Black Box: Book Three

7~ The story of her holding an orange.

Okay guys, before I begin, I gotta give you a fair warning. This story is absolutely true unfortunately. It is also very long. It goes back to my childhood, but it wasn't as terrifying until very recently. Now I am completely lost in fear. I am an adult man, logical and intelligent (or I'd like to believe so) sitting in my bed, scared shitless right now, goosebumps all over my body and tears of horror in my eyes. I ask for your help in explaining this fucking horrifying thing. Caution: you'll notice that I curse quite a bit.

I want you to know that what you read from now on is the situation perceived by my mind. I like to think that I am a very rational person and I haven't been able to explain these occurrences in any natural way.

Since my mom got a new job, she started making new friends. It is common in our country that friends come to each other's houses for a cup of coffee, cake, gossip and whatnot. Few weeks into her new job, my mom made friends with this woman, Rose. She would come maybe twice a week and they'd sit around the coffee table on our balcony and just talk. One day, when I was 17, I was at the balcony with them. I'm not sure why I was there, but knowing me, I probably ran out of internet hours (back in a day we bought internet monthly per hour in my country) and was bored as fuck. So we're sitting there, they're gossiping about who knows what, and mom gets up to go get some cake she had baked recently. I remained sitting at the table with Rose and that's when my life changed forever. Rose was a good looking woman. She was about 5'6", skinny, long black hair, pearly white teeth. Attractive woman overall. So anyways, I am sitting there with her, and she turns to me. She has this creepy grin on her face; bright red lipstick with bright white teeth underneath are just making it look more scary. Her head is moving slowly, almost as if she became a puppet. She says something in the lowest tone possible, certainly not loud enough for me to understand. "Excuse me?" I say, still not being scared, just a bit weirded out.

"You ready to go now?" She said this in a voice of a child, I kid you not. Like maybe an 8 year old girl.

Grin is still there. She mustered those words through her teeth, never opening the jaw.

"What?" I ask, starting to get scared.

"You ready?" The same thing again. Only this time, she pulls out an orange out of her purse. That's it, she just took the orange out, and held it there. Didn't offer it, didn't eat it herself, just held the fucking thing.

At that point, I was getting scared as fuck. Thankfully, my mom came with the cake. Rose, almost as if someone pushed a button on a remote control, switched back to her normal self, putting the orange back into her purse without my mom noticing. I left the balcony creeped out, but I was 17 so I brushed it off quickly.

That night, I had trouble sleeping. My room is on the first floor and my window is at a maybe 5' height, so I kept looking at it praying not to see some scary monster. I would turn in my bed constantly and look at the window maybe every 5 minutes. It was getting late and I started to doze off, but decided to look into the window one last time. And there she fucking was. Standing in the fucking window. Rose. Just standing, looking directly at me (moonlight was bright enough for me to see), with the same grin on her face. Lipstick was red as ever, and teeth were whither than ever. I was paralyzed with fear. I often imagined what I'd do in situations like these, and I always had an escape plan for any hypothetical I threw at myself. But now, when this friend of my mother's was staring at me through my window at 4am, just smiling, I was motionless. My mouth got dry, I got goosebumps (have them now as I type this), and I swear it became freezing in my room, probably just the way the body reacts to shock. I finally gathered the courage to get up. I started walking towards the door. Hear head was turning with me. Slowly. With the grin still there. Again, it was as if she were a puppet. I wanted to scream for my parents, but knowing how tense they are, I decided not to cause panic just yet. There had to be some rational explanation, right? For fuck knows what reason, I decided to walk to the window and ask her what the fuck her problem was. I made two slow steps towards it and froze. I froze because she moved. You know what her movement was? Taking the orange out of her purse. Does anyone know what the record time is for having goosebumps? Because they sure as shit aren't going away. Anyways, after being terrified for a minute, I decide to go on. I am a big guy and figured I'd be able to fight her off if push comes to shove. My windows pull up in order to open. I pull it open maybe some 10 inches and stop. She's not moving, just holding the fucking orange and looking at me with the scariest grin you'll ever see. I stand there. She stands there. Then, she starts bending. But every move she makes is so slow, so mechanical. She's bending so she can reach the open part of the window. I'm horrified. She pushes her head through it (just enough space for her head to go through).