creepshow (wattys2018)

The Woman in White

"Okay, Hannah, we need you to tell us exactly what happened last night." The man on the other side of the metal table asked gently. His shiny F.B.I badge reflected the light from the swinging fixture above their heads, drawing her attention.

The fifteen year old twirled her blood stained hands in her lap, picking at her nails occasionally. Her pink blouse was torn in one spot across her collarbone, revealing just a peek of a scratch mark. She brushed her matted blonde hair away from her face and cleared her throat, replying in a scratchy voice. "Where do you want me to start?"

The man shrugged nonchalantly, leaning back in his chair as best he could, and stealing a glance at the one- way mirror behind him. "Anywhere you like. How about you tell me where you were when you heard the commotion?"

"I was downstairs. I woke up around four and went to get a glass of water."

"Okay." He nodded. "Any particular reason you woke up? Did you hear something?" 

She shook her head, and glanced up at his intense stare, immediately cowering away. "N-no. I just woke up. It was cold and my throat was dry, so I thought some warm tea would help me fall back to sleep."

The agent frowned, his thick eyebrows knitting together. "Cold? It was seventy- three out last night and you were cold?" He paused long enough for her to nod. "Okay, so you're making tea and then what happened?"

"It was even colder in the kitchen, so while my water was heating up I ran back up stairs to get my robe. I was walking down the hall and I heard a creak come from my parents room."

"What do you mean a creak? Like someone was walking around, or opening a door?"

"No, more like someone was getting out of bed. The right, front leg of the bed makes this distinct noise when someone gets up, and that's the side of the bed my mother sleeps on. I just assumed she was going to the bathroom or heard me." The light above her head flickered as she spoke, causing her to glance up. 

The agent nodded stiffly, following her eyes for a moment before glancing towards the window once more. "Did you go check?"

"What?" Hannah glanced back at him suddenly. 

"The noise. Did you go see what it was?"

"No." She replied quickly. "I told you, I assumed it was my mother. If I had woken her up she would've just come to my room and asked if everything was okay, but if she was going to bathroom, well, that's pretty self explanatory. "

"Right." The officer peered at her carefully. "So you went back downstairs after you got your robe, correct?" The girl nodded. "You did, in fact, have your robe?"

"Yes!" She exclaimed, causing the officer to raise his eyebrows again.

"Well," He leaned forward and lifted the case report file off of the table and tapped on it. "Thats odd. It says here you told the responding officers the same thing, but we found your robe hanging up in the hall closet. How does that work?"

Hannah sighed. "Can I please just finish my story? It will all make sense at the end, I promise." She waited for the man to nod before speaking. "I went back downstairs to get my tea and it was gone. I looked all over the kitchen and I couldn't find it. I was really freaked out and was just going to lay back down in my room, and that's when I heard the screams. It was my mother. She was- it was the worst sound i'd ever heard in my life. I wanted to run up there and help her, but then my father started screaming for help and I couldn't move. I ran and hid in the back of the hall closet. It was pretty quite after that. I cracked the door open at one point to see if anyone was there, but I couldn't see anything, so I went out into the hall and walked to the bottom of the stairs. That's when i saw it."

"The- uh- monster?" The agent quirked and eyebrow at her as he spoke. 

"No! It wasn't a monster. It was a woman, but there was something wrong with her face. It seemed like there was really bad cut on the right side. She was wearing a white gown that was soaked in blood, and I couldn't tell if it was hers or-" She trailed off as a lone tear slipped down her face. She brushed it away quickly and attempted to compose herself.

"Hannah, I see here that you were keeping charts on the wall of your bedroom for some interesting things." He lifted the file once more as he read off the list. "Uh- lets see here, temperature spikes, spider increase, rodent increase. Is that right?"

"Yes." She replied surely. 

"Tell me about that. Why were you monitoring those things?"

"Because- because my house is haunted by the ghost of the woman that I saw, and she is the one who killed my p-parents." She choked on the last word, a few more tears slipping down her blood stained cheeks. "She would have killed me too if I hadn't went back into the closet and waited for help."

"What makes that closet so special?" 

"There was a crucifix on the door. Ghosts' don't like those. It's what kept me safe."

"Hannah, police were on the scene within minutes of the neighbors calling 911. There was no one there but you and your parents. They searched the whole house for signs of an intruder and came up empty."

"Of course they did because she didn't break in. She was already there!" She leaned back in her chair, her posture changing drastically from stiff to completely deflated as she mumbled the last bit seemingly to herself.  "She was always there."

"That's not what happened. That's not happened, and you know it. They found you, Hannah, in your parents bedroom with a bloody knife in the corner of the room. You never made tea, you never got your robe, you never hid in the closet, and you most certainly did not see a ghost."

"But- I- I did!" 

"No, Hannah, you didn't. That woman you saw was your own reflection from the mirror at the top of the stairs."

"No-" She shook her head frantically as she finally looked at herself in the mirror on the wall. The blouse she once was so sure she was wearing had been replaced with a white night gown, and on the right side of her face there was a large gash from her temple to her nose. She opened her mouth a few times as she struggled to find words. "No. No! This- this is not right." 

"Hannah." The officer attempted to calm her down, but she swatted his hand away.

She leaped from the, sending it flying across the room, and fell to her knees on the floor, yanking at her hair with all her might. Strand by strand she ripped as much out as she could, all the while screaming, "This isn't right! This isn't how it happened! No!"

Two police officers flung the door open, immediately restraining her as the F.B.I agent exited the room quietly. "Hey, what'd you find?" He flashed the technical analyst a tight lipped smile as she approached him with papers in hand.

"You were right. The girl had a pretty extensive medical history. He parents put her in a mental place when she was eight after having witnessed her murder a few neighborhood pets, saying that the women in white told her to do it. She was released two short weeks ago, and there were no problems up until now."

"Yeah, she mentioned that woman a minute ago. Apparently, shes the real killer."

"You know whats pretty crazy?" The woman asked as she opened one of the files and showed it to him. "Fifteen years ago today, a girl murdered both parents in that very same house."

"Is that so?" The agent frowned. "What happened to her?"

"She was shot and killed by police on the scene because she charged at them with the murder weapon, which was a large kitchen knife. Here's a picture." She pulled out a photo of a smiling couple standing in front of the house that was now, once again, the site of grisly murders. Behind them stood a young girl, around Hannah's age, wearing a flowing white dress, and on her right cheek, from her temple to her nose, was a scar.