The Note - Julie Cattoir

Dear Adley Hall,

My name is Jody. I’m 17 years old and everything else doesn’t matter. I recently moved to a new town and I like it here. Everybody here decorates their houses with carved pumpkins, skeletons, witches in their gardens. Phantoms stickers stick to their windows and they hang scary lights at the front of their houses for upcoming Halloween. The town where I used to live hated the holiday, we weren’t even allowed to trick or treat. All the elderly people signed a petition so we kids couldn’t celebrate the night. We would make too much noise, they said. I normally don’t write things down, but that’s going to change. I have a reason now. Today at school something weird happened. When I was about to open my locker some paper fell to the floor. You have to know I don’t keep any kind of paper in there. Just my bag for P.E. I grabbed the note and unfolded it. There was only one sentence on there.

“It has you, don’t go back there!”

I thought some of my friends were trying to scare me because they know my parents aren’t home for a few days, since they needed to pick up the last boxes at our old house and it’s a two-days drive to get there. I started to ask around. Nobody knew what I was talking about or who could have written the note. I went to the last person that could have written it, Chloé. She is in the same class as me. She always tries to prank me. One time she had put a love note in my locker and I thought it was from my crush. I should tell you that he is so handsome, and kind, and he has a beautiful smile that makes your heart melt. Oh, sorry, I’m digressing. But no, it hadn’t been him: Chloé wrote that love letter to prank me. It was very familiar to what was happening now, so that’s why I thought she did it. But she didn’t know what I was talking about. A guy heard me talking to her and told me some old, well you could say, scary story about the house besides mine. It was my crush; I didn’t see him that often at school so I didn’t know his name. I still don’t. I got very excited when he was walking towards us and Chloé needed to calm me down, so I wouldn’t act like a freak. He was tall and had black hair. Thinking about it now, he was kind of shy. He insisted on telling me and Chloé the story. And, oh god, he has the voice of an angel. This is what I remember of it.

“In the early twenties, some woman named Rose who apparently lived in the house next to mine was tortured in her very own street on the night of Halloween. The man was a psychopath who took a bunch of pills to try and kill himself, but he failed. He ended up in a hospital and escaped. He was a mad man on the loose. His intention was to kill: the more, the better. Nothing could stop him. Rose just came home from a Halloween party and was dressed up in a flapper dress, like all the girls wore back then. A bunch of people saw it happen but no one did anything to help her. They were probably scared to end up as a victim too, because that man was insane and didn’t know his boundaries. When she thought he was about to leave her alone, he suddenly slit her throat. It was very brutal. The blood was squirting everywhere, even in the mouth of the killer. It was a very deep cut; you could almost see her larynx. She kept trying to say something to the man but the cut prevented her to speak, no matter how hard she tried.

Rose couldn’t take it that nobody had helped her during that fatal night. Ever since she has been haunting one person each year, the week before Halloween. The people she haunted often resembled the people that stood by when she was being murdered, or they were related to them. She makes sure their worst nightmares come true (like waking up in a bed filled with spiders, or dying in a house fire). She could do anything to you. My crush also told me what she looks like when she comes to visit you. She’s a small woman with a pale emaciated face and black eyes with a pinch of red. The red is the only thing you can see from her in the dark. If you look her in the eye, you will turn to stone because of her ice cold stare. Her lips are also black and she has a very rusty voice, but she can’t really say proper words because of her slit throat. It’s unintelligible. She has grey hair with a white tress. She wears a black flapper dress full of blood stains from that night. It also has so many ruptures in it that you can hardly call it a dress. On top of that, the skin above her right eye is gone, and the wound in her neck from being so brutally killed that fatal night still bleeds now and then. You know she visits you at night when you can hear her breathe and the only thing she will try to do is to make eye contact with you.” That is all I remember from what my crush told us.

He didn’t say anything more and left us. Chloé said that the story he told was just a myth, and that I shouldn’t be scared. The bell rang, I put the strange note in my backpack and we both went to our last class. It was chemistry. The teacher always talks really loud and I get a headache every time because of it. The hour that followed went really slow but finally came to an end and we both went home. The school isn’t far from where I live so I always walk home. I enjoyed the Halloween decoration on my way back, I always do. When I got home all the furniture was turned upside down. I was freaked out. I started to turn them back. Unfortunately, I could not turn them all back, because some were too heavy. I constantly felt a sort of heavy breathing in my neck, whenever I looked back I never saw someone.

My worst nightmare is that something will happen to you after reading this. I know you’re next because someone whispered it into my ear. I don’t know who and I don’t know how that’s possible but this is the least I can do. I hope this letter reaches you in time, because she is here. It isn’t even the week before Halloween yet. I don’t know where she came from and I don’t know what changed her normal haunting pattern but I hope I don’t pass her on to you when you read this. I also hope that I can get out here soon enough because I called Chloé and I can stay with her until my parents are home. Please look out and be safe. SEND HELP.

- This mysterious letter was found in the fireplace of Mr. and Mrs. Rhine, nearly unreadable. Next to the fireplace lay the body of Jody Rhine. She was cut open. We couldn’t see if she had suffered from anything else. It’s horrifying that we don’t know exactly what has happened to her. More things aren’t noticeable because she is turned to stone. The only evidence that was found was a white and grey hair.

Check Julie out on Wattpad here.