Short Story Spotlight: Almost Over

Who am I kidding? Horror is totally my thing!

This story, Almost Over, was written for Round 2 of the 2023 NYC Midnight 500-word Fiction Challenge in which I finished in 5th place for my group, making it through to the final. While I wait to hear how I did with my final submission, enjoy my Round 2 entry.

My assignment was as follows:

• Genre: Horror
• Action: Washing hand(s)
• Object: Wallpaper
• Word limit: 500

I have made no edits to the original contest submission and, as always, feedback is welcome.

Almost Over

Rushing water erupts. My eyes fly open. Despite everything, I’d fallen asleep.

“It’s only the toilet,” I whisper. My heart stops anyway when Aunty turns on the faucet. I don’t call out. I know what she’ll say.

“Monsters are not real, Annalise.”

“Be a big girl. Move on.”

“Go to sleep!”

The house darkens and stills. My terror grows. Any remnants of hope are stifled when the floorboards begin to creak.

Footsteps. Not Aunty’s. Not anyone’s.

My eyes are fixed firmly on the wall between me and the bathroom. It is covered in the most ridiculous wallpaper, flowers in every shade of pink. Mother said we’d change it when we moved in, but. . .

Creak. Creak.

I listen to the slow steps as they draw closer, and then to the scratching fingernails dragging at the bathroom door.

I should stay in bed, but the need to see outweighs my fear. My bare feet land quietly on the carpet. I sneak towards my own half-open door and peek around the doorframe.

There it stands with its long, auburn hair, matted with dirt. Mother’s muddy blue burial dress hangs loosely on its frame.

It’s not Mother. It just looks like her.

But I can never resist the urge to see.

Suddenly, its head turns, and I see its face. Mother’s face. Blue eyes, laugh wrinkles, red lips.

Not Mother’s smile.

The face is split in an impossibly huge grin that stretches from ear-to-ear. I can see flashes of jawbone and loosely dangling pieces of flesh.

Stifling a cry, I slam the door and dive for my bed.

Nothing lunges at me. Nothing grabs at the covers. As my thudding heart quiets, I hear the nails again, busy at their task.

Eventually, the bathroom door opens. Muffled footsteps. Hideously long nails scrabbling at the faucet. Running water. Desperate scrubbing.

“Almost over,” I say to myself.

It can never glow like Mother, never be clean, no matter how hard it tries.

The water stops. The moonlight filters through the curtains illuminating the pink flowers.

A nail shoots through the wallpaper, unhindered by the wall that should lie behind it.

“Almost over,” I whimper.

The nail drags downwards, leaving a gash that has grown longer every night. Every night the wallpaper tears, every morning it heals.

I wait desperately for the tearing to stop.

It doesn’t. The tear grows longer than ever before. The gash reaches the skirting board. It pauses, and then, with a screech, it rips through that too.

“Annalise.” Mother’s voice, but not Mother’s tone.

Two filthy, clawed hands reach through the wallpaper and fling it apart like a gauzy curtain.

Watery blue eyes stare at me above its terrible grin. Behind it is blackness, a sucking, empty void.

I cannot move. My body is frozen and my face wet with tears.

It leans forward. My chest tightness painfully. I gasp, but there’s no air.

“Almost over, Annalise,” it says.  “It’s your turn.”