The Morrison Family nosleep

When I was eleven years old, I moved from a rough neighborhood in the city, to the suburbs. It had the white picket fences, the pastel colored houses, and the SUVs. My dad had gotten a promotion, which meant we had more money, so we had the opportunity to move away from the musty, old two-bedroom apartment where I spent my childhood. I didn’t mind the old place, even though I had to share a bedroom with my older sister; I actually kinda liked it. To my parent’s dismay, I spent my tween years surrounded by criminals, drug dealers, and delinquents, which explains why I ended up with such a “relaxed” view on various, criminal activity.

On the day I moved, I said goodbye to my friends, some tears were shed, hugs and promises of staying in touch were exchanged, and with that, I was on my way. My parents had me transfer to a better school. I guess they didn’t want their daughter to end up like the other kids in my old neighborhood. Back there buying crack during lunchtime was easy, and everyone, teachers included, brought a gun to school for “protection”. This new school had the odd disappearance, but nothing too dramatic other than that. Now that I’m older, I can understand why they made me switch, but I was pissed at the time.

Moving into the new house took maybe a week. Probably would’ve been quicker if I wasn’t such a brat, who refused to help my parents and sister carry boxes. Instead, I stood outside of the house, hidden behind the large moving truck. I looked around the corner, and watched my family pick up boxes and started walking towards the house. When I was sure I was in the clear, I pulled out a cigarette, and lit it. Looking down the road to the left, I guess I zoned out while looking at a group of old women in neon colored spandex, power walking down the road, because I was totally oblivious the young man standing next to me, until I turned around to walk back to the house.

“Hey,” he said, “Those things will kill you.” “Thanks for the advice,” I replied, before trying to walk past him. He took a step to the side, blocking my way. I looked up at his face, trying to read his expression. He looked to be between twenty and twenty-two. His ash blonde hair swooped over his forehead, and he had a pretty smile.

“I’m Avery Morrison. I live down the street,” he said, before pointing at a bright yellow house two doors down from my new home.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, bored with this conversation.

“You don’t have a name?” he asked.

“Clemence,” I replied.

“That’s a pretty name. I knew a Clemence once.”

“Really? What are the odds? I’ve spent my entire life hearing people tell me how rare and weird my name is.”

“Well, it was a long time ago,” he said, before running his hand through his hair, “Anyways, I just came over to ask if your family needed some help?” I found his statement odd. How long ago could it be, he was still so young. However, I brushed it off.

“I think they got it, but thanks.” My eyes met his, and he held my gaze for a couple of seconds too long before saying anything.

“Alright then,” he smiled again, “You know where I live if you change your mind!” he yelled over his shoulder while walking off.

I threw the cigarette away and walked into my new home. That was my first meeting with the Morrison family. It was a slightly strange conversation, but I quickly forgot about it.

Eight years passed, and I slowly started to accept my life in the suburbs. I graduated high school, and became a history major at a local college. I lost contact with most of my old friends, with the exception of my best friend, Gabe, who I visited as often as I could. He was a year older than I was, and we had known each other since I was six, and he seven. He taught me how to drive, how to shoot a gun, how to talk myself out of every situation. My family was skeptic at first, to our friendship, but they came around eventually. At this point, he was basically family. Of course, there was a lot of stuff my parents didn’t know about, like the guns and the drugs and all that, but what they don’t know won’t kill them, right? Anyways, this particular night, Gabe was over for dinner at my house. He was also spending the weekend on my couch.

We were helping my mom out in the kitchen, when a group of women walked past the window on the other side of the street. One of them were Avery’s mother, Marion Morrison. Gabe looked over at me, and I sighed. We knew what was about to happen. “I wonder how much money Marion spends on Botox every year. Maybe she should save some of that for her retirement pension or something.” Gabe tried not to laugh. This happened so often. My mom and Marion had dueling book clubs for a while, and some of her friends had betrayed her by joining Marion’s club. Ever since, my mom couldn’t even see the name Marion without throwing some sort of shade. “Seriously, she hasn’t aged since we moved here. It’s abnormal.” I rolled my eyes, with a smile, and continued chopping up paprika.

