Bloody Murder by Holden Wennekers

She’d heard Annie screaming bloody murder in the kitchen and ran to find her daughter backed up in the corner crying like a child trembling holding herself with broken glass all over.

“Jesus Christ, Annie,” says her mother. Annie stares petrified up at the air around. The whole kitchen terrifies her and her skin is pale and her mouth is gaped open.

“Annie, can you hear me? Annie?! Get up now! And clean up this goddamned mess.”

“Mother!” She cries hoarsely.

“Annie!” shouts her mother. Her mother hadn’t notice the blood trickling down from Annie’s leg.

“Jesus Christ, Annie, aren’t you about the biggest klutz on planet earth.”

“Mother!” she cries.

“Clean this mess up, now!”

Annie looks behind her mother in pure jolting terror and her mother shifts around quickly to see what’s behind her but there’s nothing there. Nothing but the kitchen window looking out the backyard, dewy and fogged up from autumn. Annie rises with blood trickling down her leg.

“Annie! You better clean this mess up, now! Or I swear to God, Annie! You’re not too old for foster-care yet!”

“Oh mother, please,” Annie cries. “You say the same old tired things over and over like a broken record.”

“Don’t you talk back to me you little shit!”

“Mother! I’ll clean the mess! Jesus Christ, just leave me alone!”

“You’re a goddamned klutz, Annie. That’s why you’ll never marry and you’ll never have children.”

“MOTHER!” Annie sobs.

“You’ll never do anything with your life and you’ll die an old maiden, and I’ll die having wasted my life raising you: the failure.”

“Mother, please! Don’t take your misery out on me!” Her crying face was ugly like that of a newborn’s. Her mother didn’t say a word more, but her face remained the same inverted scowl staring at her daughter. Annie cries and her blood-shot eyes dart about the kitchen.

“Clean up the glass, Annie, and clean up your blood.” Annie lets out a painful wail, stood there like a ghoul. “Or don’t bother, Annie! I don’t care anymore. Swallow some of that glass while you’re at it, why don’t you.”

Annie collapses to the floor in a sobbing mess and her mother leaves the kitchen. She bleeds and sobs for a while more before silence gives way and she lay there like some bloody doll until she hears her mother leave the home slamming the door behind her.

Annie rises, wipes her tears, kicks broken dish glass aside and grabs the phone. Dials Megan.

Megan lay in her bed sheets calm and serene reading a peculiar book when her phone begins to ring on her bedside table. She answers and suddenly isn’t so calm as Annie begins abruptly babbling in frantic sobs.

“Slow down!” says Megan. “Annie, what’s going on?! What happened?!”

“I saw her.”

“Saw who?”

“Her…”

Megan pauses a moment as it dawns on her. “Rebecca?”

“YES!”

“Okay, Annie, calm down. Where’d you see her? In your dream?”

“No! In the kitchen. I saw her floating in the kitchen.”

“Floating? Annie, what the hell are you talking about?”

“She was floating and bleeding and she looked all smashed up like she had when she fell, all bloodied and mangled—oh Christ! she was mutilated, Megan. She was bleeding all over.”

“Annie, calm down. Just take a deep breath.” Annie does. “Feel better?”

“No.”

“Annie, are you sure you did just have an hallucination?”

“No. I didn’t. Megan, I swear to god. She was splattered like some zombie and her skin was all grey and cracking like plaster, her hair was black and floated all snakish and her whole body and clothes were all rotten and ripped-up and rippling like she was floating underwater and h— her mouth was all gaped open, an—and—oh God, Megan, there was so much blood. But, Megan—oh, Megan—the minute my mother entered the kitchen, the blood was gone, and she was gone, Rebecca was gone! Megan! She’s come back to haunt us!”

“Annie, how long has it been since you last slept?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t slept much since the night it happened. Since we—“

“Oh Annie... Is your mother home?”

“No, she isn’t.”

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’ll come over at once.”

