Short Horror Stories [ON HOLD]

Story 6 - Season 2

I was a bad brother

When I was 10, I got a king-size snickers for Halloween. Sitting high above the pixie sticks, fun dip, and dum-dum pops, this extraordinary prize was to be the last in line, an ultimate reward for exhausting my sugary rations over the next couple months. My sister, Beatrice, ate it the next day.

"It's not as if he doesn't have an entire bucketful of candy!" But she ate my prize, and that marked the beginning of a long and terrible war between a high school girl and her elementary school brother.

I'd tell Mom whenever she had her boyfriend over. She'd borrow my gameboy and accidentally lose it. I'd pour all the Diet Pepsis in the house down the drain. She'd feed the dog a double helping when it was my turn to clean up.

"All that bad energy's gonna attract a ghost, I tell ya," Grandpa would say whenever he caught us fighting. "Break it up."

It's been a long, hard two year war, but I've persevered. Today was D-day. Prom night. And I was stuck in the bathroom with a bad case of fake diarrhea for the next two hours. The door rattled.

"Terrence! I know you're in there!"

I turned the page of my comic. "I have diarrhea!"

"I'm getting mom!" The sounds of angry stomps, followed by chattering and more angry stomps led to Mom's tired voice.

"Terrence, tonight's really important to Beatrice. She needs the mirror for her makeup. Can't you use the downstairs bathroom?"

Thankfully, I'd come prepared with an inflated balloon. "But my tummy hurts! I'll be out soon, I promise!" I moaned and let loose a few farts of air.

"I'm sorry, Beatrice. It looks like you'll have to wait. I can let you use my compact if you want."

I checked the clock after finishing my comic. Still more than an hour and a half to go. I got off the toilet and went through my bath toys, though they just weren't the same on dry land. I figured I'd torment Beatrice by hiding her various brushes and powders in the deepest, darkest reaches of the bathroom.

A bunch of powdery brown stuff went under the sink. Half of the brushes sat in an overturned bucket behind the toilet, and the other half went to the laundry basket. Her perfume hid between two towering shampoo bottles.

All that was left was her neon orange sparkle brush. The doorknob rattled. "Terrence! It's been too quiet for too long! I'm getting Grandpa!"

And like that, my time was limited. The easiest place to hide it would probably be the medicine cabinet. I pried it open and stuck it between a glass bottle of stuff that makes you puke and a plastic jug of "water" that mom used to clean cuts on my hand. It burned like crazy and felt really cold after.

"Terrence!" Grandpa called through the door. "You better not be fighting your sister again!"

I ran over to flush the toilet. "Just pooping grandpa! I just need to wipe my butt." Batman comic tucked under my shirt, balloon deflated and in my back pocket, I proceeded to walk towards the exit as slowly as possible. And stopped.

My reflection was waving at me. Not like my best friend Tom at recess. More like how Mister Duncan waves when I'm biking downhill towards the gutter. Somehow, the shower curtain behind me had slid closed, even though I didn't remember closing it. And it looked like someone was behind it.

Alarm bells rang in my head as I unlocked the door and dashed through, heart pounding.

Beatrice got up from the bed where she'd been waiting with Grandpa. "Finally, you little shit. Better not have touched my stuff."

"Wait!" I grabbed her hand, and she pushed me off. "Wait. Don't go in there! There's someone in the shower!"

She stopped a few inches from the bathroom before going in. "That's your worst attempt yet."

I ran forward and tackled the door before she could close it, bursting into the bathroom. "Terrence!" She shrieked, as we both fell to the floor. She grabbed my face and pushed, hard. I winced, but nothing followed.

"What the FUCK is that?"

I opened my eyes. Three long, black fingers wrapped around the edge of the shower curtain. The rings scraped against the metal bar as the curtain slid open, inch by inch.

"Move!" Grandpa grabbed us, one arm each, and slid us out of the bathroom on our butts. He slammed the door closed behind us and leaned into it. "Terrence, there's a small gold book and a purple bottle in the top shelf of Grandma's dresser. It's wrapped in a lacy blue nightgown. I need it. Beatrice, help me with this door. Go!"

I shook as I got up, almost falling on the wood floor in my sock feet.

"Move!" Beatrice shouted, pressing against the door. It shook as if something heavy slammed into it.

I sped down the hall into Grandma and Grandpa's room, flung open the dresser, and grabbed the lumpy nightgown. It caught on the corner of the dresser when I pulled it out and tore, but I ran back anyway.

"Grandpa! Here!"

He shook the book free of the nightgown, opened a page, and started reading in a language I didn't understand, all while pressing against the door. The next slam knocked a red-faced, crying Beatrice to the floor. Wood cracked.

Grandpa was shouting now. He opened the bottle and sloshed whatever was inside over the door. It fizzed and bubbled, and the slams stopped. He finished the reading in a softer voice, slumped to the ground, and closed the book.

"What did I say would happen if you two kept fighting?"

Beatrice ended up canceling prom night, wrapped tight in a pile of blankets with her boyfriend, watching Netflix on our couch. I was grounded for three weeks, losing both my allowance and Mom's "last drop of patience", whatever that meant. Later that night, someone knocked on my door.

"It's just us." Grandpa said, bringing Beatrice in. Both of them looked a lot better. "Beatrice has something to say to you."

"I'm sorry." She sniffed, crying a bit. "I'd never been so mad at you before. I just... wanted you to die. I kept screaming it in my head, and I think that thing heard it. I wanted tonight to be perfect. And you ruined that. But you're my baby brother. I don't want you to die. Grandpa and I talked Mom down, so you're not grounded anymore."

"I'm sorry for ruining your night." I got up from the bed and hugged her. I'd been a lot shorter two years ago. Now, our heads were almost even.

She gave me a small, sad smile. "I'm sorry for eating your Snickers."

Credit
Reddit - r/nosleep
User - u/tensing99