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| Absolution by ID Johnson |
Lightening illuminated the sky off in the distance, and thirteen year old Julia Cannon bolted upright in bed. Looking out her bedroom window, she saw that the wind was picking up and a rumble of thunder confirmed her suspicion that it was about to storm. She hated storms, always had, but was particularly frightened of them since a tornado had ripped through their neighborhood when she was ten, and while her own home was hardly touched, seeing many of her friends left homeless, one of them motherless, had been enough to make her anxious every time the skies looked threatening.
Another boom, this one closer, made her jump. She looked at the time. It wasn’t quite one o’clock yet, which meant her mother probably wasn’t home yet. She worked as a nurse in Tulsa, which at least twenty minutes away from their home in Catoosa on a good night, and now that it was raining, she probably wouldn’t be home for at least another half an hour. Another crack of lighting sliced across the sky, and Julia pulled the covers up to her neck, closing her eyes for a moment, hoping that would somehow calm her nerves; it didn’t and the next peel of thunder sent her cowering beneath the sheets.
A bellow of wind brought in the rain. Julia peered out from under the blanket just as a flash of lightening illuminated the sky and she could see the deluge coming down in sheets now. A tree branch began to screech its way across the glass in her bedroom window, and though she could see the culprit each time the sky lit up, she couldn’t help but imagine, perhaps, it was something else; perhaps it was really the long sharp claw of a witch floating beneath that same scraggly old maple. The flashes began to illuminate the objects in her room as well, and as her eyes began to adjust from darkness to light, back into darkness again, she began to watch as the shadows in her room shifted and changed their forms. She blinked her eyes, holding them shut for a moment, assuring herself that her closet door was still firmly shut, that no one was sitting in her rocking chair across the room, that nothing had slithered beneath her bed.
Finally, when she could stand the ravages of her imagination no more, she slid her hand out from beneath the bed and picked up her cell phone. She quickly dialed her mother, and with each ring, her heartbeat increased. Eventually, her mother answered with a distracted, “Julia? What are you doing up?”
“Sorry, Mama,” she whispered sharply. “The storm woke me up. I was wondering if… if you were about home.”
The connection wasn’t good, the storm likely interfering with the signal. “I’m driving home now, honey,” her mom reassured her. “But it’s raining pretty hard. I’ll be there in a few minutes. Now, go back to sleep. Okay?”
“All right, Mama,” Julia agreed. “Be careful.”
“I will, sweetheart. See you in a bit. I love you,” her mother replied.
Before Julia could respond, her mother ended the call, and she found herself forced back into utter aloneness, the storm still shaking her house and her soul.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Julia assured herself aloud. “It’s just a storm. There’s no tornadoes, or my mom would have said. And there’s no witches… or ghosts… or vampires.”
With the last word, Julia heard a soft creaking sound from downstairs, followed by a shuffle, and then complete silence. Her heart stopped; was that her mother coming in the back door? Was it her imagination? Or was it… something else?
She listened with her whole being, waiting to see if she heard footsteps on the stairs. If it had been her mother, she would have said something, since she knew Julia was still awake. And, if she had been so close to home, wouldn’t she have said she was about to pull into the driveway? No, it couldn’t have been her mother. Perhaps, it had only been her imagination. She was scared--and jumpy. Just then, she thought she heard another small creak from the living room, as if the floorboards were shifting under the weight of someone--or something. If it were a murderer, surely he would have made his way up the stairs by now. Her mind shot to the news she had heard today, about the Jogging Path Slayer in Philadelphia. Maybe he had made his way here, to Oklahoma, to her house. Maybe he had decided to start murdering young girls in their beds instead of joggers. Maybe she would be his next victim.
She knew it all sounded ridiculous. Murderers didn’t just wait downstairs for you to come down so they could kill you. It was nothing; it had to be nothing. Still, she listened carefully for another sound. She heard nothing, except for the boom of the thunder outside. Maybe she couldn’t hear him climbing the stairs because of the storm.
“You’re being ridiculous,” she whispered. “Are you a little girl or a woman? You’re old enough to stay home by yourself. Surely, you can go downstairs and make sure the house is still locked up.”