Megan hangs up the phone and rushes downstairs to grab her coat. Her mother sits on the couch in the living room watching TV. Bill Dolemen of channel 49 news reporting live from the forest where they’d found the dead teenager, days prior. Mother looks up at Megan.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asks. “Mother! Annie’s in trouble!”

“What’s happened now?”

“Um…our ethics exam, in—um—philosophy class. She didn’t study for the exam, but I did, so I need to help her study or she’ll fail the exam.”

Her mother stares, silent, slightly hesitant to say what she wants to say next. “Megan?”

“Yes?”

“Are you lying to me?”

“No, no I’m not.”

“Megan.”

She rolls her eyes, sighs. “What is it, mother?”

“Megan, where were you three nights ago?”

“Three nights ago?”

“Yes, three nights ago.”

“I- I was in bed, mother. Where else would I have been?”

“Are you sure you didn’t sneak out with Annie?”

“Why would I do something like that?”

“I don’t know…”

“Well, I didn’t. I was in bed, sleeping, mother.”

“Okay… Alright, Megan, I believe you.”

“Thank you, mother.”

Megan leaves.

She takes her bike from the garage and pedals through the gloom and the fog of the night past the trees down the sidewalk lit dim by the street lamps in the fog and cat-walks and down a grassy bike path and alley between the houses of the neighbourhood as the crisp autumn air and wind rustles the trees. She rides six minutes south until she makes it to Annie’s house. The door is open.

Megan enters. No light is lit in the house. She finds Annie sobbing in a state of confusion in the kitchen amongst broken glass and dried up blood.

“My god!” shouts Megan as she runs over to help sobbing Annie off the ground and up the stairwell to the bedrooms.

“It’s going to be okay, Annie. It’s going to be okay.” Annie sobs. Her bleeding leg is dried and crusted and her eyes are sunken deep like caverns, her skin pale and sweated, almost greyish. Her cries lethargic as though the tears took their toll on her physical stamina.

Annie bleeds.

She leads Annie down the gloomy hallway to the her bedroom into the bathroom where she runs hot water in the bathtub, and helps Annie strip herself out of her tattered dress and into the hot bath water. Annie sobs. She pours lavender soap and washes Annie as she cries. Megan dries Annie’s cold nude body, changes her into her PJs and guides her to her bedroom, through the dark azure gloom of the hallway. Annie takes only a few steps from the bedroom, the cold soles of her bare feet damp on the carpet, before she stops in the darkness stiff as though baring witness to some grotesque apparition. Megan looks where Annie looks and sees nothing but the darkness.

“Annie? Annie what is it?”

Like glass smashing Annie shrieks bloody murder bursting Megan’s eardrum as she runs sheerly panicked shrieking like some raucous banshee back to the bathroom of the bedroom where she slips on the floor tiles and bangs her shoulder and chin and chips her tooth. Megan comes rushing in screaming “Annie!” helping the sobbing damsel up, guiding her crying essence to her bedroom.

“Annie, you’ve got to get a hold of yourself.”

Annie says nothing. She’s shivering, eyes darting around. Megan lays her on her bed and strokes her hair as she sobs.

“She’s out there, Megan.”

“No she’s not.”

“Yes she is.”

“No she’s not, Annie. She’s dead. You saw it. I saw it. She’s dead. Listen to me. She did not come back as a ghost. You hear me Annie? She did not come back as a ghost.”

“I saw her, Megan, I saw her, in the kitchen. She’s mad at us, Megan. She’s really mad at us.”

“This is silly.”

“I’m not going crazy, Megan. I know what I saw.”

“I’m not saying that you’re crazy. I’m just saying that it doesn’t make any sense. You saw Rebecca?” Megan laughs.

“Rebecca’s angry at us. She told me.”

“It could’ve been an hallucination.”

“It wasn’t, Megan. I swear to God, it wasn’t.”

“You said it yourself, Annie. When your mom came in the kitchen, Rebecca was gone and so was the blood.”

“Yeah.”

“The only blood I saw in the kitchen was coming from your leg, Annie.”

