Twins

“Not again!” Here I am once again stuck out in the rain and I can’t find my car. She moved it again, I thought as I hurried back under the porch of the Community Center.

I glanced down to take a look at my phone, trying hard to shelter it from the downpour. “4 o’clock?” Where on earth did the time go? It seemed like only an hour ago it had been noon.” The afternoon had been a whirl of activity at the annual Book, Music, and Art fair. Our booth Cozy Corner Books had been busy but seriously! Four hours had whizzed by! Maybe Rebecca had really needed it. I scoured the parking lot through the pouring rain. It was hopeless. The car wasn’t in the place that I left it so I knew she had to have taken it. But I was totally exhausted and so ready to get home and jump into a hot shower. “PLEASE don’t make me do this AGAIN!”

I could feel that familiar sinking feeling. One of Rebecca’s usual tricks was to leave the car somewhere where I would have to search for it and then hang back, laughing about it. I know because she always tells me about it in one of her tirades, always giving herself away in those notes that she leaves all over the apartment. I am just not in the mood for it today, I thought wearily. I am so over Rebecca! Then I caught myself. Come on Rachel, that little familiar voice in my head said, after all she IS your twin sister. Okay, stop whining and start walking. Hey wait, the thought popped into my head, Maybe Allison is still inside and she could take me home. That’s it! After all, Allison HAD offered to take me home while we were closing the shop a while ago, when we were pushing the trolley out to her van. Sweet Allison, she’s always there for me. Maybe she wasn’t gone yet…..

I thought back to that first time we met on the first day of school in Miss Wheeler’s room in the Kindergarten class. I was so shy back then and always afraid to speak. “Hi. I am Allison. What’s your name?” She had dark wavy hair that hung down her back that she swung back and forth while she talked. When she got excited she would bob her head with happiness. I remember that she had on a light blue check dress with puffy sleeves and a sash tied in back in a bow that day. She was so pretty….and she still was.

“Rachel,” I whispered back. She reached out and took my hand and we skipped down the hall and out into the sunlight for recess. The thunder brought me back and suddenly I was back in the present and so far – I had no way to get home. I turned and pushed open the glass door to the big hall, shook the rain drops off, and hurried inside. The fair was almost torn down. I could see that people were gathering their cargo and scurrying to get it out to their vehicles. The maintenance crew was sweeping the leftovers into piles with their long-handled brooms.

I hurried across the floor to our booth space but everything was gone and nobody was there. “Have you seen Allison?” I asked Emily, hopefully. She was the woman who had had the jewelry booth next to ours.

“Where the devil have you been?” Emily looked at me with disgust.

“I just went outside to get into my car and it looks like my sister took it.”

“Well she was here all afternoon causing trouble and making messes as usual. Allison could have done with your help, so….where WERE you?” Brushing a stray lock of hair off of her forehead, she gave Rachel a glare.

“What do you mean? I was right here,” I stamped my foot with irritation and pointed to the floor.

“Sure you were. Well no, I don’t know where she is now and I don’t want to know. When are you going to take control of that sister of yours?”

I couldn’t even describe her but I do know this: We are so different! I guess you could call us mirror twins, I thought. I didn’t even know that I had a twin until I was 7 and she seemed to just show up one day out of nowhere. “Hi! I’m Rebecca!” I heard her say. That was it.

“Hey! Are you looking for me?” And there was Allison. “I saw the Mazda out on 10th street and I knew what had happened. Come on, I’ll give you a ride.” We looped our arms together just like always and rushed out into the rain. She was right. As we rounded the corner, there sat the old brown Mazda sitting next to a fireplug on 10th street with a yellow ticket stuck under the windshield wiper. “Thanks Rebecca,” I thought. “That’s going to cost.” But the good news was that the keys were still in the ignition. Allison was off to meet Rod, her boyfriend and I started the engine, with the familiar backfire, and pulled out into traffic.

The next thing I knew I was standing under the warm shower feeling safe and sound in my cozy little apartment. It was moments like this when I could relax and just soak in the peace and quiet. I grew up here in Rockwood. I was an only child for the first part of my life, went to school at Roosevelt public school until I went to middle school at Morgan and graduated from Rockwood H.S. and State U all here in town. I had been here all of my life, in other words. I had a great life with two parents who loved each other and the three of us seemed like the perfect family -- until something happened that changed everything.

