Eva

I’m not going to say who I am; I won’t write anything to describe myself because I am ashamed. If only I’d listened, if only I’d believed him and now…

I had a little brother. I don’t want you to know his real name. He is not to blame for this and I don’t want him to be remembered for what I’m about to tell you.

It all started about a month ago. I had come home for the holidays to my brother and my parents. As usual my brother had the most extreme and over the top stories to tell me. I just sighed and nodded along, humouring him. The reason: he was a compulsive liar. It was so obvious. I mean how could he expect anyone to believe that he had trained the spiders in our garden to crawl into his room and onto any person who were not welcome there. (Not joking he actually said that and believe me, he’s come up with worse.) Our parents were aware of his compulsive lying. They always told me that he’d grow out of it but I don’t think he has much more to “grow.”

The next few days after I returned home were normal. I sat in my room talking to my friends on social media sites, trying to block out the angry screams of my brother as he played one of his video games. He went silent for a moment and I had just breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he had finally shut the console off, when he burst into my room looking furious. Understandably I was furious, too considering he had just entered my room without knocking. He then began to yell at me. I can’t remember exactly what he said but he was accusing me of hacking onto his computer. When I questioned him on this he told me that while he was on his PC, through his speakers he could hear a little girl giggling and no matter what he did, he could not get the laughter to stop unless he turned the sound off but refused to so since he wanted to hear his game audio.

It amazed me how stupid my brother could be. He had obviously downloaded a virus and just needed to have an anti-malware scanner to remove but instead of using this common knowledge, he blames me for it. He knows for a fact that computers are one of my least favourite subjects. Finally, he left my room and I was able to return to my laptop.

After another few days, I had forgotten all about what had happened that night in my room, until my brother stepped into our living room where my dad was watching TV and I was lying on the carpet, writing an assignment.

“It’s back again,” he grumbled.

My father sighed. “I don’t know, I really don’t.”

I looked up, wondering what they were talking about. Then my brother mentioned the little girl. I sighed and returned to my laptop. My parents and I have all entered his room and none of us could hear this “little girl” so I assumed that once again, he was lying.

It became very difficult to type because my brother and father began to argue. Eventually my father decided to humour my brother and talk as though his computer really was broken. I know this because my dad gave me the “is-he-being-serious” look before suggesting my brother either bought a new PC or take it to get repaired.

“I have no money!” My brother yelled. “How do you expect me to pay for any of that?”

“Well if you were sensible and didn’t spend all your money on junk food and video games you wouldn’t be having this problem,” my dad replied. I snorted. My brother heard and he was not pleased in the slightest.

After that scene in our living room, my brother spent the next few days asking everyone he could think of to chip in money so he could get his PC fixed. I only gave him a few quid just so he’d stop harassing me. When he had saved up enough, he and my dad put his computer on the back seat of the car and drove to a technology repair shop. (I can’t believe my father was still going along with this.) He was not very happy when he found out he would have to wait a fortnight before he could get it back. I knew immediately that he would harass me into letting him use my laptop, despite the fact he had other consoles he could play on. Eventually he gave up on me and spent most of his time round a friend’s house.

Finally the PC returned and my brother rejoiced in the fact that the repairman had successfully removed the “giggling girl” virus. Goodness knows what the repairman must’ve thought when he was given a PC to fix that wasn’t even broken.

My brother decided to name the girl Evangeline or Eva for short. Since it sounded like the word evil.

“Well she is evil,” he had said. “She took my computer away from me.”

“Oh you poor thing,” I replied sarcastically. Gosh I hated his lies so much.

One night, it was just me and my brother in the house. My mum had to work late and my dad was at the pub with his mates. I was in the kitchen, I can’t remember what I was doing, when my brother came running down the stairs. He entered the room, looking horrified.

“She’s back!” He cried. “Eva’s back!”

I sighed. “You have got to be kidding me, I thought it was fixed.”

He shook his head frantically. “No, I turned my sound off and I could still hear her!”

I just stared at him. Believing he was just telling one of his lies again. He carried on to insist that this wasn’t a lie and it led to me entering his bedroom and as I had expected, I heard nothing. I was just about to leave when I heard him scream.

“Who is that!?”

I wheeled around, surprised by my brother’s sudden outburst, but there was nothing there.

“What was that for?” I asked angrily. I glared at my brother and saw he had gone pale.

“Where did she go?” He asked slowly.

“Where did who go?

“The girl.” I didn’t say anything. I just continued to stare at my brother. “There was a girl, right there.” He pointed to an empty space in his room. I sighed and turned to leave, when he screamed again.

“Really?” I said angrily. Feeling annoyed that me made me jump for the second time with the same gag. “There’s no one here!”

There was no little girl, I was certain of that but he would not let it go. I could hear him running all over the house and found no one. I suggested that maybe he was hallucinating since he always stayed up late in the night. He glared at me and swore he was not lying. I of course, did not believe him.

As soon as my parents came home he cried: “A little girl is stalking me.” I was not surprised to hear both my parents roll up with laughter.

I could not understand why my brother was so fixated on talking about this little girl. As each day passed, he seemed to have become paranoid to the point of begging us to never leave him because she only appeared when he was alone. He even refused to talk on his mobile or the house telephone since he could hear her giggles through the receiver. He had even stopped playing his video games and no longer turned on his PC for the exact same reason.

