Babysitting Chaos
Chapter 1: The Angel
"What in the world happened to your face?"
Piper Marks turned her face into the shadows that lurked along the porch of the ranch house, a rueful smile tugging at the corners of her mouth in a vain attempt to sooth Sarah Lennox's temper.
"It's nuttin', Mrs. Lennox," she insisted, tugging at the yellow, cat-eared beanie crowning her dark hair. The hats face—an anime-style kitty, complete with plastic black whiskers—grinned at the woman as Piper avoided her piercing gaze.
"Nothing? That's not nothing!" Sarah insisted, taking the babysitters arm and pulling her into the front hall. Yellow light flooded the girls beaten face, revealing the blackening eye and the blue-purple bruise along her jaw. "What in the world happened to you?" She demanded gently.
Piper winced as the woman prodded at her face. "Well, I thought about what you said about Chris," she muttered, jerking her jaw away from the prying fingers, "and I broke up with him."
"So he hit you?" Sarah demanded.
The teenager shrugged, "Yeah, well, he can't do it anymore, right?" She asked, giving the woman her favorite devil-may-care grin. "C'mon Sarah, don't worry about me tonight. It your twelfth anniversary, right? Go out with Captain Lennox and have a good time."
A hand snaked around Sarah's waist as Captain Lennox appeared from the living room with eyes only for his wife. "Don't worry, Piper, we wi—what in the world happened to your face?"
The girl shrugged. "Ran into a light-pole on the off the bus," she lied before turning the conversation away from her bruises, "So, where are the kids?"
Lennox motioned to the living room he had just vacated. "Annabelle's watching 'The Little Mermaid' and Hillary is playing with her dolls."
Piper slung her backpack off of her shoulder, dropping it by the living room doorway. "Sounds like a pretty tame night for me. In bed by eight as usual?"
Sarah nodded as Lennox helped her into her jacket, covering up her thin-strapped black dress. "Yes, eight o'clock as usual. There are some cookies in the kitchen they can nibble on, just make sure they brush their teeth before they go to bed."
Lennox straightened his tie before motioning to a small row of hooks on the wall. "We're leaving you the truck, just in case anything happens," he explained, pointing to the keys belonging to the GMC Topkick currently parked out in the driveway.
Piper gave them a reassuring smile. "C'mon, Captain Lennox, I've been taking care of your kids for five years, and have yet to burn the house down."
"You do have a drivers license, right?" Lennox suddenly asked. With a roll of her eyes, Piper fished a well-used checkered wallet from her back pocket and flashed her license.
"Had it for almost two years. I am seventeen, ya know."
Sarah rolled her eyes and pushed her husband towards the door, swinging her purse over her shoulder. "Don't mind him, Piper, you know how he gets about his girls."
The girl laughed and waved them off, making sure to shut and lock the door behind them. Grabbing her bag, she trooped into the living room to face the two terrors of the night.
Ten-year-old Annabelle was sprawled on the couch under a blanket, her blonde hair falling in a wild heap over a throw pillow. Ariel the little mermaid was currently using a fork (dingle hopper, Piper reminded herself) to brush her hair as Prince Eric looked on and Sebastian avoided the butlers fork. Her younger sister, five-year-old Hillary, was sitting in the rug separating the TV and couch, her Malibu Barbie beach house nearly blocking the TV screen. She had her fathers dark hair, which had been pulled into two long braids that swung as she made Barbie and Ken kiss.
"Aren't you two a sight for sore eyes?" Piper asked. The two girls turned to look at her, twin grins spreading across the faces as they realized that tonight was going to be a very, very good night.
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"Hillary, stop hogging the cookies," Piper reprimanded the five-year-old as she hugged the bag of chocolate chip delights to her chest. All three of the girls were spread out on the living room rug, half-watching Disney's Beauty and the Beast.
"But I want 'em!" Hillary whined, waving her scantily-clad Barbie doll in Pipers face.
The babysitter gently took the cookies from her younger charges arms. "I know, sweetie, but you can't have to many or there won't be any left for tomorrow."
Hillary pouted before dropping her doll and getting to her feet. "I gotta go potty," she announced before trooping out of the tent. Piper watched her go with a bemused look on her face; she had long ago abandoned figuring that kid out.
"Hey Piper?" Annabelle asked softly, looking away from the TV screen to glance at the pondering teenager, "Can I ask you something?"
The girl rolled onto her side to face her charge, an understanding smile on her face. "Of course. You know you can always ask me anything, Anna-Banana."
She smiled at the nickname, but then turned serious. "Piper, do you believe in angels?"
The teenager sat up, startled by the serious question. She was expecting something more along the lines of 'Do monkeys wear underpants?" from the normally bright and hyper kid.
"Well," she started slowly, "What do you mean by angels?"
