The Carousel

Katrina's home life is rough, and when she receives a mysterious package in the mail, she thinks the toy carousel is innocent, but she soon learns that it is anything but...

Katrina softly dabbed the blood as it ran down the side of her face. Her vision was blurry, and she struggled to stand straight in front of the mirror. She looked at herself, and the makeup running down her eyes. Her left temple was bruised and swollen, and she cried more, replaying the events that had just occurred...

Katrina had come home a good fifteen minutes late after school, and her father was angry the minute she walked through the door. "Where were you?!" he asked.

"I stood after to finish some school work." she answered, very introverted.

"You get the work done in school, and you get here on time!" he yelled, holding her chin. "And you look at me when I talk to you!"

She managed to pull her chin out of his aggressive grasp and she shoved her way passed him and down the hall. He grabbed her by the back of her shirt, suddenly yanking her back and cutting her breath for a brief moment. She dropped her books and her purse fell from her arm as she tried to pull the neck of her shirt forward. Her father pulled her to the floor and just looked down at her.

"Why did you do that?!" she yelled.

"Stand up." he said, in a disgusted tone. Katrina stood as he got in her face. "You think you can do whatever the hell you please? Oh! Lets stop what we’re doing! ‘Cause the f****n’ princess walked through the door!" he laughed, mockingly. "Lets kiss her a*s and bow down to the all powerful! Because apparently her s**t don’t stink!"

Katrina shoved passed her father once again, yet he grabbed her arm and pushed her into a wall, bouncing her head off of it. She fell to the ground, her vision getting hazy as she faintly held herself up to look back at her mother. Her mother only looked away, silently, while inhaling from a glass pipe. Katrina got to her feet and picked up her books and her purse. She walked to her bedroom….

Katrina threw the red cloth into her trash barrel and stood, looking out her window. It's been like this in her house for as long as she could remember, and she didn't know how to stop it. She just sighed and realized, there was nothing she could do. That's the family she was born into, then it must be the family she deserved, she thought. She just wished it all could be over.

Katrina's mother walked into the room, disturbing her thoughts. She threw a box on the bed and silently left the room without seeing if her own daughter was okay. Katrina turned to look at the box. It was rather small, and there was no return address or name written on it. She opened it, and there was a toy carousel. On it there were four horses, and four people on those horses. In the middle was a post with mirrors all around it. At the bottom of the box there was a card. She looked at it, and it read; "You're Wish Is Granted…"

Katrina didn’t really know what that meant, but she continued to look at the carousel. She looked into the mirrors, but in the mirrors were not her eyes. She saw two light blue eyes rather than her hazel ones. She couldn’t help but stare into them as the carousel began to spin and play its music. It spun slowly, and the music seemed to get louder and louder, until Katrina’s vision turned to black, and she fell onto the floor...

When Katrina woke up from the black, she felt a strong pain in her head and she sat in the corner of her room with the carousel settled in her lap. She placed the carousel on the hardwood floor beside her and she got to her feet, stumbling a bit before catching her balance. Katrina held her head as she slowly made her way to her bedroom door. Before she could reach it, she felt something wet and warm under her bare foot. She looked down and there was a puddle of blood at her feet. She stepped out of it and followed the puddle to a trail which lead to her closet.

She slowly approached the closet door, and yanked it open, screaming when she saw what was inside. Her father lay, dead and bloody. His stomach had been cut open, from the base of his neck to the bottom of his over-grown belly. Blood soaked was his shirt and a pool of blood surrounded his corpse on the floor. His intestines spilled onto and around his lap, and Katrina could still see his body heat radiating off of the moist organs. Katrina began to hear her own voice in her head, yelling "Die! Die! Die!" and her screaming father, and the sound of skin ripping and organs spilling.

She opened her bedroom door and ran down the hall into the living room. She looked into the kitchen, yelling for her mom, but she got no answer. All she saw in the kitchen was the floor freezer, open wide, sending a cold chill through the kitchen. Katrina walked up to it, slowly, not knowing what to expect. As she looked over the side, she was a bloody arm. Then a bloody leg. Then the rest of a human body. She saw her mother's head cut from the torso, and the rest of her body parts. All cut up and frozen inside the freezer. She heard herself laughing, a terribly, demonic laugh that was not her own. "Do you see me NOW mommy!" she heard.

Katrina screamed and cried as she rushed to the phone in the living room. She dialed 911 and screamed into the phone.

"911 what’s your emergency?"

"Someone killed my parents! There’s blood all over my room! My mom’s all over the freezer! Someone killed them! They’re both dead!" Katrina yelled, and she stood still and silent when she heard a soft tune playing behind her. She turned slowly, to see the toy carousel sedentary on the living room floor. She cried softer as the carousel began to spin and the music grew louder. She took a small step towards it, then another. She picked it up and held it up at eye level, looking into the mirrors, and she saw her own eyes this time...

Four policemen barged into the house about ten minutes later. One officer commanded two to search the kitchen and dining room, as himself and the remaining officer proceeded down the hallway. They searched every room and found nothing until they reached the last door on the right; Katrina’s room. They saw Katrina sitting in a corner, her head slumped down looking into her lap. One officer looked in the closet and held his mouth in shock and disgust. The other man slowly moved towards Katrina, talking softly to her.

"Excuse me, miss?" he said. There was no answer. "Miss, were you the one who called the police?" And once again, no response.

The two other officers walking into the bedroom. "Dalton. A woman’s butchered in the freezer in the kitchen. Everything is just… It’s all cut off."

The officer looked back to Katrina. "Miss… Did you do this to your parents?"

Then, finally, Katrina looked up at the police officer, and she shook her head. "No. The carousel made me do it." and she looked at the carousel as it sat on the foot of the bed. The officer looked back too.

"Okay… We need you to come with us okay?" Katrina slowly stood, as did the officer, and she held out her arms to him. He carefully put handcuffs around her wrists and she smiled at him, deceivingly...

After a short time, Katrina was charged with murdering her family and claimed to be mentally ill. She was sent to a psychiatric ward in Massachusetts. The carousel was taken out of the evidence room and shipped to a charity in Arizona. The charity was for unfortunate children who couldn't afford toys. It was mailed to a little girl about the age of ten.

The little girl happily opened the box and cheerfully held it up in the air and jumped with joy at her new toy. "Mommy look!" she exclaimed. "I got a cool new carousel today!"

"That’s great, hon. It looks old. Make sure you’re very careful with it."

"I will mama!" and the girl ran off to another part of the living room.

She sat on her mattress on the floor and turned the key on the carousel. It began to spin and play a soft tune. The little girl noticed the mirrors on the carousel. She looked at the eyes in the reflection, but they weren’t her emerald green eyes. They were someone else’s hazel eyes. The little girl looked hard at the eyes. Then she placed the carousel on the floor. She turned to face her mother, who smiled before turning away from her daughter and looked out the window...

THE END

Author's Note

Please! Tell me what you think, but don't be too harsh...