Annie says nothing a moment. Stares off into the darkness and lets her mind wander. Then she realizes something horrible and her eyes widen. Not at the sight of a ghost, but the remembrance of something she’d forgot to tell her friend.

“Megan. Megan.”

Annie wasn’t looking at her. She looked into the darkness.

“Annie, what is it?”

“I… I forgot to tell you something, Megan.” Now she looks into Megan’s eyes with whimpering glumness begging for mercy, and speaks in a ghostly whisper as though dying.

“What, what is it? You didn’t tell anyone what we did? Did you?”

“Oh, no. No, Megan, I didn’t. I didn’t say a word to anyone about what we did. Only you and I know.”

Megan smiles.

“But, Megan. Megan, I forgot to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

“M- My bracelet. My gold rose bracelet.”

“What about it?.”

“I—I can’t find it. I can’t find it, Megan.”

“When did you last have it?”

“I… I… Oh god…”

Megan laughs a nervous titter. “Y- You didn’t…” Annie nods.

They walk through the gloom of the night like two glass doll figurines and Megan holds her flashlight. She left her bike at Annie’s house. She holds Annie’s hand as they clutch onto one another for warmth in the cold. It must be midnight as the moon hangs above and the streets are quiet and empty with houses pitch dark and street lamps dimmed and foggy as though Megan and Annie were the only two left in this world.

They walked several miles north past the school and the library until they made it to the woodlot on the edge of town, separated from the neighbourhood by a multilane highway stood dark and empty in the gloom. The girls run across.

The woods are dark and massive and hilly sloping down towards a river creek near the waterfall. Megan’s flashlight leads them further down the woods to the cliff looking off into the expanse of the valley of trees. This was the spot, Annie remembered: The spot they’d lured Rebecca.

It’d been Megan’s idea and Annie played along. Annie stood by the cliff as Megan shone her flashlight over the bushes and the oak tree looking for Annie’s bracelet. The wind blew faint past the trees under the moonlight.

Annie asked Rebecca to come. She was closer a friend to Rebecca than Megan was. She and Rebecca had lived on the same street before Rebecca moved away. She had no issues sneaking out of her house that night and neither did Annie or Megan. They met at the high school on the football field near the cheerleader’s practice zone and crossed the highway in a trio sprinting past the blaring horn and bright headlights of a big rig truck, skipping past the behemoth in the nick of time.

Megan laughed.

“Megan, that was stupid,” said Rebeca. “You could’ve killed us.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t.”

Megan said nothing more, just smiled.

They walked under moonlight up the path to the cliff and when they made it they looked over the edge at the expanse. The woods and the valley of trees dark in the gloom.

“It’s so beautiful,” said Rebecca. Megan and Annie stood behind Rebecca, looking at the back of her head and her beautiful hair.

Megan stepped forward and Rebecca heard her. Turned around, saw her smile.

Megan pushed her off the cliff.

Rebecca tripped, fell backwards, wailing in horror, her bellows grew fainter to the point of silence giving way to a sudden smacked and splatter against the ground below.

Annie’s face dropped from smile to horror as pain, shame and guilt hit her all at once. What have we done?

Megan still smiled.

Out of the faintness of the silence they heard echoey cries at the bottom of the cliff. Megan stopped smiling. They looked at one another shocked then ran to peer over the edge. They saw her crawling ant-sized down there trying to rise as she moaned like some haunted ghoul in a graveyard shuffling and bleeding all over. Megan looked to Annie with a face of horror.

“How the hell could she be alive?”

Annie had no answer.

Megan looked at Rebecca way down there at the bottom of the cliff then looked at Annie and said that they needed to hurry to cement their offering.

Annie didn’t say anything. Megan peered into her eyes concerned as though attempting to look into Annie’s mind.

“Annie? Annie, what’s wrong?”

Annie didn’t answer. Megan snapped her fingers in Annie’s ear and Annie looked at her and Megan said “Do you hear me, Annie?”

Annie nodded.

“Alright. Good. Come on then.”

