Page 12 of Burning Souls

I sit at the table with my father in the head seat, while I sit next to my sister and the three younger children. We sit in silence. She's my best friend and the one person I know I can trust. She’s younger than me by three years—she's only nine, while I'm thirteen. I swirl my pasta around the plate; I’m not hungry.

These people are not my family; I don’t recognise any of them. I stay quiet and keep my mouth shut; I have learned that’s the best way. With my mother being away from the house after food, Daddy is always in a meeting, leaving me and the others to fend for ourselves.

I wanted to get a bath tonight with bubbles and play with my bath toys, but Daddy says I’m too little to do it on my own, and he’s always busy when I ask him, or he gets mad. I play with my doll again, brushing the hair as I plait and undo it multiple times, until my eyes are slowly closing. I placed my doll beside me as I slid off my bed and opened my drawer to dress myself in some pyjamas.

My legs are curled to my chest, tears still falling from reading the letter and replaying the same memories over and over of my mother overdosing. I’m not so sure if she was taken into a mental health ward or if that was my dad’s way of hiding her while she saved our lives one by one. I lay on my side, curled up in my blanket and hugging my doll tightly to my chest, looking at nothing but darkness until I forced myself to sleep.

5

ENDLESS ECLIPSE

Next week is Halloween, the one time of year I can dress how I want. No one can judge me, and I can do what I’m best at with no questions asked, not to mention leave the house. Every year, I pick a new theme. This year, it's an abandoned carousel theme park.

We are known for throwing Halloween parties every year. What people don’t know is that it’s a cover for what really goes on in the pits of the darkness. I originally had a different plan. I was going to some sort of fancy-dress Halloween party, finding some guy, and then torturing him and ridding his soul to hell, but Jessie informed me it had been taken care of.

I didn’t question him as I wasn’t in the mood to go to some half-ass Halloween party where people were more scared of this holiday than to love it.

This is the one time of year I get to break my only rule. I have one rule: I don't kill women unless the voices tell me, but today is the day I don’t need a reason. I can kill one just because I feel like it. I will find one female normally. It’s one who thinks she is so much better than everyone else in the group. What that means is she is insecure, and most likely has a troubled home life, and while I sympathise with that, it doesn’t give someone agood reason to treat your friends like shit or manipulate them into doing things their way. People like that shouldn’t get to live their lives, and I plan on ridding the world of one of them.

I stand in the abandoned theme park. Rust, dust, and mud are the three things that catch my eye as Sean, Tobias, Jessie, and I walk onto the muddy ground. Our footsteps leave footprints as a trail for us to get back. It’s getting dark, so we only have a few hours to set up until pitch dark. The thought of being alone with the three of them is thrilling. Every time we do something like this, we have to test the water out, and as always, it ends up with me breathless, my hair messy, and normally covered in mud or blood.

I’m drawn to the broken and well-used carousel a few feet away. I walk over; the others follow behind me.

“I want lights, music, and smoke when people enter. The abandoned house is going to be where we keep them until the end. I want all my gear to be there and all in order!”

I have so many ideas about how this night will go. There is one person I would like to attend: my father. The last time I saw him was the day I left that place. It's been a few years since I left, but I still have it burned into my brain.

To say I’m still mad at him after all those years is an understatement. If I ever get the chance to find my father, I would put him through the same hell he put me through. When I was younger, I never realised how toxic and unrealistic my parents’ relationship was. I lost count of how many women went into his office for hours on end.

My younger self was convinced it was for work, and it very well could have been just not the work I was thinking about. Tobias and Jessie walk over to the abandoned building, not too far back, where the darkness of the woods lurks beneath me.

Sean and I walk over toward the run-down rides.

There are teacups and a carousel with horses. Some have seen better days and are missing a leg or two. Halloween was always something I spent with my mother and sisters until my mother passed away. It was my job to take my sisters trick or treating, and now I spend the night hosting a fake party to find my next victims. I haven’t seen my sisters since I was about fifteen, give or take. The night I planned to run away, just like my mother told me to, I had no bags packed, nothing, just me and the Annabelle doll my mother gave me.

That was a short-lived idea because I never made it. I was robbed of my soul.

Today is the anniversary of my mother's death, the worst day of my life, still to this day.

Seanand I set up the lights, hanging them from the rusty poles that used to be lit many years ago. After they’re hung, we both take our fake blood and spill it on the rides, making it look like a disaster, covering up what was going to happen here.

I would’ve liked to have used real blood, but my DNA is on most of the blood I have, and fibres pointing at me for countless murders over the years.

I enjoyed having them help me out before I was met with these. I was alone. I still threw killer parties, but with their help, I’m able to throw bigger ones, meaning I can lure more people.

When I say killer parties, I mean I would throw parties when I was much younger, in my teenage years, yet I still think they were pretty good.

I have had Sean and Tobias staking the place out for weeks, making sure no one is using it except some younger kids lurking around at night.

They were lurking around until Sean scared them off, and they haven’t been here since. Jessie’s been working hard posting about the party and letting word of mouth do its thing. He’s even been using social media, something I’m not so good with, and I don’t think I ever will be. I’m completely off-grid.

Only three people know I’m alive, and they stand with me. The only other people who could know I’m alive have either given up or are hunting me down.

I mean, sure, I have a phone, but I don't use it much. The only time I tend to use it is when I need to get in touch with the guys, which isn’t much considering they spend most of their time with me.

Because of those people, I make sure I’m unrecognisable.

This year, I’m dressing up as Annabelle. I'm wearing a white, old-ish dress with white and black tights. My hair will be in two buns on either side of my head, and I'll also be wearing a jet-black wig.

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