Microhorror Writing Contest

Alice

Alone in her room and in her delicate plain white nightgown, Alice dressed her plastic baby and pretended to bottle-feed it's tiny puckered-lipped mouth. The clicking of her daddy's laptop echoed out of their library and wound its way up the curving grand staircase to her ears in her room overlooking the atrium. "He spends all his time working and none with me. I wish he'd spend all his time with me," she told her baby doll.

The doorbell chimes seemed to carry a sombre tune since her mum went away. Alice raced to the mezzanine balcony, anxiously grabbing the balustrades with one in each hand. Pressing her face tightly between them, she tried to see the visitor at this late night hour. With saddened eyes she frowned; it wasn't her mum.

"You're alone here tonight?"

"We won't disturb anyone, they're either asleep, or gone from here."

Without more words, the darkly dressed figure of the lanky man crossed the marble tiles. He glanced up but did not see small Alice's face peering down. He followed her father into the library. Alice released the balustrades and, shuffled on her bare feet into her room. Kneeling in the middle of her room, she hugged and rocked her baby. "Oh, how I wish mum wasn't gone. "

Raised voices garbled out of the library up the stairs to her ears. She wiped her tears away. Moving towards her door, her ears heard three sharp cracks echo up the staircase. She froze and grasped her bedroom door frame. The darkly dressed visitor with gun in hand stealthily stepped out of the library. Pausing with each step to glance about. Alice saw him first, she dropped her baby. He stared up right at her. She ran back into her room diving under her bed. Charging into her room, not finding her, he turned on her bed. Grabbing the bed frame, he flipped it over, exposing Alice curled up in a fetal position.

Wide-eyed, she stared up at him. On seeing his pockmarked face, she scrunched her eyelids together and screeched a high-pitch, non-stop ear-breaking banshee-like scream. His eyes crossed, mouth dropped open as if gasping for breath. Alice screeched louder. It was as if Saint Vita had invaded his body. Blood spewed from his eyes and ears. He jerked out of her bedroom and over the banister railing.

Opening her eyes, Alice stopped screeching. She'd made him go away like all the others. Without thinking, she raced downstairs, past the dark, bloody crumpled mass, and into the library to find her daddy.

She found him sprawled out dead. Dropping to her knees, closing her eyes, she cried.

"Alice, don't cry for me, I'm finally with you."

Opening her eyes, she saw he was now translucent like her. She reached out to him. He picked her up. They hugged. "Alice, I've missed you. I love you. Let's go join your Mum," and both ghosts vanished, now forever together.