Avery Black

1950's in a lone farm house a few miles away from the nearest town lived the black family. Nathaniel Black and Delia Black lived with their four children, Finn Black (12), Jen Black (10) Beck Black (5) and Avery who was 9 years old. Nathaniel was a retired army soldier who often held a strict household, while Delia tried to be firm but fun with her children. Finn and Jen were always praised by Nathaniel for their honorable deeds in school and he was proud of them. Beck was the baby so he was protected by Nathaniel and Delia. And then there was Avery Black the girl who saw dead people.

January 5th, 1950

Me and Beck were running through the halls of our house playing with our wooden swords, while daddy was watching a news broadcast. Mommy was in the kitchen baking an apple pie while Finn and Jen were in their room. I tripped and fell on the floor in front of daddy, I picked myself up and with a swing of his open hand I fell back on the floor looking at him. My face throbbed with pain and I teared up but didn't cry, I just scrambled away from him and into mommy's arms.

"Nathaniel why would you hit her? The child just tripped and fell." She said to daddy

"Goddamnit del can I not get five minutes of silence in this house? Silence that one for a damn minute."

Mommy held me close against her body, she softly hummed for a minute before walking me and beck to our room.

"Avery don't listen to your father, it's just stress ok? He'll get over it eventually."

We walked into our room and stopped, on the floor were our alphabet blocks, only they were spelling the words Please stop your scaring me Mommy gasped as she saw what they said.

"Avery, d-did you do this?"

I shook my head and said, "No mommy it wasn't me it was the little boy in the closet."

"Avery stop it this instance there is no one in your closet ok. If your father hears you talk like that he will punish you, please stop this and put away those toys before he comes up."

I walked towards the blocks and they flung to the wall clattering on the wood floor.

"Avery!"

"Mommy please i-it's not me it's Joey"

She grabbed my shoulders and shook me for a second and said angrily

"Avery there is no one there now why did you…."

Before she could finish we heard the floorboards creak signaling that daddy was coming up the stairs, mommy quickly grabbed the blocks and put them away shooing me into my bed. The door swung open and there he stood, in his old soldier uniform, he always looked tired, but I could see his eyes shot daggers at me.

"Del what happened?"

"Nothing Nathaniel just a toy that fell."

He turned toward beck and kneed in front of him and looked into his eyes.

"Was that what happened beck?"

Beck's eyes went everywhere but daddy's eyes, daddy snapped his fingers and beck's attention was on him.

"Y-yes daddy."

He looked deeply into his eyes and stood up and saw the cabinet door open and blocks fall out. He looked at mommy and slammed the door shut, and his gaze turned towards me.

"That wasn't a toy that dropped was it Avery?"

My heart beat inside my chest faster as daddy walked closer to me and looked me in my eyes and grabbed my arm and dragged me from the top bunk over towards the cabinet.

"Daddy please stop, your hurting me."

Daddy's gripped harder as he pulled me down and pushed my head towards the open cabinet. The block was pushing into my cheek and the pain was immense. He let me go as mommy tried to calm him down and walk him back downstairs, to his news report.

I stood up and slowly crawled to my bed and fell asleep, hours later I was awoken but a soft whistle. I woke up and saw the closet door was open, I slowly got down from the top bunk and walked slowly towards the closet but heard a voice say, "I'm not in there, that's the bad one."

I turned around and saw Beck asleep in the bottom bunk, and slowly looked at the open cabinet and heard some rustling and walked closer towards in and opened the door slowly. As I reached my hand forward the cabinet door slammed shut causing me to fall backwards and beck to wake up.

"Avery w-what was t-that?" beck said

"I don't k-know."

Beck held his blanket close to him as I focused my attention on the open closet, I walked towards it and heard a voice similar to Joey's and it said,

"Please help me, I miss my mommy."

I went inside the closet and felt a coldness as soon as I entered the closet, the door slammed shut behind me and I tried to open it but it wouldn't budge.

"Beck open the door now it's not funny anymore!" I screamed to him, I felt something grab my shoulders and I turned around and saw this thing staring back at me with a smile it's teeth sharper than knives, I finally managed to open the door and scrambled onto the floor. Beck was on the bed frozen solid as I saw a black figure in front of him, he finally let out a high-pitched scream and soon mommy and daddy were in the room.

"Beck what is wrong?" mommy said to him

"T-There was a monster mommy."

Daddy turned towards me and grabbed me and pushed me against the wall and then turned to beck.

"There's no such things as monsters beck, Avery is just lying to you, now aren't you Avery?" daddy said as he swayed back an forth as if he were drunk. I began crying and trying not to be a bad girl but I had to tell the truth.

"They….they are real daddy."

This angered daddy and he told me to face the wall with my back towards him, he grabbed his belt and began hitting my back as hard as he can causing more pain throughout my entire body, my mom grabbed the belt and screamed at him.

"Stop it Nathaniel beating her won't solve anything!"

"It'll discipline her and teach her that her lies will get nowhere!"

Daddy grabbed his belt back and continued beating my back till it was bloody, he threw his belt down and grabbed me and began dragging me downstairs.

"daddy no! no not the basement please I'll stop lying just please don't put me in the basement!" I screamed as he dragged me through the living room and into the kitchen where the black wood door was. He opened the door and put me on the stairs and quickly shut the door and locked it, I screamed wanting him to unlock it but there was no such luck. The basement was pitch black and I couldn't see anything not even the stairs.

"Nathaniel stop it she's just a child." I heard my mother say in the kitchen.

The stairs creaked as I slowly made my way downstairs, it was quiet, and I finally found a lantern and was relieved with the small light I had. I turned around and heard a giggle and said,

"Is anyone there?"

The giggling stopped, and I just stood there, I found an old generator and began cranking it and bam the basement was lit up. I sat in a corner that had old blankets and pillows in it and stayed there for a few minutes before the lights cut off. I began to hear whispering as if there were a million people in the room, I turned the lantern on and it flickered, and I saw a ton of people in the room all with there backs to me the light flicked off and I huddled myself further into the corner covered in blankets. Thinking nothing could get me under there till I heard a female voice said,

"He's here."

All the voices stopped, and I heard low growling, I clutched the blankets hard and closed my eyes thinking it was all in my head, I slowly lifted the blanket off my head and saw a little boy in front of my face, it was joey. He was pale and had scruffy brown hair and was scared, he looked at me and then looked behind him.

"H-He's here."

And soon joey was gone and I heard a low growling as a black figure got closer and closer to me, it was thin every bone was exposed it was human yet it wasn't, I scrambled to get up and ran upstairs and pounded on the door screaming for someone to open the door the growling got closer