Alone (Bluford High) (Watty Awards 2013)

Chapter 10

The scissors found their way into Karen's forearm and she shouted and grimaced in pain. She quickly pulled them out, which hurt even more. The white figure was hit in the abdominal area and it was on the ground, but it didn't make any noise. It didn't scream or whine or groan or anything, as if it wasn't in pain at all. Nevertheless, Karen pointed the gun at its forehead and pulled the trigger. It was no more. Blood dripped from her forearm as she hurried into the elevator and hit the button to go to the second down to another floor. She held her hand around the room, applying pressure to it. It was still painful, however. She had to make the bleeding stop before it would get worse.

Once on the other floor, the doors opened and like the first time, it was mysteriously quiet. She stepped out of the elevator and down the hallway was an open door. She walked quietly with the gun in her hand and the scissors in her pocket. When she got to the door, it felt uneasy. It was as if she could smell death among her. Something felt atrocious and more overwhelming than the room she went into before.

"Gotta stop this bleeding, need to go to the bathroom," she thought.

Karen nonetheless found her way into the bathroom. She closed and the locked the door, finding her way into the cabinets. However, nothing was in there that was appropriate for her wound. At the same time, she was trying to be as quiet as possible. Strangely enough, she found a bottle of peroxide in the toilet.

"Ew." She exclaimed quietly.

There wasn't any time to be too disgusted by the outcome so she hurried and licked it up. It was full and when she opened it, she smelled it to see if it was anything else in there, if you get my draft. Luckily for her, it was definitely peroxide. She poured some of it into a tissue and patted it all around, enduring some minor stinging. Since there were no bandages inside the bathroom, Karen decided to wrap the wound with some toilet paper and she had to find something to secure it with. Fortunately, there was a roll of tape in one of the cabinets and she used the right amount. Then, she gripped her hand around it to apply pressure. Suddenly, she heard stomping from outside the door. Quickly, she turned the light off and stood right by the door with her gun pointed at the door.

The stomping of the feet was very rough and heavy-like as if the person was wearing boots. What was curious about it was that the stomping sounded deliberate, as if someone was trying to scare her, which meant someone knew she was in there.

"Oh, God!" She mouthed.

The noise approached the door and as soon as she was getting ready to fend off on whoever or whatever was there, a cloth was wrapped around her violently. In defense mode, she pushed forward and fussed with the unknown violence. During this scuttle, the bathroom door opened wide, which made Karen feel even more obligated to fight to the death. Unknowingly, she tripped a rather tall, yet slim figure above her and the scissors that she was carrying had sliced through the cloth and punctured something so forcefully that she could hear a graphic squish sound. This was followed by a shout of pain and this allowed her to roam free and crawl over the slim figure and run out into the hallway. She ran out the open front door of the apartment and ran into the main hallway which led her to another open door, which she quickly closed shut and double locked.

Inside, she found another series of ruined furniture and a bloody mess that left carpet stains. With her head spinning, she heard a clear, loud whimper from down the short hall.

"Karen?!" shouted a familiar voice.

Karen ran into a bedroom that was incomprehensibly trashed with cracked ventriloquist dolls taped to the walls and a message on the ceiling that said

HAPPY in what looked to be like small, pointy decayed teeth. Then, she turned to her left and was horrified to discover a pile of bloody, blonde hair and clean-cut human noses. The most disturbing thing was that they weren't bloody like the hair but rather cleaned thoroughly.

"Karen?!" Said the voice and Karen turned around.