Olivia (4 page)

Things were not going as planned.

The mixture she’d paid good money for had done the exact opposite of what she wanted it to do. She’d drunk the stuff for six days as instructed. On the night of the sixth day she’d been plagued with stomach cramps. They’d been so severe she’d feared for her life.

Even her husband had been scared for her. He’d wanted to take her to the doctor but she hadn’t let him. She didn’t want the nurses trying to save the child’s life. So she’d pretended she felt better and he believed her.

But his belief in her changed on the seventh day. Clara had awakened that morning feeling nauseas. She’d rose from bed and one quick glimpse in the mirror sent dread through her heart.

She was huge. Pregnant huge. She’d screamed so loud Roger came bursting into the room to check on her. What he found left his speechless, literally. All he could do was stare at her and all she could do was stare in the mirror.

The belly she’d been hoping to get rid of had grown. She resembled a full term pregnant woman. The child wasn’t dead. It was alive and thriving. She could feel it moving around inside of her.

Upset, Clara had sank back on the mattress. Her movement seemed to draw Roger out of his trance. He raced to her side. The concern in his gaze broke her heart and she found herself telling him everything.

She told him of how depressed she had become after learning she was pregnant. She revealed to him how she really felt about the child she carried. She even told him of Velta and the mixture the voodoo priestess had made for her.

He seemed to be taking everything in stride. He didn’t say a word as she talked. He just stared at her belly, tears welling up in his eyes. And for the first time in her life, Clara had actually felt ashamed of her actions.

After she finished telling him of the foul deeds she’d done, Roger rose to his feet and left the room. Afraid to follow him, Clara had remained where she was, trembling on the bed. When Roger returned to the room he was carrying rope and duct tape in his hand.

Clara had tried reasoning with him. But it was like he hadn’t heard a word she was saying. He’d tied her to the bed and taped her mouth shut. Though she screamed, no one heard her.

He kept her that way for days. He fed her and helped her to the bathroom. Each time he removed the tape from her mouth he warned her not to scream. Clara had been too frightened to disobey him.

At night he would sit beside her on the bed and talk to her stomach. He would promise the baby that everything would be alright. He even purchased a beautiful doll with two pigtails for the baby. On the bottom of the doll there was one word stitched into the cotton, Olivia.

By the fourteenth morning, Olivia was ready to enter the word. Clara wanted to go to the hospital. Roger wouldn’t take her. He said the doctors wouldn’t understand how Clara could possibly be in labor since she was only supposed to be four months pregnant.

Instead, he forced her to deliver the baby at home. There were no pain medications. She had to bear the burden on her own. Still, her screams went unheard. Her mouth remained taped shut during the whole ordeal.

But it wasn’t the pain that bothered Clara. It was the fact that the child she was bringing forth wasn’t natural. It was evil. Each time she tried to tell Roger that he told her to shut up. He refused to believe his baby girl was cursed.

But Clara knew that the child was. When Olivia’s first screams filled the air, Clara cried harder. The baby’s crying sounding more like growling. But Roger said it was music to his ears.

He wouldn’t even let Clara hold the baby, not that she wanted to. He kept the child all to himself, feeding her and changing her diaper. Sometimes he sang hymns to her, but that made Olivia cry so he chose to sing nursery rhymes to her.

All the while, he kept Clara tied up. He told her family that Clara was away in South Carolina with his sister. He told them that Clara hadn’t been feeling well and since his sister was a nurse, she could keep an eye on Clara twenty four hours a day.

Her family believed him, the whole town believed him. The whole town was idiots. Though he wouldn’t untie Clara or let her hold the baby, he would still bring the child into her room every night and force Clara to kiss the child on her forehead before he put the babe in her bed to sleep alongside her doll he’d given her.

And then he would leave the room, leaving the child behind with Clara. That was when the weird stuff would start to happen. As soon as the door closed the room would get cold. Goosebumps would pop up on Clara’s arm.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The baby would begin making noises. And Clara was one hundred percent sure that there was something in the room talking to the child. It sounded like a man’s voice.

Clara couldn’t make out what he was saying, neither could she see him. But she knew he was there. She could sense his presence. This happened every night. The nightly visits began to drive Clara insane.

She wanted out of that room. She wanted away from her husband and the evil child he loved. She wanted to be free. During one of Clara’s bathroom breaks, Roger slipped up and left his razor on the side of the tub.

When he turned his back, Clara grabbed it before proceeding to use the bathroom. As he tied her back to the bed, she kept the blade in her palm ignoring the pain she felt as in cut into her hand.

It took her four days to cut through the rope on her right wrist. Four days of holding the blade carefully, trying her best not to drop it. Four days of making sure he didn’t catch her sawing away at the rope.

Each night she had to listen to the creepy voice talk to her child as she sawed at the rope. And finally on the fourth day she was free. It was mid morning. The child was napping and Roger was downstairs cooking breakfast.

Clara rubbed her wrists as she stared around the room. She knew it would hurt to jump from the window, but that was her best way out. No way would she risk walking downstairs and being caught by her husband.

To get to the window she had to go near Olivia’s crib. Just the thought of going near the child frightened Clara. She tiptoed over to the bed, surprised to find the child wide awake and staring up at her.

Still holding the blade in her hand, Clara stared down at the babe. It was evil, she knew that. There was no way she could let this child live. The voice at night that spoke to it was evil.

If she told Roger, he wouldn’t believe her. Clara knew what she had to do. Before escaping she had to rid the world of this child once and for all. She lifted the blade. The child smiled up at her.

