Running away are you?

Leaving was the easiest thing I ever did when I was younger. Though many hardships followed, none were as hard as going back. Going back to all the things that made me have nightmares as a child and cower at all the little noises I ever heard. Though I didn't want to return to the house that caused most of my fears I had to, for I had found out that my parents, along with my brother who was six, had died unexpectedly.

When I arrived, I found that the house was in terrible shape and was on the verge of falling apart. The yard was overgrown with plants, yet the swingset stood surrounded by no weeds or overgrown plants. One of the swings swayed, emitting a shrill squeak that gnawed at my nerves, strange though, because there was no wind.

"I hate this house," I said to the man as he helped me take my luggage into the house.

"Because it is so rundown?"

"No, because of the people who used to live in it."

"Who lived in it before your parents, if you don't mind me asking?"

"No one," I said as I looked over at him; he was shocked but I just smiled at him.

"I see...well I should be going now just call me if you need anything and if you can't get ahold of me I'm two houses that way." He pointed to a small one story house that was painted white and had light blue shutters.

"Thank you, I'll call if I need something."

As I walked inside, I could still hear the shrilling sound of the swing moving back and forth. "They really let this place go," I said as I looked around, "how could they live like this?" I walked through the house and stopped at the door that led to my room. The door creaked as I opened it; my room was as I had left it, untouched by my parents. I continued down the hall to what I assumed was my brother's room, he had been born after me so I never knew him.

As I crossed into his room, I heard faint laughter. "Hello?!" I said but got no response. That was weird. I thought as I looked around the room. It was probably just the wind. I picked up a picture of my brother, it read:
To our loved son,
Thomas

My brother had dark blue eyes, the very opposite of mine, which were dark brown. He had short blond hair that matched my father's. In the photo he was smiling as he sat on the swingset. He looked happy, with no worries. Did they love him and if so why didn't they love me? My father used to say how I wasn't theirs, I didn't look like either of them. He used to make my mother cry with that statement but soon she would say it too. I was theirs. I had the birth certificate, they had the doctors test us to see if I was really theirs, it all came back positive. So why did they still not believe I was theirs?

I took the picture out of the frame and threw it to the ground. I couldn't hate my brother; I didn't know him and never would. You can't hate a ghost, but I did hate them. When I was younger, still in grade school, my parents would make me eat my dinner in my room in silence. If I got bad grades, my father would hit me saying:

"If you want a house to live in, you have to work for it, you bastard child!"

When I was in high school, they made me do all the chores in the house. Maybe that's why the house has gone to ruin, because their maid wasn't there any more. When I turned eighteen, I up and left, I gave them no warning, just left. But they never tried to find me. They didn't love me, they just kept me to do chores.

"Lilly?" I heard my name being called but from whom? The voice sounded familiar; it was my mother's. "Lilly is that you?You came back. You have to help."

"No you're not real!" I said closing my eyes.

"Please Lilly."

"Please." I heard a small voice say.

"Thomas?"

"Mother always told me stories about you."

"You're lying; mother never loved me!" I said squeezing my eyes tighter together and covered my ears. "No!" I said as I ran from the room. Their voices still in my head. No they're not real; they died. I can't hear them; they're dead! I ran from the the house. just as the door slammed behind me, I heard my father's voice.

"Running away again. You're a coward!"

In my shock I just stood there unable to move. This isn't happening, this isn't happening! As I thought this, I pulled out my cell and dialed my neighbor's phone number. It started to ring but cut off at the third ring and went dead. I looked at the phone and realized it had died. Oh god, I'm not going back into that house. I took off down the street to my neighbor's house. When I rounded the bush in front of his house, I ran in the steps and knocked on the door.

"Oh, Lilly hello."

"Take me to the airport now!"

"Why, what's wrong?"

"That house is haunted and I will not stay there!"

"Haunted, are you sure?"

"I might sound crazy but I heard their voices and the door slammed behind me as I left!"

"I think you are just over tired and you have so many bad memories there that you think you can still hear them."

"And the door?"

