Dawn (When They Return Book 1)

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Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

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Editing:

Gina Fiserova

Cover Art:

Driven Independent Media

Website:
http://drivenindie.com/

Printed in the United States of America

This story is dedicated to my nieces and nephews who love horror stories. There are so many of you that I won’t name you all. Just know that I love you guys to the moon and back. This one is for all of you. You’re my inspiration. Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to read this story until you’re older.

Dawn Montgomery is not your average eleven year old.

Actually, Dawn is not your average person, period. No matter how many psychiatrists she sees, none of them can explain to her parents why she never feels hot, happy, excited or even hungry. However, there is one emotion Dawn does feel…fear.

Every time she looks into the mirror she feels an overwhelming amount of fear at what’s staring back at her. Her doctors tell her what she’s seeing isn’t real. They say it’s a figment of her overactive imagination. If that’s true, why is this so-called mirage able to touch her, to harm her?

And why does it want her to kill…
everyone
?

***This short horror story contains scenes that are gruesome. This story is recommended for adults only. ***

The dream always starts the same way.

There’s a waterfall where crystal clear water cascades over jagged rocks and lands in a beautiful pool before continuing to flow downstream. Birds soar through the sky as the sun shines down over the forest.

The warmth from the rays of the sun feels good against Dawn’s skin. Across the stream there’s a mother deer and a baby deer standing side by side drinking from the water. Peace and tranquility surrounds them.

The forest is alive with sounds: crickets chirping, birds singing, frogs croaking. It’s a sweet melody that only a few get to hear. Even the sound of the water crashing against the rocks is pleasant.

The sweet smell of fresh flowers fills the air as buzzing bees fly above their delicate petals. Cute furry bunnies hop along, their noses twitching as they play together. This is the part of the dream Dawn likes.

This is the part where she walks to the edge of the river and drops to her knees. She stares down into the crystal clear water, gazing at her reflection. Normally, seeing herself sends her into a panic attack. Everything about her looks disturbs her.

According to her parents and her psychiatrists, she doesn’t see herself the way others see her. However, for a brief moment, when she dreams, she’s able to stare into the water and see a normal eleven year old girl staring back at her.

She’s able to see the girl everyone claims she is: a pretty girl with brown skin the same color as the creamy caramel she drizzles over her ice cream. An intelligent girl with dark brown eyes that are currently crinkled at the corners, because she’s smiling.

Her curly black hair is falling over her shoulders in disarray because she’s been running through the woods, chasing rabbits. This girl doesn’t look scary, neither does she look crazy or like a habitual liar. She looks normal. But this normalcy only lasts for a moment.

The dream always ends the same way.

Dark clouds roll in and the sun is replaced with the moon. The lake she’s staring into begins to turn red. Soon the water falling from the waterfall and the water travelling downstream is full of blood. She can tell it’s blood from the way it smells. It’s not a scent she can describe.

She just knows that whenever she smells it, there’s blood around. It’s an odor she hates, almost as much as she hates the way she looks, almost. When the water turns completely red Dawn tries to move away from it.

The grass she’s standing in disappears and is replaced by thick mud that is too deep for her to trudge through. She tries to leave, but her hands and knees sink deeper into the muck. No matter how hard she pulls and struggles to get free, she’s unable to pull herself away, just as she’s unable to tear her eyes away from her image.

Her gaze is glued to the once normal looking reflection. Though the water is dark with blood she can still see herself clearly. Her skin has turned pale, almost grey. Her lips now have a bluish tint to them. Her eyes have widened. They stare back at her in shock and horror.

Her once bouncy curls are now wet and stringy and her body quakes as she sobs – not the real her that is trapped in the mud, but the reflection of her, that is trapped in the bloody lake. All of these changes are happening to her reflection, the image that no one else sees, the image that haunts her when she’s asleep and when she’s awake.

She watches as tears of blood slide down the face of her reflection. If she was able to lift her hand to her own face she would find it dry. She has never cried. Not even when she was frozen in fear, as she was now. As always, the reflection reaches for her. Its arm is slightly twisted at the elbow in an odd way.

Dawn’s real arm isn’t twisted that way. She tries to lean back, to move away from it. The arm stretches forward, breaking through the water and coming closer to her. She can see the reflection’s lips moving.

