Spikes of Terror
I began to tremble.
There was a spike in here.
And no escape.
She wasn’t here, but now, obviously, it was a trap.
I turned to Seneca and my other house sisters.
The four girls were no longer girls but moving scribbles shaped like girls. They had no faces and were filled with bad words. Words I knew to be bad.
The biggest word in Seneca was Mad. It was scribbled in her form so large that it hardly left room for anything else.
I had done nothing to make her mad, not personally, but a lot of girls here were like that. Angry at their mommies and daddies and aunties and uncles, or, like Laurie, their older siblings. Their situations.
I turned to Laurie as she sank to the back of the group.
Her biggest word was SCARED. But she was so many other scribbles. She was SAD and STUPID and a BAD FRIEND, because she led me here pretending to be likable. Her scribbles were large, barely legible, moved erratically, and filled her so much; there were so many that those several were all I could make out.
Marie and Lasiannica both had funny in their scribbles and I knew they wouldn’t help me. I turned back to Laurie.
Laurie wouldn’t go against Seneca because Seneca was a bigger tiny person and we were just tiny, but Laurie could go get our charge.
I gave her a look that told her we desperately needed an adult.
“What are you staring at you ugly witch!” Seneca pushed me down.
“Oooh,” Lasiannica teased. “Get the door pipsqueak. Lock it ‘fore nasty Heffly comes back.”
Laurie paled.
She looked at me.
“Go, Dummy!” Lasiannica snapped at Laurie.
“Look at her! What are you going to do? Cry?” Marie asked me.
I took a deep breath and got up.
I hated when things went scribbly. It was like I was being scribbled into. It just didn’t feel normal.
“What are you dummies talking about?” Seneca asked. “Didn’t you hear Old Tuitt? Talia Hayes is a monster. She hasn’t cried notta day in her life. Have you freak? That’s why she’s here. No one wants a freak around. Us especially.”
Laurie stood at the door.
“What? You think you tough or something?” Marie strode up to me. “Little freak girl.”
I looked down. I abhorred scribbles.
“You know, dogs hate her. Every time we go to the park every dog starts barking. It’s weird. She’s weird,” Lasiannica told everyone. “Freaky.”
Marie pushed me back down. “You aren’t tough shit. You’re chicken shit. You’re scrawny and pathetic. I’m tired of seeing you’re butt-ugly face. None of us have any value ‘cuz your around!”
I already knew I wasn’t getting out of here unharmed.
“Why don’t you say something? Scared? She never talks either. What are you, dumb?”
Lasiannica tried to walk up to me, but Marie pushed her back so hard she fell into an empty shelf. The word HURT and SCARED and ANGRY appeared in Lasiannica’s glow of scribbles, but she stood up and stayed away without a word.
Seneca stood there smiling.
“What are you going to do? You can’t do anything. So you better quit thinking that you’re better than us, Ugly. We’re sick of your attitude!” Marie pushed me down again before I could finish getting up.
I sighed, the tremble growing.
I looked up into Marie’s scribbles and found the perfect words.
“Your Dad’s a liar, Marie. He’s not coming to get you and your Mommy doesn’t want you because you’re as bad as him. That’s why you’re still here. They’re done with you ‘cuz you were born a burden. A mistake. You’re not better than anyone. You have no value whether I’m around or not. That’s why no one wants you.”
Her face paled just how everyone else’s did.
It was all her fault. It was all of their faults. If they weren’t mean to me I wouldn’t see their stupid scribbles.
“Ah—I?!” she stumbled over her words, giving me the chance to get up.
Seneca scowled and turned and went to the back of the abandoned closet.
Laurie stood at the door, and Lasiannica watched by the shelf.
“You! SHUT UP!” Marie said as an incoherent scribble ate every word in her.
She was no better off than an animal as she charged at me. She tackled me to the ground, but because the worst scribbles were gone she was tolerable.
Now I fought back.
She grabbed my hair, and I bit her shoulder and kicked. She screamed and pushed my head to the floor, but she messed up and fell off of me.
She was strong and a fighter. I knew that if I gave her a break she’d make my nose bleed like she did to Lyvia. So I jumped on her and she got a hit to my face in but I began to hit her vitals over and over in a barrage. My favorite word.
“MARIE!” Lasiannica must’ve screamed.
She pulled me off of Marie and shoved me away, then helped Marie.
I trembled now from the fight, breathing hard from anger and warrior feelings.
That’s what I was. A warrior. A lone warrior. Like the woman in the flames. Like Mother didn’t want me to be.
I heard her sing, angry at the situation, but it wasn’t just my fault. It was what I was born into.
I was a lone warrior like the woman in the flames.
I was nothing like my guardian who wasn’t a warrior.
Shaking real badly, I stood.
Maria looked bad. So bad she could only stare at me and not stand. The scribbles were gone and now I could see that everyone looked scared. The trembles grew.
“Good.”
