Page 13

Evelyn

S treams of sunlight start to invade the room. I get up from bed and go to the ensuite to take a shower. I feel dirty and it’s been way too long since the last time I properly showered.

I look in the mirror, seeing someone I don’t recognise stare back. My hair is dishevelled, my eyes and lips are swollen, and I have bruises on my neck, and bitemarks on my breast. How did those get there? I don’t remember Felix biting me. A faint red line under my breast takes my attention. I completely forgot Felix had cut me there. I lift my breast up to have a clearer view. I can see the letters FH – Felix Hayes – carved in deeply.

I walk into the shower and let the water wash away the one hundred years’ worth of stress and anxiety I got in only a couple of days. Finding only one bottle of shampoo in the shower, I sigh – figures he only has a three-in-one body, shampoo, and conditioner bottle. How do men use this and look perfect, but I need twenty different bottles just to keep my curls in line? It's ridiculous!

Since it's the only thing I have here, I start to massage the shampoo into my scalp and hum to an old song my mother used to sing to me when I was little. It always helped me with my anxiety. I guess it makes me feel like she’s still here and didn’t leave me, even though I’m mad at her for what she did. Instead of trying to get their lives back on track, all they did was take the easy route and leave me with all the debts, alone.

A soft humming starts to sing the same song with me. It almost sounds like her. Am I going crazy?

“Mom?” I move the curtain of the shower and grab a towel, wrapping myself in it while leaving the room. I follow the sound to my bedroom and see a woman sitting down on the bed with her back to me, humming the song. Her hair is short and the same chestnut-brown colour my mother had. She’s wearing a white dress with a rose pattern on it. It’s the same one she wore when I found her hanging from the ceiling when I came back home from school. “M–Mom?” Tears are starting to drip down my cheek while I walk a little bit closer to the woman who might be my mother and place my hand on her shoulder.

“You did this to us.” She’s rocking back and forth while repeating the same sentence and I back up, not knowing if this is some demon trick or I’m just losing my mind now.

“YOU DID THIS TO US!” she screeches, turning around and running at me in one swift movement. I stumble over my feet going backwards and fall down, hitting my back against the wall. I cover my face with my arms as she flings herself at me.

“EVELYN?”

I hide my face and don’t dare open my eyes while someone keeps yelling my name and patting my face and body. Am I dead yet?

“Evelyn, look at me. Goddamnit!"

My tears keep falling down my soaked cheeks. “No, no, go away! Go away!” A hand is brushing my head while I’m being pressed against someone's warm body.

“It’s alright, you’re okay now. I won’t let it hurt you.”

A scent of smoky wood and coffee enfolds me. Taking in his embrace and smell helps me calm down, makes me feel safer. I slowly open my eyes and bury my head deeper into his chest. “It’s my mom. She hates me.”

“She doesn't, Evy. It's not real. I found something I think you should see.”

The dust of the old couch in the living room keeps making my allergies act up. “Why couldn't we just do this in the kitchen again?” I try to speak in between sneezes. He’s spreading out papers over the small coffee table and places an old photo album next to them. “There’s a small issue with the kitchen. Nothing to worry about. Here, look.” He points a finger at one of the papers. I grab the fragile, brownish parchment and carefully hold it before me. “Where the hell did you find all of this? And what exactly am I supposed to see?”

I squeeze my eyes trying to make out what it says.

Report written by Dr M. Harris on Tuesday, 20th of February 1987

Patient: Eliza Schumer, a 37-year-old female

The patient claims to see shadows moving and talking and the area to be haunted.

Her psychosis has only worsened over her stay.

We are to perform a lobotomy on Thursday, 22nd of February 1987 at 10 AM.

For now, keep the patient sedated and raise the dose of Halperine to 20mg.

“She’s the first one to start seeing things here. After her, the others started claiming the same things.”

I grab some of the other papers to see the reports. “Was this some kind of mental institution?”

I find the papers of a teenage girl of sixteen, Annabeth, in the pile and start reading them. She claimed someone crawled into her bed when she was sleeping and licked her cheeks, then she tried to scrub them clean so hard, she ripped open her own skin.

