Lily

No More Quiet

     I found my ears, plugging them, but it wasn't enough to muffle the blood-curdling howl of someone that I did not recognise. My eyes adjusted to the darkness at last, and I noticed my mom with her mouth open, screaming. But the howling of the other unrecognisable voice was so loud that it drowned out the sound of my mom's. So obviously I wasn't the only one who heard it.

     "QUIET!" I screamed in pain, still plugging my ears. "BE QUIET!"

     "No more quiet," replied the eerie childlike voice that I had heard in my head before the lights went out.

     "She has found you," echoed another that sounded almost identical to the last. And then the screaming stopped.

     "What the hell is going on?" I heard the panicked, trembling voice of my mom. And then there was about a minute long silence. Tommy leaned over to me in the dark.

     "What the fuck is happening?" he whispered. I leaned down to him.

     "I don't know," I whispered back.

     "AAAAAAAAAAGH!" I jumped at the sudden ear-splitting sound of my mom's scream. I whipped my head around to see my mom fall to the ground with a thud, wrestling with something that I couldn't see.

     "Mom!" I ran over, reaching down to grab her. I jumped back with surprise of coming into contact with an ice-cold air on top of her. Then I went back in, expecting the coldness this time. I grabbed her by one of her wrists, pulling her up off the ground. She clung to me like a shy toddler would cling to their mother.

     "Run!" I looked over to see Gale in the kitchen doorway, waving us over. Then he ran down the hall. We followed him. I heard an eerie kind of giggling behind us. I looked behind me to see a flickering image of a girl wearing a knee-length white, gauzy nightgown with no shape. Her long black hair hung over her face, obscuring it. Then she disappeared. 

     "Go faster!" I screamed, panicking. I really wanted to get outside and over to somewhere safe, like Clifford's house, before that girl did. 

     "Into this closet!" Gale screamed at us, opening the door into a small, dark, rectangular room and waving us in hurriedly. I stayed where I was. 

     "Gale, we have to get outside! We can't stay in this house!" I screamed back at him. 

     "Teeheeheehee," I turned around, catching a quick glimpse of the girl in the nightgown walking slowly towards us. She was about to pass the sitting area, which was where the only door to the outside was. I made up my mind. We had no choice but to stay in this closet until the night was over. I pushed Gale into the closet, going in behind him and shutting the door behind me. Once it was closed, I turned around and locked it. 

     "Alright. Is everyone okay?" I turned back around, asking everyone. I could practically hear them nodding. I smiled. It was a smile for scaring away the terror in me. It didn't work.

TOMMY'S P.o.V.

    I sit against the back wall of the small, rectangular room next to Gale and my mom. Or, at least, I think I'm also sitting next to my mom. I know that Gale is sitting to the right of me, and then there's another body to the left of me, which must be my mom. I search for her shoulder, and when I find it, I shake it lightly.

     "Mom, do you think she's gone yet?" I ask her.

     "I don't know," her voice comes from a foot away from me, somewhere like on the right wall. I feel the adrenaline shoot through my veins and I begin to panic.

     "Mom, where are you?" I ask, looking around even though I can't see anything.

     "I'm sitting by the door, why?" she replies. My heart sinks.