Little Sister

Dear Billy

"I swear it was right here." The little girl said, her flashlight shines forward at the wall ahead of her, the same place she was sure she had seen the clock. "Right here."

"A grandfather clock?" Nancy questioned.

"It was so real. And then, when I got closer, I...woke up."

"It was like she was in a trance or something." Max said.

"Exactly what Eddie said happened to Chrissy." Dustin Added.

"That's not even the bad part." Bailey said turning to everyone.

     Back in the counseling office the entire group sat around Ms. Kelley's desk looking at both Fred and Chrissys records noticing what was in common between them and their visits.

"Fred and Chrissy, they both came to Ms. Kelley for help. They were both having headaches, bad headaches, that just wouldn't go away. And then..."

"The nightmares." Max said. Bailey nodded.

"Then they started seeing things. Bad things. They were visions from their pasts. And the visions, they just, they kept getting worse until eventually...they were gone." Max began to pace back and forth, biting the inside of her lip so hard you'd be sure it would bleed.

"Vecnas curse." Robin said looking up from the papers. Max shook her head, hear hands balling underneath her crossed arms.

"Chrissy's headache started a week ago. Fred's, six days ago. I've had them for five days." Everyone sat quietly, staring at the girl with disbelief. "They both died 24 hours after they saw the first vision. And I just saw the clock."

     The silence in the room became loud as the little girl stopped talking, but surprisingly, she sat there, no sign of expression on her face, no fear, no sadness, nothing. You'd think that at the young age of seven she wouldn't understand what was happening, be she did, it was clear to her, but she had hope, and she was ready, ready to take on what was coming because for once, she was glad it was her, she rather it be her, and not Max.

     The older redhead turned and rushed out of the room with growing anger, or was it anger, was it something else? Was it the dread she felt knowing she was going to lose her daughter by tomorrow night? The sadness that the one person she tried for was going to be gone? Or the feeling of failure she had felt once before, like she hadn't done enough to protect her, because it was obvious, these visions, the ones from the past, were not good ones, and she knew that Bailey had seen things in her time, too many things.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Max screamed punching at the lockers in front of her. She seethed and cried out through her clenched teeth, her hands on her head ready to rip her hair out strand by strand.

"Max. Max, hey. Everything's gonna be alright, okay?" Steve reached out to the teen trying to reassure her.

"No!" She said smacking his hand away. "It won't be okay, Steve, it's not! She shouldn't have been caught up in this shit in the first fucking place! She shouldn't have lived the way she did, she shouldn't have been brought here!" The other grown ups walked out of the office, taking stand behind Steve. "You can't tell me it's going to be okay when this is what our lives have become, whether or whether not she survives this." She inhaled and took a deep breath trying to calm down. "You can't tell me it's going to be okay, when I might lose my little girl tomorrow..." Her voice shook as a lump got caught in her throat.

     With a few forgetting Max was in fact the mother of Bailey, they stood in silence, gawking. No one said anything, they didn't think they had the right to, none of them were in Max's stance, they had no way of understanding what she was feeling, what was going on in her mind so they didn't think it was right to try and speak on it. From behind, Dustin and Bailey walked out of the office, the little one seeing the tears left over on Max's face. Slowly she stepped away from the group and over to her mother, hugging onto her.