rissy stories

*Trigger Warning* this story is explicit because it contains violence, gore, death, and cursing. Do not read if you’re triggered by any of these topics.

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Finn made a happy squealing sound and then opened her car door faster than I’d ever seen anyone open a car door. She left it open and caught up with Adelaide, who was already walking up the head-light-lit wooden steps. Once I was out of the car, I walked around it, shut her door, and then followed them. I heard Fletcher mutter a depressed-sounding “good bye” under his breath as I passed by him, and hesitated, about to question him about what he meant by that when I second-guessed myself. Maybe I heard him say a derogatory: “good luck” instead. I decided against making myself look like a scaredy-cat, so I ignored it.

I felt my throat start to close as I climbed up the squeaky steps and set foot on the porch. I had pretty bad asthma, and I suddenly got a waft of something burning. There were no fires around, though – we would have seen it in this darkness. However, just to be safe, I reached into my coat pocket and took out my albuterol inhaler. I shook it twice then breathed the medicine in deeply while Finn ran into the house at full speed. Adelaide and I quickly followed. I cried out for Finn because it was pitch black and I couldn’t see a thing. So, I took out my iPhone from my pocket and turned on the flashlight app while noticing that it felt strangely warm inside the house – too warm for a place with no working air condition or heat.

“Look at me, mommy!” I heard Finn call cheerfully. I swung my phone light straight in front of me and found her sitting on a large, fancy-looking chair. She waved to me and swung her feet because her legs were still too short to touch the floor. The dark chair looked like it was about to crumble and swallow her, and there was a small, brown side table to her right that had two badly ripped papers sitting on top of it. To her left, there was a small bookcase with many different books that probably smelt like piss and felt like felt they looked so old. Behind all of that was a slanted wall with a railing attached that climbed up towards the upper right corner, where it disappeared behind the ceiling – a staircase. I shifted my weight to my right foot as I looked around, and the floor creaked every time I moved (even slightly). There were pieces of wood, nails, yellow papers, dust, dead bugs, and ripped up pieces of wallpaper covering the entire floor.

So naturally, I took several pictures of this foyer with the camera in my other hand. Then I held the camera close to my face so I could see the small digital photos, and got slightly freaked out by a picture of Finn’s messed-up vampire face paint. Thankfully though, I didn’t see any ghosts or anything unusual inside the pictures, like I was afraid I would. Meanwhile, Adelaide finally joined my side and looked around the foyer with me in a very baked awe.

“I wonder how many people died in this very spot,” she pondered softly, pointing to the floor, then placing the palms of her hands on her lower back, like a pregnant woman would. I swiftly elbowed her in the ribs for purposefully scaring me. She cringed, bent over, and covered her ribs with her arms.

“Twelve,” Finn suddenly replied, then stood up from the chair and walked into the middle of the decrepit foyer. I ignored her, figuring that she was just making up the number. Finn did stuff like that sometimes because six-year-olds thought they knew everything. Not to mention the kid loved living in her own little world. Meanwhile, Adelaide recovered from the blow I gave her and raised her eyebrows.

“How do you know that?” she asked curiously. Finn shrugged.

“She’s counting to twelve, I guess that’s what she means,” she responded casually and knelt down onto the floor to play with the papers and dead bugs. I normally would have stopped her but I couldn’t actually move my limbs after hearing about that d*** woman again. Goody Adams – it had to be her. Finn kept repeating that name whenever we passed the house in the car. I suddenly came to another realization and silently reprimanded myself for not making that connection much sooner: It was the ghost that haunted the Watson family. Sarah Adams.

Adelaide turned to me and I immediately put a hand up in front of her face – my usual sign to drop whatever it is she was about to say or ask.

“Does she have low-key schizophrenia?” she asked anyway. I sighed heavily and shook my head. Obviously Adelaide knew nothing about Finn. Or illnesses.

“She’s just intuitive,” I whispered, rubbed at my eyes, and listened hard for any type of unexplainable sound. Something that not only Finn could hear, but something that Laide and I could hear too… however, no such luck, I couldn’t hear anything other than Laide’s heavy breathing and Finn’s shuffles on the floor.

I tried to take a deep breath to relax and remind myself that my child was not mentally ill, but it suddenly felt like I was breathing in a lungful of smoke. I choked and coughed with confusion. I put my iPhone in my armpit as I reached for my inhaler again, and Adelaide worriedly laid a hand on my left arm as I gasped for air. Meanwhile, Finn continued playing on the floor, like nothing was wrong.

“What is that?” I choked out. Adelaide shook her head.