Around seven in the evening, my father came home. He was obviously upset, but we knew better than to ask. He didn’t want to burden us with his problems, ever, so he never told us kids anything, even though we were all technically adults at this point. There was no use asking. However, eavesdropping was a specialty of ours. Therefore, when my dad walked into the kitchen, and closed the door behind him, my sister Allison, Gabe and I tiptoed up to the door, and leaned in, and watched through the crack in the door.

He was pacing back and forth, while my mother asked him to calm down.

“I can’t calm down, Lisa! I’ve been working towards that promotion for years, and then that fucking…” My mom cut him off before he could finish that sentence.

“Carl, please. Tell me what happened, okay. Just relax!” She ran her hands from his shoulder down his arms, trying to calm him.

My dad started telling my mom how he was called to his boss’ office, fully expecting to get the promotion he had worked so hard to get for years, but instead it was given to another man at his job. And that man was Samuel Morrison, the patriarch of the Morrison family. He and my dad were actually friends, but Samuel had been at their workplace for only three years, as opposed to my dad’s decade long dedication to the company.

“How can I go to that damn charity event on Sunday while he’s there? So he can be a smug snake to my face? Goddamn it!” I had not seen my dad this angry since the day he caught me with a joint in the sixth grade. We all looked at each other, and quickly returned to the table so mom and dad would not catch us eavesdropping.

After a very awkward dinner, the three of us ran up to my room, and sat down on the floor.

Allison looked at us. “I can see the gears in your brain working. What’re you planning?”

“Well, we can’t let them get away with this, that’s for sure,” Gabe answered.

“I agree, but what can we do?” Allison asked.

“We need to put them in their place. But they’re always home, so how are we gonna do it?” I stated.

“Not always.” Gabe looked at Allison, and then at me.

“What do you mean?” Allison leaned in.

“Didn’t you hear your dad? The charity thing on Sunday. That’s our chance.” Gabe replied.

We all agreed that this was a good idea. We were gonna find some dirt on them, and if that didn’t work, we were gonna steal some valuable shit.

Sunday couldn’t come fast enough. We were probably a little bit too excited to break into someone’s house, but oh well. Allison was going to be guard, and call us if anything happened out front, while Gabe and I were going in. My mom and dad left around eight, and Samuel, Marion and Avery left shortly after.

Dressed in all black, to blend in, Gabe and I ran down the street, and quickly moved into the driveway outside the yellow house. It took us under a minute to locate a spare key. It was well hidden, but this wasn’t our first rodeo.

We moved into the house, and quickly got down on the floor. They had the same alarm system that was installed in my house, which has a motion detector, but only within a certain area, which does not include down on the floor. We started moving forward, and through the doorway and into a hallway, where we stood up. Home free.

Walking quietly through the house, we started looking for some sort of dirt we could anonymously send to my dad’s boss. However, after twenty minutes we still hadn’t find anything. The house was large, so we had only looked through the second floor. We were moving downwards, in case the alarmed was activated, we would have a shorter escape route. The last room left before moving on to the first floor, was Avery’s bedroom. I found it odd that he was still living at home, even though he must have been at least 28 at this point, but I did not have time to entertain that line of thought right now. I went inside, and looked around. It brought me back to our first meeting, outside of my home on that first day. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and put one between my lips. Gabe walked in, and took the cigarette from my hand before taking a drag himself.

“That stuff will kill you,” I said, before taking it back, and putting it out right on Avery’s desk.

We moved down to the first floor, which was even less interesting than the second floor. When we got to the kitchen, we both leaned against the counter.

“Every family has a secret. This one can’t be any different. There has to be something?” I asked.

“Definitely. This family’s shady as fuck, everyone can tell just by looking at them,” Gabe replied.

I nodded. “I’m kinda hungry, are you hungry? I said.