"You probably snagged the door handle on your clothes and pulled it shut."

"Maybe you're right, I'm just tired."

As I left the house, I turned around and saw him in the door way smiling but something about the smile made me feel uneasy. When I entered my house again, I felt even more scared than I had when I was little. The squeaking of the swing had picked up; it was the eeriest sound I had ever heard.

Sitting down on my bed, I realized I still had my brother's picture clenched in my hand and loosened my grip so I could look at it. The picture had been folded so that you only say my brother but my mother stood next to him with a smile on her face but her eyes told a different story. They looked almost scared. What was my mother scared of? Could it be my father?

"Honey?" I heard my mother's voice say.

Don't be afraid. Just talk to her. "Yes?"

"Please help us."

"I'll help Thomas but not you or father."

"You don't know, do you?"

"Know what?"

"Who killed us." I looked up when she said this and say her standing in the door way, my brother behind her legs. Impossible, I shouldn't be able to see her.

"What are you talking about?"

"Find us and you will know the truth, and you must hurry. Oh and be careful, your father is still alive. He's in the house."

"What?" I said and their figures vanished, faded into the background. Alive, he's still alive?

I walked outside to try to clear my mind; I couldn't be in that house a second longer. I went and sat next to the swing that gently swayed in the Invisible wind, which I now realized was my brother. The thought made me smile sadly. As I sat there, I noticed that a door had been added to the side of the house. A cellar maybe. I had noticed wile inside that the stairs to the basement had collapsed.

Walking over to the doors, I realized that the grass around the cellar was crushed and now laid flat against the ground. But the plants around it stood tall, the crushed grass was fresh as if who ever hid these doors had come back recently. The doors were locked and the lock looked fairly new. I wandered over to the tool shed and found some gardening shears and I was able to cut the wood around the lock.

Tossing the lock and handles away from me, I opened the cellar doors and into the basement. But before I made it down there, I smelled the most putrid smell. Covering my nose, I continued down the steps and came across a more disturbing sight. It was my mother and my brother; my mother had a gaping hole where her heart would have been, someone, my father had cut her heart out. It looked as if she had fought him, her nails were bloody from clawing at my father. My brother, his eyes still open, had a ring of bruises around his neck.

"I see you found them." A raspy voice said behind me. Turning, I found it belonged to my father.

"Are you going to kill me now?" I said my voice barely legible. I could hear my heart in my ears and could feel it pulsing in my throat.

"Not if you don't tell anyone, sweetie."

"Don't call me sweetie. You made my life a living hell as a child!" I was yelling now the adrenalin had kicked in. Holding the shears in front of me I said, "I've already called the police!"

"Now don't lie to me; I've been watching you since you got here. I know your phone is dead. Now be a good girl and redeem what you did as a child and be good for once!" He yelled the last part of that, his soothing fatherly voice gone.

"I can't let you get away with this."

"Your mother never loved you!"

"No she did, but she was too afraid of you!"

"And you should be too, I see that I cannot trust you and therefore must kill you. I'm sorry." He said as he started towards me, knife in hand.

"I will no longer be scared of you!" I said as he lunged at me, but I was quicker, stabbing the gardening shears into him. His dull eyes rolled back and he fell to the floor. Taking the knife from him, I checked his pulse. Nothing.

I ran back to my neighbors shaking, the adrenalin now gone. It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other. Knocking on his door hysterically, making my blood covered knuckles throb with pain. As he opened the door, I sank to the ground.

"Lilly? What happened?"

"Phone please." I said out of breath.

"Of course." He said and ran and got the phone.

After I had called the police, they came and got the bodies. I went in for some questioning and was free to go after. I stayed in a hotel for the next few days when my friend showed up to take me back to her house. She had loved me. I might be running away from that house again, and from all the memories, but who wouldn't?

I kept the house after that and visited it every once and awhile. When I would come, I would always sit on the empty swing and talk about the place I had visited that month. My brother always swinging next to me on the swing, my mother standing behind him, pushing him ever so gently, a smile on her face.