There was an accident and I remember it as though it were yesterday. I was 5 years old. Mom woke me up very early just as the sun was making pink and purple swirls in the sky. The window was up letting the cool breeze in before the hot day began. “Rachel, she whispered, “Can you hear that?” I listened and way off in the distance I could hear the sound of sirens. “Those are the emergency ambulances on their way to pick up daddy.” That’s when I sat up and was wide awake. Across the park by our house was a busy street and I could hear the sounds of sirens. “He has been in an accident. Maxine is here to take care of you sweet pea.” She kissed me lightly on the forehead. And I sunk back into my pillow and drifted back to sleep. Later, as I was waking up, I remembered mom’s voice and wondered if I had been dreaming. I could hear noises in the kitchen and I jumped up out of my soft bed and hurried in to tell her about my dream. But it wasn’t mom who was making all of the racket. It was Maxine, our next door neighbor who was fixing breakfast. She looked sideways at me from the sink.

“Good morning Rachel.” And she came towards me and held out her arms and folded me into a hug. I knew something was very wrong.

“Where’s mom? Where’s daddy?” I could hear my voice shaking. Then I started crying and I couldn’t seem to stop but when I finally did, Maxine said that he was still alive and we would just have to wait. And the rest of the day is a blur. I just remember that lots of people were coming and going through our house and talking in whispers while we waited for word from the hospital.

It turns out that daddy was on his way to work that morning on his regular route. The blacktop road went south outside of town and there was a railroad track that cut across it. That crossing was not marked at all and many people had been hit by the train over the years. Early that morning there had been a light shower that was just letting up as he listened to the radio and smoked his Lucky Strike. And before he knew it, he was sliding into a train that he hadn’t seen. He slammed on his brakes but it was too late and he slid right into the side of that big engine that was rushing down the tracks at top speed. The force of it knocked him down into the seat and crushed the truck cab around him and that probably saved his life. Daddy lived and after months in the hospital of rehabilitation, he finally got to come home.

I’ll never forget that day. The sun was shining and all of the neighbors were out in the yard with balloons and big signs welcoming him home. A cheer went up when my mom drove our Oldsmobile up to the curb. I was so happy I thought I would burst. I had made his favorite lemonade – just like he taught me how – and it was in his favorite big glass by his chair. I drew a picture and put it on top. But daddy was not the same as he had been before the accident and he never would be. He had a puzzled look in his eyes most of the time whenever I caught him looking at me but he only mumbled. I walked by his wheel chair and touched his hand. Mom wheeled him inside and turned to tell everyone thanks. Maxine took me by the hand and pulled me towards her house. But I tried to get loose. I didn’t want to leave him. “Let your daddy rest, sweetie,” she said. Later I got to go home but he was asleep in their room and the door was closed. Late that night I slipped back down to the kitchen and there was the lemonade standing untouched by the sink.

It seems like mom didn’t have time for me anymore. She spent all of her time looking through the paper trying to find a job. And one day, she left me alone to take care of daddy. She bent down as she buttoned her coat and looked me square in the eyes and told me what to do. She had a list written in big black letters. And then she said, “You can go get Maxine if something happens. I will be gone all day. I’m going to pick up my cousin at the farm.” I remember wondering what she meant by “if something happens…” It scared me. I was 7 years old and I had never been left alone by myself before and now I was supposed to take care of daddy. I didn’t think I could take care of daddy. I tried to stop her but she was out the door and pulling out of the driveway.

There was nothing to do but go back into the house and try my best. I wondered what she meant by “the farm.” I had never ever heard my parents speak of “the farm.” What farm? What cousin? That day was the longest day of my life. Maxine dropped by a few times and we tried to feed daddy. She helped him to the bathroom once which was a disaster. I tried not to cry in front of him. The house was so quiet. Deathly quiet.

Finally mom came home bringing “the cousin, Evelyn.” And everything changed and nothing was ever the same again. I look back on that time as the turning point in my life. A bad turning point. The cousin was a tall scrawny woman with buck teeth and dark stringy hair and bad breath. Her arms seemed way too long for her long stretched out body. She had big feet and big muddy shoes. Mom made her take off her shoes and leave them by the door, I remember. I don’t know what happened to those boots but sometime later I noticed that she had tennis shoes on which made a squeak when she walked on our wood floors. She had a foul odor about her and you could always tell when she was close by. Mom had pushed all of daddy’s stuff to one side in the extra room and that became Evelyn’s room. I never ever think about Evelyn without getting sick. Evelyn became the boss of me while mama was at work. The next morning when I went down to breakfast, I was startled to see that it wasn’t mom standing at the stove singing the little song that she always sang “Good morning to you, good morning to you, we’re all in our places with sunshiny faces for this is the wayyyyyy to start a new day! Your poached egg is ready! Better hurry.” I rounded the corner expecting to see her cheery face.

