Bewitching Hour
The stale air smelled of bong rips and beer. Two of her friends were passed out on the unsanitary grey carpet at the foot of her bed; one was next to her, half-socked feet to the headboard, snoring away. She sat up, rubbed her eyes and opened them to a room slightly spinning. The little red numbers on the nightstand clock shone 3 AM.
Through the dim light she could make out the open door to the hallway. She searched for her slippers with her toes amongst the dirty clothes, empty 40s and snack wrappers. Clumsily, she made her way to the hall and reached for the grungy light switch on the rough apartment wall. Nothing. She flicked the switch several more times. Still nothing. With just enough moonlight filtering in through windows to see, she shuffled along the creaky wooden floors to the bathroom. This time not bothering with the light, she partially closed the door and sat on the toilet for a few minutes.
She opened the door and made her way back down the moonlit hallway to bed. No one was there. Her friends, sound asleep just moments before, were no longer in the room. She called out their names. No answer. Hoping they were resuming the party, she backed out of the room and cautiously made her way down the hall to the kitchen. As she emerged through the archway, there was just enough light to make out the scene.
Her mouth opened wide to scream but no sound came out. She stumbled backwards, gripping and digging her nails into the edge of the doorway to steady herself. Hyperventilating, she was overcome by a wave of nausea and immediately emptied the contents of her stomach, creating one more puddle on the already soaked tiles.
She fell to a squat, shaking, palms resting on a dry part of the hallway floor to either side of her and whispered ‘oh god’ several times. Hesitantly she raised her head, hoping she’d imagined it but her eyes met the same scene.
Her three friends were suspended upside down in the air just above the kitchen table, with their stiff arms straight out to the side as if crucified. Six slit wrists and three slit throats still gushed hot blood, forming individual waterfalls converging into a single lake spreading across the floor. It would be commingling with her sick in the entranceway in minutes. Their eyes were wide open and moving ever so slightly from side to side; they were still alive.
Desperately clutching to the idea that this was all a horrible nightmare, she stumbled back to her bedroom. She tried the bedroom light. It didn’t work either. Her frantic thoughts landed on her cell phone, which was on the nightstand. Her knees gave out again so she crawled across the dirty carpet strewn with clothes and empty bottles to find her phone. It was dead. Still on all fours, she started searching for her friends’ cell phones. To her luck she found all three but they were likewise out of battery.
With no landline in the apartment, her last hope was her laptop. Her laptop was in the kitchen. There was a chance that it might not be drenched in blood, but she feared going in there would prove to be a deadly mistake.
Just as she was steeling herself to try, the TV in the corner of the room turned on to static. Black and white particles fuzzed across the flat screen atop her dresser, the glow amplified by the adjacent mirror. The noise brought her out of shock and made her stomach drop. She shot up and across the room, attempting to turn it off as quickly as possible. Nothing happened. She pressed the button a dozen times but it wouldn’t turn off.
Back to her original plan. She spun around to look at the door, summoning the courage to make a break for the kitchen, but as soon as she took the first step the bedroom door slammed shut so hard it shook the pictures on the wall. She ran for the door and tried the knob vigorously but it wouldn't budge. Pressing her back up against the door, she surveyed the room, anxious that someone or something was now locked in there with her.
The white noise of the TV, her pounding heart and heavy breathing overwhelmed her senses. She shut her eyes for what felt like hours, wishing it all away but opened them seconds later when the temperature of the room plummeted. Suddenly colder than naturally possible, she could see billowing clouds leaving her rapidly exhaling mouth. Her arm brushed up against the brass handle behind her and it was so cold it stung. She swung her arm away and clutched it protectively against her chest.
Unable to decide between hiding in the closet and trying to bust out of the room, she remained paralyzed, pressed up against the cold wood of the door. Out of the corner of her eye, by the glow of the flat screen, she saw something move on the mirror. A fog was gradually creeping across the glass, creating a frosted canvas. Then as if by an invisible finger, her name was written in full:
Madeline Bianca Cross
Her mind whirled through the how and why of it all. There was no conclusion to come to except whatever this was, it was supernatural and taking its time tormenting her. Terrified of being stuck in the room, she took several gulping breaths and tried the doorknob again. Miraculously, it popped open. The door swung out of the way and she peered out into the silent hallway.
