The house was bursting with excitement. Footsteps thundered overhead while Enna sat on the couch, rapidly tapping her feet. She was beginning to be impatient, wishing that everyone would leave the house as soon as humanly possible.
Her parents, Ted and Cecilia, were getting ready, running back and forth from their bathroom, getting dressed to the nines in anticipation of their night out away from the kids.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Cecilia asked, curling her hair.
“Honey, she’ll be fine,” Ted sighed, fiddling with the buttons on his shirt.
“But she’s only thirteen. We didn’t leave Gayle home alone until she was fifteen.”
“We’ll only be gone for a couple of hours. It’ll be fine.”
In a room down the hall, Gayle rummaged through her closet to find the smallest, most revealing piece of clothing she could hide under a sweater. She packed a tote bag with strappy heels and as much makeup as possible. There was a loud bang on her door. She jumped.
“Gayle, have you seen my sleeping bag!” Marty yelled through the door.
“No!”
The door flung open much faster than intended and hit the wall with a thud. “Oops,” Marty grimaced. After checking the nonexistent damage to the wall, he continued, “I’m pretty sure you used it last when ‘Lucy’ came over.”
“What? No, and what’s with the finger quotes around ‘Lucy’?”
Marty motioned her to bend down towards him. “Drop the act. I know Lucy is a boy named Luca. I’m not dumb.” He rolled his eyes.
Gayle’s face went white and quickly switched to red. She grabbed Marty by his collar and whispered, “How do you know about Luca, you little brat?”
“He accidentally walked into my room one night, said a bad word, and left. He thought I was sleeping.” He grinned up at her, pleased with himself. “Let me go or I’ll tell Mom and Dad.”
She hesitated, weighed her options, and shoved him on the ground. “Now get out,” she growled.
“I still need a sleeping bag!” Marty jumped to his feet and started rummaging through anything within reach, which ended up being her tote bag.
“Get out of there!” She lunged at him.
He dodged her and started running around the room, waving her dress around like a victory flag. “This looks like it could fit me!” He giggled and eventually landed on her unmade bed. “I thought you were going to go study at some girl’s house.”
Gayle glared at him and silence filled the room.
“You have to tell me, otherwise I’ll tell Mom and Dad about Luca.”
“First, if you tell anyone, even Enna, I’ll kill you. Second, don’t think I won’t, because I will. Third, I’m going to a party tonight. That’s it. Now you can leave.” She ripped the dress out of his stubby hands, grabbed his other hand, and dragged him to the door.
“But my sleeping bag!” he whined.
“Just take mine!” She chucked her sleeping bag at him and shut the door. “Have fun, Farty Marty!”
“You too, Whaley Gayley!”
He trotted back to his room to continue to pack. He started muttering to himself. “Should I bring Captain Octo? Then he could meet Liam’s angel fish, Angelica!” Marty stuffed Captain Octo deep down in his duffle bag. He also packed three shirts, four pairs of shorts, two pairs of pajamas, and five pairs of underwear, just in case. With that, he was satisfied and began his descent down the steps with his over packed duffle teetering on his back.
Time had passed, although Marty wasn’t sure how much. When he arrived in the living room everyone was there. He didn’t notice anyone pass him on the steps but he was too tired to ponder it any further.
“There you are, sweetie. Are you ready to go?” Cecelia ruffled his hair.
“Gayle already left, so it looks like you’re coming with us.” Ted took the duffle bag from him. “Woah, what did you all pack? This is a bit much for one night. Don’t you think, Marty?”
“Nope. I packed all of the essentials. Besides, we’ve got to go!” With that being said, the three of them headed out the door.
“Finally, some peace and quiet.” Enna grabbed a book off the shelf and flopped on the couch to read, instead of going to her usual reading nook in her bedroom.
After an hour or two, the sun started to go down and the house began getting too quiet for Enna. Her solution was to blast her favorite songs through the speakers around the house. She danced until she couldn’t feel her legs and ended up collapsing on the couch once again. A song started playing that she’d never heard before. Its melody moved her off the couch and into the bathroom where she contemplated cutting her hair. This was an unlikely thing for Enna to do. She was never a problematic child. That was Gayle’s role in the family.
As she looked in the mirror, Enna imagined herself with different hairstyles: a short bob, pink tips, a perm, and bangs. That was the one. She wanted bangs.
Enna hummed along to the song while she dug through the drawers for a pair of scissors. With the scissors in hand, she grabbed the front of her hair and opened the blades. Just as she was about to cut, the music stopped and she regained her consciousness and threw the scissors down.