But oh no no - it was Evelyn who was standing there. And nobody was singing. In fact, I don’t think I ever heard that song again. “Your mama has gone to work. Here’s your lunch. Now take it and get out of here or you’ll be late.”

“Mom usually takes me to school,” I said.

“Well you’re walkin to school from here on out. I ain’t got a car and even if I did, I don’t know how to drive. Now git!” I ran all the way to school that day I remember. Allison was already gone from the corner. When I opened my lunch box, there was mound of something that I later learned was grits and soggy bread.

It turned out that Mom had found work as a bookkeeper in a mortgage company. She had to open the office before 7 AM and most nights she was kept late. The dark days had begun. She was always tired and dragging her feet when she came home.

I remember hugging her hard and planting my face in her lap that first evening when she finally came home. “Things are different now Rachel and you’re going to have to get used it,” she said. “We are so lucky that Cousin Evelyn has come to us help out. I don’t know whatever we would do without her.” I wasn’t sure about that. But we were to find out. Evelyn had no intention of “helping out.” She was lazy and dirty. Plus she was a horrible cook. All she knew how to do was fry Spam and boil cabbage – mostly boil cabbage. She hated our dog, Chief, who growled at her whenever she came near to him and one day she told me that he just ran away. I looked all over for him up and down streets and even knocked on doors but he never came home.

Evelyn acted all nice when mom was home, bowing and scraping, “Yes ma’am, no ma’am,” all smiles and kind of awkward. But boy when mom was not there Evelyn was mean – even cruel both to daddy and me. She acted like the queen – even prancing around in mom’s clothes and posing in front of the mirror. If she had only known what was coming.

Every afternoon I walked home from school with Allison which was the best time of the day. Then I would turn at my corner and drag myself down the block to my house. Evelyn would be polishing her nails or trying on mama’s clothes and daddy’s lunch would still be sitting on the table. His mouth would be crusty and dry but she wouldn’t get him a drink. And I would run and get him some. He always had tears in his eyes. I got so mad and yelled at her once and she locked me in the closet in the dark. I was so scared that I wet my pants. Mama spanked me when she got home and when I tried to tell her what Evelyn had done; she slapped me across the face. Later she came into my room and bent down and kissed me in my bed. I acted like I was asleep but I could feel her tears on my cheek. I knew she felt bad about it.

Allison said that I should just take care of daddy and try to get along. It was hard. Time went by and if things hadn’t changed enough already, one day there was Rebecca. That seemed good to me at first. It came awhile after dad’s accident. It started out that she wasn’t always there but only now and then. Mom had little time for me what with her new job and also having a someone to share my life seemed fine with me. I tried to talk to mom and dad about it but ever since the accident, they seemed to shut me out. So I decided to get busy and make Rebecca at home. I came up with a plan to how we could share all of my toys and clothes since she had arrived without anything. Or at least, I couldn’t find any new things of hers or even a box or a suitcase that could have belonged to her. And that’s when things started to turn bad.

Rebecca wasn’t into sharing, I found out. Plus she didn’t know how to take care of things or even how to put things away. I remember the first time I walked into my/our room after going to Allison’s 8th birthday party and it was all torn up. Rebecca had not been invited. She was sitting on top of the dresser laughing like a maniac. Mom came busting into the room and yanked her off of the dresser and gave her one of her beatings with a belt that had been happening lately. I could hear Rebecca screaming but there was nothing that I could do. It was like I was watching the whole thing happening. Like I was invisible. Mom had not been herself since the accident. Of course I was the one who had to clean the whole mess up and both of us went to bed without dinner that night. Rebecca was always getting me in trouble and even if she was the one who committed the crime, I was the one who took the blame.

I thought my life had changed all it could change when daddy got hurt. But there were some pretty horrible things to come. For one thing, all of my Storybook dolls that I always kept dressed up and carefully placed on the shelves were destroyed. Their hair was pulled out, their faces marked up with markers, and their clothes torn and ripped apart. My collection of horses was also broken up into pieces. Rebecca just laughed that evil laugh every time I cried about it. Once I stayed in bed all day crying after I got punished for it, but she just sat on the dresser and made fun of me. Mom would never take my side against her. She always said, “Stop lying, Rachel! I hate it when you lie!” Dad just sat in the corner of the living room humming like he always did now-a- days and didn’t say a word.

