Don't Go In Alone

THURSDAY DECEMBER 26

"Carson?"

He moves closer to me. The darkness moves with him. Even when he stands inches from me, I can't see his face. I can't feel his breath on my skin. When he speaks, his voice sounds wrong. "Are you scared? I've been trying for so long to get you to come back. Since that first night. I've followed you and called out to you." His fingers brush against my chest. "Could you feel it here?"

I take a step back but he's right up against me a second later.

"Your heart is so enticing. Beating so quickly. Like a kitten's. I've been trying to get you back here. Alone." The dark surrounding him fades so I can make out the vague shapes of his face. So I can see the way he grins when he says, "Don't you know you shouldn't go in alone?"

The darkness disappears completely. What's left is in the shape of a person, but something about it is off. It's too big, too crooked looking. The edges of the black seem to move like ink in water.

"It's not Carson," I whisper to myself.

The thing in front of me laughs, that too deep sound that rumbles my bones. "Don't you know? Don't go in alone! I want to feel that heart beating wildly, Molly! Run. Run away, kitten! You can't get out even if you try."

I stumble backwards, bump into a wall behind me and turn to go down the hallway. I've been here before, in my dreams. The hallway is familiar. But when I try the first door, it's locked. As is the second. Every door I try is shut tight.

All the light disappears again. I'm left stumbling blindly through a never ending stretch of blackness. I slam face first into a wall. Feel along it until I find where it turns. Where there this many hallways in the house?

I follow the wall until it ends, drops away beneath my hands. I search for it again, but it's gone. Something drips down my spine. I swat at my back, try to find what's touching me. My heart pounds in my ears, drowning out everything except the whooshing noise of my blood pumping through my body.

Even though it's freezing in here, my armpits are wet and my hair sticks to my neck. I reach out for the wall again. I find it, but I'm only touching it for a second. Then my legs are pulled out from underneath me and my chin hits the floor hard. I cry out at the pain that shoots through my body.

I start to slide backwards. Like I'm being dragged. I claw at the floor, try to find something to grab onto to keep from being pulled. The wood creaks underneath me. I dig my fingers into the edge of a loose board. It cuts into my skin, splinters into my fingertips.

I scream.

The dark laughs at me.

I scream again as my body slams into the corner of a wall. I grab onto it, ignore the stinging from my fingers and the way they slip when I try to gain purchase on the wall. They're bleeding and I'm reminded of my nightmare again.

I think about the body on the bed and how she had the same bright red hair as me. How she was bleeding. Then I think about the cut on my arm. The nail marks on my neck. This is real. This is really happening. I was so wrong. I thought it was Carson fucking with me, but it's not. I don't know what this thing is. A ghost? A demon?

"Please!"

I feel my body being lifted off the ground and search for the hands that are holding me. But I don't find any.

I wiggle. Squirm. Jerk my body in every direction in an attempt to drop to the floor, but the thing doesn't let me. He sets me upright and materializes in front of me. He's wearing Carson's face again.

"You can scream and you can beg, but nobody will come for you. Nobody knows you're here, Molly. Just like the dreams, you won't be able to escape."