Audrey's Problem

To Audrey May Brown, time stretched out for so long over the course of her life, as nothing had ever seemed to fill it lastingly enough for her to get the feeling of time “flying by”. The drive to her new house in the middle of nowhere was sadly no different. Even looking out the car window longingly and pretending to be the main character in a movie didn't satisfy her boredom long enough to fill 20 minutes of the three hour trip. Her books were discarded long ago, and music played through headphones dangling off the edge of the backseat nowhere near her ears. Eventually, it came to a point that whenever she checked the time, the minutes moved backwards, and she was in the same place of dread as she was two minutes prior. Two and a half hours into the drive, Audrey turned to counting the trees that flew past her window, and every time she reached one hundred she’d allow herself to check the time again. It was 12:32 pm when she decided to turn to her parents for entertainment.

Cynthia and Fred Brown were probably the most boring people one could lay eyes on, and Audrey grew up trying to avoid their measly conversations about the house market or the newest documentary about how bad the economy was. They hadn’t spoken one word to her the entire car ride, and she was ok with that. The number of available topics for the Brown family to talk about together was rapidly decreasing as Audrey grew up, more so when her parents eventually realized Audrey’s so called “friend problem”. (The problem was She had never had any.) They had looks of pity whenever she spoke to them - which was not often. The last thing Audrey wanted was pity; she was overly conscious of the problem, and fully blamed it on her parents and their frequent ideas to move someplace far away. (The reason this particular time happened to be a $20,000 inheritance from an aunt who recently passed on, which gave her parents the sign they needed to finally buy the orchard they desperately wanted. It wasn't that money was a problem to the Browns’, decision making just isn't their strong suit.)

Her solution was to ignore the loneliness that sat in her stomach and pretend she was someone else until she ran out of people to pretend to be.

“How much longer ‘till we’re there?” Audrey whined, leaning in to the front seats of the car. The question floated around for a few moments before Fred Brown peeled his eyes from the crossword on his lap and mumbled through a red pen hanging on his lip.

“Why, that is a good question indeed.” Audrey rolled her eyes and pretended to barf before deciding that imitating the false poshness of her dad's response would do no good. The pity that was sure to be in his eyes was not worth it. Instead she looked to her mom in the driver's seat and waited for her reply.

“ ‘Bout fifteen minutes I’d say, though I'm not even sure we’re going the right way...” Cynthia trailed off.

Great. Any more than three hours in the car with her parents was a nightmare. Lucky for her, it was about five minutes until they passed the first house they’d seen in miles and that signified they were, in fact, going the right way. The ten minutes afterwards went fast due to their anticipation. Audrey felt the familiar small flutter of hope that, maybe this time, her parents would settle in long enough for her to make a friend.

Fred and Cynthia had the bright idea of buying an old, tiny apple orchard to start a new business venture: selling apple-based-baked-goods from a table at the local farmer’s market. Audrey didn’t pay much attention to her parents' diverse business ideas; instead she threw herself into her online school work and told her parents she wanted to be a surgeon. (This was a lie of course; Audrey had more interest in buttering toast than anything science related.) Busying herself sometimes filled the pit of loneliness, though never for long.

Cynthia tried to lighten the disappointed mood that had settled over the Browns after their new house came into view, and eventually gave up whilst they all made their way through the mess of a lot to the run down cabin. The inside of the little house on the little apple orchard was surprisingly quaint and simple, and Audrey was happy with her room in the back of the house. In fact, she became infatuated with the small, wooden, attic door on the ceiling. She spent the time she was meant to be unpacking her belongings staring at the old wood and the latch on the right side of the rectangle, begging for her to pull it. Her mom came barging into the room talking about all of her ideas for fixing up the small house, and as her mouth blabbed on she had begun, then finished, unpacking for Audrey. Audrey found herself laying in her bed with a bag of potato chips for her dinner, staring at that small wooden door.

It was fairly easy to dismiss the sound of steps coming from the attic. What with the crunching, plus the old house probably made strange sounds all the time from the wind and things. (It really wasn't windy.)

Audrey thought about her parents somewhere outside with flashlights, roaming the grounds and making plans. Sometimes she wondered whether she should be concerned that her parents treated her as a second thought compared to their projects. When this thought came to her she treated it as a signal to busy herself. She popped in a headphone and turned on a movie. The other headphone was left out, just in case more sounds joined the steps above her.