There's one of a fifty-year-old woman who drowned herself in the lake close by after someone whispered to her every night. There’s a picture of her on the bottom. A gasp leaves me once I realise it’s the same woman that I saw through the mirror the day we lost Britt.

“This was a women's mental facility owned by a Thomas Delaney. It was his private property and not an official hospital. I found some papers about it being closed after too many deaths. Some claimed Thomas acted like he was possessed himself and would assault his staff and patients.”

Felix takes more vellums and spreads them out on the table. “Before that, the house was owned by multiple people who all mysteriously died. Here, I found some papers on the original owner too.” Felix points towards the pile of parchment that was on his side and puts it all on my lap. The dust flying around and the musty smell are making me nauseous. “This house was built by a George Malory back in the early eighteen hundreds. I can't find a precise date, but he was a total wacko. Believed that demons were going to take over and that to redeem yourself, you had to do some kind of blood ritual. He gathered some followers too, turned it into a full-on cult with over thirty members.”

Looking through the papers, I find some drawings in between the pages, where there’s someone tied to a table with their chest cut open. “Eww. So, what? They cut someone's chest open and then cursed this place?”

A playful smile appears on Felix’s face as he sits closer to me and grabs the papers from my hands. “You know, baby, it takes more than just opening someone's chest to cause the situation we're in.”

I sigh and get up from the couch. I need some air, but not even the windows open. I think I’m going mad here.

“So, what now?” I feel so tired from all of this. I shouldn’t have come here. And where the fuck is their aunt?

“Well, I looked into his old grimoire and found a ritual and information about a demon he supposedly summoned.” I turn to him in shock. When did he have the time to do all of this without me?

How does he even know and find so much? I was in that same attic with him and we looked for hours and didn’t find anything.

“Emm, okay? What did you find out?”

Felix gets up and sighs. I feel like whatever he’s about to say won't be good news. Please, let it be good news.

“The demon is a Vurlak, a soul eater. It’s said to be the child of Raum, who knows the past, present, and future.” Well, that doesn’t sound good at all. I’d like my soul to be uneaten, thank you very much.

“The demon needs to have a vessel to be able to fully start its process. It's how it lures its victims, by telling them things from your past, uses your connections with them, and then, once you’re fully in his thrall, takes your soul.” Wow, wait hold up. A vessel?

“Felix? Does that mean that one of us is possessed?” I start shaking and my breathing is turning haggard. I can feel another panic attack coming. What if I have this thing inside of me right now?

Felix walks closer to me and brushes my hair from my now tear-stained cheeks.

“I think we’d know it by now if one of us was possessed. It's probably playing us right now so it can get to us. We just can’t let it happen.”

“We need to get out! What about the back door, wasn’t it a bit damaged? What if we just break it open?” I go to the kitchen door, but Felix pulls me away with one hard yank on my arm. What the fuck?

“You can’t go in there.” His face drains of emotion and he looks straight into my eyes while his hand tightens around my arm.

“Felix? You’re hurting me.” I bob my throat and my voice breaks while speaking, but I try not to show him how much he is affecting me right now. What if he’s the one possessed? He’s been acting odd since the beginning. Didn’t he puke that disgusting black stuff up? What if some stayed inside of him? His grip lessens and I pull my arm away from him. Okay, now is the time for the badass in me to come up and just go for it. I run to the kitchen door and open the handle.

“Evy, you don’t want to see what's inside it,” Felix yells behind me while I slam the door open.

My breath catches my throat when I take in the scene before me.

There's blood everywhere, splattered on the wall, the counter, and the table. I can see a leg on the floor, sticking out behind the counter, with pink pumps; Britt’s pink pumps. I gather the courage I have left and walk towards the body on the floor.

A gasp leaves me seeing Brittany lying there. Her skin is blue, her blonde hair matted and stained with mostly dried-up blood. There’s blood leaking out of her nose and mouth, a knife embedded in her chest, and there are bloodstains all over her like she got stabbed hundreds of times.

I back away from the corpse that used to be my best friend. She's been there ever since I started college. She was my roommate and like a sister to me, and now she's dead. Oh, gods, what do I do? What happened? I bump against the hard wall with my back. No, wait, that's not a wall, I’m not close enough for that. I turn around and see Felix standing there. His eyes soften under my gaze and he reaches his arms for me. I push him away and start running.