The Polaroid

THE POLAROID

I look down at my hands covered in my brother’s blood, his body laying motionless and cold on the firm timber floor. We never should have moved.

48 hours earlier

“Tom come outside and help us unpack now” Mum yelled. I walked out of my new room and sprinted down the staircase into the family room through to the backyard. Mum is hastily taking the boxes out of the trunk. “Tom take this box and put it in the kitchen” she ordered. I picked up the box and walked back into the house. I trotted down the never-ending hallway of our new mansion and found myself in the kitchen. Jacob my brother, was sitting at the enormous table texting one of his friends on his phone. It’s so unfair how I have to do all the work whilst he never does anything, but I don’t say anything to Mum because she is already stressed out about the move. We didn’t really want to move and especially not to this house as it has a reputation of being ‘haunted,’ that’s the reason no one’s lived here for years. But mum and Dad say they’re just rumours and they received the house for a relatively good price too so they were pleased. I look over to Jacob, “hey what’s that next to you on the table?” I asked. Jacob picked up what seemed to be a very old Polaroid. I walked over to him and we both had a look at the photo of what appears to be a clown holding three of his fingers up. It confused me and made me feel uneasy but as Jacob and my eyes met I see that Jacob is fine and takes the picture as a joke, so I hide my emotions and we both start laughing as Jacob stands up and throws the picture in the bin.

We had unpacked most of the essentials and had just finished eating dinner. Mum and Dad sent Jacob and I off to bed, and I was glad after the exhausting day we had. I said goodnight and walked up the stairs with Jacob, with a quick nod we said goodnight and headed to bed. I closed my door behind me and laid down. *BANG* I’m awaken by a small bang which seemed to be coming from the basement underneath my room. I slowly raise my head from the pillow and turn to look at my alarm clock, its 4:00 am, surely Mum and Dad aren’t still awake. From the corner of my eye I see something move, my eyes go straight to the direction of what looks like a silhouette of a person standing in the corner of my room. I freeze. Not knowing whether to scream or cry, I slowly get up and creep toward my door, the figure isn’t moving. I move faster and reach the light switch and flick it on. I let out a big sigh of relief as I look around and find no one but myself in my room. I turn off my light and walk back to bed, the timber floor boards creaking under my weight. Still a bit shaken I close my eyes and force myself to sleep.

The next morning Jacob runs up to me and tells me he thought he saw something in the corner of his room and that he also was woken by the bang at around 4:00 in the morning. This couldn’t just be a coincidence so we decided to tell Mum and Dad, but they just laughed and told us not to worry about it. Maybe we were just tired and hallucinated it they suggested, but how could we see the exact same thing in two completely different rooms of the house? Jacob and I discussed it all day and decided it was best if we both slept in my room tonight. Once more after dinner we were sent to bed and Jacob and I walked to my room. I can’t sleep and am still awake