Haunt || Matty Healy

Four.

I've thrown the record out five times and still it manages to find its way back in my room. It's gone from scary to annoying real quick.

I've burned it, broken it, threw it out my window, tossed it to my neighbor's dog, buried it under the tree outside my building and yet, as I dust my hands from dirt, walking back to my room, I see the Jimi Hendrix record, unscathed, laying atop my dresser. How it's gotten here even after I'm fairly positive I've thrown it out just outside the coffee shop yesterday, I have no idea. Do I question it? Not anymore.

I haven't seen Matty Healy since last night, and even as I walked home in daze, forcing myself to believe I've made everything up, I still felt his hands imprinted to my neck and the thought made my heart rate pick up considerably. Walking in last night, my mom hadn't noticed anything strange. I scratched at my neck and Mamá asked if I had gotten a mosquito bite and I could only nod as she inspected it and told me to rub some alcohol on it.

When I had walked into my bathroom, desperate to get rid of my clothes; somehow they had felt tainted - I stared at my reflection, horrified at the dark red bruises marking the majority of my throat.

Panic could not even begin to cover how I felt, placing my hands to my neck, rubbing at marks no one else could see. I scrubbed at my neck in the shower, masked it with make up in the morning - but nothing concealed the deep marks.

I unconsciously rub at my neck now as I make my way to the vinyl. I take it out of its case, feeling my stomach churn at the translucent vinyl, displaying sloshing red liquid between the layers plastic. My face is ashen.

I've known of a band that had done this to their records, The Flaming Lips - but it was clearly never real blood, only for imagery. But the Hendrix record was supposed to be black, I mean it had been black every other time I've gotten rid of it and even my time working at the record store, there had been no need for liquid imagery in a Hendrix Vinyl.

"For fuck's sake," I whisper, only partially scared and semi wondering if it's real blood. I frown at my thought process and drop it to the floor, giving up on it. If he wanted me to play it, he's got another thing coming. I may work at Under T but I don't actually own a record player. Fuck, I can hardly afford iTunes.

I rummage through my drawers, finding a pin in the shape if the crucifix, I must have gotten at Communion so long ago. I pin that shit to my shirt, Jesus is literally keeping my boobs in check as the pin is holding the top of my shirt together in place of a button I had lost after a few washes ago. I continue, searching for rosary beads and a copy of the bible and maybe a necklace with one of the saints.

I know Matty Healy had pretty much told me it wouldn't do much to help, and with the way he's acted last night after I recited that prayer, it sure as hell made him more aggressive and angry, causing more harm than good. But Kelsey is right, in the movies, this either how a bitch stays alive, or continues to fuck up her situation further.

I ponder the idea of going to get blessed by the pope and get re-baptized or something of likes, swallow a glass of holy water - I don't know. I was never the religious one, going to church when I had to and only praying at dinner when the table was full.

But if it would save me from freak incidents like bloody bathrooms and blackout trains, then I'll live in a church.

The only problem is actually leaving my house without Matty Healy's hoodoo-voodoo magic taunting me.

-

"Yo, Rapunzel," I hear from just outside my window. I groan, pausing the show on Netflix and opening my window. Kelsey and Seven's older brother, Nixon, are stood on my fire escape, sharing a similar stance of folding their arms across their chest and narrowing their eyes at me.