"Keeping An Eye On You"

“Keeping An Eye On You”

By Cody Williams

 

1.

Mary Jackson opened the front door of her home where she lived. She had a brown paper bag of groceries tucked under her left arm. Mary reached her right over to her left flipped on the light switch that was just about an inch away from the doorway. The room lit up and seemed out of the ordinary. Her daughter’s Barbie dolls were scattered all over the run in front of the couch but that is how she left them. Mary looked down at her daughter, Caroline, that was standing beside her and smiled. Caroline was about a week removed from her seventh birthday.

            “Caroline, run up stairs and put on your jammies. It’s bed time.” Mary said with a sweet tone her voice.

            “Yes momma!” Caroline answered as she nodded and walked into the house and up the stairs to her bedroom. Mary carried the brown paper bag of groceries into the kitchen and sat them down on the counter. She looked around for a moment. It was as if she could feel that something was different but still couldn’t put a finger on it.

            Mary took off her coat and scarf and hung them on the coatrack beside the back door. She looked down at the deadbolt lock and noticed that it wasn’t locked.

            “I thought I locked that.” She said to herself as she then reached down and turned the lock to lock it. Mary shrugged and put the thought out of her mind just thinking that she had forgotten to lock it before she and Caroline left to go to the grocery. She walked back over to the counter and started to pull the various Campbell’s soup cans out of the bag. Most of them were chicken noodle, Caroline’s favorite. She also pulled a carton of orange juice for Caroline to drink with her pancakes in the morning. Mary placed the orange juice in the refrigerator and caned food in the pantry before she finally made her way to the stairs to tuck her daughter in for the night.

            “Caroline, are you ready for bed?” She shouted out as she stood at the top of the stairs but there was no answer. “Caroline?” She shouted out again but still was given no answer. Mary began to make her way down the hallway to Caroline’s room. She stood in the doorway and stared at her daughter already in bed watching her favorite Sponge Bob DVD. “Caroline, did you hear me? It’s time for bed!” Mary said. Caroline looked over at her mom and smiled at her.

            “Mommy, please let me stay up for ten more minutes! This is my favorite episode!” Caroline said.

            “Caroline, you know the rules. You need to be in bed by 9pm so you can get a good night sleep before school in the morning.” Mary said. Caroline clutched her favorite teddy bear close to her chest and flashed her big brown “droopy eyes”, as Mary often referred to them as, to her mother.

            “Please mommy! Please!” Caroline pleaded with her mother. Mary sighed and then smiled back at her daughter. She walked inside the room and over to the closet door that was cracked open. Mary closed the closet door and then walked back over to the doorway and turned back to face Caroline.

            “Okay, ten more minutes. Then it is off to bed!” She stated.

            “Thank you mommy!” Caroline said pleased and she turned her attention back to the yellow sponge that fascinated her. Mary turned and walked back down the hallway and down the stairs into the living room. She walked over George’s old leather Lay-Z boy that he bought several years back before he decided to “go out and get a pack of cigarettes” and walk out on Mary and his daughter. She sat down in it and turned on the television. Mary looked over to the clock and saw that it read 9:02 pm.

            “Ten minutes” She whispered to herself as she turned her attention to the television.

 

2.

The blaring sound of the opening music for the late night news startled Mary as she woke up. She rubbed her face and let out yawn before she looked over to the table beside her to check the time. The clock read 11:01 pm. Mary yawned again.

            “I must have dozed off. Surely Caroline is asleep by now.” She said still yawning. Mary stood up from her lost husband’s chair, turned off the TV, and walked over to the staircase and began to walk up it. When she reached the top of the stairs, she turned to her left and walked down the hallway to Caroline’s room. She tried to be quiet knowing that she was probably a sleep. Mary walked into her daughter’s bedroom and noticed that Caroline wasn’t there. The bed sheets were thrown from the bed to the floor and her teddy bear was laying face down on the floor to the left of the bed. The closet door that Mary had shut just before she left was cracked open again.

