An Unexpected Visitor

Susan eyes widened in fear as she saw the box in front of her was completely empty. "What? No!" she panicked quietly to herself, her heart leapt wildly in fear like a rabbit caught between a wired fence. She knew she had to move quickly before it was too late, her arms flailed madly as she rummaged through the pile clothes on the floor in her walk-in wardrobe.

Phillip grabbed his work sheets from the bed and noticed the back of a small wooden picture frame from under his stack of papers when he spun the frame around his eyes widen in disbelief, as he saw the true horror in front of him. It was a picture of Susan hugging Jodie in the corridors at the Department of Paranormal activities. He saw Jodie hugged her favourite toy Bunny Gruff in her arm as she hugged Susan with her free arm. He observed that the top part of the picture was slightly distorted and blurred.

The amount of adrenaline that built up in Phillip's body caused him to snap the picture frame in half. Thwack! He flung the broken pieces against the wall, one half rebounded off the wall toward the door whereas the other half almost struck his wife's face.

"Phillip you could have blinded me!" Susan shielded her face from the projectile.

"You hid all this crap from me and expect me to be alright with this?!" Phillip threw their clothes onto the floor and found a pink mug situated in between the pile of clothes on the bed that had 'To The Best Mother in the World!' written on it which shocked him. "You've been visiting that Demon behind my back, haven't you?!" Phillip asked Susan as he showed her the pink mug.

"Phillip calm down. That was a gift-" Susan went straight to take the present off him while she spoke but he swiftly flung the mug against the wall above the television.

"No!" was all Susan could shout out as she watched her mother's present shatter into pieces. "I was going to give that to my mother!" she felt tears form in her eyes.

"The break in I can deal with, but not this!" he tossed their clothes from the bed only to find a small frilly red dress which he believed belong to Jodie.

"Are you even listening to me?!" she gestured her arms upwards. "Let me explain!" Susan pleaded to him.

"Explain what?! The evidence is everywhere!" he gestured his hands toward the small dresses in frustration.

"I-"

"What possessed you to visit that Monster? After everything we've been through?!"

"She's just a lost little girl, she needs me!" Susan snatched Jodie's frilly dress from the bed and clung onto it dearly.

"That's no lost little girl Susan!" he tried to yank the material off her but she gripped onto the dress tighter with all her might, their faces where literally inches from one another. "That's an uncontrollable monster! That Thing strangled a child Susan, a defenceless child!"

"Jodie couldn't breathe when, Marcus smothered her in snow!" Susan pulled the fabric with all her strength but Phillip stood his ground and pulled the fabric towards himself.

"Stop defending that evil child!" The dress was torn between the couple they both almost lost their balance from the array of clothes on the floor. "She dam well knew she was not supposed to leave the yard!" he shouted as he threw the torn dress on the pile of clothes as it was garbage, then looked at his wife as if he didn't recognize her. "We have no dam clue what that Demon is truly capable of and you decide to stroll back into the DPA like nothing happened!" he pointed to her. "Are you completely insane?!" he kicked his clothes in front of him only to find more of Jodie's clothes at the bottom of the pile. "You have to be joking?!"

"I'm not insane!" Susan was mortified that her money was lost on Jodie's expensive yet fragile dress and her mother's mug so grabbed both parts of the torn dress to place it into her wardrobe.

"That Thing will strangle you Susan!" he watched his wife with disgust. "If not now then-"

"She never will Phillip!" she replied as she sorted the torn dress in her wardrobe.

"That Thing is uncontrollable!" he yelled.

"I wanted to make sure she was coping at the DPA!" she slammed her wardrobe afterward pushed the disorganized clothes to one side on their bed before she sat down with her head in her hands.

Phillip shivered immediately when he felt a familiar cold draft in their room and saw condensation emit from his mouth briefly which was one of the many reasons why he was glad to leave their old home, except the cold draft in their new home felt even more icy and unwelcoming, he noticed that the light in the room flickered briefly and the door move swung slightly as if someone was about to enter the room but then decided not to, which made him felt uneasy so exited the room quickly.

Susan felt like a wilted flower as she put all of Jodie's clothes that she saw into her wardrobe as fast as possible, she noticed that a large piece of the red wrapping paper she used to wrap her mother's gift was stuck on Jodie's clothes in the wardrobe so placed it inside her back pocket to put in the bin later. She called her husband's name as she swiftly went down the stairs then into the living room, she realised that everything downstairs was completely untouched just the way she left it before she headed into the kitchen where Phillip leaned his back onto the blue kitchen island.

The glare that he gave her sent chills down her spine. "Susan you're not that child's mother! She would eventually hurt with her powers!" Phillip said in disgust.

"Stop saying that about her!" Susan replied in anger.