She has no idea what the thing is trying to say. She doesn’t
want
to know what it’s trying to say. Dawn attempts to turn her head to the side, but her neck won’t move. Skinny fingers, barely covered in skin, draw closer to her.

A scream builds up in her lungs then radiates through her skull, but it never leaves her mouth. She screams and screams soundlessly as the fingers draw closer. No one can hear her. There is no one here to hear her.

This is only a dream.

Here, there is only her and her reflection. The reflection yells Dawn’s name. Its voice sounds distorted, like cat claws scraping down a chalk board mixed with the sound of raindrops hitting a tin roof.

Dawn wishes she could cover her ears up to keep the sound from shattering her eardrums. She can’t. The only thing she can do is pray this ends soon, pray she wakes up before the fear consumes her. The reflection continues reaching for her. Its cold wet fingertips touch Dawn’s lips.

Upon contact Dawn’s whole body turns cold. The sensation begins at her mouth then travels over her face down her neck and shoulders, reaching all the way to her toes. It’s transforming her, making her a copy of what it appears to be.

Her once bouncy hair is now dripping wet. The droplets fall into her eyes, turning her vision red, the color of blood. This is the part of the dream Dawn hates. This is the part where she realizes the reflection is no longer its own entity.

She can no longer refer to the image opposite of her as
IT
. It’s not an apparition as her psychiatrists likes to call it. It’s not her imagination running wild, as her mom likes to say. It’s not an effect of watching too many scary movies as her dad is known for blaming it on.

With her hair blood-soaked and her body quaking from sobs she’s unable to release, Dawn realizes that the reflection is her, the real her. This is how she truly looks. This is who she really is. This is the Dawn the world is supposed to see.

Her psychiatrist and her parents are wrong. She isn’t a normal girl. She isn’t beautiful on the inside and the out. She’s a monster. She’s the thing nightmares are made of. She’s an abomination. And when she finally accepts the truth, she wakes up.

Once awake, the events that occurred in dreamland began to fade. After a few moments she begins to feel like maybe she’d made it all up. Perhaps she hadn’t dreamt it at all. Each day she pretends the other her doesn’t exist.

She pretends it’s her imagination, a ghost possibly. Unfortunately, every night the dream returns to remind her who she really is. But she doesn’t need the dreams to remind her. She sees the real her whenever she catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror.

There was only ten minutes of school left.

Dawn Montgomery sat at her desk with her legs crossed at the ankles and her back ramrod straight. She stared at the back of Mrs. Pellagra’s head while the teacher pointed to a country on the map. Today’s lesson was about World War II.

None of her class members seemed interested. Most of the kids were playing games on their phones or texting each other. With the teacher not looking, a few students had even laid their heads on their desks and fallen asleep.

Unlike the rest of the class, Dawn was paying close attention to every move Mrs. Pellagra made. History was her favorite subject and Mrs. Pellagra her favorite teacher. She liked it when Mrs. Pellagra called on her to answer a question.

Dawn studied hard to make sure she always got the questions right. She’d seen the look the teacher gave those students who didn’t answer correctly. No way did she want her favorite teacher to look at her with that type of disappointment in her eyes.

Looks of disappointment were something Dawn was used to. She got those looks every time her dad came home. Her father, Roy Montgomery, drove trucks for a living which meant he was only home every other weekend.

Whenever he came home he avoided Dawn as much as possible. He didn’t even like being in the same room with her. In the back of her mind there was a voice telling her that things hadn’t always been this way.

He used to like her, or so she believes. Perhaps her subconscious could recall those days. Dawn couldn’t. For as long as she could remember her dad had simply tolerated her, much like her mother did.

Their looks of disappointment were only cast her way when they thought she wasn’t looking. Unbeknownst to them, she was always looking, hoping they would notice her, hoping they would finally start paying attention to her.

So far it hadn’t happened. Sometimes she felt more like an unwanted pet than a person. She was present, but not needed. Taken care of, but not loved. If she got in the way they simply moved her to the side or ordered her to her room.

They provided her with a roof over her head and put food on her table, but that was about it. She’d never been hugged when she was sick, cuddled at bed time or praised for her accomplishments. Tears sprang to her eyes.

They didn’t fall. They never fell. They departed as quickly as they came, another anomaly of hers that caused her parents to treat her differently. This feeling of sadness always happened when she thought of the way her parents treated her.

Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt so badly if she wasn’t aware of the way other parents treated their children. Every day after school she watched the carpoolers run to their parents’ cars, smiling, happy to be going home. Their parents smiled back at them, asking them how their day went.

Her parents rarely questioned how her day went and when they did, it was only to fill the awkward silence in the car. Other parents left notes for their children in their lunch boxes. Suzie’s mom even drew hearts on Suzie’s snacks.

Suzie always grinned when she opened her box and she always held up her snacks for everyone to see the cute picture her mother had drawn on it. Dawn wanted to grin when she opened her lunch box.

It would be nice to have cute hearts drawn on her fruit snacks. She wanted people to know that her parents loved her. Was it wrong for her to want her parents to treat her the way other parents treated their kids?

She’d give anything to feel something other than the dark fear and sadness she always felt. But praying for that was like praying for the moon to turn pink. It was never going to happen. Turning to stare out the window, Dawn blinked back tears that wouldn’t fall even if she wanted them to.

And she didn’t want them to. There was no point in crying over spilt milk. That’s what her grandmother always said. Her granny also said that one day her parents would pay for how they treated her.

Her granny claimed that the spirits always watched over the elderly, the simpleminded and children… whatever that meant. Thinking of her grandma brought a smile to Dawn’s face. Her granny was the best.

Too bad she lived one state over in Louisiana. Dawn couldn’t wait until summer came so she could spend it in New Orleans with her grandma, away from the confusing stares of her parents. When she was with her granny she always felt loved.

Her grandma had a way of making her smile even when she didn’t want to. The small house her granny lived in always smelled of sweet potato pie. And even though Dawn rarely had an appetite, she made sure she ate a huge slice of pie because she knew it made her granny happy.

A movement outside the classroom window distracted her from her thoughts of pies. Her eyes darted to the right where a row of newly planted rose bushes lined the sides of the walkway. She froze.

It was happening again. Closing her eyes, she prayed for it to go away. When she opened them the vision was still there, staring at her. Closing her eyes again, she repeated the words her psychiatrist told her to say whenever this happened.

“She’s not real,” Dawn said under her breath.

She repeated the mantra two more times for good measure. When she opened her eyes again the vision stood directly outside the window with her hands pressed against the glass, eyes boring into Dawn. Dawn leaned back in her seat.

It was the bloody version of her. For the past year it had been following her everywhere she went. At first she only saw her in her bedroom mirror. Then she began seeing it in her bathroom mirror. At the time it had only been a flicker, causing Dawn to wonder if she was imagining seeing it at all.

Then the image had started remaining visible for longer, until she was all Dawn saw when she stared in the glass. The apparition was no longer bound to mirrors. She was able to move around freely, haunting Dawn wherever she went.

The vision always called to her, as she was doing now. Dawn watched her bluish mouth slowly open. It opened so wide that the corners of its mouth ripped and yet it kept stretching. The word she uttered came out crystal clear.

“Dawn.”

Surely the others could hear it. She’d screamed it loud enough for them to. Yet no one turned to stare at the window. No one ever turned when the apparition called. It was easy to assume since Dawn was the only one who could see her, she was also the only one who could hear her.

How could she ever prove to anyone that what she saw was real if it wouldn’t show itself to others? What was so special about Dawn? The vision called her name again, this time so loud that Dawn jumped in her seat, knocking her history book off her desk.

A few of her classmates giggled. She quickly picked up her book and returned her gaze to her teacher, ignoring the laughing kids and the creepy looking girl outside the room. There was only five minutes of class left.

In five minutes she would leave this building then step into her mother’s car. In ten minutes she’d be home, where she would lock herself in her room and focus on her homework, forgetting that this ever happened.

She didn’t gaze at the window again, but she knew the mirage was still there, still watching her with its lips moving as it tried to tell her something. She had no idea what it wanted, other than to drive her crazy.

Her life would be better if the thing would go away and stay away. When the bell rung Dawn was the first student out the class. Not even bothering to tell Mrs. Pellagra goodbye, she walked quickly down the crowded hall saying ‘excuse me’ to each student she bumped into.

It was only when a teacher yelled, ‘no running in the hall,’ that she slowed her steps, moving in unison with the other students, nervously glancing from left to right. No one was paying her any attention.

She kept going, relieved that she was finally able to see the double doors with the red exit sign above them. The closer she came to it, the lighter that ball of fear in her chest felt. She stepped through the doors and into the sunlight.

