Young Writers Society

Entry for Cat and June's Horror Contest. Not sure quite how horrific it is, though, so I'd appreciate any reactions, comments, and suggestions on how to make it even scarier as well as better all-around. Enjoy!

The thunder is always a step behind me. I seem to manage to just barely evade it every time, remaining safely buried under the blankets while this storm turns my city into a whirl-wind of flying leaves and pelting raindrops. The safety is simply an illusion, though—I know that much. For, between every strike of lightning, I can hear the slow, uneven steps of the man in my house.

He certainly doesn’t deserve to be called my father; he barely deserves to be called a man. He is a monster. That much I can be sure of. Tonight, Mother and Abigail sleep in the attic, where the noise of the television can lull them into nightmares, but I am trapped downstairs, where I have nothing but the occasional crash of thunder to keep me company.

There is a dripping sound coming from above this room I’m in, but I’ve chosen to believe that it is simply the rain. The alternative is almost too horrifying to think of, although now the image is etched into my mind. And then this scent. It's the aroma of terror, and I'm suffocating in it. Why can't I breathe? Why won't my head clear? Is this what it's like to die of pure, all-consuming fear?

Not unfounded fear, though. I'm not naive enough to believe that those screams, that shattering sound, the shrill, broken voices I heard in the night were all simply background noises to my dreams. I suppose there’s no shying around the fact.

He’s going to kill us.

I could be the last one left.

I take a shaky breath and open my eyes when the footsteps stop. I'm not quite foolish enough to think that he’s gone, but I am foolish enough to throw off my blankets and crawl about the darkness, my heart threatening to rip itself from my chest. My first priority is to immediately lock the door, and when I do, I hear the click. It should be comforting; now, I can be sure that he is at least one locked door away. But God knows that one locked door won’t keep him out.

There are benefits to having a sparsely furnished room. There is no need for me to worry about bumping against a table corner or tripping over a stack of books. However, there are disadvantages, too: nowhere for me to hide. Except, of course, the walk-in closet, which is what I am headed towards.

The tricky part comes with opening the closet door. The doorknob is not an option; it is still caked with Abigail’s dried blood from the last of his rampages. The very thought of touching that, touching the part of my sister that this monster ripped from her, repulses me.

It’s almost funny, if you find that sort of thing funny. He does. I will not touch her blood because it had been put there by him, even though his blood is already coursing through my veins. I have his eyes. His beautiful, horrible, dangerous, lovely green eyes.

For a brief moment, I am overwhelmed by the urge to rip them from their sockets.

However, I do value my life. The doorknob is the only way in, and if I must use it, I will. Just not with my bare hand.

There is not much in the room for me to work with, but Mother's gloves are draped over the arm of a rocking chair in the corner. She won't mind them touching the blood, I'm sure; she never wears them anyway. I slip through the shadows, reaching down to grab one just as another flash of lightning strikes. It casts shadows around the room, and I see a flicker of movement to my left.

For ten careful, endless seconds, I freeze over the rocking chair and wait until I've convinced myself that the movement was just a shadow. It's mocking me, I'm sure, playing up on my paranoia.

I don't wait for the shadow to come back; I reach down and grab the glove.

It doesn’t fit me, of course. Mother’s dainty hands slip so easily into the lovely satin, but my bony fingers are too long for it. Another thing of the monster that I’ve inherited. Wonderful.

I am shaking as the door swings open. The noise it makes is so loud that I’m absolutely positive that its creak will be the death of me. Surely he heard it. Surely he’s on his way now, stumbling through the house, suspended somewhere between rage and drunkenness. Surely this darkness is about to swallow me whole.

The lightning comes first, a shock of white light that leaves me seeing spots. Believe it or not, I’ve paid attention in science class. The speed in which the thunder follows the lightning depends on how far away the storm is. I am paralyzed in the closet doorway, counting the seconds until I hear the low rumble. One…two…three…four…five…six…seven…eight…nine…

According to experts, those nine seconds of waiting mean that the storm isn’t quite here yet. It’s still a supposedly ‘safe’ distance away. But I know better. There is no such thing as ‘safe’ anymore. The storm is here. The storm is now.