“What’s what?” she asked, and I used the inhaler. Didn’t help much.

“The smell,” I replied.

“It’s fire, mommy,” Finn said, as if I should have already know that, while analyzing a large, furry, curled up, dead spider in between her pointer finger and thumb. As she stuffed it into her costume pocket, I coughed hard again, tears coming to my eyes. But where the hell was it coming from? I refrained from asking. I desperately yearned for when I was just sitting in my kitchen, eating Lucky Charms and waiting for my boring husband and daughter to return from a boring night of trick-or-treating. Where was my bland husband when I needed him?

“Why don’t we move into another room to see if that helps,” Adelaide said, taking my wrist and pulling me to the left, where there was another empty doorway, which I assumed led to a living room or a kitchen. What I really wanted was to leave the house, but I couldn’t actually speak. As we walked into the dusty, cob-webby room, the smell of smoke disappeared all together. I swore I heard footsteps within the room – quick ones, like something was trying to hide behind something. However, I chalked it up to my mind becoming my enemy and starting to make up s***, since I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

I stared around the darkness with wide eyes, my breathing wheezy. My heart was pounding and my chest felt tight. I shined my iPhone flashlight around the room and I saw an old baby blue fainting-couch with multiple tears and holes poked through it, a fraying blood-red rug on the floor, a fireplace, and a broken window – no people or ghosts. I heard papers on the floor rolling about the room, but again, no wind. Despite my fear, I took some shaky pictures of the room with my camera and sensed Adelaide staring at me. I then turned to look at her – her face and hair making her look like a witch instead of a nurse in this light.

“Are you okay?” she asked and I nodded sharply. “You don’t look okay,” Adelaide added. I opened my mouth to deny it when I heard a voice from behind me:

“No, she doesn’t,” I dropped my camera and whipped around to find Finn standing right behind me. Her face was expressionless, but she was looking right into my eyes. I didn’t even hear her walk up behind me… and that didn’t even sound like her voice. Again, Adelaide didn’t seem to be afraid, so I picked up my camera with trembling hands. “Mommy, are you sick?” Finn asked. I shook my head.

“I think she might be having an anxiety attack. Cher, why don’t you sit on the couch and I’ll light up some weed to calm you down, sweetie,” Adelaide didn’t even phrase it as a question and led me towards the fainting couch. Even though my best friend and daughter were acting like I was the crazy one – something just didn’t feel right. I knew I scared easy, but it was never enough to render me like this.

Either way, Adelaide slowly and gently pushed me all the way down on the couch until I was facing the ceiling. I heard the flick of a lighter and the footsteps of my daughter as she waltzed around the room and kicked papers.

“Pins and needles on my feet – it feels good and very neat.

There are papers everywhere – Goody Adams likes my hair.

Mommy’s having an attack – Now she’s lying on her back.

I want to find some bones today – Goody Adams likes to play-“

“Okay Finn, you can stop now!” I yelled nervously at my singing daughter as Adelaide handed me a joint and hovered over my face. I immediately took it and inhaled deeply. Now, was it helping my asthma? No. But was it relaxing me? Yes.

After about a minute or two, Adelaide placed the back of her latex hand on my forehead. I swatted her away, “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Are you feeling any better?” she asked in a motherly tone. I looked at her strangely and shrugged, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable.

“I’m not sick, Laide, I’m just nervous,” I replied and took a fifth hit. Suddenly, my attention turned to the old ceiling fan above Adelaide. It hadn’t been moving before… but it definitely was now. I could feel the hot breeze on my face and I heard the buzz of it spinning. My eyes widened and I pointed to it. Adelaide followed my gaze and I cried: “It’s moving, the fan is f****** moving, look!”

I heard Finn repeat me twice (curse word and everything) in a mocking tone on the other side of the room. Then she laughed… but it didn’t sound like her laugh, exactly. It weirdly reminded me of the “The Littlest Elf” giggle in The Series of Unfortunately Events movie – that perfect, soft, high-pitched, cutesy “he-he-he-he” type of giggle. Finn’s laugh was more of a loud “ha-ha-ha – LARGE GASP – ha-ha-ha”-ish type of laugh, and her giggles were low-volume “hm-hm-hm”’s. Adelaide was looking back at me almost sadly.

“Sweetie, no its not. Here, why don’t we try something a little stronger,” she said, also not phrasing it as a question. She reached into her bra and suddenly pulled out a little white pill – it stood out clearly against her black gloves. I shook my head frantically and squirmed on the couch, trying to inch away from her.