            “Caroline, I’m not playing any games! It’s way passed bed time!” She said as she expected Caroline to walk out of the closet. She didn’t. “Caroline, this isn’t funny! Come out of the closet right now and get into bed!” Mary commanded again. Nothing happed. Mary let out another sigh and walked over to the closet door and opened it. Caroline wasn’t in there. There was a small dinner table that George used when he used to stuff his face with Betty Crocker TV dinners when he got home from work. Sitting on the table was a black video camera and a note written on a State Farm note pad. Mary picked up the note pad and read it.

 

Mary, I sorry to tell you this, you’re daughter will not be able to see you anymore. I’m sorry, but I will not be able to disclose who I am or what I was doing here. However, I will say that I have been keeping a good eye on her for several hours before this went down. But if you want to know what happened to your daughter, watch the videotape in this camera. I made myself a copy too and I have to say, this is probably my best work. I’ll be watching it over and over again until I simply find some other kid or until I get caught. Whatever comes first?

P.S. Your daughter was real fighter. I want you to know that.

P.P.S. Before your watch this little “homemade movie” of mine, I want you to know that it is for mature audiences only.

P.P.P.S. If you want to see your daughter again, all you have to do is look up.

 

            “Look up?” Mary said as tears began to form in her eyes. Mary looked up at the shelf in the closet at something covered by a large blue tarp. As she reached up to take a look at what was under it, a blood covered severed arm that belonged to Caroline, fell from the shelf and down to the floor of her bedroom. Mary let out a loud cry of fear and desperation as the pulled the tarp off of what used to be her daughter.

Copyright 2014 by Cody Williams
Courtesy of TRUE TERROR PUBLICATIONS
A division of TTP Entertainment

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Author's Note

I was going through my Facebook feed yesterday when I stumbled across a story posted by my local news station about a man who broke into peoples houses in a neighborhood, watched their children sleep. One mother found an X-rated VHS tape in her daughter's VHS player. All of the children ended up okay (except for the terrifying shock of a man spying on them and leaping out of their bedroom window of course).

This story is fiction. There's no truth to it. I just took bits a pieces of a news story I read and twisted it into my own terrifying tale. I hope you all like it.

-CW

Reviews

[NoelHC]

An interesting tale, I found the end although expected, as after all that is what you write about, rather repulsive.

I note a number of words missing, and inconsistencies in description that need proofreading. I have enough time to review, and not enough to list them.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Noel! I'll go back through and find them.

-CW

[Jackson H. Harley]

Chilling and dark, love it, great work :D

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Jackson!

-CW

[dw817]

Another nasty squishy little tale. Definitely not for the weak stomached. I could never write at this level of gore. You are definitely going to be in fine form for upcoming October and Halloween ! :)

[Cody Williams]

Thanks so much for reading DW! Halloween is one of my favorite days of the year ;)

-CW

[dw817]

Halloween is Rose's too. Me ? Probably the first snow of the year. That's my favorite day.

[Sharon Kim]

Great write Cody! This played like a movie in my mind. As a mom, this makes me squeamish!

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Sharon. I guess that means that I did my job;)

-CW

[Sharon Kim]

Absolutely! :)

[Dayran]

Sounds like a spill over by a son at the convalescent home ... watching his mother in a coma. It happens I suppose ... but a message to the mother? Clearly the son was going places ... he'd never been before. Nice ...

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Dayran!

-CW

[Katho28]

I was completely immersed in the story. Absolutely terrifying story! Truly has a Gothic feel to it! Love the suspense that you've managed to build up.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Katho

-CW

[Lyn Anderson]

Holy geez Cody, this is awful. But a good story, in an ugly way. Kind of a harsh punishment for a mom falling asleep for a couple hours.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading KL! The news story sure gave me a shock. As soon as I heard of it and found out that the kids were not harmed (physically anyway) my imagination kicked into overdrive. I began thinking about what all could've gone wrong. This is the result of that:)

-CW

[Sami Khalil]

Wow. This is news to me indeed. I enjoyed this story with all its suspense. You can feel the fear of the mother in this wonderful retelling...Bravo...........

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Sami!

-CW

[Sami Khalil]

You are welcome...:).............................