She hesitated for a moment, wanting to hop out of bed and go alleviate her own fears, but she was still scared. Suddenly, there was a droaning noise, and her ceiling fan turned off. It came back to life for a split second, but then it went off again. The power was out. Now, the terror began to well up inside of her again. Not only was she all alone, a storm raging outside, strange noises downstairs, she wouldn’t even be able to turn on the lights.
There was a flashlight downstairs; she knew exactly where her mother kept it, on top of the refrigerator. It was pretty powerful. If she could go get that, she might feel more at east until her mom got home. Of course, getting there would be horrifying. She did have the flashlight on her phone, but it wasn’t very strong. She took a deep breath. Her mom always said she should have a flashlight when the power went out in case something happened and she needed to go outside or someone came to the door to see if she was safe. With another deep breath, she slid out from under the covers and put her feet in her slippers. She grabbed her robe, and hands shaking, slid it on, tying the belt tightly around her waist.
“All right, Julia,” she whispered. “Stop being a baby. You can do this.”
She picked up her phone, trying to decide whether she should use the flashlight to make her way down the stairs or just leave it off. After all, if there were someone--or something--waiting for her downstairs, the flashlight would alert him that she was coming. If she left it off, she could be more stealthy, and maybe he wouldn’t know she was coming. If she saw him first, she could maybe get away or hide. Or wait for her mother to come home.
Maybe she should wait for her mother to come home.
“You’re such a baby,” she said, clutching her phone. For now, she left the light off. She knew her way down the stairs in the dark, and the flashes of lightning were enough to help her find landmarks along the way.
With another deep breath, she pulled herself to her feet and willed herself to jump away from the bed so that no spindly hands could reach out from beneath and grab her ankles. Of course, nothing happened, and she hurried past the closet and the rocking chair--was it moving?--and made her way out of her bedroom into the hallway.
Their house was two story, but it wasn’t very big. There were two bedrooms up here, hers and her mom’s, and then downstairs there was a living room, kitchen, a small parlor, and a dining room. The stairs led to the living room where the front door was located. Her mom always pulled into the car port and used the back door. So there was absolutely no reason why the front door should be unlocked or disturbed in any way. From the top of the stairs, she peered down below, trying to ascertain whether or not it looked as if it had recently been opened; she couldn’t tell.
She approached the top of the stairs. Inhaling deeply, she put her foot down gently on the top step. No creak. After a moment, she slowly picked up her other foot and put it down on the next step. Again, not a sound. Grasping the handrail to steady herself, she repeated the process, one step after the next, pausing each time the lightning and thunder shook her soul, and cautiously made her way down the stairs.
When she reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs, something brushed against her arm. Jumping, she flailed her arms out wildly, catching a branch of her mother’s ficus plant as she did so. Her heart pounding, she pressed her hands to her chest, still grasping her cell phone. “It’s just a plant,” she thought to herself, afraid to say anything out loud now.
It took her a few seconds to regain her composure. Once she had calmed down just a bit, she slowly entered the living room. She surveyed the room cautiously. Even with the help of the lightning, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The sofa stood between her and the front door. As she carefully stepped around it, she glanced back over her shoulder. She noticed then that the closet door was slightly ajar, which seemed odd. But as she turned to peer into the dark space about ten feet behind her, she didn’t see anything alarming.
It wasn’t until she returned her attention to the front door that something caught her attention. She wasn’t sure what it was at first. Holding her breath, and feeling her heart stop mid-beat, she slowly took a step forward, squinting in disbelief as she attempted to confirm that what her eyes were seeing was really there. She took another step forward, and then, she was certain. There, in the glass of the front door, she could clearly see a face. But this was no ordinary human face. This was something else entirely. The skin was so pale, it was practically glowing in the dark, the lightning disclosing bloodshot steel gray eyes. Long stringy black hair framed the ghoulish features, the lips were blood red as well, and though the expression was frozen in a grimace, the teeth were elongated and sharp, the nose wrinkled in a snarl. It was as if someone had propped a Halloween mask outside on her porch. The cell phone slipped from Julia’s trembling hand, and with another crash of thunder, the sudden realization that this face not only was no mask, but that it was not on her porch at all invaded her very soul, and a ripple of terror swept through her body. Just as she opened her mouth to scream, she saw the creature step fully out of the closet and step quickly in her direction, arms outstretched.
