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Andie was sick.
To make matters worse, she was also home alone.
To be honest, drinking a cup of warm soup that she couldn’t taste while being wrapped up in an old worn-out blanket didn’t sound so bad. In fact, it actually sounded quite nice. Andie loved being bundled up on a cold winter’s night while staring at the snow outside.
But today, it wasn’t snowing. It was actually the first day of summer. And the weather couldn’t have been nicer: the sky was an almost artificial shade of blue, puffy clouds painted the sky, and the temperature was perfect.
But of course, Andie didn’t know that, because she was stuck inside hacking her lungs out and blowing her nose until she went dizzy.
A common cold. That’s all it was. But to her, it felt like the deepest fires of hell.
It was her parents’ anniversary today. Andie did feel bad that while they were having the time of their lives, she was sitting there like a bump on a log. But she couldn’t help that. And she was happy that they were going out to dinner together to celebrate, away from the illness-ridden teenager and her germophobic little brother, who had quarantined himself up in his room the whole day.
Before they had left, they had told her, “Remember, Andie, there’s leftover soup in the fridge for you and Alexei if you get hungry.”
“We won’t be gone for long.”
“Don’t go outside, and don’t leave your brother alone.”
“And whatever you do…” they both said, “...don’t open the door for anyone.”
Now, Andie wasn’t stupid. This wasn’t her first time being home alone. She was sixteen. But her parents were extremely overprotective, and God forbid their daughter forgot one of the sacred rules of staying home alone and something happened to her, they would never forgive themselves. So every time Andie or her brother were left home alone, they reminded their children of the rules.
As soon as their car pulled out of the garage, Andie got up and checked the locks on the front door. The chain was in place, and the deadbolt was snapped securely to the right, just as it should be. Andie was not paranoid. Just smart.
Before she returned to her spot on the couch, she pressed her eye to the peephole to make sure no one was standing outside. The street was empty, save for a couple people walking their dogs or just taking a stroll. Nothing to be worried about.
Andie sneezed and turned on her heel, heading for the foot of the stairs. She stopped and raised her voice: “Alexeiii! Do you want some soup?” She let out a terrible cough.
A pause. “No, not hungryyy!” her little brother called down the stairs.
She rolled her eyes. Alexei was thirteen, and he had gotten into the habit of not eating if he was so preoccupied with something, such as watching cartoons or doing some nerdy bullshit that Andie couldn’t wrap her mind around. So as the older sister, she also had to be the mother bird and practically feed him herself. “Alexei, you need to eattt!” she yelled.
“But I don’t wannaaa!”
Andie huffed. She had absolutely had it with this kid. She felt like crap, and having to yell up the stairs was only making her head throb with pain. She definitely felt a migraine coming on. She wrapped her blanket tighter around her shoulders and screamed, “Alexei Mikhail Melnikov! If you don’t come down here right now and eat some soup, I am going to sneeze on you and make you so sick that you won’t be able to get out of bed for the whole summer! Is that clear?!”
A scampering of small feet sounded on the stairs. Andie smirked at the fear in her brother’s footsteps. Of course, she wouldn’t really do that. To spoil a little boy’s summer like that would be too cruel, even for her. But she had to say something, otherwise Alexei would’ve starved up in his room.
As Andie watched her brother turn the corner, she rolled her eyes when she caught sight of what he was wearing: a gas mask from their parents’ time, super bulky and industrial grade. It was comical, really, the way her brother cared so much about something so small like a simple cold. But she knew better than to bother him about it. Instead, as she opened the fridge and he sat down at the kitchen counter, she asked him, “So where’d you find that mask? That thing looks vintage.”
“Dad gave it to me,” Alexei replied, his voice mumbled by the plastic. “He said it was from his college days, when that disease was going around.”
“Disease?” Andie chuckled as she ladled equal portions of soup into two bowls, steadying her shoulders to keep the blanket from falling off. “That mask looks like it was designed to survive freaking Chernobyl!”
“You think our parents are hiding something from us?” Alexei cocked his head to the side.
Andie shrugged. She placed the two bowls in the microwave and set the cook time for a minute and a half. “Maybe. But it’s probably for our own good, Alexei.”
“Aren’t you curious?”
Andie crossed her arms and leaned against the counter. “Of course I’m curious. I’ve wanted to know the truth about what happened to them for practically half of my li-Achoo!” Her brother blessed her, and she blew her nose on a stray napkin. “Thank you.” She cleared her sore throat. “But if they’re hiding something from us, there has to be a reason behind it. And if it’s that big of a secret, I’m not so sure I want to know the truth.”
Ding ding ding!
Andie wheeled around. “Well, soup’s on!” She coughed into the crook of her arm before pulling the bowls out of the microwave and placing one in front of Alexei and holding the other in her hands.
Her brother glared up at her. “Are you seriously not going to wash your hands after you just blew your nose?”
Andie glared right back at him. “It’s not like I snot-rocketed. Chill out, kid.”
“That’s still absolutely disgusting.” He crossed his arms in defiance. “The only way I’ll be eating this soup is if you poured it down my throat yourself. I refuse to get sick.”
