Molly's Last Chance

I arrived at a Victorian style mansion that had certainly seen better days. Multiple winters, storms, and even some vandalizers hadn’t done the place any wonders. The majority of the windows were smashed out. Broken glass riddled the roundabout driveway almost as thick as the fall leaves. As well the lion statues that had once sat parallel on the steps up were pulled over. One was even smashed to bits by what looked like a rock hammer. It was a sad and broken sight to me. Such a beautiful home that was clearly now just an outlet for destruction some wandering pricks with no respect. I could still see the original beauty under rotting trim, the falling shingles, and the graffiti some nicely adorning the front doors with the words “Fuck Beth” across them.

           “What a shit hole,” a voice said behind me.

           It caught me off guard, but I knew who it was the second I heard him.

           Turning around, I saw Lucas sitting on the edge of the fountain. It’s interior dry with crumpled fall leaves and a small puddle of brown water inside.

           “Shame too, it’s a nice place if you look hard enough,” he said.

          We both faced the house as we talked. Despite our polar opposite reasons for being here, I imagined we could share a distaste for the waste it represented.

            “I was told I had till sundown.”

“You know it’s her fault it’s like this,” he said ignoring me. “They’ll destroy from out here but no one will go in, nor anyone try to buy it either. Place has got so many code violations and known for paranormal bullshit no one wants it. Damn shame too.”

           “You didn’t answer my question.”

           “Yea you do…the rules are the rules,” he stopped a moment then continued. “You know what I’d call this? Squatter. Someone taking up space and being an overall stubborn pain the ass.”

           “I think it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

           “Yea?” he questioned. “What would you call it?”

            As I thought about it, I didn’t really have an answer. But I realized he was probably trying to run out the clock at this point.

           “Yea that’s you’re problem. You don’t even know why you do this. You just do it,” he’d heard my steps going away from him.

           He was wrong though. I do know why I’m here, and how important it is that people get one last chance to come over to where they belong. I just didn’t care to explain that to him. I started toward the steps.

“Try not to overwork yourself too hard,” he said. “She’s a waste of your time anyway.”

I ignored him and walked inside.

            The inside wasn’t much better, despite no one coming in. The tables were collapsed, the carpets moldy, and a crashed chandelier sat on the floor. As soon as I entered, I was overwhelmed with sense of her presence. It’s similar to a gust of wind. It pulses with a cold but not unpleasant flow to it. Before I followed it, I checked my watch 4:30.

It led me up to the second floor. Down the hall and to a bed room I gauged was her own. The pink colors, boxed up toys, and books on the bed covered in dust confirmed it. I felt the cold all around me. She was in here, I knew it. I closed the door and started to look around. My first and only find being a letter that was laid on a dusty dresser in the room. There was a mirror attached to back of it. The paper itself was old, wrinkled and starting to yellow.

           Molly,

           I’m writing you this letter because it’s the only way I know how to speak with you. I’m gonna start with the simplest and hardest part. I’m leaving. I’m moving to Denver with Adam and the kids. I don’t know if you’ll read this or if you can read this. But I know I need to at the very least try. I’m not doing it punish you, or because I don’t love you. I’m doing it because I need too for myself. I can’t stay in this place anymore. It’s too painful and hard. It was easier when mom and dad were here but now, they are gone and I can’t handle this by myself. I’m not having the house demolished and I’m not having it sold. I wouldn’t do that to you. But you will be alone now. And one day I won’t be able to pay the property taxes, or someone will want to do something with this place and I hope by then, you’ve been able to move on. Whatever moving on is for you. Finally, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what happened to you, and I’m sorry no one was here when it did happen. It was cruel and unfair, and will always be one of the greatest regrets of my life. You will always be my little sister running up and down these halls playing your games and scaring the crap out of me, mom and dad. I miss you so much and I wish you could have stayed in my life and had the chance to grow old with me. Please don’t hate me.

I will love you always,

Your sister, Jess.

           When I finished the letter, I felt this pit in my stomach. A sense of tightness in my throat like I thought tears were coming on. The houses suddenly silence didn’t feel as daunting then. It made me think of what it must have been like for her sister and family. I wondered if they walked the halls hoping she was right next to them. If they talked to her when no one was around. Her father might have even read books aloud to make her feel at home. It brought a sudden harmony to the place, and with it a strength to my urge to not let Lucas have this one.

           Looking up in the mirror, I saw her standing on the bed behind me. Her skin was white as milk, sunken eyes in a bony face. With a torn and stained dress wrapped around her. She was staring at me wide eyed, her fists clenched. I think she expected a scared expression or a high-pitched scream. But as I looked at her, all I felt was sadness. That pit in my stomach growing deeper at the sight of her. How long have you been here? By yourself.

