Chapter 8: Charlie Part 2
"Anna" I hear as soft as a whisper and then a scraping noise coming from my closet.
Cautiously uncovering my head, I am so scared that I feel myself shivering, but I still climb out of bed and stand up. Hearing the scraping noise again, I take a step in the general direction of the closet. However, when I hear my name again being called, I run back to the security of my covers and hide underneath them.
Shaking uncontrollably, I stay under the covers and listen carefully for any sounds. What I hear next chills me to the bone and I find myself peeing the bed. Next to me, I feel a slight disturbance in the air flow and then I hear it. "Anna." A distinctively male voice screech.
It hurts my ears because it is so close and when I end up covering them with my hands, it pulls the covers off me quickly. Revealing the source of the sound, my heart stops for a beat and then I black out.
Waking up the next morning, I am so sure that the whole thing had to be a nightmare, because I am lying in bed with not a mark on me and the covers are over my head. I jump out of bed, carefully staying away from the closet and grab some clothes out of the drawers. As I pull on my blue corduroy pants, I grab my fluffy pink sweater and wiggle into it before going into the kitchen to eat breakfast.
Mom glances over at me with a curious look and then states, "Breakfast will be ready in a minute. I threw some cinnamon rolls in the oven, and they still have a minute or two before they are brown."
Smiling, I reply, "Oh, that sounds yummy mom. Thanks."
Sitting down at the table, I wait patiently as I drink my orange juice. Mom glances over at me again and asks, "Did you have any more nightmares last night?"
"Yes, I don't know what is going on. Ever since Billie gave me Charlie, I have been having this same bad dream over and over. It is so real that I peed the bed, I'm sorry."
Mom shrugs her shoulders and replies, "Honey, it's O.K., I have to change the sheets today anyways. I am doing wash and it has been a week or two since they have been done."
Feeling somewhat relieved, I sit back on the chair and await mom's scrumptious cinnamon rolls. She always makes them homemade, and they are the best. After a few minutes, they are ready and when I get a whiff of them in the air, my stomach growls.
She hands me a plate with two of them on it and I scarf them right down like they are going out of style, then she asks, "Do you want another one?"
"Mom, of course I do. You know that I can eat five of those in one sitting." I smirk and start to laugh when she plates up two more.
She laughs and just shakes her head, "Honey, one of these days you are going to have a butt the size of Jupiter." She says jokingly and then sits down to relax for a few minutes before cleaning up her mess.
Sometimes, I think my mom is the best mom in the whole wide world. She bakes awesome treats and cooks like a culinary chef, yet she still has time to spend with me. Matter of fact, I don't know of any of my friend's mothers who does that. They may back a rack of cookies from the grocery store or mix up the premade bags of cookies, but no one does everything from scratch like her.
For the rest of the day, I work on homework and take a bath, so I am ready for school in the morning. When I go to bed, I don't let mom shut my door all the way and I make sure she keeps the side lamp on. Somehow though, in the middle of the night I wake up and the door is closed, and the lamp is turned off.
Hearing an odd sound that is coming from the closet, I refuse to lift the covers and keep my eyes closed instead. I lay perfectly still and wait. When I don't hear another sound after a while, I go back to sleep.
"Anna!" I hear someone scream right next to me and I freeze.
It is an eerie sound that causes all my warning bells to go off in my head, but when I don't move, nothing happens. I lay there completely still for several hours with the sweat dripping down my face, and I feel like I am going to die tonight. It's an inexplicable feeling of dread and sadness, but it's very real.
"Anna." The scream is even louder now, and it sounds like it's coming from inside my head.
Echoing off my bedroom walls, the sound scares me so much that when the covers come off, I just sit and stare at Charlie as he peers at me. This time, he climbs on the bed and his fangs are dripping wet. His smile fills me with so much dread that I wish I had run out of the room when I first heard him tonight.
Finally finding my voice, I shriek, and Charlie cocks his head to the left side. When he straightens it and leans closer to my face, he whispers, "Your mom isn't able to help you right now and to tell you the truth, I don't think she will ever be able to again." It's clear now that the blood dripping from his fangs is my mom's and he has done something horrible to her.
"I need you, Anna. You aren't the ideal candidate for this, but Billie is too old for it to work. Taking your soul instead is the only chance I have now because you are still pure and innocent enough that I can use yours."
Suddenly, I realize that the only hope I have of getting out of this tonight, is to run. He will never let me go and I am pretty sure whatever he did to my mom killed her. Jumping off the bed, I make a run for it and bolt out the front door in my pajamas.
The neighbor sitting on the porch next door, yells out to me, "Where are you going Anna? It is 3 a.m."
Completely out of breath, I run up to her and scream in her face, "My mom is hurt, and I need you to call the cops. Please help me. There is a murderer in the house!"
She takes ahold of my hand and brings me inside while she grabs her phone and calls 911. A few minutes later, I hear the sirens in the distance and then the cops arrive with an ambulance. They rush in to discover that my mother is dead and there is no murderer to be found.
Searching everywhere, they sit me down eventually and ask me so many questions that my head hurts. When they are done, I end up in foster care with a family who ultimately adopts the 3 children in their care including myself. However, they never find the so-called murderer or when they searched the house again for my belongings, they didn't find Charlie either.