Black

Part 18 It's a fear of delight

Ryan sat on the chair watching over sleeping Jennifer in his bed and leaned his weight on his perched elbows pressing lips to his hands.The soon he carried her out of the graveyard, he took her to his house informing her parents about the incident though in altered version of what actually had happened. It's a perfect sane lie that Jennifer had been nearly mugged at the street by a drunk man when she walked down his house at the late hour of night. She had forgotten her cellphone at his house and he chased her only to find her struggling against the man in the alleyway. The bulky man, it's advantage for them that he's drunk and they both managed to escape with few scratches after calling cops to arrest the man. Ryan told them she would be staying with him since it would've been difficult for her to move in burning fever. It's relief to both Ryan and Haley that her parents had bought the story, a normally webbed one not the horrific scene they both had witnessed at the cemetery that twisted their guts and churned their stomach with the nauseous bile. Jennifer's breaths were ragged and broken, having trouble in breathing. The nice decision would've been taking her to hospital, but he knew if her assaulter smelt her in the hospital she would never wake up. It's good thing that his mother didn't have late night shift at the hospital and got on her feet to treat the girl's injuries. She called in Dr. Lloyd, her colleague and friend that Ryan would sometime believe they both were seeing each other and he wouldn't mind if they did. They stared at the carvings over all her flesh and looked back at him silently asking what had happened to her. He shook her head, passing the message that it isn't a time to talk. They inserted IV's in her arms, tending her swollen shoulder joint to reposition it.  Her arms and legs had been dressed in fresh bandages. Her breathing and heartbeat had been stabilized and that's the privilege of having doctors at house. Dr. Lloyd gave her injection of morphine and they told him it'd take time for her in coming around with high chances of PTSD. He had sworn the entire night to look after her and both Haley and him decided not to disclose to anyone about what had happened. The previous hours event had still been replaying before his eyes and it wouldn't have been come like a shock if he were to say that the whole encounter at the cemetery with Jennifer had left him horrified to his bones. He would look at her, taking in her blood drained  face pale like a fading ghost, who she was to put in that way, for she had nearly been devoured by the heinous teeth of death. 'Nearly', he scoffed, would be an understatement for what she had been put through. It wasn't a work of some simple serial killer, it'd been the precedent of a twisted corrupted mind far beyond the police thought and anyone of them of what they had been dealing with. Cold sweat formed on her face and body, face contorting almost painfully and he knew she had been reliving the nightmare again. He sat there helplessly when she whimpered, tears streaming down her closed eyes and there's nothing he could do to take that memory away. He wiped his forehead with the washcloth and rubbed her good arm to soothe her out of the nightmare.

"It's a nightmare it'll stop" He whispered that he doubted whether he's doing for her or himself. A thick lump formed in the back of his throat because he knew what she had suffered would always come back to haunt her.

-
Amber sat crouching on the stair steps horrified and staring at the floor with her full blown eyes. Trail of blood were tracing pattern on the the floor as if someone had been dragged bleeding across the living hall to the front door. She supported her weight up on her numb legs that refused to move on their own accord almost giving away her balance and she fell on her side on the floor moaning. Amber pushed herself and limped into the kitchen to grab the mop.
 'No, not the mop to clean the blood', she reasoned for there's a chance the blood wouldn't wash off the mop. Because she knew, her instincts were telling her not to trust the easy way. She removed her shirt and carried bucket of water to the living room. She soaked her shirt in the bucket and knelt down to wipe the floor across the room before her mother would wake up. The mere thought of her mother sleeping few feet away in her room sent the tremors of fears and panic throughout her body.

 Amber sighed in good relief as she finished cleaning the floor but when she turned around the sight in front of her eyes startled her. Either her eyes were betraying her or her sanity had started to play nasty tricks on her mind. The floor had trails and patches of dried coated blood on it as if she never had removed them to begin with. She muffled her choke with her hand and frantically looked around. Amber dared to stare down at her bloodstained hands and her shirt soaked in red giving a proof that she did clean.

'Maybe she didn't clean right'

 She tried to convince her betraying mind, there was no way that the blood trails had to be there on the floor if she had cleaned good. Amber took a moment to recover her working senses that were screaming 'Blood, blood, blood' and pulled off her grey tunic to clean the floor. She scrubbed with her both hands, groaning and whimpering but no matter how much force she put into scrubbing the bloodstains wouldn't wash off. She let out a strangled cry eyes wandering around the room in desperation. She felt her stomach churn, tying knots in fear and she ran to her bathroom throwing in the washbasin. She gagged, hurting her stomach but nothing would come out. She felt a cold chill hitting her spine upon seeing black hair clogging the washbasin. The room grew dimmed and dark save for the mirror that was giving away her reflection for her. Amber saw long black hair gliding down the the walls in the mirror reflection but when the instant she turned around, the walls were clean. She bent over the washbasin with a wave of giddiness and puked throwing up black mass of hair. Amber stumbled back in horror, staring down at the vomited hair in her palm and immediately looked down  only to find the clean basin, and then back to her empty hand. She shivered breaking sweat and clutched her throbbing head as if she had been hit with a jackhammer.

 She felt utterly sick, wiping the sweat off her forehead and neck, and opened the tap to wash her face. She didn't know if she's being sleepy or sleeping, or it's a nightmare or hallucination. Amber looked up and blood rushed down, leaving her her body cold when she saw black hair like snakes creeping down the white walls. A cold sensation prickled back of her head and a new wave of nausea hit her when creepers of hair extended to reach out for her.

 It's mirror, it's mirror, it's mirror', she squeezed her eyes shut till she saw white light behind her eyelids and turned her back to mirror. But it wasn't in the mirror, it wasn't her nightmare. It's the reflection of what was real, of a reality that had been taking place before her eyes. The walls had the black hair snaking down to floor that crawled towards her. Amber jumped on her feet and tried to move away from the creepers or hair, she couldn't see the difference.

 Her mind and body had stopped working, No fear or flight instincts.

 A good mass of hair coiled around her ankle like a python and slammed her against the washbasin. She shrieked as the mirror broke at the impact and shards of it pierced into the flesh of her arm. She landed on the tiles and the hair sneaked towards her form. Before she could scurry away from the creepers, they coiled around her wrists and ankles making her to thrash and scream for her mother.

"I'll do it, I'll do it ...stop it!" She shrieked crying and thrashing to free herself as they closed around her mouth and coiled around her neck.
Samantha barged in the bathroom and saw her daughter thrashing on the floor and strangling herself with a cord around her neck. Samantha cried rushing to her daughter and tried to pry her fingers off the cord that were hell bent on choking her.
"Amber... stop!" She took her hands off but Amber freed her arms from her mother's grasp back to the cord tightening it further around her neck. Samantha shouted out for daughter and managed to loosen the cord from her neck and tossed it away. She jerked her daughter back to reality, crying that she had attempted suicide and squeezed her child to her breast.

"I didn't do anything...I didn't do anything" Amber chanted like a school rhyme of a haunted class that had been left abandoned.
"Amber you tried to commit suicide" Samantha sniffed wiping her tears. She had lost her husband, her other daughter and she couldn't afford to lose Amber.

"Tell them I'll do it...I'll do it...ma" Amber giggled bursting out into a laughter.

"Amber...you're going to see your psychiatric"