Dead of the Night

A Happening

It had been a week since Lidia's funeral service, and everyday Felicia would wake up and check her phone for a text or call from her best friend then remember she was gone. Where she used to sit on the floor in front of the couch, covered in blankets and pillows and watching movies with her friend, Felicia now sat with her knees to her chest in the corner of the couch, leaning onto the arm and paying minor attention to whatever would be on the television.

She would call and talk to Ms. Carson everyday, to make sure she was doing okay. Before Lidia's passing, she had had knee surgery and was pretty dependent upon her daughter. Her recovery was going smoothly, but Felicia feared that Ms. Carson's depression would lead to inactivity that could slow down if not completely halt her recovery.

"Oh, no, no," Ms. Carson would say, "Don't you worry, Felicia. I'm fine." Even though Felicia still worried because she knew that losing her only daughter would hit hard, she didn't doubt her. She knew that Lidia's older brother, Sam, had been staying with her since the funeral, so she didn't know why she was so worried.

Sam and Felicia had hit it off when Lidia first introduced them. It'd been and on and off thing for a while until they got in a fight almost a year before Lidia died. She had blown up on him after seeing him with another girl during one of their breaks, and he just up and left after calling Felicia an "obsessive bitch". He moved a few states over, where his dad lived.

Felicia regretted it. She missed him, but she knew that with what he was going through, she should leave him be. 

One night, Felicia woke up to a crashing noise in the living room. She shot up and checked the time. 4:30 a.m.

She got up to look around. She lumbered out of her room, half asleep and her blanket around her shoulders. When she entered the living room, she turned on the light and saw the window in the center of the room was shattered. She gasped and tensed up. She opened her eyes wide and glanced side to side; someone was in the house. She stood completely still, hearing nothing but her own shaky breathing. She then heard a whisper that was more woman than man,

 "Felicia."

and the lights went out. Slowly, Felicia, turned her head over her shoulder, eyes clamped shut. She peaked open one eye only to see nothing behind her. She opened the other eye, and looked over her other shoulder, still seeing nothing but her living room, dimly lit from the street light outside her house. 

"What the..?" Felicia whispered.

With there being no chance of her going back to sleep after this incident, she made her way to the couch and got into her usual position in the corner. She reached forward and grabbed the remote to her television. She switched it on, and searched through the infomercials and late night/early morning religious sermons until she got to a channel that was neither. It appeared to be a horror network. The scene showed an abandoned hospital corridor with an eerie green filter and buzzing lights overhead. There was what appeared to be a girl standing in the back of the hall, head down and rocking back and forth on her heels.

"Nope," Felicia said, pressing the "channel up" button. The channel did not change. The girl on the screen slowly started getting closer and closer to the camera, and Felicia desperately pressed the button over and over again. When she looked up from the remote to the tv, she girl was right in front of the camera.

"No, no no no." Felicia said, pressing the power button and getting no result, then hiding her face in the pillow. The buzzing of the lights in the show ceased, and Felicia peaked up. The girl was staring straight into the camera, and appeared to be staring right at Felicia. She almost looked familiar.

"Felicia." the girl whispered.

Felicia screamed, then threw the remote across the room forcefully, both hitting and cracking the tv screen. The screen was now a web of colors, and Felicia just wrapped herself in her blanket and rocked herself back and forth. She reached for her phone, which she had sat on the end table, and brought it close to her face. She dialled Ms. Carson's number, then put it on speaker. The ringing occupied the room, ending the silence that was drving Felicia mad. The ringing ceased, and Felicia whispered, "Ms. Carson?"

Her voice was shaky, she hadn't realized she had been crying. A whisper on the other end of the line replied, "Felicia."

It was the same whisper she had heard twice before already, and it wasn't Ms. Carson's. 

"Wh-why are you doing this to me?" She asked, her voice cracking on the last word.

"You could have saved me, Felicia." the voice barked, rage building up with each word, "You could have stopped this."

Felcia replied, irritated, "This isn't funny, Sam." 

Then the line went dead.

Through the ominous beep that emitted from her phone, Felicia heard a muffled cry.

"Why didn't you save me?"

Felicia gasped, then hung up the phone and knocked it onto the ground. Her body wracked with sobs, and after a few moments she could finally pull together the syllables to a name she didn't expect to be talking to for a long while. She wiped away from tears from her cheeks, grimaced because her face was raw, then choked out,

"Lidia?"

She felt a hand slide onto her shoulder, then an angry hiss came from behind her.

"Felicia."