The first night in a new house was always the hardest. Audrey laid in bed for what felt like hours before her mind drifted off to the unconscious world, but the struggle to calm down her thoughts was tough. Her parents had popped their heads around her door frame, wished her a quick goodnight, then everything went quiet, and Audrey was left alone with her thoughts.

The silence of the house was broken by what sounded like a leaky tap, and the steady drip pulled Audrey out of her dreamland. The drip didn’t slow or stop. Audrey climbed out of her comfortable mess of sheets and blankets, and limped over to her door.

She was shocked fully awake by a sudden plop of something thick and wet landing on her face. For a moment Audrey stood frozen, then looked up to see dark liquid pooling around the edges of the attic door. Her heart dropped with realization that whatever the liquid, it was probably something nasty. She was able to organize these thoughts in time for her to move towards the light switch and out of the way of the next incoming drip. The lights flickered, then buzzed on, and Audrey felt her heart flutter and her stomach roll. The liquid was dark red, odorless, and bloody, and it was on her face - the heat of the drop on her forehead burned, yet Audrey could not bring herself to wipe it away.

A sort of gasp slash scream escaped her lips, and she bolted out into the hallway down to her parents room. Blood. Blood was on her floor. Blood was on her face. What was in the attic??

“Woah, calm down now, I can’t understand a thing you’re saying ‘Drey”,

Fred’s calm voice had comforted Audrey enough for her to stop mumbling about something terrible and disgusting and horrifying in her room. She stared at the two tired faces of her parents, waiting for them to say something about the drop of blood on her face. Their eyebrows shot up with shock when she mentioned blood, and the fact that it was not hers, and suddenly pitying concern was replaced with actual concern. Still they didn’t mention the drop.

Back in her room they all started at nothing. There was no blood. No puddle of bodily fluids on the floor, or on the attic door, or on her face. Nothing strange at all. Audrey touched the burning part of her face, it was dry as a bone.

Mere minutes after Audrey felt the very real feeling drop of blood land on her face, the Brown family was all back in bed, though this time Audrey didn’t drift off. She couldn't forget the look of pity in her parents eyes, or the blood on her room floor. She kept hearing the splat of blood landing on her face. Could she have made that splat up in her mind? Audrey lay in her bed, tired. Unable to shut her eyes, as that was a direct opening for her thoughts to take over. The quiet of night made the sound of slow and heavy steps coming from above clear, and Audrey did all she could to dismiss these as the nonexistent wind, or hallucinations, but the unfamiliar feeling of not being alone was hard to ignore. There was something else there with her - someone else.

Something - or someone - was interested in her. She liked it, and hoped whatever was about to happen next would hurry up. A smile appeared on her face, she could see reflected in her wall mirror. Plus the word hello scribbled there in dark blood. The smile didn’t leave her face, it grew bigger. The something - or someone - had clarified their presence, and it didn’t feel menacing. Maybe if something like I can see you, or don’t go to sleep was written, she might feel a bit terrified, but no, it was hello. The opportunity for conversation was there, and Audrey didn’t have to try looking lonely. She didn’t have to offer to buy lunch to get someone to talk to her. Audrey got up and breathed on the glass so she could write a small hi in the fog she created.

Turns out, Audrey was not the only lonely person inhabiting the remote orchard house. For decades, another girl Audrey’s age had been trapped on the lot, scaring away newcomers with ghost blood. Her name was Isabella, and she had died 22 years before Audrey had even been born. The lack of shared knowledge between the two girls, each from different times, allowed for an incredible amount of things to talk about, and it became a habit for them to converse whenever Cynthia and Fred were busy - which was always. For the first time, Audrey knew what that person was talking about when they came up with the phrase “time flies when you’re having fun!”. In an unpacked box, Audrey found a small black notebook, strangely empty, waiting for her to pick it up. She showed Isabella how to write in it with a pencil, instead of ghost blood on a mirror, and soon Audrey needed another small black book, then another.

Years later, Audrey May Brown would look back to her time at the haunted house on the apple orchard as the most significant time of her life. The small black books filled with conversations between two lonely girls served as a reminder to the first time Audrey felt like Audrey. When she felt alone - which was not often any more - she took out the books and basked in memories. One can only go so long living inside their own head, surrounded by fears and doubts and judgment. Sometimes it takes someone else to prove all the nasty thoughts wrong. Sometimes it takes a dead girl living in an attic that accidentally haunts by spilling ghost blood onto unsuspecting victims to pull one out of their own head.