The Dead House

And then she was standing in the gulf, the girl I thought I’d seen at the basement window, grinning, her thin arm waving back and forth at me.

Hi there, she seemed to be saying, her long white teeth shocking in the black. So real. So fucking real.

I wanted so badly to scream, to run, to escape. But I was trapped there, my legs stuck.

Who is she?

The sink lay full of shards of glass… and they were bloody. The girl reached slowly through the black space, crisp and empty, and took a long shard of mirror. She grinned wider—how was it possible?—and slashed at her arms, flesh parting to reveal thick spaces of black nothing inside.

I stumbled back a step, my body weak and useless with shock, and I blinked— And then she was gone. The black hole was now a chipboard, and not a shard of glass was in sight. My heart thumped once in my chest, paused, and then raced frenetically; my eyes couldn’t look away. Somewhere… very close yet also very far, something was laughing at me. Raucous roars of pulsing derision.

“This isn’t happening,” I whispered, but the chipboard seemed to be laughing as well, and I had the sense that it was becoming more and more real. More and more… present—mocking me.

I covered my mouth to hold back my scream, and then I ran from that bathroom, from that wing, and threw myself out the window, the whole time feeling as if something was right behind me, inches away from grabbing me, right on my heels. The laughter faded the farther I went, but I didn’t stop running until I got up here, safely to the attic, and to you, Dee.

I can’t stop shaking. What’s happening to me?





15


127 days until the incident




Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson


Tuesday, 28 September 2004, 1:51 am

Attic

I think that Aka Manah is trying to make me believe I’m crazy.



5:00 am, Dorm

Went to the chapel tonight. Ari came a little after 2 am, and the moment I saw him, everything else faded away. I was fine. Isn’t it strange? How another human being can make the quiet seem less quiet, the unreal more real? Even when we sat there, doing nothing. Isn’t it astonishing? Isn’t it miraculous? I haven’t felt this way since the Viking in a while.

If I sat there with Ari for long enough, could the thing I saw—the not-mirror, the blood—be a nothing? Could I forget about it, brush it off?

Ari didn’t mention Carly tonight, so maybe they haven’t run into each other yet? I hope so. How could I explain it to him… Worse, how could I explain to Carly why I kept him to myself?

“Because you’ve been busy, and I needed someone.”

Too cruel?

Too cruel.

So I’ll keep him for myself, like the Viking. Except this time, I won’t waver. Maybe he can make me more real. Maybe he can make what I saw in the bathroom last night be forgotten.

I know what I saw.

Almost time to disappear. I wonder where I go.



Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson


Wednesday, 29 September 2004, 3:00 am

Attic

I like to leave myself memento mori. I draw them in everything—hidden in textbook diagrams, in the grains of the wood on the wall, under my bed.

They make shit real. But not as real as the girl staring at me from the corner.

Is that you, Dee?





16


Recovered Message Book Entry


Wednesday, 29 September 2004, 4:40 am

Carly, where are you? Why haven’t you written? Are you angry with me?

I think maybe I’m starting to remember something about how it happened. Please answer. I need to talk to you.





17


125 days until the incident


Session #47 Audio

Dr. Annabeth Lansing (AL) and Carly “Kaitlyn” Johnson (CJ)

Thursday, 30 September 2004, 8:34 PM


(CJ): Thank you… for seeing me. I know you canceled, but…




(AL): What’s happened?

[Rustling as of material]




(CJ): Nothing, really. I just… You told me to trust you, and…




(AL): You can trust me. [Pause] Trust me.




(CL): Carly hasn’t written to me. She hasn’t left me any messages. It’s unsettling. She always writes to me. Always.

[Pause]




(AL): Kaitlyn. How long since she failed to write?




(CJ): A couple of days. I mean, she still leaves me Post-its, but something’s wrong. She’s distant.




(AL): [Sigh] This is good. This is excellent.




(CJ): Wait… you think this is good? Where is she?




(AL): Kaitlyn, this is hard for you. I understand. You’re holding on. It can’t be easy to learn that you’re not real. To learn that you’re a symptom of trauma. I understand that you want to resist. To hold on. But by doing that, you’re keeping Carly from healing—




(CJ): No! You’re trying to confuse me. Carly wouldn’t abandon me. She wouldn’t leave me all alone! Something’s wrong, I know her!




(AL): Carly is letting you go. It has to happen. It will feel like abandonment, it will be so hard. But, eventually, you’ll find peace. You’ll integrate. Absorb.




(CJ): [Sniff] Disappear.




(AL): The way it’s meant to be.

[Pause]




(CJ): I’m not nothing. I’m not meant to be nothing.