“Jules?” I freeze in the doorway as a shaky, panicked voice whispers my name.

Oh my God.

“Abby?" I choke on my own words. "Abby, what are you doing here?”

No, Abigail. No, no, no. This isn’t right. This isn’t safe. I can’t do this anymore.

I haven’t heard his footsteps for at least five minutes. It should be reassuring, but it isn’t. At least when I can hear him I have some way to gauge how far away he is. It’s like the lightning and the thunder, only backwards. The rumble of his footsteps comes first, then the flash of his fury.

The door shuts behind me much louder than I’d intended, but I stumble forwards anyway until I can hear Abigail’s erratic breathing. It’s not a weakness she normally shows; I’ve trained her not to give herself away by simply breathing.

I bend down slowly, trying to find my voice amidst this terror that's building up inside of me. My hands are gentle as they probe around the darkness until I feel her arm, covered in goose-bumps.

“Abigail, where’s Mom? When did you get down here?” My words are just above a whisper, but she hears me. She always hears me.

She sobs, and I feel something dark and ominous growing inside of me. The lightning strikes again, but from the closet not even lightning can penetrate these shadows. “He came up and threw something at the TV,” she says in a hollow voice. “And he…he…”

I am numb as I feel for injuries, running my hands over her legs and arms. She whimpers when I get to her elbows, so I categorize them as bruises and continue up to her face. It’s not as bad as last time, but her scar has been opened up again and her left earring ripped straight from its hole. I bite my lip, forcing back a scream, and carefully take off the right one.

“Abby, honey, how about you take a deep breath and wipe your eyes? Let’s try to be very quiet. The storm is almost over,” I say, my voice shaking less than I had expected. Maybe it’s because I’ve almost convinced myself that I’m talking about the storm outside.

I hear a door slam somewhere, and I stop breathing. Abby’s sobs are under control now, and it’s all I can do to rub her where she doesn’t have bruises and try to wipe off some of the blood with a T-shirt that’s hanging above us. I hope it’s his. I hope he opens the closet tomorrow to try and wear his T-shirt, only to find that it’s covered in his youngest daughter’s blood. I hope it makes him sick.

When his footsteps are audible again, I can figure out his pattern. He’s walking in circles around the island in the kitchen, probably looking for something in the cabinets. Lying to myself, I am convinced that he is searching for his sleeping pills, which Mom always moves when she’s cleaning. Sleeping pills, Julia. He’s looking for sleeping pills.

No, he’s not. “Jules,” Abby whispers, “he’s trying to find another knife.”

Another knife?

And then she falls into me, shaking and crying. “He…Mom…the stairs, I ran and—”

“Abby, please, it’s okay.” She’s being too loud. It’s a horrible thing for me to think, but I need complete silence. “We’ll talk in a minute, sweetie, just breathe…”

More lightning.

One…two…three…four…five…

The storm is gaining on us.

I hear his footsteps stop for a brief moment, and then he’s running. Running towards us. Shaking the doorknob, and yelling, cursing, shrieking, laughing, singing, shouting. With a deafening crack, I hear the door give way as he bursts through.

Correction: the storm has arrived.

All that is left for me to do is hold my sister as we huddle in the corner. I don’t know what she’s doing, but I’m thinking about the glove on my hand. My mother is so fragile, so dainty. She could easily be shattered by a gust of wind, if it was strong enough. Until now, I don’t think he’s ever been strong enough to break her. But tonight, the thunder is louder, more destructive. I don’t think we can escape it any longer.

When he throws open the closet door, the lightning flashes again, and my very own bloodshot green eyes are staring back at me.

The thunder is no longer a step behind me.