He slammed his fists on the kitchen island. "When were you going to tell me about this situation?! Next week, next month?!" he leaned his back on the green counter.

"I was going to tell you when the time was right!" Susan stood next to the kitchen island.

"So, when did you make the visit?" Phillip asked as he folded his arms and stared at Susan as if she committed a felony.

The white kitchen clock ticked loudly in the couple's ears, as he waited for an answer. "Three weeks ago." Susan dejectedly muttered under her breath.

Phillip could not believe what he heard. "You used your paid holiday… to visit her?! I thought we both moved on with our lives, but you clearly haven't!" Phillip paced around the kitchen. "I don't understand. We have wonderful neighbours, we can finally have a good night sleep without worrying if those things would attack her at night, or when her imaginary friend keeps her up by moving stuff in her room. And we even don't have to put up with her lies anymore about blaming some stupid invisible force that doesn't exist! I just can't understand why you would want to visit that little girl! I'm not ready to lose you-"

"You won't lose me Phillip!" Susan held Phillip's clenched hands. "I'm still here aren't I?!" she smiled at him briefly. "When you told her we had to transfer to another base and leave her at the DPA, I felt absolutely bad for abandoning her…"

"Stop this nonsense alright. Stop putting the blame on me Susan!" he flicked his hands away from his wife and paced quickly to the opposite side of the kitchen where the sink was. "We all agreed that Jodie should live the DPA!"

"You know you it wasn't everyone's decision!" Susan clenched her hands and felt her heart race.

"Fine. Your right that since it was our decision!" Phillip sighed in anger as he rub his temples with his hand.

"It was yours!" Susan blurted out before she quickly covered her mouth when she realized what she said to him.

The silence defended between the couple. Phillip was wide eyed and speechless he couldn't believe what he just heard, Susan took a deep breath before she spoke. "I… I-I was so distraught at the time I couldn't think straight, so I was so torn between abandoning her and trying to help her that I decided to go with your idea and leave her at the DPA…." She leaned forward on the kitchen island as she looked at her husband in sorrow. "When we moved to our new home I started to feel so guilty about leaving Jodie behind… that I had to visit her... so many things were reminding me of her Phillip, I kept on thinking about the things that she would miss out on." she sighed sadly. "I kept on thinking about how would Norah feel about us abandoning her as well."

The drops of water in the sink echoed in the kitchen while the clock continued to tick loudly. Phillip slammed his fists on the counter there were so many things he wanted to say to her but decided to focus on his breathing to calm himself down. "You know what the depressing fact thing about this situation is? If Jodie strangled me at the DPA before we left we wouldn't be in this mess, I guarantee that-"

"Why the hell would you say such a horrible thing?!" she stares at her husband in disbelief, which only made her husband sigh in anger. The silence pondered and ached between the two of them. "She'd never-"

"Because it's the only evidence that would convince you to stay away from her! Every single time Jodie hears something that she doesn't like she ends up hurting someone or destroying the house and then blaming it on her stupid imaginary friend, she always lies Susan! She probably wanted to strangle the life out of me when I told her she'd stay with Nathan and Cole at the DPA because she didn't get what she wanted. But you just had to go back to her as if she's a saint and did nothing wrong!"

"She can't control her powers alright and I don't care that she's not ours! We agreed to look after her!" she placed her hands onto her heart.

"Yes, we agreed to look after a little girl with powers." he shook his head. "But not an uncontrollable monster!" he shouted to her.

"She listens to me!" she pointed to herself with pride.

"For how long?! That Monster's powers could develop as it grows older and I am not ready for you to wind up crazy or dead, it's just too dangerous!" Phillip went to Susan and held her hands briefly.

"But don't you think Nathan's right she's our only family she has, she needs us." Susan followed him into the sitting room where he started to dial a number on the house phone, he felt the same icy cold draft in the house again. "Her father died for goodness sake. Try and put yourself in his shoes."

"Even if she was our daughter, I wouldn't have changed my opinion of her."

"Who are calling?" she asked.

"The DPA." he shivered slightly from the icy draft around his body.

"Nathan already told Jodie." Susan reassured Phillip and kept a calm demeanour.

"You lied to me for three weeks and expect me to just suddenly believe that Nathan already told Jodie!" Phillip saw right through Susan and hated every second of it. "You've changed… where's the woman that I once knew?" he shook his head slowly. "We could have started to think about having a normal family together again!" he rubbed his shoulders to stay warm as the constant draft lingered around him.

"We still can." Susan smiled at Phillip afterward slowly approached him, she tried to gently grab the phone off him but it only made him tighten his grip on the phone. "We can start a family again and then Jodie cam have a sibling to play with."

"Absolutely not. As long as you visit her I wouldn't let any of our future children near Jodie it's just too dangerous." Phillip said coldly.

