there he was. Brad was sitting with my mother. My mother was crying, and Brad was just staring at me. I tried to talk, but because he almost broke my jaw they had to wire my mouth shut until it held.
The doctors called my mother over. She talked to me for a bit, and Brad told her to go get something to eat. When the doctors and her were gone, Brad came over to me leaned real close to my ear and said, "If you want you and your mother to live, tell your mother that I brought you rock climbing and you fell. If you don't, the pain you are feeling right now will be nothing compared to what I can do". He paused for a few minutes and continued, "if you keep this to yourself, you will be able to talk again, won't that be great Sara?" he had a smile from ear to ear. He seemed to find amusement in all this.
I was in the hospital almost a month because of how bad my injuries were. I could finally talk again, which was really nice. My mother asked me what happened and I said what Brad told me to, I wanted to protect her. I had to, she raised me and I love her too much for Brad to hurt her. I only wish that she knew how evil and sick minded this freak was.
We went home. It was so good to sleep in my bed again. In the morning, I was a little drowsy from the pain killers that the doctor gave me. I couldn't eat anything solid, so I had a lot of ice cream and soup. It wasn't that bad having to eat ice cream, but we ran out of ideas for soup in the first week. Soup got really gross, really quick. Eventually I could eat potatoes and small amounts of meat, it was nice. It was solid food and it tasted way better than some of the soup and stuff the hospital gave me. After about 3 or 4 weeks everything went back to normal. Well, almost everything.
I went back to the library; I wanted to look at those files again. When I walked in, the librarian was talking to some girl; I didn't know who she was. When she saw me, she stopped talking and the girl left. The librarian called me over and said, "you know the last time you were in here you were looking at old police files, right?" I nodded my head slowly. "Well I might be able to help you with whatever you are looking for in those files."
"How can you help me?" I asked with a smirk on my face. She's a librarian, what does she know? Then I look at the name on the name plate. Mrs. Hotchner. I thought back to the file, there was a detective Hotchner, who was the lead investigator on the case. I put 2 and 2 together and guessed that she was the Hotchner that was on the case.
"You just remembered that there was a detective with the same last name as me, didn't you?"
I looked at her in shock. "How'd you know?"
"Well, I was a cop. You learn to read people, and I guess you never forget it." She just smiled, and I stared to laugh.
"Well I guess they taught you well, didn't they?"
She smiled again. "So, why are you looking into the case?"
"I think I know who the killer is." I almost choked on the words that came out of my mouth. I couldn't believe that. If I was right, I was living with a killer.
She whispered, "who do you think the unsub is?"
"Unsub?" I asked, confused.
"Unknown subject, sorry about that.''
"That's ok." I paused for what seemed to be for an hour.
"Take your time," she told me.
I giggled. "I feel like I'm in one of those cop shows, there's always a young girl that gets the same 'take your time' saying." My face went back to a dark and gloomy state. I thought hard about what I was going to say. How was I going to say it? Would she believe me? Or would she just think I'm some kid off the street looking for attention? All of my thinking got her worried and she looked at me with a very straight face, almost stone cold.
"How about we talk about this after I'm done here? It will give you time to think...what do you say?"
"Sure," I tell her.
"Where do you live? Just in case I need to find you again."
"I live at the end of the street in that big, white house on the left." I looked at her with fear in my eyes, my hands where all clammy and I got really nervous. There he was. Brad just walked into the library. He came up to me with rage written all over his face.
"Where have you been Sara? You have to let me where you are, what you doing, and who you will be with! I'm you father! I have to know these things!"
I looked at the fire in his eyes. I looked at the librarian then back to Brad's face. "I don't have to tell you anything! You're not my father! My father left me and my mother, and I wish you would do the same! I'm not Sara, my name is Crystal!"
It went silent for a moment, and then Brad said," I'm sorry, Crystal. How about we go get some smoothes or something?"
"No. I'm not going anywhere with you, I'm going home!"
"Fine. Just make sure you're home for supper, ok?" and Brad just left. Everything fell silent for about 5 minutes or so.
Mrs. Hotchner didn't know what to do; she just froze from the moment he walked into the library. She looked at me with a puzzled look on her face. "You know, if he had blonde hair, he would look just like the guy who was married to Katie. We couldn't find any evidence against him, so we had to let him go."
"Really? Do you know where that guy is?"
"No. When we released him, he went under the radar."
"This might sound crazy, but what if we go down to the cop shop and ask if they can do a photo analysis?" I asked, hoping she would at least think it could work. I thought it would work. I mean, it does on TV.
"You know, that might just work."
"There's only one thing," I began, darkness falling over my face. "I have a picture but I have to go home for it, and he will be there"
"What if I go with you?"
"Ok, sure."
"Well, just wait a few minutes, and I'll lock-up the library."
When she was finished, we got into her car and drove to my house. It was a very damp night, it was almost raining, and the wind was starting to pick up. We walk up the path to the house. There was an eerie feeling that came when we walked on the porch. It got really dark, fast, and it started to rain a little. "Funny, Mom always leaves the outside light on."