“What the actual f*** is that?” I asked worriedly. Trust me, I’d gone to college and I was best friends with the girl – and whatever it was definitely wasn’t aspirin. Adelaide shushed me, placing a finger on my lips. I felt like biting her.

“It’s just a low dosage of Klonopin, honey, like 5 Mg. And it’s small enough, you can just dry swallow it – here, open your mouth,” she pulled her finger away and held the pill to my lips. I hesitantly opened my mouth and she placed it on my tongue. I cringed as I swallowed it – I felt the pill travel all the way down my esophagus and chest. Adelaide smiled at me… and I just looked at her for a bit… waiting for her to say something or move. But it looked like she was frozen, buffering, or something. Thankfully, I was feeling more and more relaxed by the second, or I would’ve probably freaked out even worse than I already had.

“You’re sure that was Klonopin?” I asked, because I was already starting to feel it. And I mean really feel it. I’d taken Klonopin for anxiety before, but never in pill form – it was always a wafer that dissolved on your tongue. And it usually took at least ten or twenty minutes to fully kick in. I’d never felt such strong affects so quickly before. Adelaide nodded, her weirdly forced smile defining her wrinkles.

“Of course, silly,” she said. The fan above her was still spinning. “Why don’t you take a nap for a bit?” she asked. I looked at her like she was insane and sat up a little too quickly – my head spun wildly. I steadied myself, even though I was already sitting down on the couch. I looked at Adelaide, who still had that smile on her face.

I opened my mouth to tell her that she was crazy if she thought that I would take a nap in a haunted house … but the sentence got away from me when I heard the most blood-curdling shriek I’d ever heard in my life. It was high-pitched, but a mixture of a girly scream and a boy’s loudest yell. It was almost inhuman and filled with pure horror. It honestly sounded like someone was being murdered right there in the room we were in. It lasted for a full five seconds or so, but as soon as I heard it, I gasped and screamed back at it for the last three seconds, then both screams stopped simultaneously. I wrapped my arms around myself and sobbed like a baby.

Adelaide leaned forward and grabbed ahold of my biceps. The smile was gone – she now looked concerned again. It reminded me of my mother. Finn momentarily joined her side and stared at me with big dark doe eyes.

“What happened, what just happened, sweetie?” Adelaide asked and began to pet my hair. I pushed her away roughly and looked over at Finn.

“Did-ju hear tha?!” I cried, having some trouble actually getting the words out of my mouth. It felt like my tongue was moving too slowly, and I couldn’t actually form words. Finn looked confused and scratched at her scalp.

“Hear what, mommy?” she asked, her voice sounding deadpan.

“Tha threeeeeam,” I replied – my mouth muscles now feeling totally lax. Klonopin wasn’t supposed to do that. My pulse raced as I realized that I was officially hearing and seeing things no one else was hearing or seeing, and I couldn’t speak. There was now no doubt in my mind that whatever Adelaide had given me definitely wasn’t a low dosage of Klonopin – not even a high dosage of Klonopin.

They both shook their heads and looked at each other. And when Finn looked back at me, I almost screamed again because it looked like her face was melting off… and not just the paint. Her pale flesh was dripping onto the floor at her feet, leaving little globs of skin and blood on the floor. And she was acting like her face paint and skin weren’t dripping off of her chin and jaw line like water! My face twisted in sheer terror as I stared into her meaty/boney face, and I was suddenly struck with this horrible feeling in my gut – a feeling that told me to get the hell away from them.

“I ga-ya go,” I slurred, got up from the couch, and attempted to run away.

“Wait, you have to let me take care of you!” Adelaide yelled behind me.

Everything was spinning, but I could see the light pouring into the foyer from the headlights on Fletcher’s car. So, I headed straight for that and then up the stairs (instead of outside like I probably should have). I was now hearing loud banging noises, like someone was pounding on the walls, as I climbed, stumbled, fell, and climbed again. I yelled out for a second as my foot smashed a hole through one of the rotten wooden steps as I began to climb again – the feeling felt similar to sticking my foot out from underneath the covers at night, worrying that a monster was going to grab it and drag me under the bed.

And as soon as I thought that, I could have sworn I felt a hand grab my shoe and yank it down. I forced myself to believe that it was all in my imagination and I struggled to pull my scratched-up, bloody leg back out of the hole as quickly as I could. Then continued climbing for dear life. I vaguely heard Adelaide yell something to the effect of: “God, you’re such a bad patient, you don’t trust me or even appreciate me taking care of you!” Tears rolled down my cheeks in fear, and I could feel multiple splinters in my hands as they grasped and scraped along the wooden railing because my limbs felt too weak to continue supporting me.

