Broadwire

9: Meeting The Bad Man: Carli

I was lying in my bed when I heard the calling start. Mom had fallen asleep on the couch, but dad went upstairs to their room. I looked at the clock my mom had given me from when she was a kid, and it said it was 3:30. I hadn't been able to fall asleep and kept thinking about what I had heard on the tv. My mom had found dead bodies belonging to her friends from school. One had been shot and the other, who was a girl, had broken bones.

"Carli?" I heard a voice from under my bed. Instead of screaming, I wanted to believe it was just my imagination.

"Carli?" It said again. Instead of leaning my head over the side and being stupid, I jumped off as far as I could and grabbed a flashlight. I lifted up the sheet that covered the under part of the bed, and saw a girl. It was the Jasmine girl that came to our house the same day as Trenton, the bad man.

"Carli, I need you to do something for me," she told me, ignoring the fact that she was supposed to look like she got hit by a car, but actually looked like she was just fine.

"Aren't you supposed to be dead?" I asked her, and her face went into a weird distortion, as if she were thinking.

"Well, I'm a ghost, and I need you to help me get to the afterlife," she told me, and sounded nice enough.

"How can I help?" I asked, wondering why she picked me instead of an adult who could most likely help more than I could.

"Well I need you to get something from your mom. She has a piece of wood in her jacket on the couch I want you to go get, then I'll give you a surprise that you can talk to people with. It's really fun to play with, but I don't need it anymore," she told me, her voice turning really deep and every couple of words. This toy she was talking about sounded both weird, but fun. I could show it to my friends when school started the next day.

"Okay. What's it look like?" I asked her. Her eyes lit up, as if she were surprised that I took her offer.

"Well, it's like a triangle of a wood with a piece of glass resting in the middle," she told me, and I got a mental image of the thing she wanted in my mind.

"It's in my mom's jacket?" I asked making sure I had all the details right before I went down stairs. I turned around and started towards the door.

"Wai-" I started ask another question, but she was standing at the foot of my bed now. I stood, waiting for an explanation that I didn't get.

I made my way downstairs as quietly as I could, as not to wake up either dad or mom. I tiptoed all the way down, and made close to no noise. I walked out onto the living room floor and saw the jacket Jasmine had been talking about. I walked as out onto the cold floor with my barefeet as the chill went through my legs and throughout my body. I don't know whether it was more from the low temperature or the fear I felt. I got to the edge of the couch, where mom was sleeping. The jacket was right in front of me and the pocket, and I slipped. I hit the ground. I had the piece was in my hands, but my mom was waking up. I bolted towards the staircase, and saw her sit up. I was peaking my head out from the wall of the staircase. She sat up and looked at her phone and got a weird look on her face. She grabbed her phone and looked at the time and stood up. I ran in my room and jumped in my bed, but Jasmine was still there.

"Hide," I hissed in a quiet voice, not to alert my mother, who was walking towards my room.

"She can't see me, I can hide myself from people that I don't want to see me," she told me, and I was forced to believe her. I closed my eyes, to make her think I was asleep. I heard her walk to the doorframe of my room. She walked towards my bed, and looked at me. Then she walked back downstairs. I stood up out of bed and looked at Jasmine.

"So, what do you need this for?" I asked her, and she looked at the piece of wood she made me go get.

You'll need it to get me back into this," she said, and a board appeared on the ground. I hadn't ever seen one in real life, only in old movies and tv shows. It was a ouija board.

"So, what did you need it for?" I asked her, but she grabbed the what I now assumed was a planchet to go along with the board from my hands. She placed it on the center of the board carefully, then looked at me.

"I assume you know how to use one of these things," she said, looking at me, with eyes that didn't look quite human.

"Yeah. I've seen them in old movies, and I get a basic idea, I think," I told her and she winked at me.

"See you soon," she whispered and laughed, more to herself than me I think, and got really bright and her figure got taller and then disappeared.

After sitting there for a few minutes, contemplating whether or not to do it, I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet. In the movies, they always had candle, so I got one of my closet and lit it with a lighter I found outside one day. I put my fingers on the planchet and asked questions. I skipped all the basic ones people ask as jokes because I wanted to talk to a real person .

"Who can I talk to?" I asked, and before I knew it, it was moving. Quickly too, as if the ghost wanted me to know I needed to know this in a hurry.

Trenton Callus

That was the name of the murderer. The one who killed my mom's friends. I would have stopped, but I needed to know why he did what he did. I needed to know what sick explanation he had. He didn't try to explain himself though, he just sent a simple message.

Get rid of the board-Give it to someone else-Don't keep it-Don't interact with the board again-You'll be trapped with me

The answer haunted me. What did he mean I would be trapped? What did he mean give it to someone else. Then I heard footsteps coming towards my room from the living room again. I didn't hear them until they were practically right outside my door so I threw the board underneath my bed and acted asleep on the floor, but when my mom walked in, I noticed that the corner of the board was sticking out from under my bed but I couldn't move it now. It was too late.

"Carli? What are you doing on the floor? What's thi-" She asked, pulling out the board from under my bed and realizing what it was. She stood, open mouthed, for a few seconds before she began scolding me.

"Where did you get this? Why are you playing with stuff like this right after what happened? Were you trying to contact them?" she asked, not mad really, but definitely not happy either. Without giving me the chance to answer, she walked out, still holding the board, but not the planchet. I grabbed it and went to bed. I was extremely tired at the late hour of 4:45 in the morning, laying the planchet on the side table beside my bed. I went to sleep, trying to understand what the board had told me. I opened my eyes again though, and the planchet was gone.