Hometorius : Coming Home

chapter 5 : Blood, Flashlight and 'The Killer'

Marylin POV

September 2014. I didn't go to school because I didn't want to. The official reason that I came up with for the authorities of my beloved high school was that I went to some sleeping drugs rehab and the post-traumatic depression treatment. Actually, I'd need this kind of treatment now.

It was a cold and gloomy day. I sat alone in silence by the window and counted the droplets that lazily drifted down the cracked glass. I didn't believe it was just the rain. I didn't want to believe it.

'Those are the tears of God', I thought and salty tears that weren't controlled in any way rolled down my cheeks. I felt the same way at my grandma's funeral. I remember it as if it was yesterday. But it's been about six months since Grandma Rebecca passed away from a heart attack. Or maybe I felt worse now. I don't know. 'What happens now?' I asked myself like a psychopath. After all, I knew very well that in every family someone eventually dies. Well, you just have to live with it and move on.

Suddenly I heard a loud creak of the door behind my back. I knew that I shouldn't sit in someone else's house and pretend like I'm at mine. I wiped my tears away with the sleeve of my flannel shirt and turned around hoping to see Ivan, whom I last met at the funeral.

I missed him so much. I was still hoping that all the events from the first of May were just a nightmare. That my grandma was actually doing well, that Ivan was still my boyfriend, that I was still loved by someone.

I turned around, but I didn't see anyone. I tried to calm down, explaining to myself that it was only a draft of wind that opened the old door, but it scared me even more. Nice consolation, right? Wind in a closed room.

I slowly reached for the bag that I carried everywhere, to pull out the flashlight. The device was sticky and strangely slippery. Despite that, I turned it on, although with a lot of disgust. As soon as the room became brighter, I realized that the flashlight was covered in blood. I don't have anything against blood, against its smell, sight or even consistency, but blood in the dark is a whole new story. Where the hell did the blood come from?!

Not knowing what to do, I dropped the flashlight to the floor (or maybe it just slipped out of my hand), and it rolled under the still done, though unused for many years, bed. The room got dark in an instant. I heard a shrill cry and then a deafening shot. In a bit of unnecessary panic, I ran to the old closet and hid inside, slamming its door.

Various homicide scenes moved incredibly quickly in my mind, including burning, cutting the throat, blowing up an office building and, recently very popular in crime series, shooting a bow through a heart.

I hastily dug out my brand new phone from my bag (luckily, it was clean and dry, with no traces of blood, not even the smallest) and dialed the number of red-haired Kate Williams, my best friend. She answered right after the first signal.

"Hi, Marylin. Did something happen?" she started the conversation, as usual.

"Hey, Kate. I'm at Hoary Hag's. I think someone has been murdered," I whispered, not wanting anyone to hear me, if that was possible.

"Are you okay? Wait where you are. I'll be there soon."

"But please, don't go through the main entrance."

"So which way am I supposed to go? Is there a secret door or something?" Kate tried to crack a joke.

"No," I answered seriously. The phone vibrated in my hand. I moved it away from my ear to look at the battery percentage. It was on an extremely low level. I started to speak faster, "There is a ladder at the back of the wall. The best..." at this point the battery in my "reliable" phone died.

'Great', I thought and leaned my head against the thick fur coat hanging behind my back. 'I wonder how long it will take her to come here'. 

* * *

Kate came a lot faster than I expected. She entered the room quietly, even the door didn't creak. That's why I got scared when she suddenly opened the wardrobe door where I was hiding.

I let her in and we squeezed inside together. We still had a feeling that someone was standing behind us, but we were too afraid to check. We sat in silence between the old furs. It's terrifying that once these fur coats were live animals. How can any creature be treated like that?! And the old coats were so dusty that we could barely restrain ourselves from sneezing and coughing.

Suddenly we heard weeping, like a small child. We were reluctant to check what was going on, none of us really wanting to leave the "safe" wardrobe.

I gave Kate an unsure look and carefully opened the old creaky door. I walked slowly out into the darkness of the small room with one big window where I was lost in the loss of my beloved grandmother just a few moments ago, and Kate followed suit after me.

We moved unsteadily towards the door. The first one to go was me, supposedly the "braver one", although now I was probably as scared as Kate. Each step was like a torture. The oak floor screeched under even the slightest pressure.

After five minutes of sneaking, we arrived at a dark, steep staircase. All the steps were so rotten that I at once gave up going down, and walked down a long corridor instead. There was a mirror hanging at the end. Despite the fear, which that terrifying scream caused, I went closer and realized that everything was fine.

We turned right and got into a huge bedroom. The walls were shabby and the whole room was terribly neglected. In the center, however, there was a sophisticated and almost never destroyed by the time canopy bed. The view immediately took my breath away. I've always wanted to have such a bed in my room.

I was already opening the curtain, I wanted to take a dive into the gold bedding when a strong hand squeezed my arm. My heart sank and I froze. I slowly turned my head to see who was behind me.

'Kate', I heaved a sigh of relief, seeing my friend's freckled face next to mine. With undisguised sadness, I moved away from the bed and walked around the room. It was quite nice, although there wasn't much furniture in there and the curtains looked as if someone had set them on fire before. We slowly left the bedroom and went to the dining room on the opposite side of the corridor. A small table with a glass top stood next to the door, with four old wooden chairs beside it.

"Eww! What is this?!" Kate covered her eyes with her hand, as always disgusted with such views.

"Hmmm..." I muttered, coming closer, "looks like... there's a killer out there somewhere..."

On one of the long-unused chairs "sat" the ice-cold body of a young woman. It has already turned black and blue. The neck was pierced by a sharp knife. It didn't look like a normal kitchen knife or a knife that was approved for civil use. No civil knife could make such a deep and precise cut. It had an extremely sharp edge and a disproportionately short handle. Curious, I grabbed it through a handkerchief and read the engraved inscription:

"THE KILLER"

I looked surprised at Kate, whose eyes almost fell out of her eye sockets in fear.