The Apparition - Lullaby
he town of Welton... terrorized by something everyone believed was a ghost. There were no longer any officials in the town that could get rid of it, priests and such. No more, they had all ran to protect themselves, the wiser ones among the people of the town. It's been many months since the last incident, yet nobody has forgotten. It's seemed like it was only yesterday. Mayor Leeth... he has been inside town hall from the start, not coming out, not bothering to help... unlike him...
I am a local tax collector. However now that the banks have been closed for several weeks, I've gotten a good vacation with plenty of pay. My name is John Marshall and I am thirty years old. I've paid little mind to the hollow stories of the ghost of the town, such foolishness. I've never believed and I never will. I will never stoop so low as to believe a ghost is haunting the town. No, the explanations for the murders and missing people is simply something preformed by a culprit. A mass serial murderer is on the loose, not some ghost. I've never ever believed and I have promised myself that I never will believe.
I kissed my wife Mary and my daughter Lucy goodbye as I stepped out of the door of our house to go down to town square and get my payment. I found it ever so enjoyable that I was being paid for doing nothing. After I got my pay I would go to the local butcher shop and purchase some meat to feed my family. After I brought it home, I would go for a walk and visit my colleagues like usual. My mother also asked me to stop by when I could, apparently she had a pie for me to taste.
After walking down the gray streets to the town hall I finally arrived inside the door, coming into the front lobby and walking up to the counter where oddly, the woman there had a bottle of whiskey--by the looks of it she was very depressed. "Can I help you, sir?" she moaned. "Yes, I'm here to get my paycheck" I replied. "Name" she responded. "John Marshall"
She plucked through her files for a moment, and finally extracted an envelope which supposedly had money in it. I took it in hand and opened it, finding a sufficient amount, giving a friendly farewell to the lady and then leaving the building. As I left town hall the streets began to fog. The skies were a pale white and the trees around the town were dead and dry. Dead leaves came with the slow, dead breeze that swept through the tattered streets of the fogging town. I would next go get that meat and be on my way home to feed the family, then there was that pie.
As I stepped through the wooden door of the butcher shop, it made a sly creek noise as I entered. The fat man at the counter gave me a jolly greeting as he continued to cut juicy slabs of meat that looked ever so tender to the touch. "How can I help you lad?" he asked.
"I need a pound of cattle" I said dropping a few silver coins onto the counter. The bulging man inspected it. He seemed to smell like meat when he leaned over. It was only expected of a man his type. He was bald on top of his head, with black hairs on the sides. He wore a grayish shirt that seemed fairly small for his size. He had mountains of flab on his stomach and bulging gray eyes. Once he was finished inspecting he grabbed the money, stuck it in a box on the other side of the counter and handed about a pound of cow meat to me. "Thank you for your business" he said back. "Thank you" I finally concluded and began walking back to the house. When I arrived, I sat the meat on the dinner table. My wife came to greet me and sat down.
"Lucy! Lunch is ready!" I shouted back at the halls. No reply came. Instead I heard the sound of voices from in the back of the house. One sounded as though singing a soft song in which was faint and I couldn't make out. "Lucy?" I called again. I walked back through the halls, that weird voice becoming louder. As soon as I opened the door to Lily's Room, I could have sword I saw something sitting next to her and then suddenly vanish. I caught something in the corner of my eye, I know it.
Lucy was sitting on her bed. Her fingers were drenched in red paint and on the wall something very odd was scribbled... It looked like a strange shape, a U shape with many strange spokes coming out of it, all surrounded by a large circle that at the bottom attached itself to the bottom of the U with a single line.
"Lucy! Why did you do that! You ruined the wall!" I proclaimed. Lucy looked at me with a dazed face. Before she responded, she gave a long pause, then finally spoke. "I'm sorry daddy, but she made me do it"
"What?" I asked. "The lady. She said she likes paintings so I drew her one" said Lucy. The red painting was dripping and slowly running off the wall, being ruined and done by the hands of a child. I dismissed it, thinking it was some imaginary friend of hers. "Come on, it's time to eat!" Lucy jumped from her bed, washed her hands in a silver bucket of water and finally arrived to the table. We had a fine feast and stuffed our stomachs thoroughly. Afterwards, I left for my mother's house. When I arrived at her old weathered front doorstep, I knocked. She who had old brown and gray hair greeted me, giving me a hug as I entered. After eating, I finally left for home just as it was becoming dark. When It became dark enough, I tucked Lucy into bed. The painting was still on the wall and it for some odd reason, left a creepy feeling in me.
