Sleepless Nights Short Stories

Annika My Sweet Girl

"Good night, Maxie," I utter as she turns off her bedside ballerina lamp, submerging the room into darkness. I close my heavy, tired eyes, drifting in and out of light sleep, waiting for my body to succumb to exhaustion.

Just as I feel myself slipping closer into my dreams, I'm suddenly jerked awake by the light murmur of my name.

The room around me is still immersed in thick blackness, making it almost impossible to see the culprit.

My name is again quietly proclaimed, and I can quickly pin the voice as Maxie's.

"Yes, Maxie?" I wearily ask, my eyes still adjusting to the rich tendrils of darkness.

"Help."

Help?

There's no question in her tone; her voice is nothing more than lifeless.

"Maxie?"

Unexpectedly, I feel the warmth and stickiness of something trickle down my forehead. My instincts quickly tell me to drag the sleeve of my white cotton shirt against the liquid.

I hastily pull it away and strain my eyes to see that whatever it is, is thick and red.

Blood.

"What the fuck?" I vehemently shriek, throwing the bedside lamp on.

I cautiously look up at the ceiling to see my sister's tiny feet and hands nailed to it in the shape of a cross.

Maxie's beautiful grey eyes are replaced with bloody voids, and her frilly white nightgown is drenched in more sticky red ooze.

"Help me, Ava! Please get me down!" Maxie aggressively wails as more blood forcefully pours its way out of her empty eye sockets.

Like a frightened deer in headlights, I scamper off my bed, now covered in little speckles of my sister's blood. Warm tears that I didn't know I was crying slide down my blood-covered face.

"Mom! Dad! Help!!" I whimper, darting towards the eerily black hallway that lay in front of me.

You've got to be kidding me...

The walls.

The walls are bleeding.

I watch as dark red ooze quickly pours down them, soaking every single little crevice.

Taken aback by sheer horror, I yelp, scampering back into my bedroom, and with the force of fear, slam the white wooden door behind me.

I slowly turn around, not yet ready for the horror show I'm about to endure.

The limp figure of Maxie is now lying on the carpeted floor face down in a massive puddle of her own blood.

The longer I stare, the more I notice the unnatural turn of her neck.

"Ava help me, please help me!" Maxie's cries, her voice frantically rising to a shrill paranormal scream.

When all I can answer back with are muffled cries, the ghastly creature that resembles my sister growls low and stern.

I feel a sudden warm liquid trickle down my pants legs, causing the fabric to stick uncomfortably to me.

"This can't be happening to me." I shakily whisper under my breath, turning back around to our bedroom door.

As I forcefully pull at the knob in a vain attempt to open the door, it flies off, smacking me hard in the stomach.

"No, no no!" I scream, slamming my petite fists against the door until my knuckles are raw and bleeding.