Halloween Flash Fiction: Week Two

Welcome to the second week of my Halloween flash fiction challenge!

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I left my teddy bears at the house. Bye bye bears. ‘Cause Mommy said last night we’re not ever going back to that house.

We just moved into the big house not too long ago. Like, before Halloween, and now it’s after Halloween. And now we’re driving away from it to a new house.

OCTOBER 1

It’s big. It’s a big, tall house, and Mommy says we’re going to live here now. I get a big bedroom now with my new big girl bed and I can pick the color we paint. I want red, because red is my favorite color. Mommy tucks me in and kisses me goodnight, and tells me how pretty my blue eyes are that look just like hers. But when I hear something and wake up, there’s no sun outside. But there’s a noise under my bed.

“Moooooom! Mommy! Mommommommommom!” I yell as loud as I possibly can.

“What Lainey? It’s the middle of the night,” she says in her I’m tired voice.

“There’s something under my bed,” I whisper, pointing underneath me.

She kneels down and looks. She tells me there is nothing there, and to just go to bed.

The second time I hear it, she looks again. This time she tells me that if I yell and wake her up again I better be dying. I’m not sure what dying is, but it sounds bad, so when I hear it a third time I crawl down myself.

“Hey you, be quiet, I’m ‘sposed to be sleeping.”

A little girl crawls out from under the bed. She’s just my size, and when she looks at me, she has my face. She’s like a mirror, but her eyes are my favorite color.

“Why are you under my bed?” I ask her.

“I live here.”

“No, I live here now, this is my new house.”

Other me looks confused and sad, and I feel bad because Mommy said making people sad isn’t a good thing and I’m supposed to do good things. So I ask her if she wants to play bears with  me because my bed has two teddy bears.

She crawls up on my bed with me and we play bears till we fall asleep. When mommy wakes me up in the morning I’m in my bed all alone, and when I tell mommy about the other me, mommy smiles and says something about imaginary friends.

OCTOBER 15

Other me won’t meet mommy, and I only see her at night. She’s fun to play with, but Mommy keeps saying she’s imaginary, whatever that is. Mommy is acting really funny. If I walk super quiet into the room she jumps and screams instead of laughs. And she’s on her phone a lot talking to Auntie Taffy about whatever freaky things are and she says the freaky things happen in the house. One time I heard her tell Auntie Taffy that she saw herself chasing her, but then she saw me and shooed me out of the room.

OCTOBER 31

Today is Halloween, but mommy isn’t taking me trick or treating. She says she’ll buy me candy tomorrow, but it’s not the same so I’m mad and sitting in my room. She’s putting stuff in boxes again, and talking about another new house. She comes in to put me to bed, and tells me not to be scared, this is our last night here. I don’t know what she is so scared of. Other me told me that she doesn’t want us to leave. But I don’t know what to say, so we just play instead.

As I lay down to sleep, I hear mommy yelling. Then she screams, I get up and try to open the door but she locked me in. After the scream it’s all quiet, so I guess she saw a spider. Or a mouse, ‘cause mommy really hates mouses. Maybe I’ll dream about mouses, because I think they’re cute.

TODAY

Mommy woke me up today by telling me to get dressed and get in the car. I remember when we’re driving that I left teddy bears in the house, but I don’t tell mommy because I know she doesn’t want to go back.

I look at the ceiling mirror as mommy drives, and then I see her looking at me. Her red eyes look funny in the sunshine.