Gabe nodded, so we looked through the kitchen for something good. Gabe went through the shelves, while I went to the refrigerator. When I opened it, I did not see anything particularly interesting. Just a ton of cucumbers and cabbages. But when I moved some stuff around, a mason jar caught my eye. I pulled it out, and turned it around. No label.

“Hey, Gabe, look at this.”

He came walking over to me, and I showed him the jar. Inside was a thick, vicious red liquid.

“Is that pig’s blood?” Gabe asked, with a disgusted look on his face.

“Has to be.” I said, before trying to put it back, but Gabe stopped me. He took the jar from my hands, and then proceeded to throw it with all his strength into the wall opposite of us. The red liquid splattered everywhere, some of it even got on my face.

“Gross!” I said and laughed, wiping the blood off my face with some paper towels. Gabe then pointed towards the last door of the house. The pantry.

“You wanna do the honors?” he asked.

“Sure,” I replied.

My hand found the cold handle of the door, and slowly pushed the door open. I almost fell down the flight of stairs that met me. Who has stairs in their pantry?

“Check this out!” I said, a little bit too excited. Gabe came walking, and looked down.

“Well, let’s go.”

The room was musty, and on the shelves were lots of canned food and even more jars with weird stuff inside of it. However, in the far right corner of the room, there was another door. Only this one had the biggest padlock I have ever laid my eyes on.

“Holy shit,” I said when I grabbed the padlock. It was heavy as hell, and there was no chance we were going to break this one open.

“This might be our last change in a long time to get this thing open, but there are seriously no tools here!” I said while looking through every box and shelf in the room.

“I might be able to get it open, but promise me you won’t be mad,” Gabe said, while lifting his shirt up, revealing a gun. I sighed. He had promised me not to bring a gun to my house unless we made specific plans to use it out in the forest or something.

“If I wasn’t so damn curious, I’d be pissed.”

“Alright, stand back,” he said, aiming the gun.

“Wait… What if it ricochets?”

“It won’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Gabe sighed. “Alright, move that barrel in front of me, so it’ll hit that one instead, if it happens to ricochet.”

I did what he told me. Before long, the padlock was open, and the door to the second basement was open. We looked at each other. Almost scared to go inside. What would we find?

Gabe took the first step, and I followed closely behind him, down another set of stairs. Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see. On a table in the center of the room, laid a woman. Or, what was left of a woman. She was dead. Dead and carved up. I had to use all my power not to gag at the sight of her. Her neck was sliced open, and she was bruised and beaten all over. “What the fuck?” Gabe said, walking over to the woman.

The room was covered in streaks of blood. Some pretty fresh, but some very old spots too. It was disgusting. The smell was worse than anything I’ve ever smelled.

I wanted to cry, but I did not. Instead, I focused on another door in the corner of the room. Gabe was saying something to me, but I did not listen. I just walked over to it, turning the handle of the door. Inside the new room was a long, wide hallway. Longer than the house itself, so it must have crossed over to the neighbor’s lawn. On both sides of the hallway, there were cages. Some were filled with people. Some were empty. I walked through the room, flies flying up in my face, my shoes making a wet sound when stepping in the blood that had created small pools on the floor. I almost slipped several times, but I kept going.

At the end of the hallway there was a girl. She had been hung upside down, in a white gown that was stained with old and new blood. Her wrists had been cut. I couldn’t keep from crying at the sight of her. Who could do this to another human being?

I wasn’t prepared to see her move, so when she did, I let out a little shriek. She was trying to say something to me, but I couldn’t quite hear it. Her throat must’ve been very dry.

“K… Kill…” she started.

“What? What do you mean?”

“Kill… me...” she finished.

I took a step back, finally slipping on the blood on the floor. “I.. I can’t do that..” I said, while tears started falling down my face, my hands covered in blood. It took everything in me not to throw up all over myself in that moment.

“Please…” she said, and started to cry too. She then pointed towards a scalpel on the table next to her.