She squinted at her little brother. “Mom and Dad will kill me if they knew you didn’t eat dinner, you know. Do you want me to die?”
“It’s better than me dying the horrible death of a Victorian child.”
“Alexei-” She lunged for him.
The boy jolted back in his chair and grabbed the bowl of soup, nearly spilling it as he got down. “Okay! Jeez! I’ll eat!” He grabbed a spoon and napkin and ran around his sister to get out of the kitchen. He turned around one last time, safely out of Andie’s firing range. “But if I die of tuberculosis, my ghost will haunt you forever!”
“Alexei!” Andie groaned.
The boy ran up the stairs. “Just kiddinggg!”
Then Andie was alone once more.
She sat down in her brother’s chair and spooned chicken noodle soup into her mouth. She couldn’t taste it one bit, but it warmed her stomach and comforted her. She glanced out the window and watched as the clouds bunched together and turned a sad shade of gray. Finally, an excuse for Andie to stay inside without feeling bad.
As she finished her untastable soup, she stood and began to wash her bowl out in the sink.
Knock knock knock!
Andie lifted her head and sniffed, desperate to blow her nose. “Who could that be?” she said to herself. She set her bowl down in the sink, readjusted the blanket around herself, and trudged into the front foyer.
Andie couldn’t tell who it was, but she noted how heavy the knock sounded. Definitely not a lost little kid. It had to be an adult. Possibly a solicitor, or some college kid advertising their junk-hauling business. She lifted her eye to the peephole…and recoiled at the sight outside.
The tallest man she’d ever seen in her life stood on the porch, tapping his fingers against his folded hands. He gripped a baggy pair of pants in one, barely able to keep them up over his thin frame. And he was pale. So pale. Like a vampire.
Andie clasped a hand over her mouth and began to tiptoe away from the front door. Just pretend you’re not home, she told herself. He’ll go away.
“I know you’re in there,” the pale man crooned. His voice lilted through the wood of the door and carried throughout the house. “You should answer the door. I can hear you breathing in there.”
What the fu-
Andie marched to the front door and replied, despite herself, “Go away, you creep!”
“And why should I?” the man chuckled. Andie watched the peephole once more, and she observed him as he licked his lips with an…ink-black tongue. No, she was making things up. It was just the lighting on the porch. “I haven’t even introduced myself!”
She scoffed. “And who are you, exactly?”
The pale creep smiled, a smile that looked like he had waited for his entire life. It reached up to his ears and showed off all his teeth. Andie’s mouth hung open in fear. “I am a servant of Death, and I’ve been sent to this house for a reason.”
She blinked. “You’re joking, right? What kind of drugs did you smoke before you decided to knock on my door?”
His smile fell; his eyes became dark like black holes. She flinched at the sight. “I don’t joke. I don’t have time for that kind of nonsense, silly girl.”
Are you kidding me?! “Who do you think you are, calling me a silly girl?” Andie yelled. “I am a woman, and you are a man, which means I deserve your respect!”
Not exactly the truth, but Andie had to resort to anything to protect herself and her brother.
“You don’t deserve anything from me. I’m just here to carry out a task, then leave.” He rubbed his hands together maliciously. “Which brings me to what I’m here for. Sooooo…you alone?” He smiled again, that same stupid grin that made a shiver run down Andie’s spine.
She glanced upstairs to her bedroom, where Alexei was. “No,” she hissed. “My brother is in the house with me.” Her eyes narrowed. “So don’t you dare try anything.”
The pale man stared at the door, as if he could see Andie through the wood. “You’re lucky. But I’ll be returning, don’t worryyy…” The man turned and walked down the front steps before disappearing down the street.
Andie let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, punctuated with a cough. She slumped against the door, tugging at the ends of her blanket to gather some warmth.
Who the hell was that?
—
Later, Andie and Alexei’s parents still hadn’t returned. It had been a few hours since they left. Alexei didn’t mind, as he had reached a flow state with his experiments up in his room. To be honest, he didn’t even really notice.
But after the incident with that…pale man earlier that day, Andie had been praying that her parents would come back home practically every second since he had left.
What did he mean by he would be returning? Would he come back when her parents were there, so he could kill them, too? Or maybe he was waiting for her to leave the house, so he could catch her outside and “carry out the task”.
Whatever his intentions were, she wasn’t exactly keen to find out.
After talking to that pale creep, Andie had to admit: she was exhausted. It didn’t exactly help that she also had a dreadful cold, which fatigued her even more. She knew it was her duty to protect her brother and the house while her parents were away, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t fight the way her eyelids drooped lazily. Soon, she had fallen asleep.
She awoke when she heard a slam at the front of the house. She sat up with a jolt. “Alexei?” she called.
There was no answer.
“Alexeiii?” she yelled again, this time louder.
Still no answer.
She stood up from the couch. “Alexei, so help me, don’t make me come up there!”
The house was completely silent.
Andie threw the blanket off of herself and coughed wetly. “Okay, you’ve left me no choice, you little shithead!”