Finding her laptop now wasn’t going to help her survive and she hoped whatever was in the house wouldn’t follow her out. Her plan was to leave the only way possible: through the kitchen, down the narrow front staircase to the landing and out the front door.
There was no sign of movement in the hallway, so she readied herself to take her chances getting back to the kitchen. Thinking about the blood and their open eyes made her stomach turn but there was no way to avoid seeing them hanging there, helpless again.
Step by hesitant step, she held her hand out against the rough wall to anchor herself as she made her way down the hall. Halfway there and all of a sudden she heard the floorboards creak from somewhere behind her. Without turning to look at what had caused the noise, she ran the last five feet into the kitchen.
She was so petrified she almost forgot to be startled by the fact that her three friends’ bodies that were previously suspended so horrifically in the air were nowhere to be seen. The blood. The blood was still there in a viscous pool on the floor and continuing a globing drip, drip down from the table and chairs.
While scanning the floor for bodies, she entered the kitchen. Carefully, she edged toward the stairs, trying her best not to step in the blood on the floor. Part way there her slipper swept through the puddle accidentally, causing her to slip on the wet tile. Her knees and palms hit the ground hard with a splatter of blood but fueled by adrenaline, she barely felt the pain and scrambled up, lifting herself by the windowsill alongside of her.
Tears welled up in her eyes as she tried to remain steady on her feet and continued toward the exit. It had been her idea for her friends to come over instead of going out to the bars. She had convinced them to stay when Warren wanted to leave around midnight. They’d all been drinking so she insisted on them spending the night. If only she had just let them leave. If only they’d stayed awake and not fallen asleep, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. The regrets threatened to overwhelm her into falling to the ground once more and never getting up.
Wiping her tears away smeared dark streaks of blood down her eyes and cheek. Realizing how much of it was covering her forearms and hands she wiped them on her pants and back of her t-shirt, all the while looking uneasily around the kitchen. A silence-piercing clatter came from the direction of her bedroom. She stopped hesitating and shuffled the last few feet to the top of the stairs and looked warily down to the landing.
The glow through the nine panes on the door created enough backlight for her to vaguely make out the profile of a person, head lobed over to the side, staggering around to face her.
Even in the dark she could see enough of its features and clothing to tell that it was Warren. Her gut instinct told her that her friends had lost too much blood to be alive. She stifled the urge to call out his name. Whatever this reanimated thing was, it wasn’t Warren anymore.
Escaping through a window was her only chance. As quickly as possible she navigated past the blood without slipping and made it back around the corner out of the kitchen. She sprinted down the hallway to the largest windows in the apartment, the floor-length ones that opened onto the Juliet balcony overlooking the courtyard.
She came to a skidding halt and reached down to pull on the foot bolt at the bottom of the window. It came unlocked with a loud clunk. Pausing for a moment, she strained her ears to listen for sounds of movement, wondering where her other friends’ bodies might be. Tears rolled gently down her face.
The apartment was silent. Relief flickered across her mind but just as she switched the deadbolt above the handle, she heard something. A low scuffling noise as if someone was dragging a limp leg was coming from the kitchen.
Panicked and her palm moist from sweat, she gripped the handle futilely several times. She wiped her hands on the front of her shirt and tried the door again. It opened stiffly as she quickly glanced toward the kitchen. There was no sign of Warren but she instantly felt eyes on her from the opposite direction. Reluctantly, with a deep breath, she turned her head slightly to peer toward her right.
Her two friends Miles and Dani staggered toward her from the bedroom. Their lifeless faces blanketed in the blood that had poured from the now clotted gashes across their throats. Without hesitating she stepped onto the narrow balcony, clamored over the railing, and started climbing down the other side. It creaked under her weight in the brisk dawn air as she frantically looked around for something else to grab onto.
Suddenly, an icy hand grasped her white-knuckles that were clenched around the iron rail. She looked up into Dani’s once sweet, joyful face. Horrified, she tried to pry free but its nails dug into her skin. With a yelp, she let go.
The last thing she saw was the lightening sky and the eyes of her dead friends watching her fall onto the spikes of the garden fence below. The rusty metal pierced her three times in the back and twice in the thigh, holding her there for several hours until her neighbor went for a morning run.
If only they hadn’t played with the Ouija board last night.