Every morning I got ready for school in a hurry and ran out of the house, letting the screen door slam trying to escape from Rebecca and skipping those horrible lunches that Evelyn fixed. Allison and I would meet at the corner and walk the 3 blocks to school. Her mother always made her a lunch in a little lunch box and put in extra for her to share with me. I loved Allison and her mother and her father – well the whole family. They were always smiling. It made me warm inside just thinking about them. Once in a while I was allowed to walk home with Allison and play after school and on those days I walked on clouds all day long just counting the minutes until the school bell rang and we could run down the sidewalk to her house. Everything smelled like baking bread or geraniums. Then came the day when Rebecca showed up at her house and started screaming and throwing a fit. Mom came and got us and it was a long time before I got to go back to Allison’s house to play.

Sometimes Rebecca acted normal. Honestly, she could actually be good sometimes. The time in the 6th grade when Mrs. Trousdale, our 6th grade teacher, accused me of stealing candy out of her drawer - which I hadn’t done - Rebecca spoke up and boldly told her that I would never steal anything and then accused her – the teacher - of eating it herself. I couldn’t believe it. Rebecca had to stay after school but she winked at me as she was taken out of the room. Later that night at home after we were alone in our room, she pulled the candy out of my pocket where she had hidden it and started laughing as she chewed it. “Go ahead and eat it you sissy face. What, are you scared the spiders are going get cha?” But I didn’t take it.

One thing that was always a wedge between us was Rebecca’s hatred of Allison. Allison and I shared everything with each other and I had told her what went on in my house and of all of the mean things that Rebecca had done to hurt me. Allison was so kind and forgiving. She always told me to keep being the good twin. And then we would keep our little secrets as a pact between us. We were best friends and still were. Rebecca hated her and often did things behind my back to scare Allison away but she always knew the difference between me and Rebecca and would call her out which only made Rebecca’s hatred grow.

Allison and I went clear through high school together and then we split up and went to different colleges. But she got homesick and came back home to go to State. I was so happy to see her. Now we could get back to normal. And that just grew into our little shop. We opened our own little bookshop on Clover Street in downtown Rockwood three months after we both graduated from State -- me with a degree in Education, as an English teacher, and Allison with a degree in Business. Her mom and dad loaned us the money for our deposit on the little shop, and we started out with a small collection of books and magazines. Both of us had “real” jobs while we struggled that first year. She did the books for other small businesses in that district and I substitute taught in the public schools. And so far we are making it happen. The shop is filled with greenery in the little corner that we named “the nook” and we have a big fluffy calico cat named Winston.

We love our little shop and the business has grown so that both of us have cut down our side jobs a bit and spend a lot of time in the shop and running our booth at fairs in the area. And the crazy thing is that Rebecca has not given us much trouble. I wonder why she showed up today? She does that. She literally disappears, kind of, for weeks – sometimes even months -- and she doesn’t seem to be interested in me and then boom! There she is again. I know she’s been about because I will come home and all of the furniture is moved to a different place, the refrigerator will be empty and all of the dirty dishes will be strewn around. I’ll go places for the first time and people will think I’m Rebecca. That’s the problem with being twins. Her clothes will be thrown in my closet – in a wad. And believe me they are not clothes that I would ever wear – oh no! Gaudy colors, low cut tops and short short skirts are her style – not mine! I can’t tell you how many times I have had the locks changed but she always finds a way to get in.

Today I just knew that she would do something – I don’t know why – I just had a hunch. Now maybe she will leave me alone for awhile, I thought as I toweled off with my big fluffy towel – a luxury item that I treated myself with when I moved into my little studio apartment. All through college at State, I lived at home so that I could help with dad and I worked in a little flower shop near the school. I helped mom with the bills but I saved money with each paycheck so that someday I could do just this – live in my very own place. Dad died when I was in my senior year and mom moved to Winfield near her brothers and sisters. I stayed in the house until it sold and by that time, I was ready to graduate. This little place just popped up and I grabbed it. Of course Rebecca showed up now and then and hid stuff and told everyone around that she was me. But no matter. All of a sudden, like magic after I signed the lease, I was moved in, settled and there were dishes in the cabinet. My neighbors called me Rebecca so I knew that she had been there, which explained a lot.