And as soon as I got to the top of the stairs, my head spins and nausea caused me to vomit up whatever pill Adelaide had given me. Bile splattered across the floor, and it was too dark to tell what color it was, but I could vaguely taste the Lucky Charms I had eaten earlier. It all flowed to the edge, and dripped down the stairs while I placed splintery hands on my sweat-pant-covered knees, spat, groaned, and gasped for air. I was now hearing absolutely nothing from Adelaide and Finn below me, and the pounding on the walls had abruptly stopped. I caught my breath, reached for my inhaler again, stood up straight, and turned around.

I was now facing the second floor of the Old Watson house. Everything had gone deadly silent again, and I felt satisfied that the pill was out of my body… but whatever Adelaide had given me had already taken its toll. My breathing was labored no matter how many times I used the inhaler, my body felt like it was burning up from heat, and I couldn’t see straight. I tried to think about the symptoms and guess what I might have possibly taken – because I had experimented with a lot of drugs back in my day – and the closest thing that I could come up with was PCP. However, I forced myself to take my mind off of it and slowly walk into hallway with the iPhone flashlight lighting my way.

There was a small bathroom right in front of me with the door open. On the inside, there was a very mucky mirror over one of the dirtiest sinks I’d ever seen (thank God I couldn’t see any type of reflection). The toilet must’ve been hiding behind the wall, so I walked towards the bathroom to peek at it and snap a picture.

Then I turned to my right, now facing a small entryway to the hallway. The wallpaper was old fashioned to say the least: pale yellow in color (probably used to be white), with dark gold flowers attached to green vines traveling up and down the wall in lines. The wooden frames on the walls were also old-fashioned and cracking, but they were all completely blank, all of the photos had been stripped. I gulped, snapped another quick picture with my camera, and walked through the entryway and stared to my left and right – I was now in the actual hallway.

The wooden floor had a blue rug that trailed from where my vomit pile was to the little bathroom I was facing, through the entryway, and then down to each end of the hallway on my left and right. After my foot mishap on the steps – I stuck to that rug like I was Dorothy following the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz.

I froze for a moment, knowing that heading down the right end of the hallway would lead straight to Mr. and Mrs. Watson’s murder room, so I turned to the left instead. I didn’t exactly know what rooms resided on this end of the hallway, but something in my gut was telling me that I had to discover it. Meanwhile, I was still feeling extremely on-edge because I was still hearing nothing from downstairs. Adelaide and Finn weren’t making any kind of noise that would indicate they were still in the house, but I couldn’t just go back downstairs to find out.

I passed a small coat closet to my right with dark brown shuttered doors and golden knobs, and right across from it was another small bathroom. I glanced inside… a choice I immediately regretted. I stopped, my phone flashlight still pointing down the hallway as I stared into the darkness of the bathroom. I got chills all over my body and my heart seized as I witnessed the silhouette of the tall, skinny man I’d seen in the doorway before we even entered the house.

I felt paralyzed – not knowing whether it was real or a figment of my imagination – whether to ignore it and continue walking, or to shine my phone light on it. It just stood there in silence. I blinked several times and squinted to see if my brain was just screwing with me, and it wasn’t. The figure never budged or disappeared. After a few more seconds of silence, I shined the phone light into the bathroom and gasped as I found someone I never would have expected to see here.

“J-jathx?” I asked in a whisper, my speech still not going back to normal. It looked just like him – the tall, skinny body, the pale skin, the ruffled dark brown hair, the ear gauges, the luscious eyelashes, the baggy jeans and white t-shirt. He looked exactly like how he left the house to take Finn trick-or-treating several hours ago, except he wasn’t wearing a jacket. The only thing that looked different were his brown eyes… they looked extremely dark in this light. He had been staring at me with wide eyes with a blank expression, but as soon as I said his name, he snapped back to life, smiled, and walked closer to me.

“Hey Cherry,” he said in his usual tone of voice and thick Boston accent. I felt extremely conflicted – my drug-addled brain was telling me that this was actually my husband, especially since he said his own special nickname for me, but my gut was telling me that something was deeply wrong. I had so many questions: How did Jax know that Finn and I were out here? I hadn’t heard from him in hours. Why would he show up as soon as we arrived, and then hide until I found him again? He wasn’t into scary stuff or Halloween whatsoever. But most importantly…how did Jax get all the way out here, and why?

“W-wha are you d-doing here?” I stuttered, reaching out a hand to grab onto his arm, hoping that I wouldn’t grab onto anything and I could dismiss whatever this was as a hallucination. My insides shuddered as my hand wrapped around his forearm – he was real. He was actually there, standing right in front of me.