           “Get..outttttt!” she yelled.

I still jumped even though I knew it was coming, and the scream that came with it was as loud as a gunshot. I winced, but not in a scared way. It went on and on. Her hair started to float like it was in water. Her body began to rise off the bed and the scream became so loud you’d think it’d break a wine glass.

           “Alright!” I yelled. I couldn’t take it anymore, and on top of it I literally didn’t have time for this. I turned around and she just continued to scream.

           “Molly!”

           Still ringing, and her body levitated higher.

           I tried to yell a few more times, but finally I jumped up and grabbed her shoulders.

           “Shut the fuck up!” I roared.

           Suddenly a silence washed over us. Molly’s expression suddenly lost all apparent fear and intimidation. She looked at me bewildered. She dropped back down to the bed, my hands still grasping her shoulders.

           “You done?” I asked her breaking the silence

           “You’re touching me?” she asked in a shaky voice. “How are you touching me?”

           I let go of her, and slowly the act of the little girl haunting the place of her death began to melt away.

           “Well…” I started. “Take a wild guess?”

           She didn’t speak. Then looked frightened all of a sudden. She started to scramble off the bed.

           “Stay away from me!” she yelled, and ran for the door.

           “No wait-!”

           The clunk sounded like she hit hard. Her head rocked back and she fell on her butt with a bounce. She looked at the door like she didn’t know what had just happened. Then spun to me.

           “It’s jinxed now, you can’t”-

           She jumped up and started to yank the doorknob. Pulling so hard her feet slipped and she looked like she might rip her arms off.

           “Let me out!” she yelled with desperation. I could hear the soft sniffles beginning. She’d been too powerful for too long. These kinds of things happen, when all that’s taken away in a snap.

           “Can’t do that,” I said. “We need to talk. Will you talk to me?”

           She just kept trying the door. I let her for a moment before I checked the time, 4:40, Sundown was at 5. I marched around the bed and slammed my hand against the door. The frustration of all this was boiling up and we had even less time now.

           “Hey!” I yelled.

           She froze and looked up at me.

           “You’re not leaving, ok?”

I saw smidges of realization in her face. The tension on the door knob started to fade.

           “Now can we talk? Or do you wanta yell in my face some more?”

           I eventually got her to sit on the bed, while I sat on the window sill. And out of my peripheral I could see Lucas down below, doing some limbering up routine meant to piss me off. I just ignored him.

           Molly didn’t say anything at first. She kept rubbing her shoulder and looked at the floor with a guilty expression.

           “Do you know who I am?”

           She shook her head.

           “Ok,” I sighed. “Do you know what I am?”

           To that she nodded yes.

           “So, you know why I’m here, and that you need to come with me.”

           “I don’t want too.”

           “You don’t have a choice anymore Molly.”

           “I didn’t go with the other ones,” she said like she was trying to prove her point.

           “Yes…and I imagine they told you eventually someone like me would show up. Someone who could grab you, who could…do things right?” I gestured to the door. I imagine she was used to just running right through them.

           “I don’t want to go with you. They said no one can make me go.”

           Not gonna make this easy huh? I glanced at the clock, it was 4:50. I needed to either hurry this up, or find out if it was worth it to press her in the first place. Don’t make me leave you here for him. You don’t want that.

           “Yes, that is true. I might be able to stop you from running but at the end of the day it’s gotta be your decision to come with me. But you seem smart. And I’m guessing the other people before me told you about someone else who would come eventually?” I watched her expression carefully. “The man from below, right?”

            It took her a moment, but she nodded to that too.

           “Well…Molly…he’s here too.”

           Her face came up at that. I saw for the first-time real worry in the girl’s face. Her hands gripped the bed sheet.

           “He’s here. And I can’t stop him once he has you. But if you come with me, I can protect you. But you have to want to go.”

           The questions that I saw pouring into her mind then made me think she’d just agree to it. That it’d be as easy as that. Sure, others before me had tried, but she just needed a bit more encouragement and time to dwell on it.

           “Alright,” she said nodding. “Alright…I can hide from him if you let me out.”

           An immediate headache struck me like a bat to the side of the head.

           “No, you can’t.”

           “Well others must of, right?”

           “Not a single one, it doesn’t work like that. It’d be like trying to hide from yourself. He sense’s you the same way I did.”

