Excerpt: Malum

Twelve. Twelve noon. All stops at twelve noon. She wondered if there was anything left they wanted to do. She wished a bit that she could tell them, but they wouldn't understand that what she needed to do was necessary. She'd be sent to the police, a psychiatrist...things like that. They'd interfere.

The cloaked figure's stare still bored hotly into her back. She wasn't even sure if the presence had eyes, really. She'd never seen them. But she could always feel it. Its strength increased each day. Sometimes exponentially. It all depended on how willing she was to cooperate.

“At twelve noon, I assure you. One minute from now,” Mia said.

The figure retreated slightly, and Mia sighed gratefully, feeling a weight lifted off of her back.

She stood up, looking behind the couch. There was her weapon, silver and polished, gleaning in what little light was available in the shade of the house.

The clock's first bell rang. It was time.

She picked up the weapon, feeling it's cold weight in her hands. It wasn't as unwieldy as she would've assumed. The second bell rang. She walked out into the kitchen, in no particular hurry, to her mother cooking by the stove. The third bell rang.

BANG.

She hit the ground with a thump, blood pouring from the bullet wound on her head. The fifth bell rang, a lovely refrain from the sudden uproar. Ah, those were footsteps. Her father.

He stopped halfway down the steps, his face twisted in malignant horror. The sixth bell rang, simultaneously with the second gunshot. Another thump. His corpse slid down the stairs, bloodying the trail along the way. The seventh bell rang as the cadaver hit the bottom step.

“Corey, Corey,” Mia called lightly, stepping over her father. The eighth bell rang as Corey's form appeared at the top of the footsteps.

“M-Mia!! What--”

He was sharply interrupted as the bullet whizzed by his ear. Mia cursed, now he would be harder to hit, now that he knew her intentions. He ran wildly as the ninth bell rang. Mia ran up the stairs, throwing open the door to his room. He wasn't in there. Suddenly, she heard him run behind her and run down the stairs. He ran for the door, but Mia did not miss twice.

The tenth bell rang as Corey's corpse fell to the floor, his blood splattering on the walls and floor.

She walked to the bottom of the stairs, feeling his presence ever omnipotent. One course of action remained, now. The eleventh bell rang, and Mia raised the gun to her head.

But before she pulled the trigger, the door opened.

Oh no... Mia faltered slightly. It was Melanie, a friend she had soft feelings for, staring up at her, wide-eyed, scared, disbelieving, panicked. She sighed. She had hoped, dearly, that this course of action would not have any witnesses. God only knows what she thought, seeing her lifelong friend standing above her family's corpses, gun in hand.

“I'm sorry,” Mia said, a weak smile on her face as she raised the gun to her head. “Look away.”

She pulled the trigger as the twelfth bell rang, concurrent with her friend's screams.