And he felt really, really hot. Abnormally hot, which was strange because he always complained about feeling cold. He was pretty skinny for a 33 year old, so that was never a shocker. He just had to wear more layers than most, but right now he was only in a t-shirt and jeans in a haunted house on an October night.

He quickly pulled his arm out of my hand with a confused expression.

“I got your text about taking our daughter to a haunted house in the middle of nowhere on Halloween, what was I ‘sposed to do when I found out? Sit around on the couch and play video games while I waited for you?” he asked, getting dangerously close to my face. I felt flabbergasted at the turn of tables and stumbled away from him. I don’t even remember sending him a text about it.

“W-what texth?” I asked nervously. He glared into my eyes for the next four seconds, then suddenly blew air out of his nose, smiled, and chuckled.

“Oh, sweet hot (Boston accent for sweetheart), you’re such a stupid cutie, what would you ever do without me?” he asked and pulled a phone out of his pocket. Again, my head was reeling from his rapid changes in attitude, so I brushed off the blatant dig. It’s not like he didn’t make subtle digs at me on the daily. However, my hands started trembling as he held the phone in front of my face, showing a text from me:
“U remember my college friend, Adelaide? She’s in town and taking Finn and I to The Old Watson House – don’t wait up.”

I didn’t think my heart could have raced any quicker than it already was, but I was wrong. I almost felt on the verge of having a heart attack as I thought hard about the car ride. Did I or did I not send that text? I remember calling him at the house before we left… but for some reason, I couldn’t quite remember if I actually attempted to contact him in the car. I started wheezing and reached for my inhaler.

“I n-never thent tha,” I said with a firm shake of my head. I naturally used my inhaler again, but it only seemed to be making my asthma worse. I coughed hard as he put his phone back in his pocket still smiling at me… it reminded me of Adelaide.

“Aw, you’re so adorable when you forget important things,” he replied in a voice that should have been accompanied by pinching my cheeks. There was no ignoring that one. I felt the urge to vomit in his lap and punch him in the face.

“If-f you got here bef-fore I did, then where wasth our car?” I asked – feeling like that would stump him for sure. On the contrary, he automatically replied:

“I was dropped off by Robby on the highway. He didn’t actually want to drive up to the property, so I walked down the driveway and just walked inside,” he said. Robby was our 28-year-old next-door neighbor who had a seven-year-old daughter named Kailey – Finn’s best friend. Therefore… no matter how weirdly Jax was acting right now… this was definitely my husband. However, I still didn’t understand why he didn’t just take our car instead of asking the neighbors to drive him.

As I was about to ask him about it, he wrapped a burning hot arm around my shoulders and walked me down to the end of the hallway.

“Let’s explore together,” he said as we entered the last room on the right. It was very small, almost like an attic-type of space, but it had a bed and everything. The floor was carpeted pink and there were dolls all over the place. There were also pieces of pink fuzz covering the carpet – like someone had attempted to rip up handfuls of pink carpet fuzz, and yank it out of the floor. Jax and I split up as we looked around the room. My head was still spinning, but I was used to it enough to actually walk straight. I kept a cautious eye on him while also observing the room.

The walls were painted pink, but there were crayon markings all over it. Most of them were scribbles in various colors, but a lot of them spelled out words like: “Lonely,” “Scream,” “Voices,” “Sarah,” and then the word “STOP” in all red capital letters was spelled out at least five or six times. I stepped backwards, towards the middle of the room, and took at least five pictures of the entire wall. Clearly this was Katharine Watson’s room before her parents took her to a mental hospital. Her parents must’ve seen this wall and lost their f****** minds.

I glanced over at Jax, who now had his hands behind his back, and was just staring out the broken window, right next to Katharine’s bed. I must’ve been looking at him in silence for at least one minute – he never blinked, he never flinched – he just stood there like a statue. Again, I questioned whether he was actually a figment of my imagination or not, ignored the goose bumps that sprouted all over my arms and legs, and turned my attention back to the wall. I glanced over all of the written words and scribbles when something else caught my eye.

I squinted at the middle of the wall and walked a bit closer – then I saw it. I stopped, my eyes went wide, and my breath caught as I realized that there was a word being written on the wall in that very moment. There was no crayon or person – the letters just seemed to appear on the wall in written form. The handwriting was identical to the handwriting of the already existing words on the wall, the only difference being that these letters actually began forming a single sentence, not just a word. Big dark red letters slowly but surely spelled out the sentence:

“YOU’RE NOT CRAZY, I SEE HIM TOO. RUN.”