Annabelle's Daughter

Tree after tree, road after road. We have been in this car for three days now and I’m hoping to get to this so-called vacation home soon.  My name is Blake, I’m a 15-year-old girl who has just moved to a creepy vacation home in California. My parents recently got a divorce so I have to stay with my mom. Her name is Lily. I have a little brother who goes by the name Karl. He is 11 years old. I also have two step-sisters and one half brother.  “Are we there yet?” Karl asked while sitting up. You could obviously tell that he was tired of being in this stupid car. I think we are all tired of being in this car though, “Yes, we are. I just don't know if you will like the place we're staying at” Said my mom while pulling into a long driveway. When we got up to the house, you could tell that it wasn’t a bad house, but it didn’t look like a good house either.  There were cracks all over the sides of the house, and it looked like the roof could cave in at any moment in time. The house is also the only house for miles. It is surrounded by trees. It is not just in the middle of nowhere, it is in the middle of a forest where no one else even tries to go. I went inside the house looking for the best room to be able to sleep in but they all seemed to be in terrible shape. There was one room that I liked though.   It had dark green wallpaper and it was already furnished. The bed was the only thing that I was worried about. “Do you want this room?” My mom asked. I responded with, “Yea, I like the way it smells”. I don’t know why I said that, it smelled like a mixture of different candles burned onto the carpet. Since I already said I wanted it, I had to sleep in it.  On my way downstairs, I saw a part in the wall that was practically torn off so I tried to pull at it, “You realize we are only going to be here for the summer, right?” My little brother said, “Oh jezus, you scared me” I said while stepping away from the wall. “Can we play hide and seek?” my brother then asked, “Why?” I responded while trying to get around him, “Because I’m bored, and there's nothing to do.” My brother said again, “ Fine, I’ll count” I said while turning to the wall again.  I heard his footsteps go down the stairs, then I started counting, “1,2,3,” I turned around after counting to 100 and started looking for him. “Ready or not, here I come” I said while walking down the stairs. I looked under the beds, I looked behind the couches too, but I couldn't find him. One thing that did scare me was the basement. My mom said not to go down there. But the door was open. I didn’t think that he would have gone down there, so I closed the door and went to look outside.  It has now been an hour of looking for him and I'm starting to get worried. That’s when I went back inside to go tell my mom that I had lost Karl. But before I found her, I saw that the door to the basement was open again, “Karl, this isn’t funny! Mom said not to go down here” I yelled. There was no response.  I sighed and started walking down the stairs to the basement, but as I got closer to the bottom of the stairs, I realized that the door was closing behind me. I ran back up the stairs hoping to not get locked in and I put a brick in front of the door.  I started walking down the stairs again and I got to the bottom. I just don’t understand why we weren’t allowed to come down here, it was amazing.  There were boxes filled with decorations, and furniture covered in plastic. Kinda like how it would look if someone had just moved in. There was a sudden breeze that made me feel cold, except, not a light cold. I felt like I was going to freeze. I heard a whisper and I turned around. I saw Karl standing by a small doll with beautiful red hair and startling blue eyes. “Karl?” I called out, “Come on, we're not supposed to be down here” I said while leaning forward to grab his arm, “Don't touch me!” Karl screamed while going closer to the doll. “It’s a very pretty doll, I can ask mom if we can keep it” I then said, startled by his words. “No! She doesn’t want your dirty hands to touch her!” He said while grabbing her out of the glass case she was in.  “Karl, I don’t think you should do that. Mom told us not to come down here for a reason”, I said while making him drop the doll, “No! You can not control me! You are nothing!” He then yelled at me while reaching down to grab the doll again.  I could hear him muttering to himself, and it was starting to get creepy. “Fine! You don’t want to listen to me, so I'll just go tell mom!” I yelled back at him, “Mom! Karl’s not listening, and he opened the basement door!” After I said that, Karl started to scream, “Mom! Mom! Help!” I screamed while grabbing Karl.  I jumped back when he started to float, like he was being possessed.  My mom then came running down and saw Karl floating, “What did you do!” My mom asked while yelling at me, “Nothing, I don’t know what happened”, I said while stepping back.  Karl was crying as he was floating, then all the sudden he was screaming again, except he wasn’t just screaming. The doll that he brought out of the case was now standing on its own.  “Mom” I whispered, “Mom!” “What!” She said while looking at me.  I couldn’t even say anything, so I just pointed.  “What are you pointing at?” She said while trying to look at where my finger was pointing. When she saw what it was she backed up, “How is that doll standing?” She asked, “You wanna know what? I’m going to go call someone, ok? I’ll be back” She said while walking up the stairs.  Once my mom finished walking up the stairs I fell to my knees and started crying. How could my little brother just be hanging there in the air? Finally he was dropped, but something grabbed him and he was being dragged to the back of the basement. Except it looked like something was dragging a lifeless body down the stairs of a 20 floor apartment. There was blood everywhere, and that was from when he hit his head on the stone cold concrete. “Mom!” I started to scream as I saw the trail of blood, “Mom! Help!” I screamed again waiting for a response.  Unfortunately for me there was no response and soon after I was forced out of the basement with a strong wind.  Even though I could barely walk I went to go look for my mother but just like my brother, she disappeared. I didn’t want to disappear but that house seemed to be the only house in this lonely world.  I tried to sleep and I kept telling myself they were just in the room next door but I couldn’t get the thought out of my head that they were dead. I then heard a knock at the door and someone whispering my name, “Blakeee?” it said in a quiet but high pitched voice, “Mom?” I said jumping out my bed and running towards the voice, but when I opened the door it was definitely not my mom. In fact it was that creepy doll that my brother had earlier, “Ok? What type of sick joke is this? Karl, where are you! This isn’t funny no more!” I said while kicking the doll, “Oh sissy, I’m right here” It said.  That wasn’t Karl though, Karl didn’t have such a high-pitched voice. I tried running out of the house but was tripped by a piece of wallpaper, “You stupid house! What is wrong with you! What did you do to my brother, or my mother!” I screamed as tears ran down my face, “I just want my brother back.” It’s been days without a trace of either my mom or my brother, but I just couldn’t help thinking, “what if they were right here the whole time.”  As the thought of that went through my mind, I jumped up from the bed and started my way downstairs. From the lack of attention the house was getting made it a mess, there was dust everywhere and even a couple of bugs on the dark red carpet. I know that me causing a mess wasn’t going to help anything, but I didn’t just want to think that they got lost somewhere in the forest surrounding our house. Just think about it, the forest seemed like it went on for miles, probably because it did. But they were my everything, even if I acted like I didn’t care about them. I couldn’t make it on my own, how could I? I’m 15 for god's sake!