           “Well at least let me try!” she yelled at me. “And then if it doesn’t work”-

           “Stop it!” I said firm. “Enough! You can’t hide from him; it’d be like hiding from your own thoughts. It’s not possible.”

           She recoiled a bit. I could tell it must have been decades since she’d been scolded, and really scolded at that. I wasn’t holding a thing back with this. The kids’ games were over.

           “You have two options, you either come with me. Or you go with him. That’s it. And you have till sundown, which in case you didn’t know is…in seven minutes.”

           Molly’s face fell into her hands then, and I heard her whimper a muffled “No!”. There was a part of me that felt awful about this. I might be the first person in decades the girl could actually communicate with, and she was just getting chewed out. But it was for a good reason, and sometimes you gotta be tough to be good.

           “I don’t wanta leave…I don’t want too. She’s coming back.”

           It took me a moment, but then I pieced it together from the letter, the tears. Oh no…sweetheart.

           I squatted down in front of her and held one of her dangling feet.

           “Who?”

           “Jessica… she’ll come back one day. I wanta see her again, she promised she’d never leave. I have to be here. I have to stay. Mom and dad stayed with me, so I need to stay for her.”

           Is it really possible? All these years she didn’t read the letter? Or didn’t understand it? It seemed ridiculous to me. But I had to keep reminding myself that at heart and soul, she was still a child. She’d been holding out hope all this time that she’d come back, that she didn’t mean what she wrote.

           “Molly? Can you look at me?”

           She sniffled; her reddish eyes came up with streaks of shining tears underneath them.

           “Molly…she’s not coming back.”

           “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

           “Yes, I do. And I’m sorry. But she had more life to live…yours is up. It’s just the way it happened. She didn’t leave you sweetheart…she just…she had to move on.”

           Her small shoulders hunched and the tears that fell to the floor and seemingly vanished were unending.

           “She still loves you. She wrote it in this,” I held up the letter for her. But she didn’t look at it. The way she looked at it told me she’d read it at least once.

           “And even though she moved on…it doesn’t mean she’s not thinking about”-

           My watch started to beep then, five quick ones and then silence. My chest tightened up and my heart stopped. Molly looked at the watch for a moment, and then up to me. Her face slowly filling with real unfiltered terror.

           “I need to hide!” she said and tried to jump off the bed.

           I jabbed out and took hold of her with a death grip for a right hand.

           “Stay there!” I commanded.

           I hurried to the window and looked out; Lucas was out of sight. But then from the muffled echo’s that could reach the room, I heard a loud thunderous crash. It shook the house so much Molly jumped.

           “Tick tock! Times up!”

           His foot steps sounded like an elephant, along with a battle roar that was echoing with them. Getting louder and louder. I heard his stomping coming up the stairs.

           Calm down, hardball now you got till he grabs her.

           “It’s time Molly, you gotta decide.”

           She was frozen her hands grasping her shoulders for her own life.

           “Molly! Do you wanta come with me?!”

           She didn’t answer. But the stomping switched to the thuds of his boots on the carpeted hallway. The house shook with more booms and clatters as he crashed through every door on the floor.

           “Molly!” I yelled.

           She started to breath faster, small little whimpers coming between them.

           “Knock! Knock!”

           The door came flying off its hinges and soaring across the room like it’d weighted nothing. My reflex was to shield her from the debris, but I couldn’t get between them. It was against the rules.

           Lucas marched in, nostrils flared, fists clenched, and chest heaving.

           He didn’t even look at me, and stared right at her.

           “There you are,” he growled.

           When he started to walk across the room I knew if he touched her, it was over. My mind was panicked with an urge to fight him, but those were normal’s rules. Here I had to obey. All I could do was close my eyes and hold an open hand out to Molly. She had until he touched her. My breath stopped and my heart thumped like a drum.

           “Sorry Jane, better luck next time I guess”-

            His voice cut off mid word and suddenly everything felt different. The sensation was like getting a blanket thrown over you. Only instead of a warm soft quilt, it was the original feelings of when I’d arrived at the mansion. The cool cleaning airs. The cold feeling on my skin. I opened my eyes to find I was back outside; the last bits of orange were stretched out in rays toward the darkening clouds.

           I looked down and saw Molly. Her small hand was white knuckling my fingers. Her entire body was shaking. I felt this weight fall off my chest. I took in a breath of the fall air. She was squeezing my hand so tight she could have left a mark. I patted her back and knelt down to her.

           “Hey…” I said softly, the anxiety of Lucas’s onslaught still tempered my voice a bit.

           She slowly looked at me and saw my warm smile.

           “It’s alright. You cut it close kid. But you chose, and that’s all that matters.”