Annabelle also sat up, their movie forgotten. "Like, guardian angels; ones that protect you."
Piper scratched her chin, careful of the bruise. "Well, I do believe that angels watch over everybody. Like, remember two years ago when I was in that car wreck with my boyfriend? I wasn't hurt very badly, was I?" She asked.
"No, you only had a cut on your arm."
She nodded, "And I believe that a guardian angel was watching over me then." She gave Annabelle a concerned look. "What brought this all on, sweetie?"
The girl shifted uncomfortably. "I—I think I've been seeing an angel around the house."
"Really? Where have you seen it?" Piper began to grow worried; things like this weren't normal.
"There's a—a face, that comes up to the windows sometimes. It's all silver and black and had really bright blue eyes." She moved closer to her older friend, "It only comes at night, so I hide under my blankets, but I don't think that it knows that I know that it comes."
Piper pulled the girl into her lap. "Does the, uh, face do anything? Does it try to scare you or hurt you?" Annabelle shook her head, blonde hair flopping about.
"No, it just looks, and then it goes and looks in the other rooms," She looked up at Piper. "You believe me, don't you?"
"Oh, honey, of course I do!" The babysitter reassured her. "There's a lot of strange stuff in the world we don't know about, so it could be an angel," she comforted.
"But what if its not an angel? What if its something bad?"
Piper turned the girl to look at her. "Annabelle, there is nothing out there that I would let hurt you, understand? Your parents and I will never let anything or anyone hurt you. Understand?"
Annabelle nodded. "Piper?"
"Yes?"
"What happened to your face?"
She grinned, reaching up to touch her blackened eye. "I fell down the stairs and ran into a lamp pole," she laughed, ruffling Annabelle's hair.
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By the time Hillary returned, carrying a bag of potato chips she had raided from the kitchen counter, Annabelle and Piper were in high spirits, rolling around in a heated tickle-fight under the sheet tent. Hillary plopped down on a dislodged couch cushion to watch, munching on the chips. After a moment more, in which Annabelle managed to pin Piper and get her to beg for mercy, the two flopped onto their backs, breathless.
The three munched on chips as their movie finished, giggling and poking each other. By the time Belle had married the Beast, it was 8:30, and after insisting that the girls didn't tell their parents they had stayed up an extra half-hour, Piper herded them upstairs to bed.
By 9:00 the two were tucked in, faces washed and teeth brushed. Piper had read to them, before retreating down stairs to retrieve a pack of frozen peas and collapse on the couch. The living room had been cleaned up, all indications of chips and cookies gone, so the girl allowed herself to relax and flip through the TV channels as the peas soothed her pounding bruises.
"PIPER!"
The scream, bordering on blood-curdling, nearly gave the babysitter a heart attack. The peas flew out of her hand, smacking into the silver and blue stereo on the shelf by the TV. For a second, she thought she heard it mutter something unintelligible, but a second scream brought her back to reality. She sprinted into the hall and up the stairs. She saw Hillary disappear into Annabelle's room, where the screaming had been coming from. She followed, scared of what she'd find.
Annabelle was sitting in her bed, shaking and staring at the window, large eyes nearly popping out of her pale face. Hillary was at her side, equally shaken. Piper hurried forward.
"What is it? What's wrong?" She asked, wrapping an arm around each of them.
Annabelle dragged her eyes from the window. "It—it was the face! It came back, Piper!" She began to cry, "and it saw me, and it—it opened its mouth and I—I--!"
"I saw it too!" Hillary began to wail. "It was gonna eat us up, Piper!"
Piper glanced at the window, which showed the tree tops of the surrounding forest. The Lennox's lived in a secluded ranch house a few miles out of town, for the peace and quiet it afforded after all of the fighting Captain Lennox had been through. Could something really be lurking out there, though?
She gathered Hillary up in her arms and held a hand out to Annabelle. "C'mon, you two, we'll go downstairs and sleep together. You're parents should be back soon."
Actually, they weren't going to be back until nearly midnight, three hours away, but there was no reason to scare the children worse. They trooped down the stairs to the living room, where Piper turned on all the lights and settled the two on the couch. Getting two quilts from the cabinet in the corner of the room, she wrapped each of them snuggly before digging through her backpack and pulling out a case of CDs. The two watched her silently, sniffling and huddling together. Piper carefully chose a CD of soothing and relaxing music that she had bought for when her charges had nightmares. She popped it into the blue and silver stereo and pressed play before returning to the couch and sitting between the children, allowing Hillary to snuggle in her arms and Annabelle to lay her head on her lap.
The slow strains of violins and a piano drifted through the stereo, gently coaxing the two frightened children in a calmer state. Piper stroked Annabelle's hair and hugged Hillary. The two began to drift off into sleep, snoring quietly. She tilted her head back, head throbbing in time with her bruises.
