Take Me Away (600 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 2 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by quack (View user info) at 2004-04-10 20:10:36 EDT
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
Rob listened to the sounds of silence. It was the first night in the old dusty house, but the dead summer heat had smothered any wind, so the house was quiet. Still, he felt the need to get up, at least to check the locks and make sure Mikey was fast asleep. He glanced to his left to see his wife snoring lightly. He had always thought that her snoring was cute, even though Madelyn hated it whenever he mentioned it to her.
Shifting the covers off himself slowly and standing, Madelyn stirred slightly, but didn't wake. Rob smiled as he tip toed out of the bedroom to avoid waking her. He was relieved that they had settled into the dusty old house without any major problems. The only reason he hadn't slept yet was probably from the anxiety and stress of the move. Shuffling slowly across the hall, he approached Mikey's room. They had loved the fact that he could sleep so close to them in case he had a bad dream or felt sick at night.
But something felt wrong. The door to his room was open, and Rob explicitly remembered closing it after tucking his son in. Glancing in the room, Rob felt a rush of panic. Mikey was gone. His bed was empty, the sheets a mess. Back in the hall, he spotted something else that further alarmed him - the attic door was ajar.
Bounding up the stairs, into the dry heat of the attic, Rob saw him. Mikey was standing there, with a blank look on his six-year old face, reaching out to grasp the doorknob to a closet.
"Mikey!" Rob exclaimed condescendingly.
Mikey started, turning to face his dad quickly, with a puzzled look on his face.
"I thought I told you not to come up here! You could have fallen through the floorboards! And it's way past your bedtime, too! C'mon, back to bed with you," Rob lectured.
"But.. what—"
Rob took his son's hand and led him down the stairs, back to the master bedroom. Mikey could sleep with him and Madelyn the first night. Probably should have thought of that in the first place. Little kids take awhile to adjust to new places.
...................
The next morning, Rob awoke early, startled by something he couldn't remember. Getting up quietly, so as not to disturb his sleeping wife and son, he crept down to the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. Black, the way he liked it. Thinking about the last night's strange events, Mikey's sleep-walking, or whatever it was he was doing up there, Rob decided to investigate the attic.
The early morning sunlight was enough light through the attic's looming windows that he didn't need to bring a flashlight. He creaked his way up the stairs, and over to the door Mikey had been so focused on last night. Almost disturbingly focused. Jiggling the knob, the door didn't budge. It was padlocked shut. But last night... Last night there was no padlock. Or was there? Maybe it was just the moonlight's distortion of reality. Rob shook his head and shrugged it off. Walking back down the stairs, he heard Mikey giggling as Madelyn tickled him awake.
...................
The next week was quite uneventful. The summer's heat was quite a pain, but the family managed to survive thanks to the aid of a few fans and cold drinks. Mikey didn't start school for another month, and Madelyn made herself busy with the weeding and shrubbery out front while watching him play, kicking a soccer ball around their big front yard. Rob worked around the house, fixing siding, checking plumbing, and doing various other odd jobs.
They were happy except for the nightmares. Mikey couldn't remember what exactly the dreams were about, but he would wake up crying every night. They hushed him back to sleep each time, but, upon asking him the next morning, he could never remember a thing. Rob thought about taking him to a psychologist, as the dreams had been happening consistently, but Madelyn assured him that they would pass. They were probably caused by the stress of moving in to a big, scary, old house.
...................
It wasn't until the following weekend that Rob fully experienced one for himself.
In the middle of the uneventful night, sweaty bed sheets clinging to him, he sat there in the faint moonlight.
Then he heard it. A soft voice singing. Slow somber tones.
"take me away, it's cold and black...."
A shiver ran down Rob's spine as he got up to check it out. Mikey and Madelyn slept soundlessly as he crept out into the hallway.
"...i'm fading out, come take me back."
It sounded so pitiful, and Rob knew almost subconsciously where it was coming from. The attic. He walked slowly up the stairs as the song continued, now more clearly.
"take me away ,
it's cold and black,
i'm fading out,
come take me back"
There was the tiniest sliver of light coming out from under the closet door, and it was obvious that the closet was the origin of the heartrending tune.
There was no padlock. Rob had been right. It wasn't just the moonlight's tricks that other night. He stretched his hand out to touch the cold metal. It was cold, even in the dead summer heat. Turning it slowly, he inched the door open and peered inward.
It was as though his frame of view rushed forward rapidly to the far end of the closet. A small girl's rotting corpse locked eyes with him. Her face was contorted in terror, her eyes blood red, sobbing thick crimson tears. Her somber song turned in to a banshee's shriek of pain and horror. He couldn't turn away. His eyes stayed fixated on hers as her screams rose to an ear-shattering pitch.
