Fan Friday #2

There it was again. That heavy, oppressive feeling.  It had been bothering Abigail all day. But now that she laid in her bed in her small apartment, alone in the dark quietness of the night, simply texting a few friends, the uncertain miasma that had followed her as she went about her business that day suddenly turned into a blanket of fear. She began to hear some children crying, but almost laughing at the same time. Her eyes widened, and her heart started pounding. She turned on her light and curled into a ball. They were back. Even though she hadn’t felt their presence in a while, she could feel them now, as if they were standing right beside her bed. They were crying, louder and louder. She didn’t know why, she couldn’t even think. She tucked her blanket over her head, and faced away from where they seemed to be wailing. Then it began from the other side of the bed too. She whispered to nobody in particular in sheer terror, “Make it stop, make it stop...”

At that moment, the phone in her hand began to vibrate, and the screen lit up. It was a text from her friend Jaden, whom she had been texting before they showed up.

“Hey, sorry for the late response. Family thing happened .But to answer your question, yeah, it would be pretty great to have everyone get together tomorrow. What did you have in mind?”

She replied as fast as she could, “The ghost children are crying again, what should I do”

A few seconds later, Jaden responded, “Uh, ghost children? Are you sure it’s not real children?”

“Neighbours don’t have any and you know I don’t,” came her reply.

“I’m sure there’s an explanation for this,” he said, attempting to convey a sense of calm as much as much as one could through text messaging.

A few minutes passed without a reply from Abigail. Jaden began to wonder if something was actually wrong. “Hey Abby, are you okay?”

She had tried to get out of bed, to escape, but as she did, amongst the wailing and crying, a child’s voice giggled, and said, “Snip, snip, snip, you run with scissors, then you trip, trip, trip!”

She dove back beneath the covers when the sound of scissors opening and closing began to sound too close to her for comfort. It seemed the bed was the only place that was proven at least remotely safe from the children, so now she lay under the sheets, paralyzed with fear. She hugged herself, unable to think or doing anything else. Then her phone vibrated, and somewhat broke her fearful trance.

“Hey Abby, are you okay?” It was Jaden,

“It’s getting louder,” came the frantic answer. A few moments, be they seconds or minutes passed.

“I know you don’t like it, but I’ll pray for you. God will send an angel or something, I’m sure of it, so you can calm down. You’ll be protected,” was his fateful answer.

***

                Scared out of her wits, she was under the bed covers, with eyes clamped as shut as they could be. The screaming, the crying, the wailing, it was getting to be too much, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could take the maddening caterwauls. A new presence entered the room though. She had never felt this one before.  Then the screeches stopped shortly, but came back. This time though, they were different. The children were unsettlingly seething with rage. A hate emanated in shouts and cries like she had never felt before, and it was all directed at this new presence. Responding to the threat, the enigmatic presence flared with a great and terrifying power that seemed to blot out the presence of the children. That blinding power faded, and still hidden under the sheets, Abigail was filled with a strange mix of calm, exhilaration, and peace. The screaming stopped, and she felt her demented tormentors were gone. The mysterious powerful presence itself lingered for a moment, and then seemed to fade, as if leaving. Abigail pulled the sheets from her head, and looked around. Nothing was out of place, and now she was alone. Her phone vibrated.

                “Everything okay? Are the ghost children still there? ”asked Jaden.

“No, they’re gone,” she texted back. “But I think I’m going to have nightmares about this for a while.”

                “Haha, the important thing is you’re alright, right?

                With that night’s experiences still swimming in her head, she could only respond,“Yeah, I guess...”

-Josh-