Hush, Hush

There are believers and there are skeptics. There are those who welcome foreign ideas and other who shun them. There are people who are use their senses and their gifts to see, hear, and feel what other’s choose to ignore.

I’m one of the people who was given extra senses, a gift. My name is Adam; I’m seventeen and I see things, I hear things, and I feel things that no one else can. My parents dismiss it, they even went as far as punishing me for telling them what I saw, heard, and felt when I was younger. Now they choose to ignore me when I “space out” or “talk to myself”. They think I’m trying to get attention from them. It’s the opposite, I would be fine if my parents decided to abandon me.

Some people call my ability being “in sync with the Earth.” I think that’s bullshit. I’ve never been in sync with anything. In pre-school they didn’t allow me to be in the hand bell concert because I would ring my bell after all the other kids, when the old woman told me to. My teachers thought I was just blaming my behavioral problems on imaginary people.

The old woman wasn’t anyone a four year old’s imagination could make up. She was thin, her eyes looked hollowed out and glazed over. Her name was Patricia and knife stuck in her chest at all times. When I asked her why, she told me her son did it for money.

My parents up and moved the entire family after my last visit from the deceased. My old neighbor, Ashley, came into my room one night when I was looking at a particularly dirty website. Ashley was eighteen when she died, she was pretty hot so I was sort of mortified when she came to me at that particular moment. Ashley didn’t stay long, she only said one thing to me. “Mr. Turner.” and then she vanished. It was known that Ashley had been raped and murdered. Knowing a name doesn’t seem enough to make my family want to leave Ohio altogether, does it? No.

When police questioned me on the Ashley’s death and I blurted out my principle’s name. The police officer looked baffled but scribbled something down in a small notebook. They pressed on why I knew that. My mom stood in the corner of the room shaking her head from side to side. She didn’t want people to know her son was a “freak” as she liked to call me. So I lied. I made up shit about noticing the way Mr. Turner looked at Ashley. They bought it. They also found out I was dead on with my prediction. My mom order us to move as soon as we heard Mr. Turner was taken into custody. She didn’t want people to question me, and she didn’t the possibility of any upset relative of Mr. Turner’s to harm her family.

“This is all your fault.” Kylie growled at me. Kylie is my little sister. She’s twelve, she used to love me. After the move...not so much. My communicating with our dead neighbor dragged Kylie away from her friends and her first boyfriend. I was Satan in her eyes now.

“Don’t worry about it, bro. I don’t hate ya.” Chase said laughing to himself as he stumbled up the front steps of out new house. Chase is my older brother. He’s the kind of guy who goes missing for weeks and comes home beat up, high, drunk, and skinny as hell. I didn’t trust Chase, he was the worst kind of liar. The kind that lies so much that he starts to believe his own lies. He was no one I wanted around Kylie. I was protective of Kylie. I wanted her to happy, unlike myself.

Everything outside the new was calm and quiet. Our house was old, that much was obvious. It didn’t have siding like most houses did now...it had painted wood. The paint was barley hanging on to the walls of the house. The entire look of the house was eerie. I liked it. Our new house was Victorian. It was once probably really nice looking when the white, purple, and blue paint wasn’t peeling off. The thick barrier of trees around the house made it the perfect set up for horror movie. I could see the ocean from the hill our house was set on, the whole area was filled with thin fog and salty sea air.

“Fuck!” I cursed under my breath bring my hand to the spot on my head that was hit with a rock. The rock dropped onto my torn up Chuck Taylors and rolled blending into the stone cover driveway. I whipped my head around looking for the source. I was going to piss in Chase’s apple juice if he did that. I know we hate each other but throwing rocks my head was uncalled for. There was no way Kylie had an arm like that. I peered through the fog looking for Chase but I didn’t find him. I didn’t find anyone.

I turned back to look into the trees and there she stood. She was average height, skinny but not too skinny like they normally are, her skin was gray, dark purple circles hung under her black eyes, and her blue lips stayed stuck in a natural pout. Her jeans were stained with blood, her shirt was stained with blood, and her black hoodie probably had blood on it but it didn’t show. I was curious, I wanted to know what happened to her and I wanted to know why she threw a fucking rock at my head. I started toward her, her dead eyes locked on mine and it felt like my inside shrunk when I heard rock music fill my head.

“Adam!” I whirled around looked at my dad, my heart beating from the shock her sent me into. It’s a little shocking when someone snaps me out of one of “episodes.” I blinked at my dad trying to set my heart beat back to it’s normal pace. “Stop playing with your imaginary friends, go move your shit into your room.” dad ordered. He really had no tolerance for the things that happened to me.

“Kay.” I answered and turned back to the girl to find her gone. I was pissed. I was curious about her and my dad scared her away. It was typical for a spirit to come to me and be scared off by my family before I got a chance to find out what they wanted to say. I learned that through dealing with them for so long. They always had something to say, or do because if they didn’t...they didn’t go looking for someone like me.

Not even dead people wanted to hang around with a screwed up kid like me.