CHAPTER 3

Chapter 3

Elsie’s shoulders shook. Tears soaked her cheek. She had awoken again. She was still in her bed. She must still be alive. So many questions stood, but the main one: Had that dream been a dream also? A dream within a dream. Yet, she had to believe it. For else her family would be dead.

It took her an hour to move out of her room. The anticipation, the paranoia, the suspense had caused each sound to be the mysterious Richard’s reappearance. Finally, though, she found herself at her bedroom door.

Her heart had begun to beat against her chest again. The blood rushing through her ears easily defined; deafening. She was hyperventilating. To get it over with, she shoved the door open. She screamed.

She stopped. Nothing was there. The couch was in its normal arrangement, no blood on the floor, nothing to show any sign of a late night murder. Elsie bit down on her lip. So, perhaps it was simply a dream then. She exhaled. That was simple, easy, good.

Her stomach growled. She needed some late morning breakfast. She was craving some eggs. Moving to the refrigerator, she couldn’t wonder what the dude’s actual name was. She reached the grab two eggs in the refrigerator, now. She screamed. Jerking her hand back, she fell on her butt.

Scooting back a couple feet, she stared. Five bowls laid in the refrigerator. They took up all of the room in it. In each sat a head marinating in its own blood. Seconds passed before the true realization dawned upon her. Her stomach flipped.

She twisted to the side and dashed for her bathroom. She barely made it, vomiting into the toilet. Elsie emptied her stomach into the toilet. Once for the dreams, a second for her parents, thrice for the man she never knew, a fourth for her siblings and a fifth for the unknown. Her stomach continued to churn, but she was able to hold it down.

Pictures had immediately begun to assault her mind. Pictures of the dreams, of the blood and the thoughts that came with. Should she call the cops? Yet, the thought battered her mind; what if she had been the ones to kill them. She couldn’t have been the one to do that; they were her family.

Yes, Elsie would have to call the cops. That was for sure.

She inhaled a deep breath as she moved to stand. Her limps were shaking, causing her limbs to wobble but her hangover to be forgotten. She walked through the living room with her head down, skirting around the door of the kitchen with a wide ark. Finding her purse near the door, she dialed the number.

In a thin reply to their question of what was wrong: “Bloody Mary occurred.”

She didn’t know what it meant, but it just simply felt right on her tongue. Elsie didn’t wait for her reply and instead hung up. The phone call seemed to have calmed her nerves and she walked to the couch. There was no sign of hooks now. She wasn’t sure what she would say.

She had been up all night clubbing, came home and fell asleep without impediment. Trying to find some eggs this morning she had found the buckets of bloods and the dead. Perhaps it wasn’t the full truth, but it was what she had told the cops as they arrived.

One of the men puked from the sight, having immediately rushed away to her front yard. She inwardly grimaced at that; the forensics better clean that up.

They asked her a number of questions, almost an endless rap sheet.

“Who are they?” My mother, father, brother, sister and then the unknown.

“What is your connection to them?” Family, none.

“Do you know the John Smith?” No. No I don’t.

“What were you doing last night?” I was out at a party.

“What time did you get home?” I’m not sure; I was too drunk to tell.

The questions repeated, but something had flopped into Elsie’s brain since that morning. Each answer came out almost monotone and she wasn’t sure what she truly felt about this encounter.

 After an hour of it, she had become slightly light headed and asked to sit down. They agreed, but continued to ask their redundant questions.

It was two hours later that they made any break through. A good while before Elsie had noticed she still hadn’t eaten breakfast. It dawned on her it might had been odd to ask for food during the questioning, and therefore had kept her mouth shut, repeating her answers like a broken tape recorder.

Elsie had barely heard the click of the microwaving being opened before someone cussed. The reaction was immediate. The two cops beside her rose to her feet. More men and women flooded the room. They crowded around the microwave.

Their voices grew louder. Shouting, cussing and curses caused Elsie’s footsteps to go unheard.

“What happened?”

Her words went unheard. Elsie bit down on her lower lip. It wasn’t for another moment till she noticed what the hullabaloo was about. Ten eyes had been staked onto a stick and placed in a coffee cup.

Not five minutes passed before she was hauled back to the couch. She couldn’t think as she answered. No, she didn’t answer at all. Finally, she had to speak.

“Whose were those?”

Both of the cops immediately quieted. The pause caused her to grimace. What was wrong?

“Well, we’re suspecting they were the victims,” one of them said. “But it hasn’t been confirmed.”

“What do you mean?” It confused her. The marinating heads had had eyes in them. Hadn’t they? Elsie wasn’t so sure now. She wasn’t sure at all. She hadn’t been looking.

“Are you meaning…” Her voice trailed off into a mumble unheard.

“You didn’t notice?”

“I wasn’t really looking,” she said after a hesitation.

The two cops shared another look before nodding.

She wasn’t sure that they believed her.

By four in the afternoon they had left. The cops had told her to stay at a friend’s house until further notice. She had called an aunt who had agreed, so with the cops, she left too.

It took her an hours to reach her Aunt Mabel’s house. Elsie was welcomed with open arms, dotting over her to an extent. She asked if she was okay every five minutes, if she wanted any food, if she wanted to talk about it, never giving her a second to think alone.

It was time to go to bed before she was left alone. Her aunt had almost tucked her in before Elsie sent her away, but laying in her bed that night, she finally got some alone time.

A small, twisted grin slowly slipped onto her lips as she stared into the darkness. The pictures flipped in her head. The dreams that might not have been a dream had been set on replay and with each repeat her grin only intensified.

The blood she had seen; the blood she had smelt; the blood that had been dealt�"all of it had welcomed a different side of her and was destined for a repeat. They had only been her first victims. There was sure to be more.