Behind the Gate

Chapter 11

Fast forwarding to the evening, it was the next day and I had already told my mom about going to the ice cream parlor and I also called Cayla about the idea. At first, she was a bit uneasy about it, but then agreed to drive us. I took out what I was going to wear: a simple black tank and a pair of jeans. We Face-timed for a bit until I heard a honk outside.

"Oh, Cayla's outside. Tia, we're coming to pick you up first, then Celina," I spoke out.

"Ok," they both said.

We made it to Tia's place in like 5 minutes, then we drove to Celina's house

and directly to the destination, which also wasn't too far away. But there was red spray paint on a wall that said, "I'm expecting you." I thought it was probably nothing. The weird thing is, I had a quick vision of a red and black dagger in a small room.

"Celine, you good?" Celina asked me.

"Yea, yea."

...........................

Once we arrived, the whole place looked like it came right from some horror movie. Bright yellow caution tape around the house was flying around in the wind. The windows and doors were broken. The whole neighborhood was quiet, like everyone moved out or something. There were old blood splatters on the cold, driveway floor, even some on the walls. There were pieces of paper flying around the place, some crinkled, some ripped. I picked one up and written on it were the words,"Boogeyman." I picked up another, and another, and another, with all of them saying the same word, Boogeyman.

"Hey Celina, remember the Boogeyman from like a summer or two ago?" I asked her.

"Yea, why? Wait...no way," She said, thinking the same thing I was.

"I think that the monster that has been chasing me this whole time is Boogeyman, but evolved to something worse after we killed him," I stated, but a specific piece of paper fell from the sky onto me and written in red was the word "Correct." I flipped the piece of paper around to show them and Celina was shocked. I told Tia the story* before, but she didn't believe me. Well, at this point she believed me more.

We went up the incline to the front porch and went up to the door. I stopped right in front of the door but hesitated. I gathered my confidence and knocked. We waited a while until we found out that there was no one inside. So I tried to open the door but it was locked. I jumped down from the ledge to see if the basement door was open, but was also locked.

"Locked," I said, shaking my head.

"What are we going to do now?" Tia asked. Balcony, I thought.

"Oh, we can go through my balcony door," I said eagerly. So they jumped down and followed me behind the house. There were loose wires hanging from every aspect of the surrounding trees. Once we avoided the wires, I realized that there was a little problem: my dad never built stairs from the balcony to the floor. That was the last thing he needed to do before we were required to move.

"I know this is going to bring back memories, but Celina, remember when you and...Synthia...helped me up into that tree for a photo?" I asked her.

"Yea, yea, I remember. So one foot on my hand and one foot on Tia's hand?" She said.

"Yea and then I'll help you and Tia would grab your legs, and then we'll help Tia up,"

"Alright, let's do this," Tia agreed.

So Celina grabbed my left foot and Tia grabbed my right and I put my hands onto the floor of the balcony. I got up and I got Celina's arms and Tia held her feet and she got up. Then we got Tia's arms and pulled her up.

It was a bit hard, but we got up on the balcony. I went for the door and hoped that it wasn't locked. Luck was on my side, and the door opened. I went in first with Tia behind me and Celina getting ready to run like the last time in the pantry. We walked into the sunroom and I was surprised it was not as messed up as outside in the driveway. There were boxes and papers everywhere. We walked through the doorway, which led to the dining room and the kitchen.

But what was weird was at that point I spotted holographic blue and white arrows hovering above the floor by a couple inches.

"Hey, do you guys see those arrows on the floor?" I asked them.

"No, where?" Celina spoke.

"Right here, I'm literally jumping on one of them," I told her while jumping up and down.

"What if it was only you for some reason, like someone or something is on our side helping us?" Tia predicted.

"That's true," I said, "Well, follow me, I guess."

So the arrows pointed towards the stairs leading to the basement. I had a bad feeling about this, but I can't live with someone stalking me my whole life. We followed the arrows down the stairs and there was blood everywhere. There were papers pinned on one wall with random people's faces. I walked up to one of them and what sent shivers down my back were pictures of Noah, Synthia, Mary, and Grace with big red x's on them. I inspected the rest of the wall but what brought tears to my eyes was a picture of Celina with a number 1 on top of her and a picture of Tia with a number 2. Then there was me, with a big red circle on my face. Celina and tia came over to me.

"Celine, what's wrong?" Celina asked me.

"You're next...," I told her, wiping my tears, "and Tia is after you."

"Well guess what, we are not letting that happen," Tia spoke up.

"She's right, now lets get done with here. This place was worse than last time," Celina said.

I gave them a hug and we continued on our investigation. I followed the arrows and we stopped at my old washing machine that we left here and the arrows pointed to a piece of paper.

"What's this?" I said. It had combinations on it to turn the dial on my washing machine.

"Full left, full right, full right, full left?" I read, "Well, let me try it."

I turned the knob as instructed on the piece of paper and the lid opened and started smoking like a smoke machine. A stand with a key on top revealed to us.

"What's that for?" Celina said.

"I don't know but we'll find out," I said as the arrows came up again, pointing to a nearby closet. I opened the door and went through and found at the end of the closet a little door. There was a lock on it, so I used my key and inserted it in the keyhole. But I hesitated and looked back at Tia and Celina. They nodded their heads and I unlocked the door. It opened revealing a spacious room with the dagger on a stand.

"I'm not going to take it. One of you guys take it," I said.

"I'll take the dagger," Celina spoke up. She went in front of me and held it. But in the distance, I can make out a figure, but a recognizable figure. Boogeyman.