Now as I stepped out of the bathroom into the rest of the apartment, I was shocked into reality. Chairs were tipped over, the water was running in the sink, books were knocked off of the bookshelf, clothes were thrown in piles as though they had been yanked off of their hangers, and the door to the hallway was standing open. Several neighbors were standing there looking in. “Everything alright in here?” someone said. “We heard a big commotion and wondered if you were okay. We almost called the police.”

“I’m fine. It was my sister Rebecca, I’m sure.” I sat down on the upturned couch and put my face into a pillow and felt hot tears sting my eyes.

“Here, let us help you put things right.” They all started picking things up and Mrs. Turner from down the hall sat down beside me and put her arm around my shoulder and she didn’t say a word. I was glad. I was so tired of trying to explain everything to people. They always looked at me as though I was making it all up. I wish!

My things were picked up and set to rights. Everything that was broken was swept up and thrown away. The neighbors drifted away and I fixed myself a cup of cocoa. “Why don’t you leave me alone? What do you want?” I heard myself whisper to the empty room. I thought I heard her evil laugh but it was just my mind playing tricks. I sunk down into my soft bed and drifted off to sleep.

The phone was ringing somewhere in the distance. I jerked awake. The clock read 3:12 PM. Allison’s voice on the phone, “Rachel, have you been calling me?”

It took me a minute. “No. I’m sleeping. What’s going on?”

“I knew it wasn’t you, she said. Her voice was trembling. “She sounds just like you. Rebecca has been blowing out our phones. She says she’s going to hurt me if I don’t leave you alone. She says horrible things about you. It’s scary, Rachel. I am afraid for both of us. I’m turning it off. Go back to sleep. I’ll see you at work in the morning.” Click.

I could tell she was scared. I couldn’t sleep. All I could think of was that time in high school when the snake from the science room had gone missing and was found in the floor of Allison’s car. Thankfully she heard it rattle as she was driving home and was able to get out of the car even though she almost wrecked her car trying to pull over. Another time she almost drowned because someone held her leg down under the water during swim practice. But she kicked her way out of the hold. There had been so many times when Allison had either narrowly missed being hurt or actually had been hurt by something freaky happening that was creepy. We couldn’t prove anything ever but lying there, I just knew what I think I had always known, and that was that it had had something to do with Rebecca. It made me sick thinking about it. No matter whatever happened in my life, I had made it through it because I knew that Allison would stand up for me. What was I going to do about this? What now? I had tried to tell Allison so many times that we shouldn’t be friends but she always said that she didn’t really believe that it was Rebecca doing it. She was just “accident prone.” Plus we couldn’t let her ruin our lives. I knew then that I had to tell somebody. I would call the police tomorrow. I was ashamed that I had never done it before.

I finally just got up and got dressed and went down to the shop. I couldn’t sleep anyway and I didn’t feel safe in my little apartment right now. I needed to think this out. How was I going to explain this to the police? It took me back to that night -- the night of the incident.

The months after Evelyn came to live with us got worse. She had begun coming into my room at night doing things to me, like holding my arms down and tickling me so hard that I couldn’t breathe. I would try to roll away from her but she would jerk me back. Once she got so angry that she held my pillow over my face until I passed out. If mom ever checked out what was going on, Evelyn in her phony sweet voice would say, “We are just having fun. Aren’t we Rachey?” And then as soon as the door would close, she would pinch me real hard and whisper, “Don’t even think you can say anything about this. I mean it! I’ll hurt your daddy, now won’t I just?” I tried to tell mom but she always said that Evelyn was just trying to be my friend and that I needed to stop being a brat about it.

