Halloween Special: No one Lives Here

 

Sonya

The restless Autumn wind came in whistling through the leaking windows. Raindrops ran down in little streams into the cold kitchen from the holes in the roof. All the windows were covered with thick black curtains that secluded us from the world outside. I took a look at Patrick who was resting on the moldy living room couch and after making sure he was asleep, I dared to pull the curtain back and peek out. Even though, it was only six o’clock in the evening, the surrounding forest was pitch-black. Far in the distance, behind the tree trunks, I saw lights in the darkness. I knew they were candles burning inside our neighbor’s jack-o’-lanterns. I would have like to put a lantern outside our cabin as well but I knew Patrick would never allow me to do that. We were suppose to be hidden from the world, disappeared, drowned in the bottom of a great lake. No one was to know that any living soul nested in this 1800’s shack. No one lived here, so they believed, and that was for the best for us. I took an old brass bucket and placed it under yet another leaking hole. I wished I could at least fix the roof or burn some wood to warm the place up as it was freezing. I went to the living room, took a sheep’s hide and pulled it up to cover my sleeping son so he would not get cold. It was too small to reach the stern, robust body of a twenty-five-year-old from head to toe.

Only ten minutes later someone knocked on the door. I felt my heart stop. No one could know we were here. During the eleven months we had spent in the cabin, no one had come near to it. Was the police on to us? I felt nauseous. I peeked out between the curtains and sighed in relieve: there were two little children standing in the wooden porch, no older than ten, I guessed, with Halloween costumes on and tiny baskets full of candy dangling from their hands. I knew I was not supposed to open the door but I could not resist. They were little children, no little children could harm us.

Carlton

“No one lives there”, Carlton told Max who was already running through the overgrown forest trail towards the abandoned shack. Carlton could not make up his mind whether to follow his friend or not. Max disappeared into the darkness and suddenly Carlton got scared standing there all alone. He ran after his friend yelling:

“Wait for me, Max!”

Carlton recalled that the shack had stood there forever. No one had been living there for decades, Carlton’s mom had told him once. She had explained that years ago local teenagers trashed the place and before that, when Carlton’s mom was his age, satanists used the place to perform rituals. Carlton was not sure if he believed the story but he definitely did not want to go near the damn hovel. Carlton and Max had visited all the houses in their area but Max was still hungry for more and wanted to be absolutely sure there was no one in that shack that could offer them candy.

“Ew, the place is creepy, let’s go back”, Carlton begged but Max’s eyes were sparkling in the subtle, pale moonlight as he was mesmerized.

“There is a witch living here, for sure!” Max yelled in excitement and jumped on to the wooden porch. The old and decayed wood swayed under his shoes and Carlton was afraid it would crack.

“No there isn’t, don’t be stupid. I already told you, no one lives here”, Carlton answered frustrated but Max knocked on the door, nonetheless. A moment passed. In the silence of the forest, the rain drummed against the metal roof. Carlton was holding an umbrella that was constantly pulled by the wind. His sneakers as well as his socks had gotten wet while running on the mossy forest trail. Max had no umbrella of his own and his dark, wet hair hung glued to his big, pale forehead. His blue eyes gleamed in the dim moonlight.

Then Carlton noticed something moving in the corner of his eye.

“Did you see? Someone was at the window!” Max shouted and knocked again. The wooden door opened in the middle of him knocking. It made a creak. In the doorway stood an old woman with short, blond hair and a tired face. She must be at least fifty, the same age as my mom, Carlton thought. The woman had opened the door just enough so she could peek outside.

“Trick or treat!” Max yelled. Carlton felt frozen. He stared at the woman suspiciously. No one was suppose to live here, he repeated to himself in his mind.

“Oh my, you look so cute! A skeleton and what are you? A monster? I’m so sorry, I don’t have any candy but wait a second...” The woman said and closed the door. She had not recognized Carlton’s green Hulk costume and that disappointed the boy.

“What did I say! She’s definitely a witch!” Max giggled and Carlton lift his finger to his lips nervously. Right then the door opened again.

“My apologies, this is all I have”, the woman said while offering two bruised and brown oranges to the boys. How miserable, Carlton thought but took the fruit anyway. The woman smiled pleased.

Sonya

“How can you be so reckless, mother! Do you want me to go to jail?!” Patrick yelled all red and hit the kitchen table with his fist. I hated confrontation but I tried my best to stay calm.

“They were little children, Patrick. They will tell no one or even if they do, no one will think anything of it. Children tell stories all the time. No one cares if there’s someone living in a cabin in the woods”, I explained to him.

“Children precisely tell everyone, they gossip! And then some parent gets worried and comes snooping around. And when they recognize us, the police is gonna be here in that instant and I will be thrown in to jail! I can’t believe you put us in danger! Don’t you understand how it would be for me to be in jail for child murder? I would be beaten to death!” Patrick screamed.

“I don’t want that, honey. Besides, you’re innocent and we’re gonna prove that one day”, I told him calmly.

“No we are not. We didn’t before. And even thought they had no proof that I was guilty, they we’re still ready to judge me. People want to see me hurt, mom. Don’t ever open the door to anybody again, promise me!”

“I promise. I’m sorry, honey”, I said sincerely. Patrick sighed in anger and left the kitchen. There was no place to escape in the cabin though, as it only had three little rooms: a kitchen, a living-room and an alcove.

I felt bad for Patrick. I believed my son was innocent to the crime everyone wanted to blame on him without proper evidence. It had been a brutal murder of a young boy that lived in our neighborhood at that time. I remember how the boy was stabbed to death, full of holes like that, he reminded a voodoo doll. It had been a true hate crime by the looks of it. He had been stabbed several dozen times and there was so much blood. Patrick found the body and immediately came to tell me. I was the one who called the police. I could not have ever imagined that Patrick would be blamed for the killing. Patrick’s fingerprints were all over the scene but I thought it was obvious since he had been first at the scene. There was no real evidence. Patrick was an easy one to blame though, as he was not a bright boy. Even when he had been little, he always struggled to keep up with everyone else.

The police thought that Patrick’s motive was the fact that the victim had spread a rumor that I was having an affair. It was all nonsense as Patrick would never be so petty that he could murder someone over such a little thing. Patrick was nineteen at the time and the victim, Thomas, was thirteen. The police and the media made Patrick look guilty from the very beginning, trying to paint as bad of a picture of him as possible. The trials lasted two years. During that time my husband suffered a heart attack and died. Maybe that was a relieve compared to what we endured in the following years.

It seemed likely that Patrick was gonna go to jail for a crime he did not commit. So we came up with a plan. We staged our deaths. I made sure every detail was taken into consideration: weeks prior we talked to our friends and family about suicidal thoughts we were having. We wrote a note explaining why we felt a need to end our lives together. Then we rode the car to a near by lake and made everything indicate that we had drowned ourselves into the freezing water. The lake was huge and deep and I was well aware that the police had no resources to search the whole body of water. As months passed by, our demise seemed to satisfy the media and people started to believe in the story. Newspapers stopped writing about us. We lived in abandoned buildings, stayed on the move, constantly traveling but only during nighttime. Eleven months ago we found this little cabin that seemed like a perfect hiding place. Even though, the nearest neighbor was at a seeing distant, we made sure no one ever saw any movement inside. In the safety of the darkness of the night, we hunted little animals and went through the neighbors’ trash. That was how we got enough food to keep ourselves alive.

I do not know what came into me, why did I open the door for the children. I had felt isolated and lonely for such a long time, I guess. And I loved children, always had. I did not think anything bad could come out of it. Was I wrong? I pulled the curtain back and watched how the first snowflakes rained down in an otherwise black night. They looked like white flowers. Winter was coming and soon we would not be safe here anymore. The snow would reveal our footprints and it would bury us and the cabin under a cold blanket.

Carlton

The feather-light first snow glistened in the sun showcasing all the colors of the rainbow. It was truly amazing how fast the Autumn’s pitch-black darkness had turned into a Winter’s bright whiteness.

“I dropped my keys last night, lost them. I guarantee you they’re somewhere in the forest around that witch’s shack”, Max told while the boys were making a big pile of snow with little shovels.

“Was your mom mad?” Carlton asked.

“Sure, she was. But I’m gonna go back there to find my keys. Of course the snow has covered everything but maybe that woman found them and she’s holding on to them or something. Or I could ask her to keep her eyes open, just in case”, Max explained.

“You want to come with me?” Max asked then. Carlton did not. He wanted to decline the offer but he did not like the idea of Max returning to that place alone. The woman could indeed be a witch. She could throw Max into a cauldron or cast a spell turning him into a frog. So Carlton answered:

“Yeah. I’ll go with you.”

Sonya

I was taking a nap at the time. My throat felt sore and I was so cold, I thought I might be getting sick and tried to rest. I was wearing three quilts and these, ragged, dirty, old woolen socks that I had found in the shed. I was freezing regardless. I was half asleep when I heard someone scream. I jumped up and dropped the quilts to the floor. I ran the few steps to the kitchen and saw Patrick standing there, an angry expression on his face and a knife in his hand.

“Those bloody kids are back! I told you so! They recognized us and came back to snoop around!” Patrick hissed at me with a coldness in his voice.

“Why are you holding a knife?” I asked shivering. I felt nauseous.

“We can’t let them go, they’re witnesses, mom. You don’t want me to go to jail, do you?” Patrick said in a voice that made me tremble in fear.

“What are you talking about, Patrick. They’re just children, for God’s sake! Give me the knife. I’ll talk to them”, I begged him but something inside me warned me. The old feelings of doubt, I had tried to avoid and forget all these years, came back to me suddenly. I reached my hand towards my son. Then, someone knocked on the door.

“Mom. Go back to the other room”, Patrick ordered me and took a step towards the door.

“No, don’t!” I yelled and launched at him but he pushed me aside effortlessly. I tripped and hit my head in the cabinet, hard.

“You should’ve listened to me, mom”, I heard Patrick’s voice telling me. The whole world was black for a while, my ears were ringing. I heard how the door was opened and then this, inhuman, high-pitched screaming. Slowly my sight came back and the world stopped spinning so that I could make out what I was looking at. My son was bend down next to a little boy’s body. The boy’s dark hair was stained with red blood and the lifeless blue eyes stared straight at me, blind. Everywhere was so much blood, oh God how much blood. Patrick had stabbed the boy repeatedly, shredding him into pieces. The tears of horror rose to my eyes and blurred my vision.

“You really did do it”, I whispered crying.

It Grows In Me Part II

I can not remember much about the police station. I spent the whole night there. Aunt Regina came there too. She was hugging me and telling me, it’s gonna be alright but I saw the pain in her eyes. She was devastated. Her calming words were meant for herself more than to console me.

I spoke with a teddy-bear-looking older officer with a huge belly and a tall stature. I immediately understood why they had sent him to talk me. He was like the perfect father figure. He asked questions about my mom and I tried to answer the best I could. He told me that the police were forced to shoot my mom because she had been pointing a gun at them. She was in the hospital, in intensive care. Rest of my family was dead. I could not quite grasp it yet. I just wanted to get out of there. Half of the time I was not even listening to him, I was spacing out. My mind was numb, empty.

“...I’m sorry about your brother. He tried to escape but your mom shot him twice in the stairs”, I heard the policeman say. Garry. His name was Garry, I remembered.

“Danny?” I whispered in disbelief. Imagining his lifeless, oddly misshapen body lying at the bottom of the steps. Garry the policeman looked at me and shook his head.

“I believe his name was Jacob?” He said and the look on his face troubled me.

“Oh, Jacob… Poor Jacob”, I said and sniffed. The picture in my head changed.

“Please. Can I go now? I’m really tired”, I asked. I saw Garry’s expression soften and he smiled compassionately.

“Of course, Ms. Richmond. Yes you can. Your aunt will take care of you, for now”, he told.

Mom died two days later. I was in pieces, trying to understand what had happened and why. I had not talked to aunt Regina about it, I could not. And she did not pressure me. That night I opened my mouth, though.

“I think… Maybe I should find mom’s parents and go see them”, I told aunt Regina as we sat down for dinner. I was not hungry and I kept swirling the spoon in the soup.

“I think that would be for the best”, she answered to my surprise. I had never desired to meet my grandparents before but now I was having a hard time to understand my mother.

“I just can’t get the image of poor Danny shot dead out of my head”, I said quietly. I still saw him lying on the bottom of the stairs, even though, I knew it had been Jacob who was shot there.

“Beth… I know your mom was sick. I fought many times with my brother about it. Your mom needed professional help. My brother should have arranged for that. Now, I don’t want you to get the same way as your mother. You need to get out of your head and focus on what’s real, do you understand? I’m not gonna play along anymore. Your mother’s gone, so is my brother, I don’t own anything to them anymore. You’re in my house and I want you to drop the crazy talk.” I stared at her In disbelief. How could she talk to me like that? I just lost my family. I stood up and shook my head.

“You… You never liked mom. I thought that maybe you had a good reason but I see, you’re just cold-hearted.” I walked right out the door.

I found my grandparents. I agreed to meet them in their house. It turned out to be a luxurious mansion. I could not help thinking that we had never had much money even though, my mom’s parents were clearly very wealthy. I knocked on the black wooden doors and a minute later they opened. My grandmother, a gracefully aged, blond woman, opened the door smiling. She looked so welcoming, so warm. She hugged me tight and for some reason that brought tears in to my eyes. She lead me to a spacious, bright living-room and sat me down on the old, vintage couch.

“Your grandpa will be here later”, she informed me smiling. She was very beautiful but did not resemble my mother much.

We talked and little by little I started to get a very different picture of my mom.

“Your mother, Janine was only two-years old when she started insisting she could talk to the dead”, my grandmother explained.

“You mean her imaginary friends?”

“Yes. They were… Some of them caused her to turn very violent. She was… Extremely sick. She was home schooled because of that. And saw a specialist once a week. She had only one friend, the neighbor’s boy, Steve, who was only a year younger. They spent time here together often. I never saw it coming. But then… When Janine was sixteen, she was getting increasingly restless. She ran off many times. The police always found her though. She and the neighbor’s Steve, I think they had a romantic relationship but I was never quite sure. Anyway. One day we came home and… Steve was lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairway. He was covered in blood, his body twisted horribly. He was dead. He had fallen. We thought it was an accident, for sure but a week later Janine told us, she had pushed Steve down the stairs”, grandmother started crying gently. She sniffled and carried on:

“She had… Mmm… In her own words, saved Steve. There was an evil spirit who had tried to enter Steve, take over him, his body. And Janine had firmly believed that the only way to save Steve was for him to die. So, she killed him… We kept the secret from the police in order to protect Janine. We put her into a facility so she could get treatment. There were many good doctors there, so we hoped that she would get better. But she didn’t and when she turned eighteen, she left the facility and never talked to us again. Your father, he had met her during the time that she was in that place. You see, your father was a nurse in there back then. They fell in love. Even though, Janine wanted nothing to do with us, your father wrote a letter to us once a month. Just to let us know what was going on. He told us that Janine had a personality disorder, she had delusions. But he was convinced that she would do better in a safe, secluded environment. That we should play along with her delusions. I don’t know, I… I kept doubting. I wasn’t sure your father was right. But Janine wanted nothing to do with us, so we just read the letters and hoped she would some day come back to us.”

“I can’t believe my dad knew how sick she was and didn’t get help for her!” I yelled in anger.

“She was terrified of doctors. They did something to her in the facility, I’m not sure what. And your father tried to protect her the best he could”, grandmother answered in a sad voice.

“But it was not enough! He should’ve done more!” I kept going. Tears ran to my face.

“I can’t stop seeing the little, sweet Danny lying in a pool of blood, shot down by his own mother. The poor, defenseless Dan. How could she? Why dad didn’t help her more?! Why didn’t I...”

“Bethany. What did you say?” Suddenly grandmother looked scared.

“Bethany, you do know that Daniel died a year ago?” She whispered.

“What? What are you talking about? No, he didn’t”, I shook my head and stared at her in anger.

“Yes, he did. We attended the funeral. He was so sick since birth. He had so many problems with his intestines and he’s weak, little heart. He died of a heart failure a year ago. Your father came to meet us, to tell us. He told us, Janine, your mother, she would not accept it. That she kept seeing the dead Daniel, she kept talking to him, taking care of him. But your father didn’t see him at all. He played along but he was worried because you kids were getting sucked up into your mother delusions. And your father didn’t know how to tell you the truth.”

“No, no. That’s not possible. Danny was sick, yes, but he recovered. You’re mistaken.”

“Your mother didn’t want to have a funeral. She kept repeating that Daniel was not gone. She refused to accept the truth. We had a small funeral for Daniel, your father, my husband and I.”

I stared at her in disbelief, my whole life was crumbling down like a line of dominoes set to fall.

“Bethany, dear. I think you should see a doctor. You know, mental illness like this can be hereditary. I don’t want to see you end up like your mother.”

My head hurt. My ears were ringing so loud, I could not hear her. I was sure I was getting a migraine.

It Grows In Me Part I

It was at 4 am in the morning on my tenth birthday when my life changed forever. That was the day when I realized how naive and childish I had been for all my life. How ignorant. I had always known my mom was not like other mothers, I had always known she was special. But never had I understood that she was more mentally sick than just quirky. I never saw the tragedy coming.

She never left home. My dad kept her secluded from the world, ‘to keep her safe,’ he always said. And mom never complained about that. She loved being a stay-at-home mom. She cooked and tended to her garden all day long, she loved cleaning and especially ironing. She never left the home apart from going to the market once or twice a month with dad to get groceries. During winter, she would get restless because of the snow and the cold. She would start a new hobby, making model airplanes, playing a new instrument, knitting, whatever. She would stay occupied with that for a few weeks, then get bored and move on to something else. But she never asked to leave the house and she never longed to see other people except her family.

And her imaginary friends, of course. She had many odd habits that I found quite attractive, actually. She was sweet and naive, very empathetic. She used to talk to household appliances. I found that a cute quality. She would ask the oven what she should prepare for a meal and she would thank the radiator on cold mornings. She would ask the radio politely to help her find the right frequency and she would feel bad for the stopped wooden grand-father clock in the living-room.

“You’re feeling a little slow today, my friend? Let me help you, dear. Here you go. Now you’re happy again,” she would tell the clock as she was winding it.

Then there were the imaginary friends no one else could see. There was Mr. Peterson, the old gardener, Mrs. Donald who was a librarian and young Bobby, a little orphan boy. There were others as well. When I was very little, I never thought that there was anything weird about my mom having some imaginary friends. It was not until I started going to school, when I was seven years old, that I realized not everyone’s mom talked to invisible people. That was when I felt embarrassed for my mom the first time in my life. I never invited any of my school friends to our house, just because I was afraid, they would laugh at my mom, make fun of her and think she was crazy.

And she was, to be honest. My dad used to tell me, that mom was sick and that was why we had to take good care of her and protect her. He always kept telling that. But I never thought mom was actually crazy, just a little different, just a little sick but not much. She was like a child in a way that she always spoke what was on her mind, uncensored. She could be brutally honest and when she got mad, her tongue was sharp like a shard of hard, cold ice. And she was sensitive as well. Sometimes, she would get offended by the littlest things. For example, if I did not finish my meal, she would feel sad that her food was not good enough. And once she felt that way, it was no use telling her that the food was good, I just felt full. She would get sad and then mad. I hated that. But she would get over it as fast as she got mad and a few minutes later she would had already forgotten the incident completely.

I stayed home many times, skipping school because my dad asked me to take care of mom. You see, she had bad days, when she got really depressed and stayed in bed almost the whole day. Dad was worried about her and asked me to stay at home, cook for my little brother and watch over mom. My brother Jacob had started school at six and needed no babysitter anymore but Danny was just four-years old and disabled. He was able to move by himself, although his legs were a little twisted. He spoke in an broken language, making up own words and it was sometimes really hard to understand what he tried to say. He needed a lot of care and help. He had tantrums and he constantly made me lose my temper by acting purposely difficult but when he was playing nice, he was the sweetest little boy. I loved him dearly. And mom did too, she usually took extremely good care of Danny, to the extent Jacob and I felt just a tiny bit less loved. But that was okay since Danny had special needs.

All the quirky features my mom had were explained by dad by telling she was just sick. Dad never told us much but he said that mom had been sick from birth, like Danny, and that her parents never understood her sickness. She had been treated badly and something really dramatic had happened when mom was little. Dad never told me what exactly and I did not care to know. I did not want to hear about anything bad that had happened to my beloved mom as I kept seeing her as my hero, a survivor. I was very protective of her. I never met mom’s parents, my grandparents, but that was alright. I had gotten the impression that they were not nice people. My dad’s parents lived in another country, I had met them only once in my life. My dad’s sister, my aunt Regina, however, lived close-by and I saw her once a month. She was nice and polite but I knew she did not like my mom. And the feeling was mutual.

During that winter, mom had been unusually restless and depressed. When the spring came and my tenth birthday got closer, I started talking to her and dad that I would like to have a birthday party since it was a really important age to reach. My dad immediately turned down the idea and mom said nothing. Dad had the last say in our family. I begged him for days, weeks.