I tried to ignore that my clothes were now covered in the blood of a probably innocent person. So, I got up, and tried to gather myself. I walked over to the table. Could I really do this? Would it be justified? Yes, I had to do this. What I thought and what I was afraid of didn’t matter right now. This girl was suffering, and already half dead, and I could not be selfish and think of myself in this moment. I picked up the scalpel. Next to the scalpel was a newspaper cut out, about a girl that had gone missing a couple of weeks ago. She barely looked like her anymore, but I could tell it was the girl in front of me. She couldn’t be more than fourteen.

“Please… tell my parents… I love them,” she said, tears rolling down in her hair.

“Okay.”

I stood in front of her, holding the scalpel in both hands. I held it up to her throat.

She looked me in the eyes, and said, “Thank you.”

Then I did it. I didn’t make a sound. She didn’t make a sound. However, the tears wouldn’t stop running down my face. I dropped the scalpel on the floor, and moved towards the exit.

Gabe was standing in the first room, looking at some documents. When I walked in covered in blood, he looked shocked. He put down the documents, and went into the room himself. It was so quiet.

“Get it together, Clemence. You can do this.” I told myself before picking up the documents Gabe had been looking at. “What the..” I said. These were birth certificates. The first one was Avery’s certificate. Born 1894 in England. Marion, Wales, 1865. Samuel, England, 1855. They looked legit. But they couldn’t be, could they?

Gabe walked out of the hallway and instantly threw up on the floor.

On the table next to the documents, one of those fancy mason jars with a straw through the lid, that every hipster at college used instead of a water bottle. There was a tiny bit of red liquid, in the bottom of the jar.

I looked over at Gabe, who had collected himself.

“I… I think these are legit, Gabe.” Spreading the documents over the table, I looked them over.

“They can’t be. They’re 150 years old.”

“Did you know that, in the 1490’s, the pope bled three boys to death and drank their blood?” I asked.

“Uhm, no?” he replied.

“He was on his deathbed. Back then, people believed that if you bled a person, and drank their blood, you would get all the years they were deprived off.” I looked at him.

“That’s just a myth. Right?” he asked.

“It has to be. But…” I was interrupted by the sound of my mobile phone ringing. My sister was asking where we were. If we found something.

We ran back to the house, me covered in human blood, and Gabe with all the birth certificates. They would not make any sense to the police, so we grabbed them, to show them to Allison.

She did not believe the myth about the pope and the blood. I do not know if it would have been different if she had seen what we saw. We called the police instantly, and anonymously, when we got home. I hit the showers, and when I got out, the street was filled with police cars, and red and blue lights flashed in the windows. We looked from the window.

When things started to die down, we drove off to a secluded area, and burned our bloody clothes. Allison decided to stay behind, in case our parents came back.

“Do you believe in it?” Gabe asked, while we were standing over the fire.

“I… I don’t know. But I do know what I saw. It doesn’t make sense.”

“I know…” He replied.

We stood in silence. The Morrisons were all sentenced to life. Something tells me that might be a very, very long sentence. I never told anyone about what I did to that girl. But I did seek out her parents. I told her that she was alive for about a minute while I was down there. That she loved them. They hugged me, thanked me. They probably wouldn’t have if they knew what I had done.

My dad got the promotion instead of Samuel, after it all went down. He didn’t want to say it, but I know he was happy about it.

It has been quite a few years since then. I am currently on a plane to England. I need answers; I need to know if those birth certificates were real. Every time I close my eyes I see that basement. Gabe has moved on. He has kids to take care of now. But I can’t move on. I’m going to find answers to what happened in that house, no matter how long it’ll take.

There are times I wish I hadn’t gone into that house. That I hadn’t killed that girl. But I know I’m just being selfish. There were sixteen cages down there. Seven of them had people in them. They’re free because of what we did. That’s what I tell myself when I try to sleep at night. We did a good thing going down there. All those lives, saved, is worth a lifetime of painful memories.

Submitted January 23, 2017 at 08:31PM by thataintforkids http://ift.tt/2iVMa4d nosleep