The Wicked End

Months had passed. My stomach had grown greatly, and I was indeed pregnant. I still didn't believe Sarah and Zacky about all that Rapture-Tribulation mess. How could I trust them? Life was almost back to normal. Nothing was wrong. I had a great life; Matt was great when he was around, and we were starting a family. And I sent Sarah a big mental "fuck you", because my baby was fine. Perfectly normal, and perfectly healthy. The doctors even said so when they did my ultrasound. I didn't understand where that Sarah chick had thrown away her brain cells, but there was nothing wrong with my baby. She was a liar, just like Zacky, and I couldn't trust them. And when this baby comes out in three month's time, it will only further justify that he was a completely healthy normal baby. How could the little guy be evil? He's a friggen fetus, for God's sake.

Matt acted a little weird, but I assumed it was just his way with coping with his parents just up and leaving him. All our parents did that; just left home, no note, no explanation, no way of contacting them.

But he'd come and go as he pleased, leaving me alone in Brian's house where we ended up staying, almost like Zacky would when he held me hostage in his house months ago. Though Matt used the front door, like a normal human being did. He'd frequently talk to himself while pacing back and forth too. It wouldn't be erratic, like he was going mental and just blabbering, but it was as if he were really carrying on a conversation with someone that I just couldn't see.

He was excited when I told him I was pregnant, and he said to me that the only thing we needed to become the perfect family was to make me his bride. Mrs. Matthew Charles Sanders. I wouldn't mind being married to Matt. I'd grown to love him over time; it was no longer a little school girl crush.

On one particular day when Matt had gone out to do something important with Brian, I got more lonely than I normally would have. I never got to see my friends. Sure, I had Matt and Brian. But Johnny... poor, poor Johnny... had been my best friend since I was a young teenager. It just didn't make sense that he would disappear. Didn't he like it here in Huntington? Didn't he love his friends anymore? Maybe his parents made him go with them when they left us all to fend for ourselves.

I didn't care what it was, I still missed Johnny. I just wanted to see him one last time, if only I knew where he'd gone. So I ventured over to his house, pushing the door to the vacant building open slowly and stepping inside. Nothing was out of place. Nothing had been moved. It was like no one had even left in the first place, even though they had. Dirty dishes still in the sink, closets still full of clothes, the garbage hadn't even been taken out. Why would Johnny just leave like that? Why would he have left me?

I crossed the living room to the mantle of the fireplace, where there were pictures of Johnny as a baby, and then through grade school. I smiled at the sight of him. When I came across a picture of him at around the age of ten, I laughed. There were splotches of mud all over his face and his clothes, and he was soaked through; he'd just came inside from playing in the dirt and mud during a rainstorm, his clothes clinging to his small body. He was looking at the camera with a big cheesy smile on his face as he stood in the kitchen. His mom wouldn't let him any further into the house in fear that he would track it al over the living room, so he had to wait for someone to get him a towel to wrap up in after he took his shirt and pants off. I was with him that day, playing in the rain, and his parents had me do the same.

I smiled at the fond memory and then remembered that Johnny and I were sick for a week straight after that day.

I ran my hand along the mantle, picking up dust on my fingers as I did so. If only Mrs. Seward knew there was dust on her mantle... She'd have been back in a heartbeat. It was just so weird to see their house dirty and vacant.

I turned away from the living room and headed up the stairs, taking a left down the hall, finding the last door on the right. I slowly opened the door, and it creaked on its hinges like it had always done before.

Johnny's room, like the rest of the house, was the same: untouched. It looked like it always did when Johnny was off at school for the day. Bed unmade, clothes at random on the floor.

I sat on his bed and grabbed one of his pillows. It still smelled like Johnny, even after those months. It had been almost ten months since the Great Disappearance. No one had returned. No one heard from their missing loved ones.

I let my eyes wander the room, looking at all of Johnny's things. I wanted to be there but I made a mistake. Being in his room and seeing his things only made me miss him more. My eyes caught on the picture frame sitting on his bedside table. It amused me that he still had that picture.

