Brother Sister, Brother, BrotherSister

Note: I tried Horror exactly once as a long-form story and it ended up better matching an Urban Fantasy or Paranormal.

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The first night, no matter how dangerous, how bullheaded, and unbelievably insensitive to Donna's constant badgering or the motherly hysterics from Mom, Cole had visited Josh's little grave when his sister had first been lost.

Following a long, long, loooong coming "first date," with who had seemed a sweet, somewhat dweeb of a Tony McGuire fanboy.

There was a sleet of harsh rain at two eighteen in the morning, battering the cemetery. Completely stealing away his voice having barely opened his lips.

After all, shadows among the stones, or peeling up and down from the green bed of grass and jauntily blossoming sprouts from fresh mounds could very well be ghosts. And the very moon in the sky full and lustrous, was really a metallic drone watching and recording.

"I'm telling you little brother there's something out there. I knew that upswing of reported crop circles had been important. It's such a cliche but its completely possible they either don't care or don't think its important. For goodness sake if they've committed the perfect kidnapping not to mention figured intergalactic space travel what do they care about what us bugs think are patterns," he ranted and raved. Sounding crazy as always, in just the way that drove Donna insane. In just the way that swept him up and could sweep him away from his thoughts.

Of the too small, too beautiful gravestone. But Josh deserved nothing less, had been so, so much, and died much too young one summer's afternoon on a camping trip upstate with his scout troop.

Dad had spitefully sued the neglectful teens on duty and in fact the entire chapter to the ground.

"Dad wants to kill Zack," Cole informed to the silent marble. Not much of a marvel, hardly worth the waver. Despite knowing the poor, sweet guy was the last person to have been guilty. "No really, not just the usual, though that was funny to watch," and a genuine if not brittle smile came to him at the thought.

Then again, there'd been some tempers flown at Donna too, she hadn't told anyone they'd transitioned to dating.

"Let me tell you about what I found out, see there's this Occult website that sells really well and their products actually look homemade. Each one has its own flare," he continued on, smile hitched on his face, gleaming oddly in the scant light, "I-- I bought this salt, see we'd have maybe gone demon hunting around the woods and other such places dotted around, it's supposed to protect against demons and evil spirits."

Cole emptied the hemp bag in a negligible circle, careful with each palmful, that about half still turned to paste in the storm.

Saying a prayer, about twenty or so minutes later, Cole said his goodbyes and biked against the wet pavement, slippery and squeaking, fighting the tires and shocks of his once shiny new mint bicycle.

Able to creep back into the yard through the purposefully unlocked lawn gate sopping wet and stripping down to his boxers disposing of the offending clothes in an empty basin meant to be filled with a sizeable plant. Alarm set for a couple hours so he could take up collecting and piling the clothes into a couple hours with the dryer.

Well, that night turned to two then three and four, for five weeks without exception. He began to resemble a skin walker himself off his conspiracy boards, constantly grimy, stinking of wet soil, so, so grimy, itching everywhere scraping his nails across flesh to rash-worthy red.

Cole had been forced to admit, exclusively to himself that when the sound of the pipes dripping just underneath the wall, was his own heart, somehow outside his chest someone somehow dead. That something, some unholy thing wanted to devour him that he may have been losing his mind just a little.

He had admitted to a lesser crime, he admitted to meandering //inside// the house at odd hours unable to rest, so his parents permitted he skipped school.

And selfish as it was, Cole couldn't help but boast that included an exam in the dreaded literature class.

It took something of a terrible person, that once his head did hit a pillow, Cole slept without complaint. Without nightmares and without question. Of whether Donna would live or die. When. Or if she was found.

And in fact they did find her.

A very nice homeless man called the police and with the proper tests done did in fact ascertain there'd been no foolishness.

And the momentary flash, red and made of primal, inherited vitriol abated.

The good man had done a very good thing.

A very, very good thing.

"Hi! My name's Donna! I'm four years old! I don't, I don't know my full address yet," she said, hand distorting her words.

"Oh!" she shot out, pointing to Mom, "that's my Mom, her see and Dad too."

She giggled at her shaved head, squealed in naive curious fear of the bandage at her head.

Making her whole family flinched in how closely she fingered a blatant hole that had caved her head. Slick and sticky with blood, too much blood and fluid.

Somehow Cole still slept through the nights.

Some nights he did sleep through the way Donna wandered around the hall where the bedrooms are, eyes wide and in some way glazed. Somehow dusted with a silver there hadn't been before.

Other nights he heard her, humming an absent, toneless song in an airy fairy-like voice. Fitting for her delicate, ethereal young age.

In all seriousness, Donna had never been so, so... dim yet curious.

Her little red black button up easter dress always came back as clean as she had left in it.

However the doctors had said to expect it.

Even if it did prickle uncomfortably at Cole.

The little parts of Donna that came out wrong from that place she had been in.

But four year old Donna had cried when fed celery and broccoli at that age. Which had allowed him to be the good one for once.

And now she balked at the concept of meat and the dead animal.

Mom and Dad, the doctors, heads lowered in such pity concede all the manner of gruesome things she could have encountered.

Once the concept had finally sunk in, that like some fairytale her brother had grown big without her, she clung to his every word and asked a myriad of questions.

An otherwise perfect impression.

If it weren't for the unnatural misted shine of her green eyes and the sheer oddity of her childish smile.

Cole tossed and turned at night. The word skating across his brain.

Skin walkers. Dead. Changing faces, skin dirty becomes clean. Crops. No hair, no prints. No struggle at all.

FAKE.

Donna, was a fake.

His breath had just about turned to ice when the door knob turned.

Creak

Creak

Creak

Eyes bored down his nape.

Cole reluctantly sucked in a breath past the sudden marble in his throat.

"Are you awake?" she asked shyly, maybe wringing her hands.

"I had a nightmare, I was scared."

Cole kept his silence.

"Can I sleep with you?"

//I'll keep the nightmares away!//

Cole had once declared that, announcing an impromptu sleepover as the neglected older children with that pink ham named Josh around.

The thing that looked like his sister crawled into the covers.

Settling in contentedly next to him lying close enough that her nose touched his back.

"Are you okay? You're tense, really, real tense."