The Last of the Twenty: The Setting of the Board

Chapter 51

Margret sat at her kitchen table looking through the pictures Alex had taken while sipping a cup of coffee with shaking hands. Throughout her life, she had heard stories from her parents and grandparents while she listened unseen from the next room. It wasn’t until she had become pregnant with Nadia that her parents finally gave her the family album and told their sad family history. They told her they thought it was something supernatural, that was killing the girls but they didn’t dare to guess what or why. As a result Margret had kept a constant eye and near death grip on Nadia for the first eleven or so years of her life, hoping against hope that Nadia would pass the age and the family curse would fade away into memory. Now here she was, possibly looking at the very monster that had been after her family for over a century.

“Damn you” She whispered to the image in the camera.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. She looked at the clock, Alex had only been gone about ten minutes. Did he find Nadia on the way and stop her from going? Probably not, she thought to herself, Alex wouldn’t bother knocking. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she went to the door and peeked out the window. There was a man standing there she had never met before, but he seemed familiar to her somehow. Margret cracked open the door, he smiled down at her warmly but didn’t say anything.

“Can I help you” she asked after a moment’s silence.

“Yes, thank you. I’m here to talk to your daughter, is she home” he asked, continuing to smile down at her.

“No, she’s not home right now. Can I ask who you are and what this is about?”

“You must be her mother, Margret right,” he asked. His smile remained warm and his voice was cheerful, but there was something in his eyes that made Margret nervous. She braced her foot against the bottom of the door in case he tried to push it open. “Well, it’s so nice to meet you finally. I’ve been watching you both for quite some time now and I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Sam, and I’m here to kill you and burn your house to the ground.”

As he spoke, the whites of his eyes faded to black, as if they were being filled with a dark smoke, while a red flickering light started to form in the pupils of his eyes. His smile turned into a menacing grin, and before Margret could react he slammed his left hand into the door. The door shattered inward, sending Margret flying backwards into the kitchen. Her head slammed onto the edge of the table sending a blinding white pain throughout her body, and her eyes filled with blood from a large gash a flying piece of the door had opened across her forehead. The man walked through the ruined shards of the doorway and into the kitchen, reaching her in two large steps. He bent down and grabbed the back of her shirt, flipping her over and around on the floor. He took a handful of her hair and pulled her screaming to her knees.

“I’m going to ask again, where is your daughter?”

Margret tried to pull his hand out of her hair, but his grip was like iron. Margret looked at him with tear and blood soaked eyes and spit in his face, “Leave her alone” she screamed.  

Still holding Margret up by the hair, he reached down and tore a strip of fabric from the front of her shirt, using it to slowly wipe the blood from his face. “Now, is that any way to treat a guest in your house” he asked darkly.

Margret struggled to break free of his grip, kicking her feet and hitting with her hands, trying to claw at his horrible eyes. He ducked back avoiding her attacks, then hit her across the face with the back of his hand. She felt the bones in her nose and jaw break, then everything went black. The man stood, dropping her to the floor and looking around. He saw the camera on the counter and picked it up, turning it over and quickly flipping through the pictures with a smile on his face.