Sharp spikes of pain ripped through her head. A regular parade of them, each one accompanied by a sound like metal being ripped. Each time started a new wave of pressure that traveled through her skull and all the way down her spine.
Lizzie opened her eyes. She was looking at the ceiling. The phone was ringing. The phone was ringing!
Lizzie tried to jump up but a wave of nausea pushed her back down as her right hand slipped along the floor. She landed back where she started with a painful delicate crash against the carpet underneath her. She tried again, moving slower this time and using her left hand to support herself. She was horrified to see that her right hand had been slipping on a clear fluid leaking from a visible crack in Mr. Brown's head. She was partially perched on top of Mr. Brown's now still body. Stifling an impulse to throw up and trying not to scream, she pulled her hand from the viscous fluid and rolled off the body beneath her, landing on the wooden floor with a soundless bump.
Lizzie scrambled away from the corpse. Her mind not processing the information it was being fed. Things like this didn't happen in Lizzie's world, it was too strange. The sound of the phone was the only thing that brought Lizzie back to the world as it began to swim before her eyes.
The phone continued to ring as Lizzie made her way across the floor, crawling on her hands and feet. Her stomach felt like someone had planted a 100-pound writhing snake in her stomach and it tried to squirm its way out with each sound, each movement. Every part of her ached and seethed with pain as she made it to the table. She reached up for the phone and pulled the receiver down to her ear. Part of her was just glad to hear it stop ringing.
"Hello." Her voice was muddied by pain and confusion.
"You have to help me!" There were sounds of banging in the background, loud enough so that Lizzie could hear them.
Lizzie's still confused brain tried to identify the voice on the phone. It wasn't Miranda, it wasn't her Mom, but it was a female voice. She just couldn't relate the sounds to anyone she knew.
"Oh God, help me!" Screams came from the phone again. "He's trying to kill me." Lizzie could now hear the sound of an alarm in the background. The phone went dead in her hand.
Lizzie dropped the phone onto the floor. The receiver lay broadcasting its dead air into the silence of the room. Lizzie looked around, her eyes trying to make sense of what she saw around her.
No sunlight filled the always-cheery house with its intoxicating presence today. Cold darkness was the only gift from the ominous preternaturally dark clouds covering the sky. The patio door in the kitchen looked like it had been smashed in. A trail of dark fluid led into the kitchen. Lizzie saw something she couldn't identify at first, something out of place. At first it looked like a small blue towel was standing up in the air. Blinking she forced the cobwebs from her head and looked again, the towel now resolved itself into one of her father's slippers. Inside the slipper was his foot. Lizzie's hand went to her mouth and an overwhelming urge to start crying flashed over her. She turned her head to avoid the sight.
It was then that her constant companion decided to return. "Get up." The voice inside her was no longer that of a 14-year old girl. The voice was hard and firm, it sounded like her Mom when she got angry or very determined. For a moment, Lizzie almost thought it was her Mom, but then she realized that the voice came from inside her head.
Stifling back a sniffle, Lizzie levered herself up with the help of the table. She took one hesitant step across the floor towards the kitchen and the incongruous slipper pointing upwards. The cold floor sent a chill through her. Lizzie looked down to see that she had lost one of her slippers in the tumble down the stairs. She half-turned around to see if she could find it, but then swiveled back to face the kitchen. The slipper could wait; she needed to see if her Dad was hurt.
That thought swept away the last vestiges of fuzziness from her thinking. It even managed to alleviate some of the pain that she still felt from the fall. She moved across the floor and stepped into the kitchen.
Her father's body lay on the pristine white tiles of the kitchen floor. A stain spread around him like a painters vicious attack on a canvas. Blood was all over the floor. Smears broke the dainty edges of the pool causing it to spread wider. She only knew it was her father because of the yellow ducky pajamas he wore and the blue terrycloth slippers on his feet. She couldn't identify his face, and in fact, she couldn't even be sure his head was still there. Everything above his shoulders was a mass of gore and blood with no recognizable parts.
Lizzie sobbed once, falling to the floor again. She tried to turn away from the sight, but she just kept searching the area around her father's shoulders for his face. She couldn't see anything that made it him.
Lizzie stood back up. "Mom!" The wail sounded tiny in the cold and dark house. Lizzie ran towards the stairs. Taking two steps at a time, she bounded up the stairs. At the top, she noticed the dark red and brown stains that went up and down the hallway in front of the family's rooms. She looked towards her parent's room and noticed the stained trail led inside, the door wide open. Slowly, Lizzie walked down the hallway, hoping that she wouldn't find what she suspected was already there. Reaching the edge of the doorway, she took a deep breath and peeked in around the corner.
A single flash of the scene was all she needed. Something that would haunt her forever. The first impression she got was red. But her parent's room was painted yellow. The bright yellow paint shone brightly against the scarlet red that covered most of the wall behind their bed. Something lay in the bed, but it was also red, just like the stains that seeped through the once white sheets and comforter. A smell that reminded her of being on a farm wafted from the room. She shut her eyes and ducked back around the corner. She didn't need to see anymore.
Opening her eyes again, Lizzie turned and looked down the hallway towards Matt's room. The trail also led there, and the door was also open.
Quelling the rising panic in her mind, Lizzie walked with a stiff step down the hallway. She was mere feet away from the door when she heard something. It was a small sound, like someone shuffling around inside Matt's room, but in the quiet house, it was as loud as a cannon's roar.
Fear washed over Lizzie. She felt paralyzed, the visions of her parents and the phone call froze in her mind, her body wasn't responding. Part of her wanted to flee screaming out the front door, the other part of her wanted to fly into a rage and take vengeance on whatever had done this to her world.
Slowly, her fears and her tears subsided, she felt marginally in control of herself. Pulling her body up straight, she took one more step and pushed open the door of Matt's room.