Practice Writing A-1: Babysitting

Writing Practice(s): File A-1

Date Published: 12:00 1 January 2013 (Minnesota Time)

Category: Horror

Title: Babysitting

 

      “Ashley! Can I have some ice cream?”

      “Did you finish your dinner?”

      “Yeah! See?” the little girl held up her spotless plate triumphantly.

      “OK, you can have some ice cream,”

      “Yay!” she cried with glee.

      I smiled pleasantly. This was my very first babysitting job and things were already going really well. Little Suzie ate all of her Mac ’n’ cheese without a fuss, I fed the dog (who was sleeping quietly upstairs in his kennel), all the chores were done, and Mr. and Mrs. Gardlon will be home in less than an hour. Not bad for my first day at my new job.

      “Alright my big eater-“I tickled her in the stomach and she giggled in delight. “-what kind of ice cream do you want?”

      “Chocolate strawberry!”

      “Alrighty then, one chocolate strawberry sundae coming right up!”

      I opened the freezer and searched the shelves. I frowned and double checked each shelf. No ice cream.

      “Hey, is there another fridge with some more ice cream or do I have to go to the store and get some more?”I called back.

      “There should be some in the freezer downstairs!”

      “The basement?”

      “Mm-hm,”

      “Alright, I’ll get it,” I walked to the basement door and opened it. The Gardlons had an unfinished basement, which gave it an eerie atmosphere at night. They also weren’t big on keeping it clean, which added to its creepiness.

      I hopped down the uncarpeted stairs, thankful that I was wearing socks to avoid getting any splinters from the rough floorboards. I shivered.

      Ugh, this place is filthy. I contemplated ruefully. I hated creepy, dirty places.

      My feet connected with the floor at the bottom of the stairs and echoed softly off the dusty walls. I shivered. It was freezing down here.

      Maybe I should have grabbed a sweatshirt or something. I reflected and waited for my eyes to adjust before scanning for the fridge. Something tall and white and bulky appeared out of the corner of my eye. I smiled at the sight of it. The fridge.

      Thank goodness. I thought with relief and rushed to the pallid appliance and opened the freezer. It only took me a moment to find the ice cream and snatch it from its place on the top shelf and close the magnetic door.

      A huge peal of thunder crashed from outside, shaking the house slightly. I stopped and swiveled my head around to look behind me, almost certain I had heard something shatter, but everything was still in its place, nothing broken.

      I shrugged and was about to head back up the unfinished staircase when something creaked behind me. My brow furrowed and I turned my head back around suspiciously. The sound was odd, since the floor was made of concrete and the only wood came from the supports of the unfinished walls and the heaping piles that lay on the floor. It sounded like something you would hear out of a movie or something, like someone stepping onto the old wooden floor of a haunted house.

      Monstrous peals of thunder boomed out in the newly brewing storm. I suddenly flinched for no reason; maybe the sound had startled me, which only puzzled me, since I loved the continual pitter of rain the din of thunder during a good storm. It had never bothered me before.

      I peered at the window out into the raging thunder storm, but what met my eyes was something else entirely. A girl, maybe a few years younger than me with short black hair that only reached about halfway down her neck, but with unusually long bangs that covered half her face and grew below her chin, was standing outside. Unmoving and staring at the wet ground. Draped over her was a bright red rain coat, the color of newly blossomed roses.

      I wondered if maybe she was a neighbor or something, though I didn’t recognize her. Maybe she and her family had recently moved in and I simply hadn’t met them yet. Maybe Suzie knew who she was.

      I shrugged the thought off and rushed upstairs before Suzie would begin to wonder what had become of me on my quest to fetch her some strawberry and chocolate ice cream.

      I gently kicked the door shut behind me and smiled at Suzie the Cute and set the ice cream down on the table.

      She smiled at first and then it vanished and stared up at me with curiosity.

      “Where’s the whip cream?”

      My smile was replaced by a puzzled expression. “What?”

      “You forgot the whip cream! You can’t have ice cream without whip cream!” she explained innocently but seriously, as if was as important and essential as the chocolate on a s’more.

      “OK then, I’ll just get some from the fridge…” I started and stepped towards the kitchen refrigerator just to my right.

      “No, no! It’s in the basement fridge downstairs!”

      I put my hands on my hips. “Why is everything in the fridge downstairs, why not in this fridge?”

      “Not everything is in the downstairs fridge, just the desserts,” she explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

      “Why?” I questioned and raised an eyebrow at her.

      “My-my daddy’s on a diet so my mommy hides all the desserts downstairs so he isn’t tempted,”

      I shrugged, satisfied with the answer. “I guess that makes sense. OK, I’ll be right back with the whip cream,”

      “Yay!!” she cheered just as I was making my decent down the flight of stairs for the second time.

