The Red Wing Mansion

Chapter Twenty

We drive through Clue, toward the cabin holiday park next to Koff Falls. As I'm in the back seat and my parents drive, I look out the window at the landscape flying by.

"Oh, look at that huge historic mansion!" I yell out, pointing toward the sign out front, The Red Wing Historic Mansion – PERMANENTLY CLOSED.

"I see it," my friend Pam also spots it, turning back to see it through the back window, "That's the place I was telling you about, they found a bunch of bones – dead women. A serial killer lived there. He still hasn't been caught."

"Are you serious? That's so creepy," I murmur, feeling cold as we drive by.

"Luckily we won't be anywhere near that haunted mansion," Pam shrugs.

I nod and pick up a wet rag to wipe over my forehead because it's sweltering in the car. Our air conditioning broke, and my window is broken on this side, I can't put it down, "I can't wait to go swimming..." I sigh, "...are we there yet?"

"10 minutes away," my dad calls back.

"Keep yourselves well behaved, girls," my mum adds, while applying extra makeup, "This is a job opportunity for me, remember that, I need to make a good impression."

"Mum, come on, we're 19, not 6. Of course we'll be well-behaved," but I laugh manically.

"No flirting with any boys either," my father jokes around, smirking at us from the rear view. He was always stirring up drama. I kick the back of his chair half-heartedly.

"Don't embarrass me in front of Pam –"

"Then don't act like a kid," he laughs back.

"Can you two, stop, please, I am so nervous and trying to focus," my mum quietens us all down. My dad puts on the radio, and it's back in range, not fuzzy anymore.

We're not far out from Koff's Holiday Park.

We were going to stay for the week and my mum was hopefully going to get the job at the reception desk – since we were moving to Clue soon. My dad had already found a job as a teacher at the local high school.

Pam and I were close since forever and this was like a bit of a last thing that we'd do together, before we inevitably became distant.

As for me?

I didn't work and I never finished school. I'd spent the last two years, being a homebody.

I had severe anxiety – random attacks that would render me incapable of leaving the house for weeks at a time. But luckily, I could anticipate them. It's because I'd have this weird reoccurring dream. It was always the same. In the dream I would wake up, a cold kiss on my lips, smoke filling my nose, trapped in a burning house – as this strange ghost of a man made sure I burned. The entire time, I could feel it. I could feel myself dying.

I'd wake up mentally fucked up. Every. Time.

Because it felt so real.

No one really knew what to tell me, because the way I freaked out didn't follow any particular pattern besides that one dream. And I could also go weeks at a time, totally outgoing, carefree, happy, not afraid.

It's like I had two personalities.

Although I didn't admit that to anyone.

One girl was the dead one, the burned one.

The other was just me. Alive. Happy.

I don't know what it all meant... all I knew is it rendered me incapable of living a full life without interruption.