"Maybe it burnt out?" Mrs. Hotchner suggested. We walked into the house. I tried to turn on the light, but it didn't work. Then just like that it started pouring. The wind was howling through the trees. Lightning just flashed over and over again. It was so bright, it was almost blinding.
"Well we don't need flashlight now, do we?"
I looked up to her. "Yeah, I guess you're right."
We walked through the house "Mom? Brad? Are you here?" Nothing made a sound, just the rumbling or the thunder. There was one huge flash of light, and there he was. Brad was holding a dripping bloody knife and then the flash was over. Another flash a few seconds after and Brad was right in front of me, breathing slowly and deeply
.
"Hello Sara...you're late."
"MOM! HELP!"
"Silly girl! Your mother can't help you. You see this?" He pushed the knife up against my cheek. "Feel that warm wet stuff, that's all you will ever have of your mother." He laughed, like he was enjoying all of this. "You see, Katie, your lovely mother, isn't all what she is cracked up to be. She cheated on me, and I needed her to pay."
Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I managed to stutter, "you...killed my..."
I couldn't finish the sentence before he cut me off. "Yes, I did. Here just sit!" He pushed me into the kitchen and tied me to a chair. "You wanna know how I did it? First I tied her down like the animal she is, kind of like you are right now! Then I leaned real close to her ear and said, 'Katie, you should have known better', then pushed the knife up to her throat and sliced it like a warm piece of bread!" He chuckled under his breath.
I could see, through the flashes of lightning, that it was clear he was enjoying everything he did. His shirt was coved in blood, and he didn't seem to mind it much. Luckily he didn't know that Mrs. Hotchner was still in the house. Well, come to think of it, I didn't even know where she was anymore.
"HELP, SOMEBODY HELP ME!"
"Go head Sara, scream. No one can hear you."
"I'm not Sara," I said, tears streaming down my face. In the flashes of lightning, I could see Mrs. Hotchner coming up behind him.
"Put the weapon down, now." She'd crept up silently, with a gun to his face
"Oh, hello." He spun around so fast that she didn't have time to react. He stabbed her in the stomach "Nice of you to drop in." He let her fall to the floor.
During all of this, I managed to get one of my feet free. I waited until he felt 'safe' again, that nothing was going to interrupt or stop him and his wonderful plan. When he got real close, I kicked him, right between the legs. On the way down he tried to cut me, but he cut the rope instead. I grabbed the knife cut the rest of the rope off. I got the gun that Mrs. Hotchner had. I dropped the knife, and put the gun in my hand. I tried to steady my aim and shot. "That's for my mom." I ran as fast as I could into the woods. Everything was so slimy. I fell, got back up, and hid behind a tree.
As I stopped to catch my breath, I heard "SARA!" I thought, 'I didn't kill him and now it's personal for him, he would stop at nothing to get me.' "Come out come out where ever you are." Those words soon sketched themselves into my head. Shadows danced, trees seemed to move free from the ground, and then one got me. "Now, now, Sara, what shall we do with you?"
I quickly looked for the gun but I dropped it when I fell. I screamed and kicked until I could get free. I ran as fast as I could way from him. I could feel him coming up behind me, until I heard a single shot. I turned around, and there were red and blue lights shining everywhere. The cops had come and they were surrounding him.
When everything was under control, I walked up to one of the police officers and asked, "How did you know?" He just looked down at me and smiled.
"How about we go get you checked out first?" He took me under his arm and brought me to the ambulance.
When the paramedic was wrapping my wrist, I looked at the officer, and then looked back at the ground. "Did you find Mrs. Hotchner?" I knew my mother was dead but maybe the librarian had lived.
He laughed. "I guess you're going to make me tell you."
"What do you mean?"
"She's the one who called."
"But I thought she was..."
"No, she's fine," he said with the biggest smile I have ever seen on someone's face. "Let's get you into the ambulance so we can go to the hospital, ok?"
"Ok...can you come with me?"
"Sure."
We drove to the hospital and that was all I remembered, until I woke up in the hospital the next morning. "Well, you're awake," the doctor said. "How are you feeling today?"
"My wrist hurts and my head is killing me." I tried to smile but it hurt too much.
"Well, we will have to do something about that. But first, we have a surprise for you." He pulled back the curtain and there they were. Mrs. Hotchner and the police officer from the ambulance ride.
"Hello," Mrs. Hotchner said in a very quiet voice.
My mind had gone blank, I couldn't say anything. I just started to cry, I was so happy that she had lived. The officer came over and gave me a hug and rubbed my back. It made me feel a little better."It's ok, don't cry," he said In a very soft, soothing voice. "It will all be ok."
I was so happy that I lived to know the truth about Brad and what kind of monster he was. When we were released from the hospital, I moved into Mrs. Hotchner's house and we lived together. We decided to go find Katie's grave and we sat there for hours, just knowing what she went thru. But we had something better. We won.