Ghosts of the Midnight Hour

Warning: The following story is very graphic. This content is not meant to be consumed by children and if you are easily frightened, you probably should not continue. This story is a work of fiction and is not based on any real events.

On the corner of a dark, eerie street in Manhattan, a woman was plagued with the shrill cries of anguish and rage that filled her mind. The woman was wearing raggedy, torn clothing. She had bags in her eyes and her face was very wrinkled, giving her an elderly appearance that didn't match her age. She had sustained multiple hits that left bruises on her arms and a gash in her chest that was bleeding profusely. The woman seemed ghostly, almost as if her spirit was already beginning to leave her body. She limped down the street, knife in hand, eyes flitting in every direction, never focusing on one spot for more than a few seconds.

Memories flashed in her mind, like clips from a film. The memory of her children. She remembered them playing with their action figures they had received on Christmas the year before, and wrestling with each other under the tree. The fireplace gave the room a very dim but lovely lighting. She remembered one of them wearing a plaid shirt and the other wearing blue corduroy pants. She remembered the way they beamed at her when they saw her standing above them with a tray of chocolate chipped cookies. Their mouths watering as she set them cleared space on the coffee table in front of the torn up red sofa. The cookies had been baked to perfection and she poured each of them a medium sized glass of milk to complete the treat. She could hear them laughing so innocently.

"Mommy, who was that man you were talking to at the grocery store?" the one with the plaid shirt asked her.

She let out a gasp and looked at him, taken aback. She didn't realize he had seen her.

"Nobody. Don't worry about it"

"Well obviously it was somebody," He replied.

"I SAID DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT!" She shouted throwing the rest of the cookies on the floor.

She snapped out of her daydream as she heard the faint sound of sneakers skidding on the wet concrete. The hand holding the knife twitched. She gazed out at the empty street and began scanning for plausible hiding spots.

It didn't take long for her to lay eyes on a crevice in between the two dumpsters just to the side of Johnny's Pizzeria. She still remembered the day she took her kids there.

Johnny was the best pizza maker in Manhattan. This was an indisputable fact. The woman had been to Johnny's a few times as a kid and she was ecstatic to give her kids a taste of the pizza that made her childhood. She was filled with indescribable joy at the sight of the one wearing corduroy pants taking a bite of the steamy, delicious treat and just smiling at her. Not saying a word, but not having to. Just a pure, radiant joy that was communicated in one precious gaze. Her body convulsed slightly and she had her usual... cravings. But she didn't care. All of that was in the back of her mind. Life was so much simpler then. But all of that was but a distant memory now.

The woman continued to edge closer to the crevice as quietly as she could as to not give away her location. Her limp forced her to drag her left leg behind her which made a loud scraping noise every time she took a step but she had no choice, this was her only chance.

She finally made it to the crevice and her gaze came down upon him. The man who had taken it all away from her. Cowering behind a dumpster, his hands out in front of him, wearing a black beanie, a black Calvin Klein bomber jacket and dark blue jeans.

"PLEASE! PLEASE NO!" The man sobbed and pleaded.

The woman remembered that night so vividly. She remembered the one with the plaid shirt screaming that exact same thing. The man with the bomber jacket holding a revolver to his head. Two men holding her back and two standing on either side of the man in the bomber jacket. Repeating the same question to the woman over and over like a broken record.

"Do you have the money?!"

"I don't have it right now. If you give me a few weeks I-," She could barely speak through the tears.

"A FEW WEEKS! I'M NOT WAITING A FEW WEEKS! GIVE ME THE MONEY NOW OR I BLOW THE KID'S HEAD OFF!"

"please no" the one with the plaid shirt whimpered.

"Last chance. Do You Have The Money?"

"I'm sorry, I don't have anything to give you. But Please-,"

The man pulled the trigger without hesitation, filling the air with a deafening blast, and then complete silence. The woman looked over after her ears stopped ringing and saw her son, lifeless on the floor, his plaid shirt stained with his own blood.

"NO!" She cried and fell to the floor.

"Where's the other one?" The man with the bomber jacket asked.

"What other one?"

"Don't play dumb with me, I know you have two sons,"

The woman stayed silent.

"Search the house," he said to the two men standing next to him.

"NO! STOP!" She screamed attempting to kick them.

They began walking around her apartment, ripping cupboards apart, searching through closets. Eventually they found the one with the corduroy pants curled up in a ball behind the clothes in his mother's closet. They grabbed him by the arm and forced him into the living room. They cleared of the coffee table and pinned him down on top of it.

"NO! STOP! PLEASE STOP!" She screamed and begged.

One of the men reached into their pocket and pulled out a black cord. He stretched it out, wrapped each end around his hands, and tightened it around the one with the corduroy pant's neck. Within moments, his face was already turning red and swelling up.

"I'll give you all the money you want, please I'll give you anything, please just stop," she begged.

"Oh, this isn't about the money anymore," he said walking right up to her face.

"I'm gonna show you what happens to people who try to rip me off," he said menacingly as he flipped open his pocket knife.

The woman’s hand tightened around her knife as all these emotions flooded her mind.

“Who are you?” The man with the bomber jacket asked, his entire body shaking terribly.

“Trudy Golding?” She remembered her therapist asking her.

“Yes, that’s me” she responded with a forced smile.

Her therapist was an older man, with grey hair grey slacks, and the typical doctors lab coat. His clothes were wrinkled and he wore reading glasses as he thumbed through the pages of her file.

“So, it says here that you have been having severe nightmares, mood swings, violent bursts of rage, and that you exhibit symptoms of PTSD” he said closing the file and looking up at Trudy.

She made eye contact with him, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her composure and demeanor very controlled.

“I’ve been... adjusting” she replied simply.

“So it seems. Ms. Golding, Do you feel that you need help?”

“I don’t know what you mean”

“Ms. Golding, the first, and most important step in healing from any traumatic experience, is to be honest with yourself and those around you. To look deep within yourself and realize that you have issues that you can not resolve on your own and you need to look to those around you. Do you feel that you need help?”

She sat there with her legs crossed as she pondered the question for a moment.

“What I need, you can’t give me”

The fear on the man with the bomber jackets face intensified as the woman’s grip on the knife tightened.

“Who are you?” He repeated.

The woman looked down her nose at him, and truly considered what to say. Unable to conjure up an answer she instead decided to stare silently, letting his fear get more and more intense.

“W-What do you want? I’ll give you anything”

The memories of restless nights spent crying and throwing whatever she could get her hands on as the screams of her children filled her head. Her grip getting tighter and tighter. Her hands shaking uncontrollably.

“What I want, you can’t give me”

She drove the knife into the side of his neck. Twisting it slowly, watching him writhe in agony.

“So I’ll just have to take what I can from you”