      I rolled my eyes and shook my head, smiling to myself. Little kids, what are you gonna do? I joked and opened the door opposite of the freezer and scanned for the delectable white topping. I reached into the back of the second shelf from the bottom and pulled out the half full plastic container.

      CRASH!! I jumped at the unexpected noise, screeching momentarily and almost dropping the plastic container in my hands.

      What in the world was that? I wondered and stepped towards the source of noise to investigate. My eyes strained in the dim light. A small side table lay on its side and not far from its head was a shattered red flower vase. A lone wilting blood-red rose lay within a puddle of water spilled onto the cold concrete floor.

      I gently picked up the dying flower and examined it. That’s weird, what’s a beautiful flower like this doing down here?

      After several minutes of staring at the beautiful blossom I eventually shrugged. I passed by the window and was about to start up the stairs but paused.

      My feet guided me backwards to the window. I stared out into the stormy atmosphere in a mixture of awe and confusion. The girl in the red rain coat was still there, in the exact same position I left her in. Only something was slightly off. My eyes widened in horror when I realized exactly what it was.

      In her hand was crimson stained butcher knife. Her entire body was caked in the red liquid. Her head slowly lifted. I gasped and covered my mouth with my hands to keep myself from screaming. Her entire half of her face was drenched in blood and her visible eye glared with a piercing red light at me with undeniable hatred, as if she smiled before or ever been shown any love.

      I looked on in horror at the sight of her. I froze, dropping the whip cream and sprinted up the steps.

      “Suzie!”I screamed and pushed open the door. But I was too late. Lying in a puddle of scarlet was a mangled, lifeless Suzie.

      I started to wobble and get a dizzy feeling in my head before I collapsed on the floor and passed out.

*****

      I sat defeated in a pathetic bundle of tears and dried blood. The next door neighbor had rushed over, claiming she heard me scream and then found me unconscious on the floor next to Suzie.

      The police think that after I woke up I tried to perform CPR put blacked out within minutes of trying to do so. The neighbor, Mrs. Cramblin, called 911 and Mr. and Mrs. Gardlon.

      I wiped my eyes just as they brought out Suzie on a gurney covered with a white sheet. Burying my face in my knees, I wept. This was not how I wanted my first babysitting job to go.

      Someone tapped my shoulder. I looked up with tears in my eyes. It was a man in a police uniform who looked to be about in his late twenties.

      “Hey Ashley, can you come with me for just a second? We just want to ask you a couple of questions,”

      “OK,” I complied and went with him, clutching the blanket that had been given to me and draped over my back.

      I was led back into the Gardons’ household and sat down on the couch. In the other room I could hear the sounds of Mr. and Mrs. Gardon weeping bitterly at the loss of their daughter. For several minutes I sat there, listening to their crying and the officers trying to calm them. Finally, after almost twenty minutes they entered the room with two other police officers and were seated on the couch to my left. The younger of the two officers sat down in an armchair to my right while the older one, a tall man with a bushy red mustache, stood with his arms crossed next to his young partner.

      “OK, so Ashley, let’s start with you. What exactly happened?” asked the younger officer gently.

      I took a deep breath. “Well, everything started out pretty normal, I went downstairs to get Suzie some ice cream and I saw this girl in the window. I didn’t really think much of her at the time; I thought she was a new neighbor or something,”

      “What did the girl look like?”

      “She had short black hair with really long bangs and she was wearing a red raincoat that looked a little too big for her,”

      “About how old did this girl look?”

      “Um, maybe about the same age as Suzie,”

      “Alright, what happened after you saw this girl in the window?”

      “Well, I went back upstairs and Suzie said she wanted some whip cream too, so I went back downstairs to get some and I heard this shatter. I went over look and found this red vase broken on the floor along with this rose. I picked it up and was about to go back upstairs when I noticed something in the window,” I paused, not wanting to relive that gruesome scene.

      “What did you see lass?” asked the officer with mustache in an Irish accent.

      “I saw the girl. She had this bloody knife in her hand and looked like she had gone swimming in blood. She looked up and glared at me and I ran upstairs to make sure Suzie was OK,” I hesitated for moment. “That’s when I found her,”

      Mrs. Gardon let out an exaggerated sob.

      “Wait,” interrupted Mr. Gardon, who was trying to comfort his wife and talk to me at the same time. “You said you saw this girl out the window right?”

      I nodded. “Yeah,”

      He shook his head. “What windows are you talking about?”

      I furrowed my eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

      “I mean there are no windows in the basement,”

      My eyes widened. “What?”

      “There are no windows in the basement, just mirrors,”

      My heart seized up and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. The girl was never outside the house, she was inside, and she was right...behind...

      I collapsed and blacked out in an unconscious heap on the couch.

Author's Note

I post these practice writings every two weeks. Let me know if you have any requests.

Reviews

[She With Eyes Like Unsh..]

Wow! That is totally freaky! I loved it! Great job!