Then Evelyn started burning me on the back with a lighted cigarette. She would push my face down into the pillow so nobody could hear me and push the cigarette onto my skin. I was afraid to tell anyone because I knew they wouldn’t believe me. I must have gotten toughened up or something because it got so that I didn’t even feel it so much. But more and more sores appeared on my back. Now I know that I could have shown somebody – even my teacher - my back but back then I was just a little 7 year old girl who was scared out of her wits and I didn’t know how to escape. It was right about then that Rebecca came to live with us. I remember thinking that with two of us in the room, Evelyn wouldn’t be able to hurt me anymore. But it didn’t matter. And it got worse. My back hurt all of the time. And then came the night when I must have fallen asleep early. I always try to stay awake until I could hear Evelyn’s bedroom door close. But this night it seems that I wasn’t able to stay awake. According to what I’ve been told, she must have come into our room in the middle of the night with her cigarette burning and got tangled up in my jump rope and crashed to the floor hitting her head on the corner of the dresser on the way down. That seemed to have caused the music box to topple down and hit her in the middle of her forehead. In the process she appeared to have burned herself up and down her arms. When the police came to take her body away, they sat me on the edge of the bed and questioned me for hours. But I had had no memory of it at all. And I never have. All I know is that Rebecca said stuff to me like, “Who do you think takes care of you now? Huh?” I was afraid to think about it.

There were a lot of strange things about it. I’ve thought about it over the years as I got older. According to the police report that I found in the bottom of mom’s drawer when we were moving there was a lot of information that I had always wondered about. For example, the rope was somehow said to be wrapped around her legs. I couldn’t even remember ever bringing my jump rope into the house. But it seemed that it was in my room and it had gotten wrapped around her legs somehow and that’s what tripped her. It was later determined to be some kind of a freaky accident. The report stated that she must have stepped into a loop of the jump rope with one foot while holding the rest of the rope down with the other foot. Otherwise how could she have tripped? I wondered. The cigarette had burned a place on the wooden floor. I know that because it left a big brown mark on my wooden floor that we could never get up. So mom put a rug over it eventually but it was still there – oh yes, it was still there. I knew it. But what about the burns that were up and down her arms?” That had always been a mystery to me. Maybe she rolled back and forth on the cigarette in pain after she conked her head on the dresser. That’s all I can think that happened. I remember that I heard the cops talking to each other there in my room that night. I heard them say, “She’s too small to have pushed her.” And, “What was that woman doing in her room with a cigarette in the middle of the night anyway? No good, I bet,” one of them said. If they only knew. I thought about it later after it was all over – years later. And I wondered then why I hadn’t shown them where my back was covered in open sores. They would have known for sure how mean she was. But I know the answer to that – I was too scared to tell them about my burns. Even after I found out that she had died my lips were sealed. Only me and Allison knew. Rebecca had only been around for a short time and she never mentioned it either. Another weird thing was the issue with my music box. It was said to be what killed her. According to the report it stated that Evelyn must have jarred the dresser so hard when she fell that it caused the music box to have fallen off of the shelves above the dresser in order for it to have hit her hard enough to have caused such a deep bash on her head. But I know for a fact (in fact I can still picture it) that that music box was ALWAYS sitting on TOP of the dresser and hooked to the mirror. It couldn’t have come loose and fallen. And even if it could have, it would only have fallen a short distance – not enough to put a gash in her head. I couldn’t figure it out and I still can’t. I remember the policemen looking me straight in the eyes - me in my little pink nightgown shaking like a leaf and him - a great big man in a uniform with big black eyebrows and brown eyes asking me pointed questions that I couldn’t answer. His eyes seems to drill holes in my head. And he just kept on asking question that I couldn’t answer for a very long time. I remember weeping and calling to my mother to come to me. I can still see her standing behind the big cop. She looked at me with a strange look and wiped the tears off of her face but they wouldn’t let her come to me. Later, I was questioned again by another man at the police station and still later my mom had to take me to a big hospital and I had to be questioned by a kind lady who spoke to me in a soft voice. I remember that she told me that she was going to put me into a trance which I remember felt good – almost like taking a nap. As I we sat in her big office, I heard her tell mom, “Your daughter has no memory of that night but she seems terrified of someone named Evelyn.” I looked at mom but she wouldn’t look at me. The lady went on with her soft voice, “Children of this age suffer from nightmares. She’s been through a lot. Take her home. She will be all right. She is a normal 7 year old child.” So mom and I came home and that was the end of it for them. But for me, Evelyn still haunts me now and then and when she does I can’t sleep and feel sick all over again. I remember thinking all of the way home that day, Evelyn’s dead. Evelyn’s dead. I’m safe. I’m safe.

I never felt sorry that she was gone and I still have the scars on my back to this day. I just know that telling the police about Rebecca right now might turn into something difficult to describe. On the other hand, I can’t let anything happen to Allison. I was riddled with anxiety all day.

