The teenage sisters walked through the acre of woodland opposite their house on their way to school like they did every week day.
Today though, they never made it.
The sisters vanished without a trace and nobody could find out what had happened to them.
(Prompt from; https://promptuarium.wordpress.com/2019/03/09/missing-sisters/ with thanks).
Courtney turned the page, ready to find out how the novel ended but there was nothing but blankness. Turning back, she re-read the last lines which were not the finish. Flipping the page, she found it still blank. She cried out and tossed the book away, never to know what had happened.
I held the last photo of the ship, The Blue Royal, taken before it had sunk under stormy waves in my hands. You could barely make out the black shape of the ship against the grey sky and sea. The photo had been taken some distance away, on another ship, The Blue Princess, by a passenger wanting to capture the storm.
I knew the full history of both ships, not though interested but family history. My great aunt’s twin cousins, Lily and Rose, had been on board The Blue Royal on a cruise for their sixteenth birthday. The storm had hit the ship hard, capsized it and caused sixty-two people to drown. Twenty-eight bodies, including Lily and Rose’s were never found.
My great aunt had kept a keepsake box of them and now she’d gone, the box belonged to me. Inside were; letters, postcards, little china animals, a small china face doll, a bible and some small books. I felt a strange chill touching this stuff. I had never known these cousins.
Holding their items made me want to know more though. What had their lives and deaths been like?
I could only imagine.
Introduction
My name is Bobby Wallbank. I’m a security guard for a company that buys up old buildings and land to do them up into housing, offices and shops. I’m use to the strange goings on in the night. All my life I’ve been able to ‘see’ and ‘sense’ the supernatural. The gift has always run in my family and many have made good use of it. My gran was a witch, my mother a healer, a second cousin a medium. I decided I needed normality, but sometimes I can’t ignore the gift.
I keep a diary each year of the strange things I’ve seen/sensed either on CCTV cameras or my own eyes. I like to tab favourite pages; the supernatural happens I like the most and were rare.
Friday 27th January 2017. 2:37 am.
A shopping trolley which had been laying on it side in the back car park for five hours started appearing and disappearing about four times before totally vanishing. The camera froze soon after. Went out to check and there was no sign of the trolley. Camera started working again soon after.
Wednesday 1st March 2017. 3:56 am.
Saw a man dressed in a suit hurrying down the street. He suddenly disappeared beside a wall. Couldn’t find no trace of him on any of the cameras. Rewinding the footage, couldn’t see the man again. I know he was there though. He had been wearing a strange hat and carrying a briefcase.
Thursday 20th April 2017, 1:09 am.
For half an hour a cat was seemingly fighting with something invisible. Had complete camera coverage. The cat was acting aggressive and defensive, it didn’t seem to be playing. Cat ran off. Went to inspect and had strange creepy feeling of being watched. Felt something breathing on me. Walked around to shake it off before returning to office. Was on edge for the rest of the shift.
Monday 15th May 2017, 4:46 am.
Was walking around when heard moaning from a locked room. Got in and saw nothing. On leaving the room, felt a coldness and as if fingers were pressing against my back. Turning, saw the shape of something small. I called out hello? and a girl’s voice answered back. Who are you? I asked. Mummy, the voice replied. I asked more questions, but got nothing else. I left the door opened and told the child she was free to go.
Friday 19th May 2017, 3:59 am.
Was walking in the area I had heard the girl on Monday. I checked the room and it had been left unlocked. Heard crying, but when I called out, got no answer. Walked away and the crying carried on. During my second walk around, I went into the room again and put a small teddy bear on the floor. The crying stopped. I got the sense that girl is trapped there. I’m not sure if she was murdered or died from something else. Tried talking again, but didn’t hear anything else.
Saturday 3rd June 2017, 2:27 am.
Too much is happening and it’s making me regret agreeing to cover this shift. The other security person up and left, not sure why but maybe he couldn’t hack the supernatural stuff that’s happening. It looks like a group broke in last weekend and did some kind of thing that called a demon to the building. There’s been a lot of loud bangs and flashes of light. Every time I walk around, I get this sense of evil and I want to leave. I can’t though. Maybe I can find someone to remove this demon. I heard more crying and screams too and there has been so many shadow things.
I heard whispering voices asking for help and telling me to beware. I got the idea the good supernatural were trying to protect me but this evil is too powerful. On my break at Midnight, I felt this burning on my shoulder and when I looked I had three long red scratches down my shoulder. I washed them in water and that helped, but I can still feel them.
Saturday 3rd June 2017, 6:00 am.
Getting ready to leave and everything is quiet here. The scratches from a few hours ago have faded and I’ve not left the office since. The CCTV have been playing up though. Some cameras blacking out and losing connection, others becoming static. The noises too have kept up. I’m glad to be getting out of here.
Monday 5th June 2017, 10: 45 pm.