"Give me the phone Phillip!" Susan swiftly tried to grab the phone off Phillip but he pushed her shoulders back.

"If Nathan already told her why are you trying to take the phone off me?!" he asked.

"Because you'd be shouting at him for no reason!" Susan hated to lie but she had no choice but to, she knew that if he found the truth from Nathan over the phone Jodie's heart would be shattered into pieces. She'd knew he'd tell her about her real birth parents in the bluntest way possible and she didn't want to ponder about how their marriage would turn out by the end of the phone call.

"Well I'll take that chance!" Phillip needed to find out the truth for himself and felt strongly that Susan either lied to him or didn't have a strong enough will to ask Nathan.

Susan tried again with all her might to take the phone off him, but could not get him to loosen his grip, when the dial tone ended she gave up and placed both hands on her head and wondered what to do in the situation.

"She deserves a lot better than you." Phillip heard a deep masculine voice on the other end of the phone line.

"Who is this?" he walked toward the green checker couch in their living room. Susan was so focused on her thoughts that she was not in tuned with the phone conversation when she realized that Phillip has his back turned to the phone she hastily knelt down to disconnect then reconnect the phone line. She sighed heavily before she went toward Phillip, and decided to wait for him to put the phone down.

Phillip heard static on the phone line briefly. "Oh, I'd love to tell you…" the voice on the end of the phone line replied as if the disconnection never arose, it made his wife shiver with dread, she realised that it was the same voice she heard in her nightmare and the same icy cold presence she felt the night that Aiden visited her, this made the hairs on the back of her neck stood up she feared that the house was haunted by Aiden's wrath. "but quite frankly my name is no concern to you."

"Look I must have dialled the wrong number." Phillip replied quickly in annoyance, his wife edged slowly toward him, she wondered if Aiden gained the ability to talk she was too astonished to speak, while Phillip who looked in the opposite direction of her.

"Typical for you to say that isn't?" The voice said in a bitter tone. "Don't you ever call her such horrible names, she means the world to me." the voice was sterner.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Phillip asked.

"You know exactly who I'm talking about."

"Look you've got me confused with someone else." He said quickly before looked at Susan who looked pale and terrified, he lowered the phone not too far from his face. "This is a stupid prank call." He muttered quietly to her.

"You think this is a prank call?! You think I'm confused?! You think I'm flipping deaf Mr. Holmes or should I call you Phillip?!" the voice scoffed at him which made the terrified man drop the phone in fear and the lingering cold draft around him became much worse. As the phone hit the wooden floor all the electrical appliances around the house came on. The television in the living room flicked rapidly through television channels at an astonishing rate, all the lights flickered so wildly so brightly that all the bulbs cracked in the house and caused huge sparks. The couple went close to one another as they were bewildered from the eerie light display.

"Your keeping this Demon here aren't you?!" Phillip yelled at Susan as the couple both shielded themselves from the blown bulbs above them.

"She's at the DPA! I swear!" Susan screamed back, the couple felt their stomachs churn in fear.

"I'm sick of all these lies Susan! I'm done with this!" Phillip's voice never sounded so cold, he grabbed his house keys from the table afterward he bolted out of the house, Susan felt a cold invisible force struck her from behind and made her fall onto the floor. She heard a crackling noise behind her when she looked back she saw the electric appliances from within the house disperse electricity which gathered into an electric ball a few feet in front her face.

The petrified woman cried out for help, she tried to run out the house only for another cold force to pin her down to the wooden floor. Without warning a purple silhouette of a hooded figure materialized in front of her that emitted a low audible hum, it flickered wildly and brightly like an incandescent flame in the wind. The sudden presence of the silhouette made the electric orb move back slightly and the electric appliances stopped dispersing electricity.

The silhouette towered over the terrified woman and made her felt so helpless she was glad that silhouette had its attention on the compressed element. When it walked forward it left purple fluorescent shoeprints on the wooden floor until it was a few feet from the elemental orb, the silhouette flicked its hands quickly and emitted a bright purple shockwave toward the element that made the element disintegrate upon impact.

Susan scrambled toward the front door before the silhouette turned its attention to her again. The front door opened as soon as she approached it and when she stepped outside she felt an icy cold presence linger around her for a few seconds before the front door closed behind her and the presence was gone.

She bolted toward the door and struggled to put her seat belt on as she wondered if Jodie's powers were more out of control than she imagined and did not want to ponder if Aiden decided to target herself now that he already spoke to her husband. She needed answers immediately and the only place she knew where she was guaranteed to get results without herself being called crazy was at the DPA.

Author's Note: I'm editing the later chapters hence why the later chapters have been deleted for now and the same reason why this fanfic is on hiatus as I think this fanfic desperately needs a change in some of the chapters.