The Last Days
“NOOO!” That was the last thing my lips uttered before I ‘died’. The shadow had me
where it wanted. Right in its deadly claws. Literally, claws. It became my mirror image and
smiled my smile. I hated it then. I realized the damage it had done; what I had done. I felt a knot
in my chest, and I felt like dying, but I changed my mind, I wanted to live. It became shadow
again, and pounced on me. Then, I uttered my scream, my death scream. Tears streamed from
my eyes and my cheeks were wet and sticky with the cold. Blood spewed from the wounds it
jagged teeth created in my skin in a matter of seconds. My head was swimming, and the world
became a blur. The last thing I felt was a light shining towards me, and I thought, oh god, thank
you, thank you for sparing me from the pain.
Now, I lie in a hospital bed. Connected to tubes and bandaged. Completely bandaged.
Like I said, the creature that attacked me worked fast. It wasn’t human, it wasn’t animal. I don’t
know what it was, but I do know it caused many deaths. My friend’s deaths, my teacher’s deaths,
my family’s deaths, all caused by that terrible beast.
That’s not where the story really started; it started on my 18th birthday. Two days before
Halloween, and you could just feel the creepiness in the air.
“Hey, let’s play with the Ouija board I got you!”
“Yeah, come on!” My friends Mary and Stephanie urged me. Me, being so curious and
obedient, of course tore open the plastic wrapping on the box. All three of us rushed for candles
and to shut off the lights. Mary’s little sister ran out of the room, to scared to join us in our
supernatural experience. I should have run out with her.
“What do we do?” I’d never done this before, as I was a ‘newbie’
“First, clear your head, close your eyes, and create a triangle in your mind. It’ll be ok.
You’re just letting the spirits come through. Put a hand on the pointer, and concentrate on your
triangle. ” Stephanie, always the leader of our group whispered. And of course, we followed her
directions to the letter.
“Is there a ghostly presence in this room?” questioned Mary. Apparently I was the only
one who was new to the Ouija board. Instantly, the pointer moved to yes, by a force unknown. It
definitely didn’t feel like the girls moving it. It felt like a new hand was guiding it.
“Are you evil?” and my question was answered instantly by a ‘Yes’
“Let’s piss this thing off! See how evil it is then!” Mary used to be so stupid sometimes,
and when I look back on it now, so was I. I just laughed and said ok. Or maybe it was peer
pressure, even though I used to think it was the crap they liked to show us at school. I don’t
know, I just wanted to see what would happen.
After a while, we really did piss the spirit whose name we learned was Peter off. We
asked him to show us he was real, because we thought he wasn’t strong enough to do much to us.
WE told him that, too. I know if I would have been Peter I would have been pissed off too. Peter
said to watch out, because he was coming for us. His actual message was this:
“You girls watch out. I will teach you not to mess with me. I have warned you. I am
coming, and I will hurt you. I will make sure you all DIE.” We just laughed at him. I had no idea
of what was yet to come.
That day nothing happened. Then, the next day, it all started to go downhill. Chairs with
us sitting in them would rise up in the air. Plates would shatter and fall. Everything it seemed
was caused by Peter’s evil hand. We continued to laugh at him, but inside I felt a deep dreadful
feeling that filled me at night, especially when my bed began to shake. It was a light rattling at
first, as if someone was lightly tapping it with their foot, but it suddenly escalated, and the bed
lifted in the air. It felt like someone was right next to me, and when I opened my eyes I saw a
dark shadow lying next to me. The bed was still in the air, and I shrieked. The bed dropped to the
floor with a crash and the shadow seeped into the mattress as if it had been ice that melted with
my screams.
Mary’s mom came into the room with Mary and Stephanie trailing behind her. Fear
showed in their eyes, and I knew they feared for me. For my safety.
“What’s going on?” Mrs. Brible asked.
“M-m-my bed! It l-l-lifted off the ground. And then the-the-the shadow! It was in my bed!” My
voice came out breathlessly and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.
“It’s Peter!” Mary’s shriek broke through the silence that happened after my explanation
for the screams. Her eyes were wild and teary. Her breath was coming so fast I thought she
might pass out since she wasn’t getting enough air to her head, and she did. Her mom was just
as hysterical as her, and said we were going to burn the Ouija board. She looked for it in the box,
but could not find it. I stepped out of bed and it clattered to the wooden floor. The room was so
dark and it fell so fast that it scared me. I let out a little shriek, and everyone came running back
into the room. I looked back at the spot from where it fell from, and realized it was where the
shadow disappeared.
“Holy…..” Mary’s mother cut herself off. She snatched it up off the floor and raced out
of the room and into the kitchen. She took a box of matches and ran into the backyark. Ashe set
the cursed Ouija board on the patio, and lit a match. She dropped it onto the cardboard Ouija
board, and it immediately caught on fire. But it didn’t burn. The fire just acted as a glaze, and the
Ouija board seemed to harden, but then it cracked down the middle and shattered into millions
of little pieces.
“That’s the end of that!” Mary’s mother said. We went back into the house, but when
I reached my room I knew something was wrong. There was a lump in my place, and the Ouija
board lay right over it. I heard a shriek and the form raised into a sitting position. It was me, but
then I realized I was wrong, it turned into the shadow, and went right through me. It crossed the
doorway at the same time as everyone, and they fell to the floor. The Ouija board we had just
destroyed lay in my bed, and my friends lay on the floor. I watched the scene, and I realized it
was all going to get worse. I had a chilling feeling that it would.
