John had just fallen asleep. He was happy; it was his birthday. He had partied late into the night then fell asleep as soon as everyone left.
John was about to go into deep sleep, when he heard a sound like rope hitting concrete.
Slap. Slap. Slap.
John groaned and got up, thinking it was just the wind outside his window.
When he opened the curtains, he saw nothing. Than he heard a whisper. "Ms Mary Mack Mack Mack..."
John shivered and opened the window slowly. "Hello? Anyone there?"
The whispers repeated. "Ms Mary Mack Mack Mack...."
John shivered. "Seriously, hello?!"
There was a faint giggle. "Hee hee!"
John picked up his flashlight, put on his coat over his pajamas, and slowly crept outside.
He walked around his moonlit backyard. "Uh, hello?"
Slap. Slap. Slap.
This time John could pinpoint the source; the tool shed.
He gingerly creaked open the rusty door. "A-anybody there...?"
Slap. Slap. Slap.
John went deeper into the shed. It was drenched in a darkness that seemed to swallow his light.
"Ha ha ha ha! You found me!" The same voice that had whispered and laughed sounded in front of John's face.
He beamed the light around to reveal the face of a pale girl. She looked about eight, with white-blonde hair down to her neck and a sharp smile. Her eyes were completely black, with no way to distinguish the pupils from the whites. She grinned. "Let's play jump rope!"
She started to jump up and down with a rope.
Slap. Slap. Slap.
Then she started to sing the most bone-chilling rhyme John had ever heard.
"Ms Mary Mack Mack Mack
All dressed in black black black
She has a knife knife knife
Stuck in her back back back
She cannot scream scream scream
She cannot cry cry cry
That's why she begs begs begs
She begs to die die die"
John screamed. "W-what kind of child-creature are you?!"
The girl stopped jumping. She sniffed. "Y-you don't like my song?!"
John realized he had made a big mistake. "N-no, it's great!"
The little girl started to wail. "Y-you don't like my song!!!!" She started to cry. And as she cried, opaque tears the same colour as her eyes slid down her cheeks like blood. "Nobody ever l-likes my songs!!! They all made fun of me at school!! They took away my special rope that I would use to climb and swing and skip!!! They took it away!!!" She started to scream. It was high-pitched, so high-pitched that John collapsed into a ball on the ground and had his hands pressed around his ears. "P-please," he managed through the pain, "s-stop...."
She stopped and looked down at him with her head cocked. "They told me to stop too. They wouldn't give my rope back. So I screamed and screamed and screamed until they stopped."
John shivered on the ground. "S-stopped what?"
The pale child grinned evilly. "Breathing."
John started to cry. "Please don't kill me."
The little girl ignored him. "I got my own rope after that. And then I swung. I like swinging. I always swing by my neck, see?"
She picked up John's flashlight and beamed it towards a corner. In the corner, hanging from the ceiling, was the girl's body, crying dried tears of blood. It hung by its neck in a tight noose.
The girl giggled. "I look so funny! All silent and pale."
John was speechless. "Wha-" Then he remembered a story his parents had told him. Before he was born, an eight year old named Sasha Mack had gone missing. Everyone had given up, assumed her dead, then called the search parties off. John hadn't cared at the time, but now the missing girl was advancing apon him.
She giggled. "You'll swing too!"
Sasha (being surprisingly strong) picked John up by the neck of his coat and walked him over to the other corner of a room.
Sasha pulled a rope out of nowhere, then plopped John down and started to make a noose.
John stuttered. "N-no no...."
Sasha looked at him and frowned. "You don't want to swing? Well, too. Bad." she said, accenting the last two words with tugs on the finished noose.
Sasha picked him up again, this time by the neck. John choked and spluttered. "Agghh-"
Sasha squeezed tighter and he stopped talking as his face started to turn blue. The child smiled. "Wee!"
She hoisted him up, slipped the noose around his neck, and let him hang.
Sasha laughed and clapped her little pale hands. "Yay!!!! More friends!!!"
Then she turned around and walked down the rest of the shed, where other bodies hung.