22 April 2010

A new beginning to an old tale.

Tiffany Jennings sat in the living room of the Wagner house, reading a rather interesting novel about an island of the coast of Florida. She was babysitting young Matthew Wagner while his parents were out to dinner. The light from the single lamp cast an eerie glow over the room, and provided the perfect atmosphere for the creepy story that she was reading. She was getting so involved in the book that she jumped when Matthew's voice drifted down the stairs.

“Tiffany? Tiffany, please come up here, I'm scared.”

Tiffany rolled her eyes. He would be afraid of his own shadow, she thought to herself, chuckling. But she wasn't paid to think, so she bookmarked her page, got up and made her way up for the stairs.

When she entered the front room, her heart skipped a beat. The front door was sitting open. It was only open a few inches, but that was still more than enough for someone to have slipped inside. Or, someone could have been attempting to close it, and thought better of it, assuming that it would make too much noise. She scolded herself for letting her imagination run away with her. She shut the door, locked it and started her trek up the stairs

She paused outside of Matthew's room. “Matt, what is it?” she asked. No answer came from within, so she slowly opened the door and peaked inside. Matthew was sound asleep in his bed, curled up in his Superman blankets and sucking his thumb. Tiffany thought for a moment on the oddity of the situation and then shut the door; she refused to let her wild imagination have its way this evening. She made her way back downstairs. Maybe she'd just been hearing things. That was the most likely answer, she believed. It was usually the case in large houses such as the Wagner place.

As she re-entered the living room, she tucked her black hair behind her ears and sat down on the couch. She opened her book and no sooner had she read the first sentence than the phone rang. “Hello?” She answered. The other line sounded grainy and she could hear a faint whispering issuing from it. “Hello?” She repeated.

“Are you alone?” a voice whispered from the other end of the phone.

She laughed to herself. “No, I'm not alone,” she said sarcastically. “I've got an eight year old and guard dog protecting me.”

“Do you really?”

“Sure do, Jeff.”

There was silence. Then, “Who's Jeff?”

A chill ran down Tiffany's spine. The volume of the voice was growing, and it no longer sounded like the whisper of Jeff Donnely. It now sounded like the voice of something angry. Something not quite human. “Who is this?” She asked.

“Don't worry about that,” the voice said. “Are you all alone in that great big house?” Tiffany did not respond. “It's okay. I know that you are. Well, don't worry about that, Tiffy. I'll be there real soon.” And before Tiffany could say anything, the line went dead. She pushed the off button.

She pushed the on button and place the phone to her ear, fully prepared to call 911. There was only one problem. The phones were really dead. Her imagination started up, full speed and the fist thing that came to her mind was the old urban legend about the babysitter and the man upstairs. She convinced herself so thoroughly that things actually started falling into place in her mind. The open door, the strange voice from the sleeping boy, the mysterious phone call. She had to check on Matt. She got up from the couch, her book toppling to the floor, and rushed to the front room so that she could get upstairs.

The front door was open yet again, but this time, there was someone standing in the entryway. The person was tall, dressed in a very neat black suit with a utility belt around the waist, and wearing a cat mask that Tiffany recognized as coming from the Halloween store up the road. Her fear paralyzed her for only a moment, and then she was running in the other direction, and the intruder was right on her tail. The intruder pushed Tiffany and she tripped over the low glass table in the middle of the room. Her leg hurting quite badly, Tiffany backed up until she was pressed against the couch.

“Please don't hurt me,” Tiffany sobbed as her assailant drew a rather large ax from his utility belt. He raised it in the air and, before she could mutter so much as another syllable, began chopping away at the young babysitter. Tiffany's head parted company with her body and rolled across the floor as lights rolled across the living room ceiling. The killer returned the ax to the utility belt and exited through the back door.

“Why is the door open?” Mrs. Wagner's voice came from the outside stoop. “Tiffany? Are you still─” She entered the living room and let out a horrified scream as her eyes found the mangled remains of once sixteen year old babysitter Tiffany Jennings.

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