Her Name was Milly

It’s hard being me. Being the best at everything, being the teachers pet, but most of all, pretending to be everyone’s friend. Today Mrs Alec brought in a new girl.
“ Lizze, this is Milly. She’ll be joining us for the rest of the term. Can she sit next to you?”
“ Of course,” I replied, eyeing out the girl who’d be sitting next to me for 2 more weeks. She had straight electric blue hair, shielding her pale white face. She wore camo knee-shorts, with a baggy red hoodie embroidered with Queen.

BBB RRR!!! The bell rang, as kids trudged into their seats, my bestie Kara sat on my right, Milly on my left. Scrawled up and down her arms and legs were drawings, drawings of crossbones, skulls with snakes pouring out of their mouths, and a knife with blood, dripping into a mans mouth.

“ So, did you move here with your family?” I asked chirpily.
“ Mum comitted suicide, Dad was murdered, my brother’s in Alcatraz Prison,” she said casually not even glancing at us.

“ Gee that must suck. Anyway why’s your brother in Alcatraz?” chimed Kara.
“ Simple isn’t it? My brother murdered my Dad.” Again Milly showed no emotion towards us.

“ So if your parents are dead, and your brother’s in prison who do you live with?” I asked feeling sorry for her.

“ I get moved around a lot, that's because the fosters don’t really want me. Don’t really care anyway. Each time I leave a little…Momento.”

An awkward silence ended our conversation, but was surprisingly broken by Milly.
“ Do you like mysteries?” she asked quietly.

“ Depends if you mean missing pencils, or murder mysteries,” I replied, trying to sound humerous, but obviously not succeding judging by the puzzled look on her face.

“ I mean real mysteries, yeah know. Like are ghosts actually real and do they whisper at midnight, or that houses are haunted.”

You don’t actually believe in that stuff do you?” Kara asked with a slight mock in her voice.
“ Oh, of course not,” Milly said in return.
“ Why would I ?”

The day sluggishly dragged on, people getting sent to finishing school, all that usual nonsense, but Milly oddly spent her time illustrating her limbs with more skulls, and a serpent.

BBB RRR!!! And just like that like that, school was finished.

Kids ran for their freedom. Milly rose from her seat, strolled to the door, but stopped and turned back to face me and Kara.
Her piercing green eyes immediately sent a shiver down my spine, like a bucket of icy water had been thrown at me.

“ You two are so nice, that you deserve so much,” She said in a strange high pitched voice. And with that she left.
“ Well that was weird,” remarked Kara, her eyes bulging, she was trying to impersonate the new girl.
“Kara stop it, she’s not that weird,” I replied giving her a playful nudge.

Kara and I headed to the skate park, a trendy hangout for teens with all the ramps and bowls covered in a blanket of tags and graffiti. I checked my phone, the lock screen bearing the time 5:47pm.
“ Oi K, it’s 10 to 6, we should head home,” I yelled, my voice hoarse from yelling along to some favourite Cardi B songs, which was probably why the skate park was deserted.

“ Hang on, I’m gonna get a drink,” Kara yelled, already running around the corner.
After a while I noticed she still wasnt back, and I was thinking about gapping it, and then I saw it. Her Tupac skateboard was by one of the ramps, but I couldn’t see her!

I thought I heard the swish of water coming from nearby. “ Kara,” I screamed, hoping there’d be a response, there wasn’t . Cautiously I rounded the corner, but she wasn’t there. I couldn’t stay here, I needed to find Kara but I wanted to go home.

So I did. I ran, ran down the dimly lit streets, past the local Catholic church, specks of moonlight illuminated the stained-glass windows. A dark figure emerged from the shadows, yet the slim, average build seemed abnormally familiar.

“ Milly!” I exclaimed in shock. “ What are you doing here?”
“ Got locked out by my fosters, couldn’t stick me and my tattoos,” she said gesturing towards her arms, smirking.
“ Have you seen Kara, she went missing at the skatepark?” I asked anxiously.
“ I saw her go in...there.” She pointed towards what people in our town called the ‘Haunted House’.

Cigarette butts, smashed beer bottles and even bullet shells littered the tall overgrown lawn with black roses weaving between the cracked pipes and over the brick wall fencing in the forsaken property. B B B But why would she go in there? I thought to myself.

Everyone knows thats just a rundown dump where the homeless sleep, or they slept.

“Maybe she got kidnapped!” I yelled

“Maybe she got kidnapped!” I yelled
“ But I didn’t see anyone with her. But if you think she did get kidnapped who did it?” Milly said confusingly.

I thought about this.
“You know if I got kidnapped, I’d want my kidnapper to hold me hostage at, 20 Culling Street Daphney, Alabama.” Milly remarked.
“ Why such a specific place?” I asked, while observing her rather suspicious body language. Her rather long macabre fingers stroked around a new foreboding looking mark on her wrist.

I stared at it, it showed a young woman’s face, contorted, holding a pistol next to her head. She sniggered at my concerned reaction, “Like it do you? I was thinking of getting it inked next year.”
“ Who is it?”
“ My mum, witnessed the whole thing, made me laugh actually.”

I was struck with horror and disgust, why did her Mum kill herself?
“ Go in,” Milly urged.
“ What no!” I replied in a vacant stammer. “ Sorry, I just, its creepy.”

The house had faded paint peeling off broken panels, which boxed in shattered windows. The Georgian Revival door creaked on its hinges, the rather disorientating sound, drowned out by the sudden arrival of an even more unearthly wind.
Its force was like a raging bulls temper, it seemed to escalate the longer we stood there.
A blood-curdling scream, removed me from my fearful state.

“ Kara!” I croaked, my throat dry like another African drought.