"Amy you need to get up. Your grandmother is very ill, and I don't have the time to go and take care of her. You'll have to visit her after school." Mrs Grizwald yelled from down stairs. "And don't forget your medication. We don't want another accident."
Amy tossed and turned under her covers trying to ignore her mother's advice, mumbling to herself that it wasn't her fault. It was the voices.
Amy was her real name but everyone except her family called her 'Red', because of her long, black hair with red highlights. It was just her and her mother. Her father was always a touchy subject, ever since she saw him get murdered by her uncle, right outside her school, when she was six. That's when the voices started to talk. At first therapists thought it was a way of coping with her father's death, until it got out of hand only five months after his death, when she attacked her teacher when he insulted her father, saying he was a disgrace to everyone. The teacher hated Red because she had out smarted him many times and was sick of it. After the principal was able to pry her off, the teacher was covered in cuts, bruises and had a pair of scissors embedded into his left eye. Blood doused the floor, a couple of desks and Red. Fortunately for her, he survived, only losing his eye. The court ordered her to attend extreme therapy sessions every day for five years and she had to pay for all damage to the school and pay for the teacher's medical bills.
Eleven years today, she is seventeen, goes to therapy three times a week and took anti-psychotic and mood stabilising pills to help with the voices.
Red listened as the front door closed, assuming her mother had left. She grumbled and sat up, sighing as she looked around her small room filled with memories from the past. A photo on her bedside table of Red, her mother and father all looking happy, stood facing her. She was on her dad's shoulders and her mother was hugging him, that was three weeks before he was brutally murdered. She sniffled as a tear rolled down her cheek. Hesitantly she lifted her hand to wipe it away. She stood breathing heavily before picking it up, lightly grazing her fingers over the photo where her dad's face was.
"I will be with you again one day. I promise." She whispered to herself before putting it down to get ready for school. She walked over to the mirror. Her hair messily hung over her shoulders and her pyjamas were all scrunched and wrinkled. She sighed looking at the mirror, examining the scars on her wrists from when she had been cutting as a child, trying to get away from the pain of her father's death and the voices. Her chocolate brown eyes searched for an answer to everything in her life, but nothing came to mind. Red sighed one last time before going to the bathroom to get ready for school.
After a hot shower and two pieces of toast smeared with Nutella she was on her way to school, thinking that today would be like every other day. Oh, but how wrong she was.
School went on as usual, except that day she didn't get to see her best friend who was sick at home. When the bell rang to finish the day, a sea of bodies rushed down the halls to get outside to the buses or the car park where they were either getting picked up or driving themselves, but only the year twelves had that privilege.
Red gathered her supplies and bag. She walked out into the car park to look for her mother, but she was nowhere in sight. She waited until everyone had left and there were no cars in the park. She glanced down at her phone to call her mother. Just as she was about to hit the 'Call' button, the voices started talking, reminding her.
'She said she was busy today' a soft, caring voice explained. Anita.
'She told you to look after your grandmother' a deep, confident voice added. Alister.
Red had learnt that the voices had names when she was yelling at them one time.
'You'll just have to walk'
'Sixteen kilometres away!' Red exclaimed in her head.
'You haven't been left alone like this since...'
'DON'T SAY IT. I thought I had my medication'
'You know it doesn't work'
'IT DOES. NOW SHUT UP' Red's voice echoed across the empty car park. But they were relentless.
'Don't deny it'
'You know the truth'
'Alright you win, just please leave me alone'
'Okay, but you'll hear from us again'
'And next time you won't be able stop us'
'What do you mean by that?'
All she got was silence.
'Hello? Anita? Alister?'
"Damn it" she called out into the empty air.
Red started to make her way to her grandmother's house. She was lost in her thoughts until she reached her destination. When she looked up from her phone at the open door she gasped and glanced around quickly, noticing the unfamiliar car in the drive way.
Red knew her grandmother would never leave the door open but one more thing stood out to her. The door was barely hanging on to its hinges. She put her phone into her bag and set it aside. She stepped inside and glanced once around the small corridor. She made her way carefully down the hall, looking in each room.
Red reached the final room and with a short breath she entered the dining room. She hadn't been in her grandmother's house for years, but every memory of the house came back to her in the second she stepped onto the wooden floor. Every other room had carpet, except the bathroom, kitchen and of course the dining room.
