The Phantom of Scranton Hill

4

It was a Thursday. For three whole days, Justine had called the house on Baker Road her home. For two long nights, Justine hadn't slept an ounce. Currently, the time was six in the afternoon, and she was hunched over the study desk in her room, her chemistry papers spread out.

"Ugh," she groaned, letting her head go limp, but soon regretting it as it collided with the dark wood. "Ow," she groaned again, dragging the vowel slowly. She lifted her head and rested it in the palm of her hand. "Why am I even doing this now," she wondered and began cleaning the area.

From the kitchen, her mother shouted, "Justine, sweetie, would you like some dinner? You've been in there all afternoon."

Justine rose from her felt chair and dragged her feet across the rough, light gray carpet to the window. Pulling away the thin, royal blue curtains, she studied the empty, gravel driveway. Her father wasn't home from the station yet.

"Justine? Honey?" her mother bellowed again, louder this time, but with more worry.

"Where's dad?" Justine yelled back, curious as to her father's whereabouts. "We usually eat together." She muttered that last part under her breath, too exhausted to show emotion.

There was no response for a while. Justine was afraid her mother hadn't heard her, but instead, there was a quiet knock on her door.

"Justine? Will you open the door, please?" her mother pleaded, her voice wary and strained. Justine got up to open the door, but her mother barged in before she could come close to reaching it. "Justine, I know your father has been working overtime lately, but he's doing his best to support all of us, and you can't simply starve up here. You need-"

Before the withering woman was able to finish her lecture, Justine's father had arrived downstairs. "I'm home!" he announced. "No need to wait for-" He stopped, most likely approaching the empty dining room table. He repeated himself once more, and stopped yet again. The man tried every room, not successful at finding his wife and daughter who were both huddled in the small bedroom down the hall.

Justine's mother stared at the door, immobile, until she had finally processed what was happening. She had been very vacant the last couple of days, seemingly in another world. She looked back at her daughter and smiled solemnly before leaving the barely decorated dorm and led Justine down the narrow hallway.

When Justine's father saw her, his eyes lit up, and he led her to the dining room table--if you could even call it that. It was a foldable plastic table surrounded by lawn chairs. She felt as if she was part of the first family created in a Sims™ game, all of her belongings amounting to a single star.

Ashamed. Justine was ashamed to live like this. Her whole life she had received anything she wanted, even if she didn't ask for it. She hated how her parents spent so much money on her and how poorly they chose to invest, but she couldn't do anything about it. Multiple times had she explained that birthdays didn't mean anything, that she didn't need to be showered with gifts on Christmas, but it didn't change anything. And now they're eating off of a piece of plastic with three legs.

"So, how was school today?"

"Ah!"

Her father's smalltalk was interrupted by a woman's screams, loud cries for help. Justine's father stood up immediately, his eyes wide as the chair screeched backwards against the cheap tiling. Her mother remained in her seat, unaffected.

"Something wrong?" she asked. Her husband shook his head slightly, murmuring a high-pitched 'no' before excusing himself, claiming that he had forgot something at the office. Though this seemed to satisfy her mother, Justine wasn't buying it. She had heard the noise, but why hadn't her mother?

The pleas seemed to grow distant and soft as if the source had moved to the next house, but it quickly returned within minutes.

Her father scurried out of the room as if his life depended on it. Justine turned to her mother, her eyes livid. "You don't hear that?" she asked. Her mother simply shook her head and continued filling her mouth with spoonfuls of garlic mashed potatoes.

Deciding that it was making her feel uncomfortable, Justine washed her plate and ran upstairs, explaining that she needed to finish her chemistry paper and had finals to study for, which weren't for another month or two.

But the wailing continued, growing louder with every passing second. The old house began to tremble, the frame fragile and already decaying, and she told herself it was a minor earthquake. But the house, however, kept shaking and the woman kept wailing. Her father raced to her room, tripping over his own feet, chanting that they had to go, that they must leave, yelling that there was no time. The house was alive, he tried to tell her, but Justine refused to leave without her mother.

He dragged his only daughter to the doorway unnoticed, but right before he opened the door, Justine's mother intercepted, asking what was going on, why they were leaving. The grayed man hid the young girl behind his back as if she was of age five again. He yelled for his wife of almost twenty years to back away, but she continued to walk toward them, finally cornering them in the kitchen.

They were trapped. Seeing how there was nowhere else to go, Justine's father turned around and began to dig through the drawers beside the sink, tossing anything he could find. Then he came across the knives. Pulling out a sharp blade, most likely used to butcher raw meat, he threatened to stab the woman in front of them. Justine's mother tried to reason with him, tried to get him to put the knife down, but he kept calling her names like "monster" and "demon."

Justine sprinted out of the room, dodging her father's grabs, and searched multiple rooms vigorously for a telephone. She needed to call the police, ironic considering her father was, in fact, a cop himself. Then she did what any reasonable person scared out of their mind would do. She hid in a coat closet.

Sirens approached the household within ten minutes, having to break down the door with force. A young woman, most likely a trainee, had found Justine deep within a wool, winter cardigan, but her mother wasn't as lucky.

Justine stood motionless, her mouth not comprehending her thoughts as if someone had cut a wire between the two senses.

"We need an ambulance," an older man said into his walkie talkie, his hair clearly dyed black, and his uniform supporting a six pointed deputy star, bright, shiny, and gold. The word "sheriff" was in capital letters engraved across the center. "Victim is female, around forty-five to fifty years of age. Stab wound in her left hip, around three to four inches across, about an inch deep."

Armed men held each of her father's arms, dragging him out of the house against his will. He kicked. He screamed. He pleaded. "That woman was possessed, I tell you," he claimed. "That was not my wife! That woman was trying to hurt my child! She was trying to harm my baby girl!"

His voice was drowned out by a growing distance between the two. And Justine knew immediately that she would not see her father for a while. They'd take him to an asylum, she was sure of it.

News quickly spread within the same night, Justine had received dozens of calls on the landline from multiple lawyers, all demanding the same high pay and describing their experiences in court. She never answered that phone. Not once. Every single time she allowed it to go to voicemail, but she did learn three things. One, never confess a sudden change in finance or job status or they'll easily strip you of your money. Two, never tell the police everything. There is a point when everything is too much. And three, always lie when there is no trust, especially in this situation.