The Wind

The floor creaks as I slowly walk to the bathroom. The hair stand up on my arms as the door squeals as I open it. “Shhh,” I whisper to myself, I don’t want to wake anyone else in the house. I make it inside the bathroom and crack the door. I turn the knob to start the water to fill up the tub. This is our first night at our ‘new to us’ house, we spent all day moving in and I just need a bath. The house is an old Victorian style house; it’s the typical old house on the hill, except it isn’t creepy.

The bath was finally done filling up, I hate that we don’t have a shower…Oh well. I slowly get into the bath, and the water is scalding hot. I adjust to the temperature and start to relax. Click Clack Click Clack. Footsteps come down the hallway; my heart starts to pound as I sink down in the bathtub hoping nobody comes in. The footsteps stop a few feet away from the bathroom. The floor creaks then silence. Nothing. I wait a minute before I sit back up in the bathtub.  I wonder what that was. Maybe it was the cat, the footsteps were a little heavy, but it was probably the cat. I hurry up and start to finish up in the bath. I drain the tub and step out. I’m drying off and suddenly the door swings open and gush of air almost knocks me on the ground.  I stumble back and slip on some water and hit my head on the tub getting knocked unconscious.

My eyes slowly open as I hear my frantic mother yelling for my father to come to the bathroom. “Adrian, Adrian, are you okay?” my mother says lifting my head off the cold bathroom floor. My head is throbbing and the side of my face is hard and swollen. “What happened? How did you end up in here, Adrian?” my mother shouts once she realizes I am more awake. I stand up with the help of my father who just entered the bathroom, “I really don’t know, I got out of the bath and the door swung open and that’s all I remember. I figured I woke one of you guys up.”  My father leads me to my bedroom to lie down, “You didn’t wake any of us up, son, just relax and rest your head. We will take you to the doctors soon.”

My parents leave the room and I start to think about the night before, who opened the door? What was the wind that blew me over? If what were those footsteps? My mind is just racing in a million places. My head starts to hurt and I put the thought in the back of my mind and started to relax. My eyes start to close when I hear something above me. Click Clack BANG. Silence again. My room gets eerily cold and a breeze starts to blow in my room.  “MOM! MOM, DAD!” I yell as I start to cover my head with the quilt. The room starts turning gray as the breeze turns into a tornado like wind, a cyclone spirals around my rooms walls as they turn more and more gray. The furniture along the walls is gone, faded away into the gray. The cyclone starts to die down when suddenly a burst of air shots from all 4 walls.

It’s dark; I’m no longer on my bed, but on a wooden floor. I hear faint piano music start to play from a distance. I look around the room and catch a glimpse of light coming from under a door. I start to crawl towards it when I hear someone coming, I stop. “Wendy, how dare you act like this in front of our guests? The mayor has come a long a way from town to visit with your father!”  I lean in closer and hear a girl mumbling. I can see feet from under the door now and crawl backwards just in case the door is opened.  “1900 is going to be a glorious year for us, Wendy, please don’t spoil this for us!”  I hear someone walk down the stairs, and again, there is silence. I start to stand when the door creaks open, and a girl with brown hair slowly creeps in with a candle. I stumble back and trip over something. The girl’s eyes dart towards me and she gasps “You’re here?” The girl forms a thin smile as she walks towards me and offers a hand. Hesitantly, I take it.  I stand and brush myself off, “You know me?” I ask the girl, “Yes. I’m Wendy,” She replies “Follow me.” She lights a few more candles and I realize where I’m at: My bedroom.  “I’ve been watching you, Adrian. You have trespassed on my sanctuary.” I guess she could see the confusion on my face.  She closes her eyes, and the candles flicker, the girls thick brown hair slowly turns to a dull tan color and turns into a star like texture. Her full cheeks sink in and slowly holes of rotted flesh start to form around her cheeks and mouth. Her eyes sink in and they fall out on the floor in front of me. This girl that was so alive just seconds ago turned into a corpse right before my eyes. The smell of death fills my nose and I back up in disgust. “They let me die, they heard me and they didn’t come, they killed me.” She screeches “This was the only place I was safe.”

Terrified I back up against the wall, “I didn’t kill you, why are you telling me this?” The girl gets closer and closer “This is my sanctuary, you intruded in my room, this is where no one could touch me and you took that all away. When your people came and painted my room, they painted over all of my art. When they put new floors over MY floors, they covered my footsteps, my blood, and my tears.” A single tear falls from the hollow eyes “When nobody wanted me this is where I was, I cried, and this was where I was safe, and then he came in and beat me. They heard my pleas and they heard my cries, the saw me and just closed the door.”

The girls fell backwards and turned to dust. The room got dark and once the light returned and I was back in my room.  It must have been all a dream. I walk over to the corner of my room and try to dig up the corner of the carpet, out of curiosity. I peel back the carpet, keep peeling and peeling until I reach my bed, then I see it. Blood. I see hand marks and claw marks from where she must have dug her nails into the wood floor. It was real. I’m bending over the blood stains in disbelief, when I get sharp pain in my back, and then another and another “Stop!” I plea turn around and I see a man with a rock his hair a matted and he’s covered in dirt. He wails the rock down across my face. “This will teach you, Wendy!” He hits me across the face one more time and knocks me to the ground. My nose is bleeding, my teeth are knocked on the floor, “Mom, Dad help” I scream as loud as I can. I start banging my hand on the ground and start screaming for help. MY energy is dwindling and I start to lose hope, when the door opens. My mom opens the door and looks in, and my father joins in next to her, they just stare and turn and close the door behind them. “Mom...” I whimper with the last of my breathe. I close my eyes and open them and see Wendy lying next to me.  She looks alive, not like a corpse, her face is beaten and bloody and the blood is running from her head. She opens her eyes and looks at me and grabs my hand and holds it tight. “I’m sorry.” She whispers.