She looked around the room until her eyes landed on her grandmother. Or what remained. Her body was a mangled mess of flesh, bones and blood. Red covered her mouth with her hand. Screaming silently as tears welled up in her eyes, until they silently slid down her cheeks. She didn't dare to scream out loud in case her grandmother's murderer was still in the house.
'RUN'
'RUN'
'RUN, RUN, RUN'
'GET AWAY'
Anita and Alistair were screaming in her head, but it only caused her to collapse onto her knees in pain, clutching her throbbing head. Her heart was racing, hurting her chest.
The voices got louder and louder, warning her to get out as fast as possible, when suddenly, a hand landed on her shoulder. She flinched at the feeling of the large fingers that gripped strongly on to her. She automatically locked eyes with the face of a wolf, shivering at his nefarious stare.
Earlier that day James was down in the basement cleaning himself up.
"James? What are you doing down here?" came a voice he knew all too well. James turned from the bloody scene in front of him to the stairs.
"Tom. Come look who I found!" James exclaimed.
Tom turned on the light to the basement. "James what the hell? What have you done?" Tom stared at the horrific image in front of him.
"Do you like it?! She was very compliant after I pulled all her finger nails out. Then I just had some fun." James commented through gritted teeth, disgusted with how much effort he had go through before getting the information he wanted.
Tom was at a loss for words, gasping at the mangled body in the metal chair behind James. He didn't know how to register what he was seeing. There in the chair was Mrs Grizwald, tied up with rope, not moving. Blood pooled at the legs of the chair. Her arms and fingers looked like every bone in them was broken and her head hung in an unnatural way, most likely snapped to end her life. Her legs were covered in cuts from a whip. Tom looked over to the table that James was standing next to. It had pliers, a whip and two jars, one with her finger nails in it and the other with her teeth. Everything on the table was covered in blood.
James started to walk up the stairs towards Tom. When he was a few feet away, he handed Tom a wedding ring that had belonged to Mrs Grizwald.
"I'm going to finish the job. Amy finishes school in two hours." James said, then passed Tom who was staring blankly at the grisly scene below him. Tom was his best friend in high school and now they were sharing rent on a house. James walked through the kitchen and picked up his pocket knife from the bench. As James grabbed his car keys, Tom walked up behind him and asked one simple question.
"Why?"
"She was the only one who knew where Amy was." James answered, emotionlessly. He turned to face his car when he heard Tom pick up his phone from the nearby table. "I wouldn't do that if I was you. Otherwise I might have to hurt you, and you wouldn't want that now, would we?" James questioned, as he listened to Tom's heart beat speed up.
Then, he walked out the door and into his car. He was going to give his cousin a surprise when she arrived at her grandmother's.
One hour later, James turned into the drive way and switched off his car. He opened the glove compartment where he had hidden a mask that so when he murdered Red, she wouldn't see his face, only his eyes. He slid it on, hiding his facial features behind the wolf-head shaped plastic. He laughed to himself about using a wolf mask to kill 'Red'. It reminded him of the story, 'Little Red Riding Hood', except this time, the wolf would win.
James got out of his car and walked up to the pristine wooden door, knocking loudly so the old woman could hear. A voice came from the other side of the door. "Who is it?" The door creaked as it was slowing opened.
James smirked to himself. "Oh, don't you remember me?", he asked in a cynical tone. The door was just few feet open when he said this alerting Red's grandmother to who it was. Before he could get through, she slammed the door closed but not before he slipped his foot through. Grandmother's immediate reaction was to hit him over the head with an umbrella hung on a hook, in doing so he leapt back in surprise. She took this chance to close the door and lock it shut.
James recovered quickly and slammed his shoulder into the door making it shudder with each impact. Finally, after a few slams the door burst open, barely intact. He raced through the house to find the old lady. Eventually he found her at the phone, dialling furiously.
James ripped her phone away, smashing it against the farthest wall. She shrieked at the sudden emptiness of her hand. He grabbed her by the shoulders and flung her against the wall, breaking fragile bones in her body, her head bleeding as a gash was made.
Grandmother looked up at James, her dull eyes showing how much she had endured in her life. But he took no pity on her. Instead he started stabbing her ruthlessly in the chest. After fifteen minutes of let out his rage on her, she was long gone. Blood stained his hands and clothes.
The sound of footsteps broke James' thought process. He quickly hid in the kitchen, listening as the sound came closer and closer. When the footsteps stopped, the sound was replaced with muffled sobs. He peered around the corner and spotted Red on her knees with her hand over her mouth. James stepped out from his hiding place and walked silently over to Red, grabbing her shoulder, watching her eyes meet his as she shivered under his grasp.