Clara slashed. The windows in the room exploded. Glass flew everywhere. Blood coated Clara’s fingers. She stared down at the baby whose eyes were now closed. She’d done it. She really did it.

Clara smiled. She’d gotten rid of the child, once and for all. Olivia opened her eyes. Clara frowned. Laughter filled the room. Not Olivia’s laughter. The pictures on the walls shook. Clara stepped back away from the bed.

“It is finished,” A loud voice said.

What was finished? What the hell was going on? The door to the bedroom crashed open. Roger stormed inside. The look on his face was fierce.

“What did you do?” He yelled to her as he stormed over to the bed. “You killed her.”

“No, she’s alive. I saw her eyes open. She didn’t die. It didn’t work.”

Roger reached down and picked up a piece of glass from the floor. “You did this to our child, our daughter. How could you?”

“She isn’t dead.” Clara backed away from him. But she knew there was nowhere to run. She backed up until she reached the wall. And there against that wall, was where she died. With a large piece of glass protruding from her belly, Clara sank to the floor, her eyes drifting shut.

The last thing she saw was Roger slicing his own neck then falling to the floor.

The last sound she heard was laughter, Olivia’s laughter.

“We have to call the police,” Dana yelled as her and Shelly raced for the front door of her home. She couldn’t believe Keira was dead. How? There had to be an intruder in the house. But there was no one else in the bathroom with her friend.

Dana opened the front door then raced out. The door slammed shut behind her. What the hell. Dana tried to open the door. It was locked. She called for Shelly and could hear her friend on the other side of the door calling her name.

“Shelly, open the door.”

“I can’t. It’s locked. Dana what is going on?”

Dana had no idea. “Shelly, just hold on. I’m going to go my neighbor’s house and call the police and see if I can bring back help. Go in the kitchen and get your phone. Then hide somewhere and call the police.”

“Okay. Hurry back. I don’t want to be alone… ahhhh.”

“Shelly,” Dana screamed for her friend. Oh no, it was happening again. Screams of terror could be heard coming from inside the house. Dana stepped away from the door. “Shelly,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face.

The screams got louder and then just as quickly as they started they stopped. “Shelly,” Dana whispered again as she took another step away from the door. The lock on the inside of the home clicked and the door began to open.

Dana turned to run. Something grabbed her and dragged her into the house. The door slammed shut behind her. Dana landed on the floor. Her head hit the side of her coffee table. Pain ricocheted through her skull. The room spun around her and her eyes drifted shut. Darkness claimed her.

When Dana opened her eyes she was in her bedroom.

But it didn’t look like her bedroom. The window was where it was supposed to be and so was the door. But the walls were a different color and the decorations in the room weren’t hers. She tried to move, but was unable to.

Dana stared down at herself. She was handcuffed to a bed. She still had on the same clothes and her feet were still bare. However, in the middle of her dress there was a large red stain. Blood. Tears filled Dana’s eyes. What type of nightmare was this?

“This is no nightmare.”

Dana’s eyes jerked to the corner of the room. Sitting in the rocking chair was a little girl with pigtails. She looked oddly familiar.

“Who are you?” Dana asked. “And what are you doing in my home?”

“This is my home and has been my home for many years,” the child rocked back and forth in the chair.

“Untie me,” Dana told her.

“Not yet. Not until my daddy gets here.”

“Listen little girl…”

“Call me Olivia.”

Olivia? Wait,
Olivia
. Like the dirty doll Dana had thrown away. That was why the girl looked familiar. She looked like the doll. She had the same dress, thought it wasn’t covered in dirt and grime. She had the same blonde pigtails.

“Why do you look like the doll?” Dana asked.

Olivia smiled. “Because I never got to grow up silly. My first mommy killed me. And the only thing I had to latch on to was the dolly my daddy gave me. Velta, my second mommy, said a spell that would allow me to live through the doll. But Velta was no better than my first mommy. She couldn’t find me a permanent body. And I can’t grow up in this body. I can’t finish what I need to in this body. Velta kept telling me that killing was wrong. She said she gave my first mommy that mixture so she could give birth to a powerful witch. But I’m more than that. I’m more than just a witch. I’m the one who gets to destroy the world. But I have to grow up first. So I brought daddy back. He was the only one that really loved me. Daddy found you. And you’re a good mommy. I watched you with your daughter. You give here toys and you hug her at night and you even kiss her on her cheek without being told too. I want you to be my mommy.”

“Listen little girl…”

“Call me Olivia.”

“Listen, Olivia…”

“Or you can call me Ayanna. Because I’ll be Ayanna when daddy gets back with her body.”

“Wait, what?”

“We’ll be a family. Me, you and daddy. First we have to kill Ayanna and Ayanna’s daddy. Then we can all be together. I can finally grow up.”

“No,” Dana struggled against the ropes that held her captive. “I won’t let you kill my baby.”

“You can’t stop us mommy. You’re already dead.”

Dana stilled and stared down at the red mark on her dress. And then she remembered the knife slashing into her belly. The laughter that filled the room as the little girl cut into her stomach.

She remembered the sound of a male’s voice saying soon it will be finished. She remembered watching that man leave the house, walking straight through the door like he was a ghost. Probably because he was a ghost. And now, she was too.

“Don’t worry mommy,” Olivia told her. “I’ll be a better daughter than Ayanna. Just wait and see. We’ll be happy.”

“Listen Olivia.”

“Call me Ayanna. From now own, I am your Ayanna. Olivia is dead.”