Halloween

Halloween

31^st of October 1999

Marissa had always lived a perfect life. She had a loving and supporting family, a good house which she had only moved into 3 months ago. She had a best friend to keep her company named Tiger. But she especially loved Halloween! She loved the life she led until this Halloween morning.

The first strange thing Marissa noticed began on 31^st of October 1999. Marissa awoke to a cold chill in the air. Her alarm clock had not woken her. She was an hour behind her strict schedule. She started to fret feverishly. She had only 15 minutes until she was to leave for work. Marissa rushed to get showered, dressed, eat, and feed her cat, Tiger. This all happened to be on her favourite day of the year. She was so rushed that she could not think of the excitements of this afternoon, of how she had promised her friend to take her eight-year-old TRICK OR TREATING.  

Marissa was about to do her hair when Tiger’s yowl deafeningly filled the suspiciously silent air. She threw her hairbrush down, flung the bathroom door open and raced down her stairs nearly tripping over herself. What she found was Tiger whimpering in the corner of the room. She went over to calm him, and he instantly relaxed in her arms. She looked around and saw nothing obviously wrong. Marissa placed Tiger on the couch and started to collect her things for her workday ahead. She walked into the hallway to find the mirror covered in pink lipstick.

 ‘Go get your hairbrush.’ It read. Marissa, feeling disturbed, slowly creeped up the stairs to retrieve her hairbrush. She walked into the bathroom and yelped in shock. Her hair ties, bobby pins and clips were strewn all over the vanity and floor. She started picking them up and investigated the mirror. There again was lipstick all over the reflective surface. It now read, ‘Go into ‘your’ room.’  

Really scared now, Marissa edged closer and closer to her room. Her once perfectly made bed was now all messy and covered in some sort of dirt. She followed her hunch and reluctantly peeked at the mirror. It read, ‘This is my bedroom not yours!’ Marissa screamed and sprinted down the stairs and searched the room for Tiger, but it looked like he had had the same idea as her. The cat door was swinging rapidly. She dashed down the hallway and flung the door open then slammed it behind her. She unlocked her car and jumped in. She took a relieved sigh. She was safe. She examined her rearview mirror to steer out of her driveway. There was that dreaded pink lipstick again. This time it read, ‘Go on. Do you want to be late for work?’ Marissa leapt out of the car and started to run towards her work. She did not take the risk of driving because whatever was writing those messages was in her car…

After 10 minutes of rushed walking Marissa finally reached her work. She used her iPhone to ring her mum.

“Mum, can I stay at your place tonight.”

“Sure, Sweetie. What’s up?”

“Um, I will explain later okay?”

“Okay I will see you tonight. What time will you be here?”

“Straight after work.”

“Oh, you won’t go home and pack a bag first?”

“I am not going home.”

“Mm okay.”

“Bye, Mum.”

“Bye Hon, love you.”

Marissa could not let go of the past few hours. She asked a few of her fellow employees if they knew of anything about her street or house. She got five similar answers. ‘It was rumored that twenty-two years ago a 14-year-old girl had supposedly died there.’ She was freaked out by the fact. She left work early to go to her Mums place. Before she left, she decided to go to the bathroom as it was a long drive to her Mum’s house. She splashed water on to her face and glanced up at the mirror to see a dripping wet face staring back at her. It was not hers. It looked almost like hers but there were some other features that it had and some features it lacked. She screamed and looked at the slowly appearing pink letters being written by an invisible hand. Employees rushed in to see the commotion. A few read aloud, ‘Hello again, Marissa.’ 

Marissa told her Mum everything from the mornings chaotic event, to the workplace’s bathroom mirror. Her Mum had a wide-eyed expression. She turned away and Marissa guessed she was wiping away a tear. Marissa asked what was wrong and her mum replied with its nothing. Marissa kept pressing her Mum to tell her and then her mum told her the shocking truth that would change her life forever.  

“Marissa, that person you have been seeing was actually your sister. She died twenty-two years ago when we were living there, and your bedroom was hers.”

Marissa could not believe it. Her own sister had died there. Where she lived. She was stunned.

“What was her name?”

“Anna.”

Marissa pledged never to go back to her house again. Well, Anna’s house. She agreed that with her mum she would go back to the house to collect her things and search for Tiger. They started to wander to the car to start the half hour trip to Anna and Marissa’s house. Halfway through she realised she had forgotten her phone. Marissa decided to just get it when they came home. Anyway, she did not have anything on.

They inched towards the house, full of fear. They found Tiger at the back of the house. They then went inside while they safely put Tiger into the backseat of the car. They decided that Marissa’s mum would collect the downstairs things and Marissa would collect the upstairs things. They got the job done in about half an hour to forty-five minutes with no problems whatsoever. Maybe Anna was happy she was moving out. They went back to the car and found another message on the rearview mirror. ‘Thank you, but don’t come back!’ Marissa thought it was best to follow the orders that Anna had commanded. They drove off as Marissa decided she would stay at her mum’s place temporarily then find another place far, far away from this one.

When Marissa got home she checked her phone to see a bunch of missed calls and text messages. They were from her friend.

They read:

Where are you?

I will let Em inside because I’ve got to go to dinner.

Marissa, where are you?

Marissa?

Oh, I see you are looking at us from behind the curtains.

You’re just playing a prank.

Well, ha-ha but I’m letting Em in because I’ve really gotta go. Okay?

Thirty minutes later Marissa replied with:

NO! NO! NO!

Did you let her in?

Please tell me you didn’t! 

Her friend, Diana replied:

Yeah, I did.

Why?   

Marissa said:

Nothing to worry, I’ll call you later.

Marissa left the house to go to Anna’s place. She got into her mum’s car and stepped on the accelerator. When she arrived, she immediately went inside to see a mirror covered in the horrid pink lipstick saying, ‘I warned you, now look what you’ve done.’ Marissa ran around the house and eventually found a mirror reading, ‘You broke you promise – Emily.’ Now Emily was gone forever.