Red screamed and stumbled backwards. James quickly slammed the dining room door closed before she could escape.
"Hello Amy" James said belligerently.
Red jumped to her feet and ran into the kitchen. James followed on her heels, coming to a stop at the door and locking it. While he had been hiding, he had studied the room and learnt that there has no way out of the kitchen besides the door to the dining room.
Red scrabbled to the other side of the kitchen. Searching frantically through the drawers, looking for anything she could use to protect herself against James. Her someone wanted to kill her. He moved closer to her, watching her every move, like a wolf stalking its prey.
Red opened the cupboard containing glasses. One glass toppled over and fell onto the bench, shattering. She flinched but James ignored the crash as she spun around to face him. He removed his wolf mask, revealing a small memorable scar on the side of his face.
Red gasped when she realised who was under the mask.
"J-James." She stuttered. He laughed darkly. "Why?" She breathed.
"Why." James chuckled deeply. Red's heart stopped. "You see Amy, we have two things in common. We both don't have dads and we both hear voices, although the voice in my head is my father."
"You're crazy!" Red screamed in his face.
"I'm crazy? Look at the person who has therapy and takes medication that doesn't help!" James lashed out. "My father was a good man but my mother and your father, were the wrong doers. Not my father. He was just doing what was right."
"Murdering my dad! He was a monster, he deserved to die!" Red spat with venom in her words. James was getting irritated by her insults.
"No, your father was the monster, he deserved to die, and he did. You see my dad did all he could for my mother and I until one day I caught my mother and your father having an affair. My mother lied straight to my dad saying she didn't do anything." He laughed darkly under his breath. "She said I was lying, that it was just my imagination playing up, but dad believed me and killed her in her sleep. I still remember the bloody scene of their bedroom. And the knife hanging loosely in his hand. But I had a smile on my face because I knew your father was next and justice would be served."
Red only shook her head trying to wrap her brain around what he was saying.
"He died right in front of me, electrocuted by the state. They let me watch them murder him." James explained.
Red had no idea what to say. Unanswered questions swam in her head. "Why me, why grandmother. We didn't do anything to you?"
"You may not have but your mother and grandmother had. They knew about the affair and did nothing to stop it. But you, you were always the special one, the favourite. You didn't deserve what you got, a good education, friends and family that love you." James seethed. "I was put into the system and adopted by an abusive family. You have no idea want that is like, having to be afraid of the people that you live with." He lifted the knife up a little.
"Please don't do it. You've already killed my dad and my grandmother." Red pleaded.
"Correction my dad killed him, and I have killed your mother and grandmother." James declared.
"What?" Red's shaky voice asked.
"Ugh don't you get it? I killed her." James stated. "Are you seriously that naive?"
Red broke into sobs. Large tears stained her face. Her eyes were red and puffy as she tried to cover them up with her hands.
"You know what I think, Amy" James took a step toward her, his knife twirling in his right hand. She uncovered her eyes to see him. "I think it's time you die!" He hissed.
Red let out a bone chilling scream, hoping a neighbour might hear but was suddenly muffled by James' free hand. She looked straight into his eyes and saw excitement dance through them. Red's muffled cries were only loud enough for James to hear, fuelling his emotions. Tears slid down her cheeks. James slowly leaned in close to her ear and whispered. "Shhhh, say hello to your father." James pulled away from her.
Red's cries had slowed down to choked out gasps but now she was pleading through James' fingers and shaking her head violently. James held up the knife to his lips shushing her cries one last time. Her mind was racing with all her regrets in the short life she had.
James gave Red one last glance before plunging the knife into her throat. She let out a scream of pain into his hand. James pulled the knife free from her throat and stepped back. She fell to the floor and raised her right hand up to the wound. Crimson blood thickly ran through her fingers, down her neck and over her body covering her clothes. Blood pooled at James' feet as he watched her slowly dying in pain.
Red looked up at James once more before letting out her last shaky breath. Her body fell limp. Her head hung lifelessly, and her hand fell into her lap, covered in the crimson liquid.
James felt satisfied with his effort. Adrenalin coursed through his veins. Only the cold, harsh voice of his father to break the silence.
'James, it is time we meet again' his father's voice echoed through his head.
'Yes father.' James listened.
And with that James plunged the knife into his own neck. Wincing at the pain as white pin pricks appeared, covering his vision, but soon after he welcomed the darkness that consumed him.