It was of the two of us, together, in high school. We were with the gang that day and we'd gone to get ice cream on this really scorching day the summer before our senior year. Someone had snapped a picture of us, and Johnny had chocolate ice cream all over his face. It was a day I remembered all too well...


"So, I can't believe we've got one year left of high school, and then we're done. No more tests, no more papers, no more reading assignments," I sighed happily as I sat with my five best friends in the park, eating ice cream.

"Freedom!" Brian yelled out as he jumped up and down on the bench that was across from mine. Zacky shot him a glare, because Brian's jumping was causing Zacky to bounce on the bench.

"Dude, chill out and sit down before you break the bench with your fat ass," Zacky spat playfully, pushing Brian's legs before Brian jumped down.

"You've in no position to talk, Chubby Boy," Brian scoffed and shoved Zacky lightly as he sat back down.

"Both of you, shut up," I said, pinching off a piece of my ice cream and throwing it at them. It broke apart an splotched both of their faces.

"Betch," Zacky said, and he threw some back. Brian then smudged some of his ice cream across Matt's face, and it turned into an all-out ice cream war.

"Johnny, save me!" I squealed as I hid behind him, wrapping my arms around his middle. Matt had gotten the others to gang up on me with him because I got his ice cream smeared across his face, in his hair, and down his shirt.

"Why should I?" he asked menacingly as he turned in my arms and pinned them to my sides. I pouted and gave him the puppy eyes.

"Cuz you love me?" I asked. While he'd had me pinned, Johnny had gotten Jimmy to stand behind me, holding my arms back. Johnny smirked and lifted his ice cream cone to my face, moving it closer and closer.

"Johnny...." I whined, and he grinned, kissing my cheek before his cone almost touched me.

Thinking fast, I kicked back my leg and nailed Jimmy in the kneecap. He stumbled and my arms flew free, and before Johnny had time to register the situation, I had grabbed his ice cream and smacked him right in the face with it. The guys all started laughing.

"Ohhh... that was NOT fair," Johnny said, pouting at me.

"And ganging on up me was?"

"Yes," he said seriously, sitting down on a bench. I took a seat next to him.

"Come here," I chuckled, placing my hand on his cheek and leaning in, licking the ice cream off his face. "You taste good," I said and licked my lips. I leaned in and pecked him quickly.

"Gah, no PDAs puh-lease?" I heard someone grumble... probably Brian. I just smiled and kissed Johnny again, this time slipping my tongue past his lips. "You guys suck."

I was suddenly pulled from my reverie from the feeling of a cold breath of air on my face, like a gust of wind. I glanced at the window, only to find it wasn't opened. I jumped when the door creaked behind me, and turned.

I gasped. There was Johnny, plain as day, standing before me.

"J--Johnny?" I asked, but he didn't answer and when I blinked, he was gone. "-the hell?" I asked. I had to be imagining him. Suddenly I felt a shot of energy surging in my abdomen and doubled over in pain. "Owwww," I moaned and clutched myself, sitting back on Johnny's bed.

I noticed as I sat in that searing pain that the room became dark quickly. I took a glance out the window and watched as dark grey clouds swarmed the sky, as if a storm were rolling in.

I heard tinkering noises from around the room, and when a shot glass on Johnny's shelf fell and smashed on the floor, I jumped. The entire house was shaking, like an earthquake had hit. Panic seized my body, remembering the same thing happening right before the meteors fell and smashed Matt's house in.

The wind started to whip around the outside, sounding like a screaming banshee. More things fell or skidded across the floor as the house heaved to and fro. It felt like I was in a tornado, and I felt like my insides were being burned away from the pain inside me.

And then, as soon as it all came, the pain was gone. The house stopped shaking. The wind stopped howling. Everything went back to normal. And for some reason, I didn't think seeing Johnny was all in my head any longer. Was he a ghost? Was he real? And why did the house go into psycho-Amityville Horror mode like that when I was in pain?

I didn't know the answers to any of my questions, but what I did know was that I needed to get myself checked out to see if it meant something was wrong with my baby. ...Maybe Sarah was right....