She took Annie’s limp wrist and led her down the hill past the trees until they made it to the bottom of the cliff. They watched Rebecca, Megan fascinated. Annie gazed upon Rebecca blankly.

Megan smiled.

Rebecca staggered bleeding from what looked to be everywhere. Her face was all ripped up and puffed and her mouth was bleeding frothy pink, her hands destroyed with her right hand snapped at the wrist, bone sticking out, legs twisted with bones out the knees. She appeared a gory caricature splattered in its own blood. She cried faint and weak and moaned confused horror.

Megan rushed over in mock exasperation to help Rebecca.

“My god, are you okay? You took quite a fall.”

Rebecca looked over at Megan slowly with her one eye stared petrified, so wide it looked like she didn’t have eyelids. Megan took her by her wrist—the left one, snapped and flimsy—leading Rebecca back up the way they came. Annie followed.

She stood there watching them as Megan stood next to Rebecca overlooking the valley at the top of the cliff.

Her eyes watched as Megan once again guided Rebecca forward towards the edge. Off the cliff. Rebecca fell without screaming, landing with such a violent ghastly thud that it seemed redundant to even look over and check.

Megan smiled at Annie. “She’s not getting up this time.” Megan stopped smiling once she noticed Annie was not smiling and asked Annie what was wrong. Annie didn’t answer.

When the police found Rebecca’s corpse that afternoon the medical coroner had assumed Rebecca committed suicide. Her parents were adamant that she hadn’t. She couldn’t have. She was a happy teenaged girl. Why would she kill herself? Medical coroners did however take note of the peculiar and ever-apparent indications that somehow Rebecca had managed to fall off the cliff twice.

Megan hadn’t been at all worried. Annie had been a complete mess thereafter, but her mother hadn’t notice, so she’d been left to deal with the horror alone in the darkness of her bedroom, and from the moment she’d gotten home she’d felt Rebecca’s presence all around her. One night, the night after, she smelled blood and heard it dripping and pooling on the carpet in her bedroom closet. Saw a reddish glow, heard a hellish hum in the blinders.

“I found it!” Megan yelled to Annie by the bush. Annie came over silent and dull minded and Megan looked at her, her enthusiasm dropped. “My god. Have you gone into another one of your spells?”

Annie didn’t answer. Stared blankly. Megan rose and handed her the bracelet and Annie took it limply and held it flimsy as though it weren’t hers

“Hey, Annie.”

Annie says nothing. Looks at Megan.

“If you held the planet in your hands, would you crush it?” Annie doesn’t answer. “Annie, you’d better stop this strange aloof act. Whatever you’re doing. If your mother sees you like this she may catch on and find out what we did. Would you want that? Would you want her to find out?”

“I thought you said we have powers” says Annie.

“I- I did. I did say that, and it’s true. But we must be smart, Annie. We have to act reasonably. Do you understand?”

Annie nods.

“So would you?”

“Why would you want to destroy the planet?”

“Because, it’s ugly.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Yes it is.”

“What about the valley, and the trees, and the moon”

Megan smiles. “All tainted by the fun we had with Rebecca.” Annie looks away from her to the valley, at the darkness.

“We should get going,” says Megan.

She takes her hand. They turn around. Their eyes pop open. Megan screams first. They both jump back. Heels inches from the edge.

Rebecca hovers over them, dripping blood, battered-up, disfigured, eyes glowing. The girls screaming bloody murder clutching onto one another.

Rebecca smiles, her jaw drops, her arm rises bent in three places, she points her gangly deformed hand and ghastly finger forward at them, her jaw rips off falling to the blood below and she points to the valley of the trees and melts into blood.

Megan loses her footing over the edge of the cliff as they cling to one another shrieking tripping falling backwards into the blackness as their echoey screaming grows faint giving way to an ominous violent thud at the bottom. The trees rustle in the wind in the valley.

They find the bodies in the morning, after both their mothers find their bedrooms empty.

How peculiar, the girls, all jumped off the same cliff.

The End