The sister stormed through the kitchen and up the stairs. They creaked with each stomp. The house was old with lots of history, passed down through generations. It had good bones. Andie wasn’t willing to give it up so easily.
She reached her little brother’s bedroom and turned the doorhandle. The door slammed against the wall as the teen searched the room. “Alexei, you answer me this minute!” she screamed.
She tore the sheets off the bed. She opened the closet door. She looked under his cluttered desk. She looked under the bed. But her brother was nowhere to be found.
“ALEXEIII!!!”
Andie flopped down on the bed and let out a coughing sob. She had lost her brother. And there was a maniac on the loose somewhere in the city. What kind of moron did that?
He would probably kill her for going into his room while she was sick.
Then there was a gentle laughter outside. Andie sat up, and her head screamed with pain. She had a migraine for sure. She slid off the bed and pulled back the curtains to look out the window.
There was her brother, standing out in the yard, flying a kite with the biggest smile on his face. The clouds had grown even darker, and Andie could’ve sworn she felt the ground shake with distant thunder.
She reached to open his window so she could call out to him, but then she spotted him.
The man.
He walked right past the boy, who was too preoccupied with his silly experiment to notice the looming threat marching up to the front door. She hid behind the curtain before he could spot her.
Knock knock knock!
“Hellooo?” the man called. “I’m back, little girl!”
Shit.
Andie had no choice but to hide. Clearly, this man wasn’t interested in her brother. He was out for her.
She looked around the room, surveying it. Not under the bed. Under the desk would be too obvious. Maybe the closet…
Then she glanced up, where the trapdoor to the attic was.
It would have to do.
“I know you’re sick,” the man continued. “So vulnerable, barely able to protect yourself. After all, you couldn’t protect your own brother!”
“Crazy lunatic,” Andie muttered to herself as she stood on her tiptoes to press her fingers to the trapdoor. It clicked, and the stairs glided down with a graceful effort. She didn’t have time for grace.
“I know you’re alone. So I think I’ll just let myself in. How does that sound?”
Andie scrambled up the stairs to the attic and slid them back inside just as the pale man kicked down the front door. She crawled around on her hands and knees, searching the junk for a good hiding spot. Boxes and boxes of old trash lined the walls of the attic. It smelled musty and old. She knew the dust would get into her nose.
The man’s footfalls marched through the house, and Andie continued to search. “You know, you’re making this much more difficult than it needs to be,” he called. “You’re quite clever, just like your parents. Never could quite catch them, and that’s saying something.”
Just like my parents? Couldn’t catch them??
Andie’s eyes fell on a corner of the attic where several boxes were stacked up, creating a small fort. She scooted her way towards it and slid the boxes away to make room for herself.
“I’ve never liked hide and seek. Personally, I enjoy a good chase. But hiding…” He clucked his tongue. Andie heard him walk up the stairs, and her chest tightened. “Now that’s an amateur move. And I know you’re no amateur.”
Andie hugged her legs to her chest, praying he wouldn’t think to search the attic. Silent tears fell down her cheeks. A crash of thunder rattled the house, and lightning illuminated the cracks in the window.
“Your parents aren’t telling the truth,” the man said. She knew he was in her parents’ bedroom from where his voice was coming from. “There was a disease, yes, but not a common one that’s talked about today. In fact, the government attempted to cover it up, because they themselves created it! How silly, isn’t it?”
Andie didn’t know if this man was a lunatic, trying to comfort her in some twisted way before he killed her, or if what he was talking about was true. After all, how did he know about the disease? Did he have some supernatural power?
Her mind was reeling with thoughts before she even realized he had stepped into Alexei’s bedroom. When she became aware of his presence, she pressed a hand to her mouth, making it nearly impossible to breathe between that and her stuffed-up nose.
“This disease created me, you know. It created all of us. Visitors, that was our name. They hated us!” The man let out a cackle, and Andie squeezed her eyes shut. “Yes, they said we were dangerous, and we had to be killed. And I suppose that was true. And so, they killed us. Every last one.” A pause. “Except me. Because I’m immortal.”
Andie’s heart dropped as she heard the attic trapdoor swing down. The man’s feet creaked on the wood as he walked up. When he had fully entered the attic, Andie could see him from her box fort. He was much taller when he was only a few feet away. He would almost certainly see her.
“So now my job as Death’s servant is to kill any of those who know the truth. And I know you’re much too curious to keep the truth in the dark.”
He walked around the attic, tapping his long nails against the boxes and haphazardly tipping a few over. Andie flinched at every one. They fell in rhythm with the thunder outside.
Then she felt an itching in her nose. No. No no no no.
“Ready to give up?” the man simpered. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I know you’re up here. I can smell you.”
The itching built. Shit shit shit. Andie inhaled, trying to hold back.
The sensation then left. She almost let out a sigh of relief.
But it returned. And she couldn’t stop it.
“Achoo!”
The man whipped his head around to the tower of boxes. A smile spread over his thin lips. She could see the bloodthirst in his eyes as he stared at her, lightning flickering against them and making them flash animalistically.
“Found you.”