She took a deep breath and scanned the cars parked in front of her school, looking for her mother’s. There it was. And that’s when she saw it, to her left. Standing there, staring at Dawn as all the other kids walked by.

Dawn begin moving toward her mother’s car. The apparition copied her, quickening her speed at the same time Dawn did. Breaking into a run, Dawn raced across the grass. Her mother’s car was so close yet so far away.

She moved her legs as fast as she could, but so did the apparition. The image parted her lips. Dark blood poured from her mouth spilling down her chin. That ball of fear swelled in Dawn’s chest, exploding into splinters that pierced her soul. She was afraid, terrified.

Eyes on the apparition and not on where she was running, Dawn tripped over a rock and fell. Her heavy backpack propelled her forward. She hit the ground hard. Tiny pebbles dug into her hands and knees. She glanced to the left.

The apparition stopped and faced her. Wearing a bloody grin it began running straight for her. Dawn jumped to her feet and raced the rest of the way to her mother’s car. She didn’t look back, too afraid of what she might see. Once in her mother’s vehicle, she slammed the door shut, and locked it.

Smack
.

A bloody hand slammed against the car window.

Smack… smack… smack.

Breathing hard, Dawn faced forward and buckled her seatbelt, ignoring the pounding against the window
. ‘It’s not real’
she repeated. If her mother didn’t hear it, it couldn’t be real. It seemed like it took her mother forever to pull out of the parking lot.

Dawn let out a sigh of relief when the car finally sped off. She glanced in the rearview mirror. The apparition was gone. Relieved, Dawn leaned her head against the seat.

Smack
.

The headrest shook. Dawn leaned forward and peered in the back seat. She whirled back around and covered her mouth, refusing to scream.

‘She’s not there. She’s not there.”

Smack… smack… smack.

The headrest continued to vibrate. Oblivious to what was going on, Dawn’s mother kept her eyes on the road. Dawn nodded her head up and down as her mother attempted to make small talk. With her teeth clenched, she held her scream in all the way home, too afraid to move.

What if it touched her?

Could it touch her?

What did it want?

Why wouldn’t it stop hitting the seat?

Her mother said something else. Dawn nodded, having no clue what her mother had said. One more stop sign to go through then they would pull into their driveway. She counted the seconds it took to do so, fifteen.

When they made it home, Dawn rushed upstairs to her room, closing and locking her door behind her. Her mom yelled to her that dinner would be ready in an hour and that her dad would be home in a few minutes.

Great, another person to give her weird looks over the dinner table while she tried to ignore the girl that was haunting her. This should be fun. Dawn glanced around her room. Once she was sure she was alone, she changed out of her school uniform and into a pair of worn jeans and a purple T-shirt.

Comfortable, she grabbed her backpack, walked over to her desk and sat down. She looked around her room one more time before pulling her books out. Homework always helped take her mind off her real problems. The only homework she had today was math.

She hated math. But she loved math ten times more than she liked sitting around wondering where she would see the creepy girl next. So math it was. With her books open, Dawn read over her assignment.

It took her longer than usual to do each problem. She was too busy casting glances at the mirror over her vanity table thinking she’d seen someone walk past it. Finally she told herself to focus and get her work done. Twenty minutes into her studies a chill crept over her flesh.

Had her mother turned on the air conditioner? Her dad liked for the house to be cold. Perhaps she was getting it ready for him. Their fondness for cold weather was the only thing she and her dad had in common.

He liked the cold because he said it was cuddling weather. She liked it because it was the only temperature she could feel which was why she wasn’t allowed near the stove. All it took was one burning incident for her mother to ban from being near anything hot.

Dawn went back to work, but became distracted again when she sighed and smoke billowed from between her lips. She breathed in deeply then blew it out and watched the smoke slowly disappear. It was
really
cold in her room.

Smack
.

She tensed, senses on high alert. The sound had come from behind her, too close for comfort. She didn’t have to turn around to know the mirage was standing there. She could see its reflection in the mirror over her vanity table. Though she told herself not to be afraid, her pencil still shook slightly in her hand.

“She’s not real,” she whispered as she stared down at her homework. “She’s not real.”

She uttered the chant two more times and still the room remained cold. Dawn nearly jumped out of her skin when her mother called upstairs, telling her that dinner was ready.

So soon?