"Daddy, I'm sorry about the paint" she said. "It's alright sweetheart. Nothing a little water and soap won't fix" I said kissing her on the forehead and telling her goodnight. Then I went to my own room, changed into my sleeping clothes and went to sleep next to my wife.
************
I heard a loud thud. It was very loud indeed. I woke up, sitting up and looking over. Mary was not next to me, she must have gotten up and gotten something to drink, I concluded. But then I looked up. Directly in front of me, on the wall opposite the head of my bed, were words scratched and engraved into the wood. The markings glowed bright bluish white, blinding and hard for my eyes to handle. I wondered how I missed them when I woke up, it seemed as they didn't appear until I turned my head.
"DO YOU BELIEVE?" the words said. What trickery was this? I dared not come close to it, it had a strange glow that struck me dangerous. Instead I made quick for the door, going into the hallway, and shutting the door behind me. I turned around, finding the mirror we had placed in the hallway completely cracked. It examined it, placing my fingers upon the surface of the cracks when all of a sudden, a face zapped through the picture, it looked like a white one with horrid markings across the face, a loud piercing shriek blasted from the mirror, not only cracking it more but forcing me away and nearly making my ears bleed. When it stopped, I stood in silence for a moment, dazed. My heart pounding. There was a strange feeling in the air...
I looked down the hall at the lamp that was lit by gas and fire down at the end of the corridor. It dimmed and suddenly, went out... Then it started again, I could have sword I saw someone--a figure of some sort walk across the door frame at the end of the hall, pass by that is. Something... was in the house...
My thoughts were interrupted when I heard a strange sound coming from Lucy's bedroom... A singing voice, singing some sort of lullaby. I knew that it was not the voice of Mary or Lucy. Before anything, I escaped to the kitchen and grabbed a knife, then walked down the hall slowly, ever so slowly...
Pounding in my heart.
Fear in my veins.
Eyes wide with shock.
Terror in my knees.
I kept going, despite my fears. I loved little Lucy more than the world, I had to see what was wrong and where was Mary? As I finally approached the door, I twisted the wooden knob and opened it quickly, raising the knife up. I screamed as suddenly a strange figure sat holding my daughter on the rocking chair in the back of the room. The ghastly figure was menacing, having a white face streaked with tear-like shadows and markings and whose eyes were without visible pupils. It had long six inch claw-like fingernails that had turned black and yellow. Its long feminine hair curved outward and some dangled in front of its face. The figure looked up at me, all I saw in my daughter's eyes... was a daze. Lucy had no emotions on her face, her eyes looked gray even, unlike her natural green. She held her finger up across her nose and saying "Shhh" as she did so. The figure stopped singing and suddenly disappeared, leaving Lucy in the chair by herself. She looked at me, her face was pale and dark shadows were coming out from under her eyes. "L-Lucy?" I stammered, the door slammed shut behind me--all on it's own! My heart began pounding any more.
Lucy's closet was a wide open closet with no doors, just a long curtain in it. The curtains rolled open by themselves, revealing... Mary, dead, her entire chest was pried open, blood spilled everywhere and still flowing from her freshly mangled carcass. Behind Mary, engraved into the walls were bluish lettering like the words in my room.
"I HOPE YOU KNOW"
I nearly fell over. I screamed in terror, tears pouring from my eyes. "Lucy! Lucy let's go!" I yelled trying to yank the door open, but it wouldn't budge. Lucy turned her head sideways, I slowly stopped and looked at her. I felt something behind me, breathing on me. I turned around and there it was...
Something evil, it was the figure. She opened her mouth which was full of rotten fangs and teeth and screamed, her shriek was so loud and so terrible that it nearly made me deaf. It was loud and sharp and sounded as if a million of the same voice was all screaming at once. I jumped back, and it seemed as soon as the figure appeared it was gone. I turned back to Lucy. She was now standing up, giving me the coldest stare I had ever seen her give. She grabbed the lamp on her nightstand, held it above her head.
"NO!" I shouted. Suddenly, Lucy's entire body vanished and the lamp fell, busting and bursting into flames upon the old tattered ground. I tried my hardest to break down the door--alas I could not and soon... the fire would consume me whole...
