dusk till dawn ( stan uris ) ✔︎

two!

( WARNING:
this chapter will contain mentions of death, miscarriage, implied murder, and apparitions. please do not read on if any of these things might trigger you. your health is more important than the story. )

TWO

As soon as both girls arrived at Levi's house, they dropped their bikes on the Johnston's front lawn haphazardly.

"Your mom know I'm spending the night? Again?" Hannah questioned her friend as Levi pushed open the door to her home, both of them dropping their bookbags by the entrance.

"Yeah," Levi nodded, taking off her shoes and grabbing the sticky note that had been placed on the back of the door, recognizing her mother's loopy handwriting, "Told her this morning before we left."

Hannah nodded, speaking up after a moment. "Hey, do you have any jeans I could borrow?"

Levi looked at her friend, confused for a few seconds before she remembered Hannah's pointed look from earlier that day, "Oh. Yeah, sure. You know where to get them. I'll wait for you down here and then we'll walk together to the pharmacy, 'kay?"

Hannah nodded in agreement and rushed upstairs, leaving Levi alone in the quietness of the empty living room.

As soon as Hannah's footsteps faded, the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece over the chimney seemed to grow louder, only to stop abruptly when Levi looked over at it. It continued doing this multiple times before the Johnston girl got fed up and walked over to it, taking it in her hands and turning it over.

"That stupid clock was always like that," A sickly dulcet voice came from behind her, making Levi jump and turn sharply, "Hello, Levi, dear."

Her grandmother stood there, wearing the same peach colored dress and white lace gloves she had been buried in.

"Grams?" Levi called, looking at the woman in confusion, "But- You're supposed to be d-dead."

"Tut-tut," Grandma Johnston (as she had insisted Levi called her in her lifetime) chastised her granddaughter, lifting a grey brow and wringing her hands together, "Still hanging out with the lower caliber, I see. I've told you, you're going to end up like your sister if you keep going around with that girl."

"What? I- Hannah isn't like that, Grams! You know it!" Levi yelled, every bitter feeling she had harbored for the older woman and pushed down since she had died peeking their wicked heads back up.

"Alone. Dead in a ditch and with your child dead before they were even born!" Grandma Johnston laughed maniacally, her appearance suddenly changing to that of Caroline Johnston, all bloody and bruised, her white blouse ripped and her skirt dripping with blood. Levi could feel the panic surging in her chest, trying to understand what in the world was going on. 

"C-Carol?"

"Vivi, help me!" Caroline shrieked, her hands frantically bunching her skirt up, her eyes wild as she looked up to her little sister, "Please, please!"

Breathing shallowly, Levi screwed her eyes shut, tears dripping down her face as she sobbed out a response, "I can't, Carol! I want- I want to, b-but I can't! I don't know how!"

"It should've been you!" Her sister's screaming and pleading stopped abruptly, her gaunt, pale face looking up at Levi with an expression of hatred. Her words dripped with venom, "You should've been the one in that ditch and I should've lived! It's all your fault!"

With each word that came out of her mouth, Caroline moved closer and closer to Levi, making her press herself up to the shelf.

"You are nothing! Nothing! Nothing!" Caroline chanted, her rancid breath blowing on her sister's face as the younger girl sobbed and thrashed.