The music abruptly stopped. Piper glanced at the stereo, confused, as it began to play the CD backwards, faster and faster. The violins became a high, keening scream the awoke the two girls in her lap. Hillary burst into tears and clung to Piper with Annabelle. The music stopped suddenly, and a high-pitched snicker echoed around the living room.
"Chaashaashaashasa! Chaashaaaashahahasha!"
To the absolute horror of one babysitter, the blue and silver stereo spit out the CD she had chosen and began to fall apart, speakers and buttons splitting and twisting and turning with the strangest sounds. It fell from the shelf, expanding into a four-limbed figure with a wild face and leering mouth. "Chaasshaaaa!" His long, blade-like fingers began to click together in excitement as he took a step forward, head bobbing. "Chasshaa! All mine!" He screeched, following it with more of his insane laughter.
Piper felt reality begin to fall apart. The stereo had just changed—transformed—into some kind of psycho robot, that was now advancing, CD-like disks with sharp blades clutched in his hands. He was planning on hurting Annabelle and Hillary.
"Annabelle, there is nothing out there that I would let hurt you, understand? Your parents and I will never let anything or anyone hurt you. Understand?"
The decision had already been made. Piper got to her feet, motioning for the girls to stay behind her. "Annabelle, take your sister over the back of the couch and get into the truck. I'll be right behind you," She ordered in a whisper, trying to stop her hands from shaking.
"But Piper—"
"GO!"
The silver robot charged as the two girls scrambled over the couch, laughing insanely. "—let anything or anyone hurt you!" The words issued mockingly from his mouth, imitating what Piper had said. "Hurt you! Hurt you! Gonna kill you!"
Piper heard the two scramble into the hall and try to open the lock holding the door closed. She grabbed the quilt Annabelle had been resting under and threw it at the robot, but his razorblade fingers made short work of it. "Gonna get you! Gonna kill you!" He chattered at Piper like an irate squirrel. She seized her backpack and swung it at him as he advanced, knocking it against his head in an attempt to gain purchase in the rapidly closing space between them.
"The door won't open!"
Annabelle was in the door, gripping the wall in terror as the robot switched his focus to her. Before either girls could move, the robot had used his gangly legs to launch over the couch and swing his claws at her. She screeched, falling back, as crimson blood spurted from her arm, where there were three long, deep cuts.
"No!" Piper threw herself clumsily over the couch, crashing against the robot, who fell forward into the hall after Annabelle. Hillary was at the door, screaming bloody murder as her sister fell against the wall in a bloody heap. The babysitter felt her own arms open up under the cruel hands, and could see her blood mingling with Annabelle's on the stained carpet. They were all going to die at the hands of this insane boom box unless someone came to their aid, but the nearest house was five miles away, and nobody could hear them this far back from the road and in the shelter of all the trees...
Hands as large as wading pools forced themselves into the house, ripping out the door and knocking over Hillary, who began to scream all over again. The three girls and crazy robot watched as the silver hands tore through the wall, revealing ample space for a large, silver and black face with piercing blue optics to peer through. Piper felt her mouth drop open, and was about to scream for the two girls to run for the back door, when the robot beneath her wrapped his claws around her shoulders and threw her at the giant robot.
She crashed against something hard and metal and big. Things that felt like steel trees wrapped around her, trapping her against the surface. A voice rumbled above her, but she was too scared for both herself and the kids to understand what it was saying. She heard the stereo laugh again, and then felt the surface shake in time with loud, booming noises and flashes of bright blue light.
Guns...it has guns...the girls have to run...
The shots slowed and stopped. Piper carefully, slowly opened one of her eyes to examine her less-than-desirable position. She was clutched in the giant—things hand. It was crouched in front of the house, its bright blue eyes focused on the destroyed wall and the two girls that stood behind it. Hillary was bawling, Annabelle was staring up at him in awe. Piper struggled against the fingers pinning her down. If he hurt those girls she was going to—
The large face changing direction to look at her stilled her furious thoughts. She licked her lips, suddenly finding herself speechless. The giant blinked his eyes curiously at her before glancing back at the girls. Slowly, he lowered his hand and set the stunned girl on the debris-covered porch. She stumbled at her feet touched the ground and he placed his finger on her shoulder.
"PIPER!" Hillary crashed into the girl, wrapping her arms around her legs and sobbing into the jean material. Annabelle limped after her, eyes trained on the giant. She stopped beside the babysitter, who was looking at the still-bleeding cuts on her arms with worry.
"You're," the ten-year-old said quietly to the giant, "the angel."
NOTE:
Hey! Thanks for reading! Big props to The Crab for so much help! Hope you enjoyed and REVIEW IF YOU WANT MORE!