“What am I doing?” Enna looked at her hands and then in the mirror, checking that her hair was still attached to her head.
She let out a sigh and put the scissors away. Her fingers gripped the sink as she took some deep breaths.
“This can’t be happening, shouldn’t be happening.” Enna started splashing her face with water and repeated to herself, “Snap out of it. Everything’s fine. It was all in your head.”
The lights went out. A high-pitched scream filled the air but it wasn’t coming from Enna.
Just as suddenly, the lights switched back on, and there was a figure in the mirror that wasn’t supposed to be there. The reflection was Enna with her throat slit and her skin losing the color of life. Blood oozed from the mark, making its way down to her shirt. Her hands were covered in it too and the scissors were back in her grasp. It seemed as though she had done this to herself after she had cut chunks of her hair off.
The actual Enna stood there wide-eyed in shock at the version of herself before her. In hopes that her reflection wasn’t telling the truth, she rubbed her eyes to the point of pain and when she opened them again, the alternate version of herself was gone, and her vision was replaced with blinding spots of color.
With all of that still in her head, Enna left the bathroom and returned to her spot on the couch. She needed a distraction from the night’s events so she turned on the TV for some background noise that would make her feel as if her family was back home. She leaned back, sinking deeper and deeper into the couch, finding a bit of normality as she scrolled through the channels. Settling on a Disney movie, she began to relax, letting her eyelids flutter with drowsiness.
Ding! Dong!
Enna shot up from the couch with a small scream and slowly walked over to the front door. Her heart pounded, vibrating her chest with every beat. There was a blanket of darkness outside and to her relief no one was at the door.
“Stupid ding-dong ditchers,” she muttered.
The floorboards creaked beneath her as she made her way back to the living room. The TV showed someone’s head getting cut off. She winced and said, under a sharp intake of breath, “This isn’t what I was watching.”
But the channel wouldn’t change no matter how many times Enna pushed the button on the remote.
She started roaming the house for batteries.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Enna whipped her head towards the nearest window and cautiously crept up to it. Peering through the curtains, she could see lifeless lumps in the window box.
A bird came flying at her and Enna yelped, falling to the ground instinctually. She rose, shakily, to find blood on the window and another dead blob in the window box.
She shivered and started to walk away, but at the last second something caught the corner of her eye.
Squinting out into the night, Enna saw something in a tree. It swung back and forth in the wind that rattled the house. Its hollow eyes stared into Enna’s soul.
It was her. This time a rope was around her neck, leaving her limp body to sway with the wind’s commands.
Enna bent over, dry heaved, and practically crawled her way back to the living room, completely forgetting about the batteries.
The horror movie was still on when she got back, and the sound slowly but surely got louder and louder.
Enna rocked back and forth on the floor with her head to her chest and her hands on her ears, trying to block out the sound of screams and murder. It became unbearable. She felt as though she were in the movie living out the characters’ dreadful fates.
“Shut up…Shut up!” she screeched.
Enna ran to the TV and pulled at the cords, praying that one would turn it all off. “Stop! Just turn off already!” she yelled.
With a final pull, the TV shut off, but so did the lights.
Enna was breathing heavily, blind in the darkness, until she noticed a red light outside. It was a small red light. There was nothing special about it, but something about it intrigued her. Mesmerized, she walked to the door, opened it, and followed the light out into the street.
A gust of cold wind didn’t faze her. Her bare feet stepped on rocks, but her stride didn’t break. There was nothing in this world that could stop her from looking at the light other than the car heading straight towards her.
She looked past the headlights and into the driver’s eyes, where she found a reflection of her own. She saw and felt terror and acceptance towards what was going to happen next.
The front of the car bashed into her body, breaking her bones. Her neck snapped from whiplash and her head hit the pavement, opening the gates to her brain. A pool of blood formed around her as the passengers quickly got out of the car and came to her side.
“Enna! No! Stay with us, sweetie!” Cecilia’s voice shook as she took her daughter in her arms.
Ted stood frozen in place, forever haunted by the scene before him, and even more shaken by the red mark around Enna’s neck.
There’s nothing a bit of possession can’t do.
Annika is part of the class of 2026 at St. Norbert College. She’s working on her major in creative writing as well as a minor in studio art. While she’s not studying she enjoys reading, writing, drawing, journaling, listening to music, and watching movies or TV shows.