"TAKE ME AWAAAAAAYYY!!!" she screeched.
and everything went black as Rob's ears rang thunderously.
....................
Rob awoke, screaming for his life. Mikey was crying. Madelyn tried to comfort her husband, who was clammy and pale as a ghost.
Regaining his composure and assuring his wife and son that nothing, in fact, was wrong - he'd just had a nightmare - Rob managed to settle down enough to pretend to fall asleep, and Mikey and Madelyn soon followed his example. He couldn't get that image out of his head. The eyes, scarlet and full of such utter terror, and the song and screams, penetrating his mind.
....................
The following morning, Rob made a trip to the hardware store and picked up some heavy-duty lock cutters. He determined to solve the mystery once and for all, even though he was terrified inside.
Making sure that Madelyn was busy outside with Mikey, He crept up the stairs in the day's noon heat. Face to face with the closet, Rob thought about turning back. But he couldn't bear the thought of not knowing what lied behind those doors. He had seen in his nightmare, but that couldn't have been real. Could it?
Steel on steel, Rob positioned the clippers and squeezed hard. The lock gave way and fell to the floor with a loud thud. Rob paused to make sure that his wife hadn't heard, and then set the clippers down. Now was the time. He took a deep breath and exhaled completely.
Hand on the knob, he turned it and pulled the door open slowly... Half of him expected something horrible, and the other half expected absolutely nothing. What he saw lied in between. Nowhere near as frightening as the past night's dream, he saw her again. A frail skeleton, chained to the wall with barely any flesh remaining on it. Surprisingly fearless after last night's trauma, Rob walked slowly towards her.
There wasn't much else in the room, just some scraps of clothing and decrepit stuffed animals. And a journal. Rob picked it up and began to read the neat, girlish handwriting...
"I'm so lonely...I wish mommy and daddy would let me out...They hate me...It's so cold and dark...Why?..Why are they so mean?.. Are they ashamed of me?..I just want to be normal...I'm so hungy...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry mommy........"
Rob shut the small book, tears stinging his dusty eyes and running down his face. Poor little girl...
....................
The next day Madelyn decided to take Mikey to see her mother for the night, four hours away. Rob declined, saying that he would stay back at the house and continue to fix it up. There was still much work to be done - Painting the kitchen, fixing the screen on the porch, repairing the side door steps. The list went on and on. Madelyn frowned, but relented.
Rob stayed true to his word, working all day long. But, as night approached, he made himself another cup of black coffee. Tonight he would fix everything.
At the stroke of midnight, he took the lock clippers and headed up to the attic. The door was again lockless in the moonlight, but the clippers weren't for the door. He grasped the knob, which was cold yet again, and opened the door with determination. Inside, lit by the faint moonlight, he saw the little girl, alive and chained to the wall. Miserable, she was crying, and singing the song...
"take me awaaayy.."
Rob approached her and comforted her, clipping her chains. The small girl dried her eyes with the hem of her dress and smiled faintly. Her tear-streaked face brightening at freedom. Rob picked her up in his arms in silence.
"Where are we going?" she asked, full of curiosity.
"Away..." Rob replied solemnly.
....................
Outside, in the back yard, Rob set the girl down and took a shovel in his hands and began to dig in the wooded seclusion of the forest. In the silence, he tore at the ground methodically, digging a large hole. Nearly an hour's worth of labor in the dark forest, lit only by the moon, he managed to dig a sizeable hole. Finished, he turned back to the girl. She smiled at him, tears running down her face again. Rob returned the sad smile, tearing up as well.
"Thank you," she whimpered, climbing down into the pit.
....................
....................
The following week, Rob and Mikey were eating breakfast together quietly as Madelyn lay sleeping in the bedroom.
"I had a dream last night, Daddy."
"Not a nightmare, I hope.."
"No, it was a nice dream."
"Well what was it about?"
"I saw a little girl.."
"What happened??"
Rob's interest immediately perked as he focused intensely on his son's smiling face.
"She was smiling and waving goodbye to me. And then she walked outside through the woods in the back yard and faded away in the dark, Daddy."
A tear ran down Rob's face as he listened to his son.
"Are you ok, Daddy? What's wrong?"
Rob got up and went over to the sink to rinse his bowl out, crying openly now.
"Nothing, son. Everything is going to be alright..."
User Reviews
Submitted by quack (user info) at 2004-05-21 14:28:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
still can't believe i lost on this one. i really liked it...
Submitted by Razor (user info) at 2004-05-19 17:39:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment