A Cold Murder

• Aaliyah Abou-halka, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2020

It was a cold winter day, outside was raining and hailing. A pretty typical winter in Melbourne. Our oven had broken, and we called the repairman. He fixed it, then things got horrifying.

He had asked to use the bathroom and my little brother showed him it. The thing is, my brother didn’t know why we don’t use that bathroom. I really wish he didn’t show him where it was. He came back. My mother asked him where he went. He said he took the worker to the bathroom. The look on her face made my heart race, because I knew what would happen next, and so did she. She started screaming.
“NO! GET OUT OF THERE! PLEASE GET OUT NOW!” She ran and was banging on any wall she could. We heard a scream, then a thud, then a laugh. We knew what had happened already. We walked so slow it was as if we were walking backwards. I saw a bit through the crack of the door. The floor. It was covered in… blood. My mum opened the door. The entire floor was covered in dark blood. I screamed. I know this happens often, but it always makes me scream. The same thing happened to a plumber, and this is why we didn’t use that bathroom. When the plumber came to fix the bathroom, it had all happened. He would scream, then his body would fall, then we would hear laughing. It had happened too many times. My mother saw the body, said a prayer then shut the door. She put towels at the bottom to stop the blood.
“We need to find out what keeps doing this to people,” I said trying not to cry.
“No, we need to leave it. If we interfere it will take us too, like it took your dad,” her voice was breaking. I hugged her. Our dad was the hero, he ran into the bathroom after the plumber, thinking it was just a person, but no human alive is capable of that.
“Mum we can’t avoid it forever. Eventually it will come out, and we will die. We need to tell someone.” She nodded but I knew she wouldn’t listen. If you were to walk in that bathroom now, you would see all the people who went in there. Not one of them came out alive. My mum was too shocked to do anything. But I don’t care.
“I am sorry mum. I love you,” I said to her and she looked confused. I ran into the bathroom and my mother couldn’t contain her screaming. If I have to die, I would rather die like this. I closed the door behind me. I had expected to see a ghost or creature, but instead I saw something that I did not want to see. I will never be able to undo what I just did. I faced it. That was the biggest mistake I have made in my short life…