A Paralysing Nightmare.

I spun around wide eyed and looked wildly around me, but there was nothing there, only me, outside, in the middle of a cemetery. I whimpered and turned back towards the door, wondering if I should bite the bullet and go in with the others. I was on the verge of deciding to stay when my ear twitched, picking up what sounds like a high pitched whisper. I let out a soundless scream and bottled towards the door, throwing myself inside and looking around for any sign of the others.

I payed no attention to my surroundings as I spotted a staircase and ran towards it, my feet pounding heavily against the stone as I rose to the second level where a familiar set of voices were coming from.

“-just come on man, Regan’s outside waiting,” Wednesday pleaded.

“But Wednesday look at this place, doesn’t it seem strange to you?” Joey replied.

“Yes! All the more reason to be the hell out of here and back to Regan!” Wednesday exclaimed in frustration. I reached the top of the stairs and it was Joey spotted me first and laughed “Well she’s here now anyway,” he said, skipping over to me he grabbed my arm. “Dude you have to see this,” he said in, yet again, excitement.

Wednesday watched apprehensively as Joey dragged me towards the other end of the room and stopped. I blinked and I looked around; it was a little girl’s room. There was a bed and a dresser and toys, everything a girl would need - of course it was all old styled because the child had been buried a couple of hundred years ago, but there wasn’t any dust or cobwebs anywhere. I looked to the left where no furniture was placed, only a long shelf which lined the entire wall, filled with realistic looking dolls in various costumes not unlike you see kids wearing on Halloween. Their glassy eyes were especially menacing, they pierced our every movement as if watching us. I shuddered violently; they were the freakiest thing I had ever seen.

“Weird huh?” Joey said with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

“Yes, weird Joey. Can we please go now this place is giving me the creeps?” I asked, turning back to Wednesday. “Wednesday?” I asked when I found a now empty room behind me.

“Joey where did Wednesday go?” I asked, Joey looked up from one of the dolls he was examining and shrugged.

“I don’t -“ he started but he was cut off by a scream. I turned slowly to Joey who was frozen to the spot with his mouth half opened, his eyes were wide an unblinking as he stared at the staircase. I drew a staggered breath; my teeth began to chatter again, speech was incapable of passing through my frozen jaws.

Another piercing scream bounced off the walls; I let out a whimper. Joey snapped out of his moment of shock and looked across the room at me; our eyes connected for a second before he raced over and grabbed my hand, pulling me towards the stairs. I stumbled behind him as he leapt the steps two at a time until we reached the bottom where I fell into him and landed on the floor.

I groaned and pushed myself off Joey, looking around the room my heart stopped when I spotted Wednesday on the other side lying on the floor. I stumbled silently to my feet and ran toward him as fast as I could, which was slower than normal because my legs were shaking so much. I fell down next to him and rolled him over so he was lying on his back. He wheezed slightly and stared up at him, he had scratches and gashes all over his face and as someone had clawed at his skin.

“Wednesday what happened?” I cried, tears began to pour ruthlessly down my cheeks. He opened and shut his mouth a few times but no words came out. I bit my lip to try and stop my mouth chattering, how could this have happened? He was behind us not a minute before. I tried to stifle my tears and wipe the blood away from his face with the corner of my dress.

“Regan!” Joey shouted from behind me, I turn around screamed. Joey was standing in the middle of the room with his hand reached out towards me, blood pouring from his mouth. He screamed and fell to the stone floor; two puncture wounds appearing on the side of his neck.

“Joey!” I screamed, tying to stand but failing - my legs were completely jelly and incapable of doing anything, “Joey!” I cried, digging my nails into the stone edges on the floor I tried to drag myself towards him.

You will be my vampire dolly a small girls voice whispered from nowhere. Joey began to convulse from the amount of blood that was pouring from him, staining his costume and the floor.

This was not happening, this was all just a bad dream, things like this don’t happen to people in real life I thought over and over again. Wednesday wheezed again behind me, his hand shot out and grabbed the leather coat desperately.

“Run,” he managed to get out before his back arched towards the ceiling and he began gasping for breath. I whimpered and looked between my boyfriend and my best friend who were screaming silently in agony. I buried my face in my hands and shook my head, trying to erase what was happening around me as tears continued to fall.

[b>Don’t cry. the same small girls voice whispered in my ear. I sat up straight and looked around the room. Wednesday and Joey where both now lying motionless on the floor; I wailed and tried to reach out to Wednesday but a pain shot through my chest. I screamed in agony and looked down - a stake was protruding out through my dress, blood was seeping onto my costume. My lungs felt heavy, I couldn’t breathe, they were filling up – my heart was trying work but the wood had pierced right through it.

I love Halloween, everyone dresses up and I can make stories up and play with them the voice came again. I fell to the floor rigid, incapable of screaming moving from the amount of pain shooting through me.

In this story the vampire slayer kills you because he loves you and he had no other choice because the evil vampire would have turned you otherwise the voice continued; I stared wide eyed up at the ceiling above me, I was paralysed; the was no breathe left in me at all, I was riding the shore between life and death.

You’re my new favourite dolly the voice said, this time it was fainter though, as if it had run off into the distance. I closed my eyes and opened them to see a transparent image of a little girl standing above me in a white dress.

Good night Dolly she whispered, my eyes fell shut for the last time and all pain left my unmoving body.

________________________________

“Come on Jack let’s get out of here,” said the voice of the worried teenager that sat on the bed next to me exactly a year later.

“Hang on, this place is cool,” said the other teenager as he walked along the wall observing all the dolls. Suddenly a scream erupted from downstairs; the two boys looked at each other before yelling and running down stairs. My glass eyes slide sideways, meeting Joey’s and Wednesday’s ones looking directly at me from their position on the shelf.

New shelf life.