Part 6 and Epilogue of my “No Sleep” series.
—
The next morning, Stanley showed up at our door. We sat down to talk for a while, and we all agreed to forget everything. Stanley dropped his key to Faye through a drain grate in our apartment parking lot, and we all listened as it clattered on the cement down below.
It wasn’t quite over, though, in my mind. There were so many questions I had, and despite that I wanted to forget all about it, I thought those questions would haunt me forever.
Until last night.
Danielle and I were in the living room at nearly 11 PM. Both of us were trying to watch TV, though I was occasionally glancing over at the door. I kept making sure the deadbolt was still turned to the ‘lock’ position, even though I wasn’t sure that a door would keep a ghost out.
“Please don’t be frightened.”
“JESUS CHRIST!” Danielle and I screamed in sync. Much to our relief, though, it was the girl from the night before – the one that was with Daphne.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Who…who are you?” I asked.
“My name is Caylee – the real Caylee. The girl that introduced herself to you last night as me was actually named Emily.”
“Well, Caylee…you’re the one that really drowned recently then, right?” I asked.
“Yes, that was me,” she said.
“So…what happened? How did you drown?” Danielle asked.
“That’s a long story leading up to a simple answer,” Caylee said.
“We have time.”
“Okay, well, a long time ago, right after Faye Hall was built, there was a girl named Emily that lived there. The lake was just being dredged out at that time, but late at night, the kids back then liked to go out back into the muddy hole to do…illicit things, mostly because they couldn’t be seen down there. Emily, being one of those kids, liked to sneak into the hole to do cocaine. On one particular night, she overdosed, passed out face down on the ground, and drowned in half a foot of muddy slop.”
“Whoa. That’s awful,” I said.
“The rest of the story isn’t too much better. Her body wasn’t found for a few days due to various circumstances – rain, it being the weekend, and perhaps bad luck. No one had realized she was gone, and even her roommate hadn’t reported her missing. In an age without cell phones or constant status updates, they probably all figured she had gone home for the weekend or something. Emily’s spirit was furious, but the people of Faye remained unharmed until 20 years ago. Emily was waiting – waiting for the right person to help her exact her revenge, and she finally found Stella. Hated by most, living alone in the basement – Stella was the perfect partner for Emily. So, she dragged Stella out to the lake and drowned her. I don’t know how Stella ended up looking and acting like that, but Daphne told me that Emily must’ve done something to cause it. After all, Emily would need Stella to forget who had drowned her.”
“Oh my God, this is the worst thing I’ve ever heard,” Danielle whispered.
“Then, just a couple of weeks later, Stella drowned Daphne. It was an act of randomness, as far as I know, but there was a problem for Emily. Daphne wanted nothing to do with being evil and hurting people, so she turned against Emily and managed to trap her in a small room in the basement for 20 years.”
“Ghosts can be trapped?” I asked.
“Kind of. We’re bound to certain places and certain things. Daphne had found whatever bound Emily and used it to keep her in that room. The reason Daphne isn’t with me right now is because she is bound to Faye Hall. My spirit is young, though, and not yet bound to anything, and that was why Daphne couldn’t bind Stella to anything. Instead, she just began doing whatever she could to protect the students in Faye from her. Whenever a puddle of water would randomly appear on the floor, that was Daphne’s sign that she would always leave after helping someone.”
“Okay, so then…back to the original question – how did you die?” I asked.
“Sorry, I know this is long-winded,” Caylee laughed. “Stella found a way to release Emily from whatever Daphne had bound her with. Daphne couldn’t protect me from both Stella and Emily, but once I was dead, I also rejected Emily’s evil ways and sided with Daphne. It seems as though Stella has a poor ability to pick people to kill who will side with them.”
“So is everyone safe now? Will the girls in Faye be okay?” I asked.
“Safe? That building will never be safe,” Caylee said.
“Why not?” I asked. Caylee looked at me with the most sorrowful stare. She looked so real standing there in my living room, illuminated by the glow of the television.
“None of us can die. Emily and Stella will spend eternity trying to kill people, and we’ll spend eternity trying to stop them.”