Brought a friend tonight to help get rid of the demon and release some of the ghosts. What she did seems to have worked and the place is settled once more. Won’t really know for a while though. Sometimes these demons like to pop up again. I feel better too. It was attaching itself to me, I could feel it. I’ve been having weird dreams, about a dark red and black creature chasing me. I don’t remember seeing the demon fully. She give me some stuff to bless myself and the house with. Maybe I might use some in the office too.
Friday 9th June 2017, 3:11 am.
Everything is quiet here still. There’s been no supernatural happenings and I’m feeling fine. A new woman has been hired for the weekends and to cover me, she seems nice. I’ve been teaching the ropes all shift and now she’s gone for her first walk around alone.
Monday 19th June 2017, 11:20 pm.
She gone missing, the new woman. Yesterday she clocked in and didn’t clock out. An easy mistake to make when you are tried but she never returned home. Her family have reported her missing and lots of searching has been happening. I got asked to look through hours of footage to find out what happened to her. Maybe she did leave and went missing off site? I couldn’t find the truth though.
No CCTV camera has her last moments. I got one of her entering the corridor where the I’ve heard the girl crying and that’s it no more. A connect error message appears on all screens in that area. So she goes in but never comes out again.
I’ve done one walk inside now and I’ve come across nothing but the traces of all the people who’ve been through today. I even asked the ghosts to help, but nothing has come of it. I hope it’s just a simple thing that she got lost and fell or she decided she’d had enough and ran away.
A part of me knows that’s not true though. She’d been taken by that demon!
Thursday 22nd June 2017, Midnight.
She is still missing and everyone is restless. I have seen supernatural things in the buildings and my home. Voices calling me, telling me where to go and that I must help them. I thought she had come to me at one point but she wasn’t there long. Lights have been flicking on and off, strange lights have been coming and going, sometimes close enough for me to feel how ice cold they are. Tools and other things have been moved around, stones thrown at me and others.
I know what I must do. I came here tonight to set things right. I know what’s at risk. I’m not trying to get her back either, she’s already gone. But I got to stop the demon before he takes anyone else. I’m prepared and ready to go.
I’m leaving my diary here just in case I don’t come back.
What happened to this book?
It’s just vanished, like it was never there to begin with.
But I know it was there before, once long ago.
Dear, L. I hope this message finds you well and alive. London or what is left, is in total ruin. Red smoke covers the sky all the time and if you don’t wear your gas mask the toxic air gets to you within minutes. I try to remember the good days when we were all together and happy, but they are fading fast from my mind. Life goes on in the camp, but it can’t even be called that, its a battle to survive everyday. I hope you are at peace whatever you are doing now. I pray for your safe return or else to see you on the other side. Love always, Boo.
It was the wrong thought to have at that moment. Sallie shivered and placed the paperback romance novel into her lap. Her eyes shoot across the swimming pool and she easily spotted her two children and husband in the water amongst the other holidaymakers. Folding her hands together over the open pages, she watched her husband spinning her eight year old daughter around whilst their five year old son clung to his back. They laughter rose towards her, drawing her into a comforting hug.
She twisted her hands together and watched the other families and single swimmers. Summer sunlight flooded into the conservatory style building and played across the water. A few other people sat on the side-lines, napping, reading and looking out over the pool. Everyone looked just as happy and oblivious. In a flash, she was back in Malta by the hotel’s outdoor swimming pool.
It was a bright day and so hot most people had hit the beach, but they had decided to stay in the hotel because Sallie hadn’t been feeling very well. Her husband was in the pool with their daughters teaching them both to swim. She watched they blond hair fanning out behind them and remarked how twin like her girls were though there was four years between them. She shut her eyes falling asleep to their laughter and water splashing.
Sallie fought back the memory. Rudely, she shoved it away and came back to the now. A few more people had gotten into the pool and she wondered how much longer till her family got out. She turned back to her book, but couldn’t concentrate on the love triangle forming between the characters. She could still see her eldest daughter, Sadie, with her golden hair bouncing in the sun and her bubbling laughter.
What had we been doing when it had happened? She wondered. She couldn’t remember, everything was so patchy and displaced. There had been the mad dashing around the hotel, the beach, the local town, the talks with the police, the putting up of posters. Sallie bit her lip and swallowed her tears. She tried to tell herself it no longer mattered she still had two wonderful children.
She watched her husband helping her daughter, Cassie, out of the pool and her running over. Sallie collecting one of the towels, wondered how much Cassie remembered. She had been barely three years old and had spent the years before her brother arrived asking for her big sister. Sallie wrapped Cassie in a towel, rubbing her down. Then she pulled her daughter into her lap and they watched as father and son joined them. Had she ever had a third child?
Yes, I had once, she thought, but not all together. Riley would never know Sadie, his only memories would be what they told him.
Sallie sighed into her daughter’s hair and wondered what had happened. Though she couldn’t remember much else, she remembered the police officer saying they didn’t know what had happened. The child had gone, yes. The child was dead, they didn’t know. The child had been kidnapped? Possibly, but they had nothing on this. And the footprints at the swimming pool’s edge and a maid’s sighting of a little girl playing in the water? Couldn’t be validated.
They might never know what had happened and perhaps it was best just to let it all go.
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