“Daaaad! Please. I’ve never had a birthday party, I’ve never had friends over, please let me have this. I will buy us chips and candy with my own money and we will watch a movie and that’s it. We will not bother mom. Please!”

“I said no. That is my final answer”, he said calmly. I got mad.

“I hate you! Everyone else gets to have a party, I can never have anything nice because of mom!”

“Young Ms. Bethany Joselyn Richmond! You will not talk about your mother like that. And I don’t care about everyone else. You are my daughter and I forbid it, that’s that, end of discussion.” Tears ran to my cheeks.

“I hate you! You and mom both!” I yelled and ran upstairs to my room and kicked the door shut.

I was mad at my parents and it did not help that mom was feeling worse day after day. I was not able to attend school for a week and I felt lonely. Mom was upset more than ever before, having migraines and spending most of the time sleeping. I heard her talking to her imaginary friends.

“I don’t know who he is, but he’s bad, very bad. My family isn’t safe. He comes at night. I need to protect my family”, she whispered into the corner of the kitchen while cooking. She did not notice me standing in the doorway, she did not know I heard everything. I got increasingly worried and tried to talk to my dad.

“You know she has her special friends, don’t you worry about that. I will keep mom safe. You don’t have anything to worry”, he said stroking his chin. I saw through him and realized that something was wrong. He seemed troubled even though he tried to hide it. We did not talk again.

I woke up at nights as mom was screaming. She was having nightmares. Some nights, I heard noise from downstairs and when I went to see what was going on, I found my mom sleepwalking. It did not scare me as that had happened many times when I was younger. I just made sure, she did not hurt herself and waited until she went back to bed. ‘You are not supposed to wake a sleepwalker’, dad had taught me.

Thinking about it all now, I should have been more worried. Mom was really sick but we all kind of belittled her symptoms. I felt angry that dad had not taken mom to see a doctor. At the same time I knew, she would never had agreed to that as she was terrified of doctors.

It was the morning of my birthday. I woke up at 4 am as I thought I heard something. I had to go really bad and I started making my way to the bathroom, located in the very end of the long upstairs hallway. I went inside, did my business and washed my hands. I was just drying them up when I heard it. A gunshot. I jumped and dropped the woolen towel on the floor. I did not understand what had happened. My heart was pounding.

Then another shot. And a third one. I was shaking uncontrollably. I heard my mom shouting far away:

“Beth! Oh Bethany! Come here! Don’t be afraid, it’s mommy!” I froze to my place. I looked at the door and realized it was not locked. My legs were not moving.

“Bethany, where are you?” Mom yelled, now closer. I forced myself to take the two steps to the door and locked it. It clicked loudly. Silence followed. Then I heard her again:

“Beth, darling. Are you in the bathroom?” I started hearing footsteps closing in. I backed against the wall and dropped to my knees. I hold my hand in front of my mouth so she could not hear me breathing.

“Oh honey”, I heard her. She was right behind the door now. She tried the handle and I saw it moving up and down. I started wailing in horror. I had heard three shots. I counted in my head; dad, Jacob, Danny…

“Bethany. Don’t be afraid, dear. I’m saving you. I’m saving us all. Come here and we can be together. You have nothing to be afraid of”, mom lured me. Part of me wanted to believe that there was a misunderstanding and I should open the door. I would be safe with mom. But another part of me warned me, she was not mom... She was not my mom but she was something more sinister.

It went on what seemed like a forever. She was gently talking to me through the door, calming me down. I sat on the floor and cried. Then I got up, ready to opened the door to her as I heard someone breaking in downstairs and running up the stairs.

“Police!” I heard them yelling several times.

“Drop the gun, Mam! Drop the gun and put your hands up! Now!” I heard them shout right outside the bathroom door. Then a gunshot.

I heard a body tumble against the door.

“MOM!” I yelled in panic. I opened the lock and a policeman stepped inside in that instant.

“Don’t come. We don’t want you to see this. It’s alright, it’s alright”, he said quickly and kept me there by force. I tried to fight him fierce. I was crying and it took a minute to realize I was screaming too. My mouth was open and I was screaming in high-pitched voice. It was not my voice, I remember thinking. After that everything was blurry....