The sun came up and Allison came in late. We started to talk about the night before and then customers started coming into the shop and we had to put it off. After all, she had been up most of the night answering the phone and she was tired. She and I worked all day long and the subject of the night before kept being put off until we would have time to talk. Right before closing time, a big order was delivered by truck and put in the back room. Both of us were beat. “It’s my turn,” I said. “I’ll stay.”

“Okay, she said as she grabbed her coat and headed for the back door. “Meet me at Carl’s at 9:00 for a beer. After all it IS Halloween.” Then she added, “ Rachel, I am getting worried that Rebecca is getting ready to go off of the rails. Seriously!!” And then she was off. I looked around at the mountains of boxes and started unpacking books. Time flew by and once,, when I glanced at the windows high up next to the ceiling, it was already dark. I could hear my stomach growling and I felt weary. I remembered how early I had gotten up this morning. No wonder, I thought. So I called it a day. That’s when I noticed that my phone had been turned off. How did that happen, I thought. As I put on my coat, I heard the text message buzz. When I looked, I saw that there was a string of them – all from Allison. Hours before, she had texted, “My car was full of rats when I started to get in behind the shop. I pounded on the back door but I couldn’t get you to come to the door.” The next one “I called the police. They said they broke down the front door but you weren’t there. Your car was gone. Where are you?” Shocked, I burst through the door separating the storage room from the front of the shop. I was astonished to see that indeed, the front door HAD been broken into and now it was blocked off with boards and tape. Furthermore, to my shock, there was a message written on it with red paint that read, “She dies!” The door had literally been broken from the outside sometime between the time that I started unpacking boxes. When did this happen? Why didn’t I hear it? A cold chill ran up and down my spine. I was terrified. I looked around to make sure that I was alone and then grabbed my bag and pushed through the storage room bumping into boxes and shelving in my haste to get out of the alley door. It took me a moment to realize that my car was not there! It was pitch dark and my clock face read 8:30. I started running, afraid that whoever had done this was going to come after me. The streets were empty and the store fronts were darkened. But I kept running. I couldn’t decide which way to run – towards the police station? Towards home? I stopped under a street light to catch my breath and noticed another text that read, “Rachel somebody in your car tried to run me down. I’m at Carl’s. Get here as soon as you can.”

But no. I couldn’t seem to think straight. I have to get home first and change my clothes, I thought. My thoughts were jumping around and coming out in a crazy jumble. Maybe, I reasoned, my car is at home – I have to find it first. Crazy thoughts kept changing my mind and my course. Head bent down I charged ahead fighting through my thoughts. As I turned the corner, I ran straight into some barriers that were all around MY CAR! I was stunned and for a moment, I couldn’t move. All I could think of was that I wasn’t going to be driving it anytime soon. It was smashed right into a telephone pole on 3rd and Monroe. Police yellow ribbons were already staked out all around it. The hood was crumpled. And then I saw the words that had been scribbled on the driver’s door. They were written in the same red paint as the door at the store and read, “You can’t save her now R.”

That’s when it finally sunk in. Rebecca is going to hurt Allison or worse!! I couldn’t bring myself to think those thoughts. “YES I am going to save her Rebecca,” I screamed into the empty street and I turned and ran as hard as I’ve ever run towards Main street and Carl’s Bar. My coat was flapping in the cold breeze and my skin was frozen. I had trouble breathing the cold frigid air but I would not stop. No, she was not going to take this away from me – not this – not ever!” I ran across streets stopping cars who honked and screeched to a stop to avoid hitting me. I slammed into a person on the sidewalk knocked them down but I just kept on going. I heard them yell, “Hey! Come back here ….” But the words were lost in the wind as I strained to run faster.

Please, please, please, I could hear the words in my head. And then I saw the lighted sign of Carl’s Bar in the distance and I seemed to gain power as I ran even harder. The blast of warm air and loud boisterous voices hit me as I pushed through the heavy door and into the crowd. Skeletons and ghouls dangled from the ceiling in celebration of the holiday. Jack o’ lanterns glowed from every niche. I stretched to see over the crowd and I saw her dark head bobbing in the back and heard her familiar laughter. “I made it! I’m here” I shouted, unheard in the din. I started pushing. I shoved my way through the crowd. I was almost there. I was almost there. I was there! Allison turned to me and smiled, just for a second. Suddenly there was a blood curdling shriek and the crowd seemed to rustle around me and that’s when I felt something brush against my thigh. I looked down. It was my hand. My hand! It was holding a knife and …….it was covered in blood.