The spike of ice grew closer, but spikes were harmless.
Animals were what really concerned me.
I learned that scared animals were better than angry ones. Scared animals backed away. They ran or pretended to die. If you left them alone, it relieved them more than moved them to defend themselves.
Angry animals lashed out.
I could walk away from a scared animal if I wanted.
I’d never give my back to an angry one.
People were either wolverines or opossums.
Then I fell forward, a new sore in my back. I tried to get up but there was a heaviness on me. I began to squirm.
I forgot about Seneca.
“Good? What’s good? You’re a very bad person. You are evil. Wicked. And you shouldn’t be here. You should be alone somewhere in a box, but we’re all nice here. We’re good. Virtuous.
“We try to be nice and be your friend and you tried to taint us. We’re trying to show you how to be good and you just hurt Marie. We shall not suffer a witch. However we must be moral and pity the lost,” Seneca rallied on.
“Seneca?” Lasiannica whimpered. She looked at the door. “Marie’s bleeding.”
“Are you afraid of this witch!” Seneca lifted her foot then stomped down on my back, making me grunt. Making the ketchup drowned tater tots want to come back up.
I coughed and swallowed hard.
Lasiannica shook her head.
“Good. Cause God loves us and blames her. She’s the devil’s servant. She let him have her soul. Get up!”
The pressure was gone and I rolled over and slowly got up. I looked up at Seneca. Then I felt the spike of ice so close to her.
I turned and saw the box she carelessly held at her side.
She smiled, noticing where I was looking.
“But because God pities you, he sent us here to heal you. Because you’re wicked no one loves you. Not even God. You’ll always be alone and then you’ll go to Hell. The Devil loves no one, so you’re cursed. But God doesn’t want you to be alone. So he got you a friend,” Seneca told me shaking the box.
I shook my head.
Seneca opened the box to reveal something with a smell so gag-worthy all three other girls did in fact gag.
It was so dead I couldn’t tell if it was a baby cat or dog, or if it was a squirrel or something else. It was blackened from dark earth, and bone thin, stiff as a popsicle. There was still a maggot in its missing eye, and that was the last thing I saw before the scribbles came back.
The spike in the box didn’t become a scribble but dark earthy spikes moved within its corpse and the barely attached tail.
And though Seneca smiled, the HATE now fully devoured her profile.
I shook my head.
Seneca grabbed the spike.
“What? Don’t you like Sweetie?”
The spikes wrapped around Seneca’s hand and I knew that whatever she had done to that animal when it was alive she wouldn’t hesitate to do to me.
“She’s your new best friend. After all, she was bad and has gone to Hell. Just like you will.”
She laughed and tried to give me the spike, and for the first time ever, a feeling so terrifying and repellant drained me of life.
I had never been so close to a spike before.
“No!”
I got up and ran past the others to the door. When I got to it I pushed Laurie out of the way and fumbled with the lock meant to keep us out. Not in.
“Get her!” Seneca shouted, the spike moving closer.
I finally turned it and opened the door and darted out, but hands grabbed and raked me back in. I screamed and kicked, and used my nails to try to drag my way out, but it was no use and the door slammed shut with me on the wrong side, the spike right over me.
Even still I fought.
“God! You morons! Hold her still!” Seneca screamed, watching the debacle with the spike in her hand.
“Got… her!” a scratched up and bruised Lasiannica managed to pin down both my arms.
From there, Marie held down my feet, and Laurie, bleeding from her lip, came to hold down my other arm, making my struggle futile.
Still, I screamed, even after Lasiannica covered my mouth, deciding to sit on my arm.
“Hurry up! Before Heffly or one of the counselors come!” Marie managed in a panic.
Seneca approached with a brittle smile.
“Talia. That was mean what you did to Sweetie. Considering no one’s ever going to love you. But Sweetie loves you. Oh?” she leaned to the spike in her hand coming closer. “What’s that Sweetie? Okay. Talia, Sweetie says she’ll forgive you if you give her a kiss.”
Marie and Lasiannica laughed.
Laurie wouldn’t let go, but I could feel the word SHAME snaking around the arm she held. Her scribble form was turned away from me.
I screamed harder.
The spike was so close the smell burnt my eyes, and I shook my head, actually managing to dislodge Lasiannica’s hand.
“NO! STOP!” I hollered.
“Come on!” Marie snapped! “Ugh! She’s—”
Seneca laughed as Lasiannica moved her hand from my mouth and I stretched my neck and jaw as far away from the spike as I could.
“Mmm-mwah!” Seneca said as she pressed the spike to where my lips were sucked in.
The minute it touched me, everything tightened and cramped and the world went black.
I could not move.
I could only see where the spikes from the creature dug into my cheeks. I could only feel the agony and terror of my body no longer being mine to control.
I could only hear the screams of four girls so filled with hurt and malice that they’d do this to me.
And somehow I knew it’d always be the most terrifying moment in all of our lives.
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