Fright Night! #Wattys2016

All in Your Head

Upon hearing the whispers, Wendy immediately opened her eyes. Squinting, she notices the red numbers on her alarm clock read 2:04 A.M. Wendy holds her stuffed teddy bear Oswald, close. The wrinkles on the sides of her eyes straightened with the release of her squint, she lays in bed, in fear; another night, another series of unclaimed whispers. It's been so many nights now that she can no longer remember the first time she heard these specks of voices.

She tossed and turned under the soft blankets of her bed, nestling herself beneath them. Wendy laid thinking about where the tiny whispers came from. She had an idea but wasn't quite sure. A thought surfaced, tell my parents? She asked herself softly. She shook her head violently. No. She couldn't do that. Even if she did they wouldn't believe her anyway.

Wendy's father might even spank her for disturbing his sacred sleep. He worked a lot of hours, all kinds of shifts. He even spent a lot of time away from home due to his job. When he was home, he wanted to rest and be with mommy. Although, most of the time it seemed like he mostly wanted to sleep or drink his brown bottles. "Grownup bottles" he called them. Wendy had been over baby bottles for years now and didn't really even like the taste of milk anymore. She thought that she defiantly wouldn't want to drink from a grownup bottle, ever! Her daddy got funny when he drank his bottle. And not like a clown or knock-knock joke funny either, a weird funny. After his brown bottles, he passed out on the couch with the TV unattended, remote in his open palm, before being dragged up the steps to bed by his wife. Wendy's mother would joke to her friends that he talked more to her in his sleep than he did when he was awake. In Wendy's mind, he wasn't the worst of daddy, but he certainly wasn't in the greatest dad in the world either. Although she was only seven years old, Wendy was smart enough to know it wasn't the healthiest of households.

As her thoughts journeyed on from her whispers to her parents and her scary father, Wendy's mind finally drifted into a peaceful slumber.

The house remained still and silent the entire night until the tiny, scratchy murmurs of whispers arrived uninvited. Wendy's scream erupted, and the bedroom light in her parent's room flicked on.

"What in the heavens of hell is going on!" Her father shouted as he twisted his old withered black bathrobe around his body. He grabbed for his Swiss Army knife out of the nightstand and dropped it into the tiny slit pocket around the waist of the robe.

"It's Wendy, probably another night terror." Wendy's mom said.

Wendy was sitting up in her bed, slouched. Her forehead was moist with sweat. She was sobbing with her eyes close and breathing heavily. Her shaking hands covered her ears.

"What's the matter Wendy?" her father asked. With her hands still over her ears, Wendy no longer heard her father. He looked at his watch, seeing the time and getting no response he asked again, this time, more impatiently. "WHAT IS WRONG!" He growled.

Wendy cried more with recognition of her father's impatience. Her tongue fumbled to find her words. "I ... it's the voices... I ... I heard the whispers daddy." She said, spitting the words out.

Her father shook his head and her mother sat next to her on the bed to comfort her. "Wendy honey, you have to stop with this ... it is all in your head, enough with this. You're growing older now, you'll be eight in just a month. It's all in your head, okay? Let's all get some sleep."

Her father bent down and leaned in to kiss his daughter's forehead. As he did, there was a thud. The sudden noise caused the cat to scatter out from underneath the bed.

"Hah, you see honey, it was probably just Smokey making silly noises underneath your bed. He must have gotten scared and was hiding there. He's gone now." Her father explained.