And then I heard the whispers.
“You will all DIE!” It was Peter. He would keep his promise. He would kill us all. It
was just a matter of time to see how. For the first time in my life I feared for my safety, and my
friends’ safety. I felt the guilt, for I continued the game, I could have just ended it.
The next morning it’s Halloween. The outside air is frigid and I Mary’s mom tells us we
should go out trick or treating with Melanie, her youngest daughter. She’s the one who ran out of
the room. She’s still unaware that it’s Peter who is haunting us. That she might die at any minute,
and sure as anything, I’m not going to be the one to tell her. The poor kid doesn’t even know
how bad everything is getting. That morning she associated the scars on her arms with the fuzzy
sweater she fell asleep in. But it was Peter.
I know why Mrs. Brible wants us out of the house. Last night, after the burnt Ouija board
incident, she went online and looked for a medium that could help us. Apparently, she’s found
one. I just hope she’ll be OK by herself in the house.
“I’m a butterfly!” the kid shouts out, smiling goofily and running around the yard. It’s
only 6:20 and it’s already kind of dark. Mary is a spider, Stephanie is a devil, and I’m
an angel. It’s funny how we were all cracking jokes and giggling over the cutest guys at school,
when imminent death was upon us all, but it just felt really normal.
“I think you should go to the dance with him!” Steph said, and started a new bout of
giggles among us. It was all really fun, and then we noticed Melanie was missing.
She’d run on ahead to the next house, but instead of stopping, she kept going and turned
into the alley. We all freaked out and chased after her. A horrifying shriek burst through the night and our feet pounded
on the asphalt even harder. I didn't know what to think. The alley split into two, and Steph and Mary ran one down way,
and I ran down the other. My side came to an end, so I doubled back and went down Mary
and Stephanie’s side. I ran hard, until I came to a pile made of bodies; Dead bodies;Mary
and Steph’s bodies. On top of the pile lies Melanie, but she’s not dead, she gnaws on Steph’s
intestines. There's blood dripping, and Steph's stomach is shredded. She's still moaning in pain, and then her eyes roll into the back of her head The kid’s all bloodied, and she looks up at
me. She gets up and turns to shadow. I realize it’s Peter, and that the real Melanie is lying in a
crumpled heap next to a trash can. More blood, more pain, I think. I turn and try to get away, but Peter breaks into a run, chasing after me.
I try to get out of the alley, but because I'm so freaked out I end up going in the wrong direction. I take the dead end
way, and come to a wall, too high to climb, as I figure out after smashing into it, and turn back to Peter.
“What do you want?” I shriek at him, my voice sounding hysterical, and is I’d taken a
hit of helium. Peter turns human. Or humanish, anyways. He smiles at me, and he shows jagged
teeth like a shark’s, like no other ‘human’. He has dark hair, dark, bloodied eyes, and paper white skin. His appearance makes me pee my pants. He becomes shadow again, and then me. He smiles
once more, and becomes a shadow darker than anything. I can hardly see him, but I can hear his whisper. “I said you
would die! You said to prove I was real, you knew I was evil, you burned the Ouija board! Don't you realize, you idiot? You let me out, let us all out!” He laughed and
crouched down to pounced, and I could just try to move away. It was a deadly dance; killer and prey. I was
the prey. I already told this part of the story. In other words, I died. I can’t have survived. Maybe it was all a dream, but no, you can't dream so much pain and so much feeling and fear.
The doctors said they found me with Mary’s little sister over me, who disappeared
immediately when the car lights washed over her. She wasn’t the real Melanie, I knew that.
‘Melanie’ had started eating me, they said. The people in the building behind us heard my
scream and saw through the window what was happening. They were quick to call an ambulance
and the cops, who arrived in a matter of minutes. My parents got there about 30 minutes after
they had already taken me to the hospital, but it doesn’t really matter now. They’re both dead. In
a car crash.
When Peter said ‘All of You’ I hadn’t expected for him to also try and kill my parents.
I feel a knot in my chest, and I know I’m about to cry. I try to hold back tears, but they come
out anyways. I start to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have either of my arms, and only one leg.
Peter really did work fast. My face has become a scarred mask that shows my inner pain. I miss
my friends. I keep thinking of them as alive, and just think something like they’ll come visit me
soon, but then I realize they’re dead and tears well up in my eyes.
“You need some more pain meds?” asks a nurse as she comes into my room.
“I’m good, thank you.” I try to say, but it just makes a cut off little noise. I’m ‘shocked’
I’ve been told. The truth is I don’t feel shocked, but apparently my vocal chords do. That’s sad
news to me. It means I won’t be able to tell anyone the story.
Apparently, the nurse doesn’t understand that I’m grieving for my losses and not in pain,
and that I don’t want to go to sleep again. Because, what if I don’t ever wake up again? What if
it would mean that I lose the chance to ever visit their graves, to live, to have kids, to do anything? She doesn’t get it. She
injects clear fluid into my IV.
My head begins to feel fuzzy pretty fast, but not fast enough. I see a shadow lurking in
the corner, and Peter’s jagged shark tooth smile on the nurse’s face. I know it’s my last day. Hot tears seep down my cheeks, the knot in my chest tightens, and my eyelids drop over my eyes as I take my final breath.
