“Vengeful Spirit”
Jo found herself quickening her pace with each step. She hated walking down Oak street by herself at night, so she spent most of her journey alternating between watching over her should every few steps and jingling her keys, moving them between her fingers so she could use them as a weapon if the moment called for it. Despite her efforts, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following her. When she finally got to her AirBnB, she hurried inside, quickly locking the door behind her before turning on all the lights and examining every room, every closet, behind any large piece of furniture, to make sure that no one was there.
Maybe it wasn’t the brightest idea to decide to spend a night in the rumored-to-be haunted house in her old hometown.
“Are you almost here?” Jo impatiently asked her friend Dennis.
“I should be there in about ten minutes,” Dennis replied from the other end of her phone.
Jo paced back and forth around the quiet, modest home, counting down the seconds until her far more adventurous boyfriend arrived. She loved how daring he was, how he was always on the quest for a thrill. She especially loved his interest in horror films and how absolutely crazy he was about Halloween. But now she was wondering if, despite enjoying those things in him, she was trying too hard to make him believe that she truly also enjoyed all of those same things herself. She didn’t have much belief in the supernatural, but this story had haunted her for years, and being in the house that became a local legend felt… odd, to say the least.
She remembered the way Dennis’ eyes lit up when she recounted the tale to him. The girl’s bloody limbs torn and found near a dump. The way her family moved immediately as if they were afraid they’d be the next targets. The way no one bothered to move into that house until Jo left for college, only to learn over time that the house had six different owners in a five-year span. The fact that the last owner kept it, but only to rent it out as if the town had anything worth visiting, and barely attracting guests outside of the Halloween season.
She knew it was a bad idea to tell Dennis all this because his response was far from unexpected, “you know we have to spend the night there, right?”
Now she was biting her nails and waiting for his arrival, fielding texts from her mother asking about various neighbors they had and if anyone else had stayed in that town since they left. “No, mom,” she’d reply, “no one stayed.” Her heart jumped out of her chest when the doorbell rang, but she was immediately put at ease when she realized it was her boyfriend.
"Already getting spooked, huh?” He asked her when she threw her arms around him as soon as she opened the door.
“No, I was just…. lonely,” she nonchalantly replied.
“Encounter any spirits?” He asked with a laugh. Jo just mock-laughed at his question.
“Well,” Dennis continued, “good thing I brought some, then,” he said, pulling out a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of vodka from his overnight bag.
Their night was fairly uneventful. They watched some scary movies, got a little drunk, even tempted fate with a game of Ouija and a half-assed attempt at a seance. Nothing. All was completely quiet. The two woke up the next morning with a solid amount of disappointment to go along with their hangovers. As they were packing up to leave, Jo noticed the hoodie she hung up in the closet got caught on something—a knob. Confused as to why there would be a random knob at the back of a closet, she tugged gently on the knob to open a small, secret door. The door led to yet another smaller door, but before she got there, she noticed a paper tucked in the corner. She pulled it out and read it:
SHE WAS MY FRIEND
BUT NOT SHE’S GONE
I HEAR SHE’S ANGRY
BUT WON’T BE FOR LONG
TO KEEP YOU SAFE
AND PROTECT YOU FROM HARM
HERE’S A TOKEN
THE MUSIAK WILL NOT BE STRONG
—MOLLY
“Musiak?” Jo said aloud as Dennis entered the room. She remembered hearing that term before, maybe in one of those awful ghost hunters shows Dennis watched. She couldn’t quite remember what it meant and thought twice about her next move, but ultimately curiosity got the best of her. She opened the knob of the smaller door and gasped at what was inside, before falling onto her knees.
Inside was a tiny head, a tiny shrunken head of what was once a young girl.
Dennis read the note in horror.
“Molly…” he said, “wasn’t that the girl in your class?”
“Yes,” Jo replied between sobs, “the one who killed my brother.”