I heard my parents discussing one night about getting psychiatric help. My brother continued to insist he was not lying. Despite the fact we have all entered his bedroom after he cried that he could see her but of course, we saw nothing. There were times he claimed he could hear her through the TV speakers when the rest of us couldn’t. I could not understand how my parents were so patient because I was losing my patience with him. Never before had he stuck to one of his fairy tales for this long. He probably thought it was the best idea he had ever come up with and continued to tell it to frighten us. Well it wasn’t going to work. I was determined of that.

The weeks passed and it became clear my brother was not sleeping. He had become thinner and pale. Worse, his paranoia and anger increased to the point where anything would make him snap; he would throw things at the walls and shriek at the top of his voice. We learnt very quickly not to anger him. I remember the worst moment was when he threw a mug which hit my mother in the back of the head. My father was furious and bellowed at my brother. What happened next, I’ll never forget. My brother, lost it. He went into hysterics and began to scream, throwing anything within his reach and when he could not find anything else to throw, he began tearing at his hair and shirt. My father stepped in, trying his best to retrain him. My brother thrashed violently, making it difficult for my father to hold him down. My mother and I could only watch in horror. Eventually my brother stopped and began to sob.

There was literally no peace in our house since this begun.

He had been to see a therapist and it was obvious to us all that it was not helping. Even I had begun to worry. I wondered if my brother had actually convinced himself that the story he had made up was true.

One day, my brother drew some pictures of Eva. He was never skilled at drawing but I was surprised by the detail he included in his drawing. In the picture she look be between 6-8 years old. She wore a cream coloured dress with a ribbon tied round her waist into a bow that rested on her lower back. She had long black hair which hung over her bright blue eyes, with pale skin and apparently all she would do was stare, unmoving. He explained that she appeared to teleport because she was always standing directly in front of him. He also said that she only left him alone when he made her smile. He figured this out after her suddenly appearing made him fall out of his chair. She giggled and then disappeared or faded as he described it. He then went on to say that she would frown angrily if he did not make her laugh or if he repeated the same joke she had heard/seen before. He did not know what would happen if he failed to make her laugh and he was too terrified to find out. He tried locking his door and windows but she still managed to appear in his bedroom. He even began to read through joke books to get “ideas.” He would sit there, staring at the book whilst rocking back and forth in the chair. Seeing this made me feel uneasy. I was watching my brother lose his mind and it petrified me.

Finally, my parents let my brother stay in their room, hoping it would help since Eva only appeared to him when he was alone. He slept on a spare mattress beside our parents’ bed.

That night, I awoke at around 3am-ish, feeling thirsty. I walked into the kitchen to pour myself out a drink, when my brother walked in. He appeared dazed, obviously sleep walking.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Eva’s crying.” I heard him say.

“What?”

“Crying,” he repeated. “I need to comfort her.” And to my surprise, he actually began to walk to our front door. I quickly grabbed him, not wanting my brother to sleepwalk into the streets in the middle of the night. I shook him until he finally woke up. He was angry and disorientated. I quickly explained what had just happened, I was afraid he might hit me. After I had finished, he froze.

“Oh no,” he said. He then began to repeat the word “no” over and over again when he suddenly bellowed the word, making me jump. Soon both my parents came running up the stairs to find my brother on his knees, crying into his hands with me standing above him looking bewildered. My mum immediately ran to her son and hugged him.

“What is wrong with my boy?” I remember her crying.

The next night my brother handcuffed himself to one of the legs to my parents’ bed. He managed to acquire a pair from one of his friends. I have no idea how his friend managed to get his hands on a pair of handcuffs. I assumed his friend must’ve somehow got them from his father since he was a policeman. Either that or he took them without permission.

I still believed this was all just a hallucination but knowing my brother had chained himself to the bed eased my mind a little because now I didn’t have to worry about him sleepwalking out of the house.

I was woken in the very early hours of the morning by my mother shrieking. I immediately leapt out of bed and ran down the stairs to find out what all the fuss was about. I could hear my dad outside in the front yard, calling my brother’s name repeatedly and I saw my mother on her knees, sobbing. She was clutching something in her hands. I stepped forward and saw, to my horror, that she was holding a shattered pair of handcuffs. I stared, watching my mother sob. Eventually I came to and joined my father in the search for my brother.

“I haven’t looked in his room yet.” My father had said. “Quick, see if he’s there.” I obeyed. I wish I hadn’t.

I ran up the stairs and burst through the door into my brother’s bedroom. What I saw, I know I will never forget. My brother was not in the room. There was no trace of him anywhere. No body, nothing. Instead all I saw was a pool of blood in the middle of the room with tiny, bare footprints leading away.

I remember the police coming round our house. I sat on the stairs with a blanket around my shoulders and I was shivering violently. The image of my brother’s blood burned into my mind. I could hear my mother’s uncontrolled sobs and my father trying his best to give a testimony. I could not speak.

If only I had believed my brother. I could’ve stopped her. I could’ve saved him. But no. I was too arrogant and stubborn and now my brother is dead and his killer is out there somewhere.

I wanted to burn his computer, since it was the start of this nightmare. But my father insisted he wanted to see if there was anything worth keeping since his son had a life on that computer. So after some time we (including my mother) summed up the courage to look through his files, when we saw a recorded video with the same date my brother disappeared on among others leading back the past couple of weeks. I know now he must have been trying to catch Eva on camera.

My parents were furious, wondering how the police could have missed such an important detail. He may have recorded his murder. My dad click on the file. My mother immediately left the room, too afraid to look. I didn’t want to look either but my legs refused to move. My dad click through the video. It was just static, as though something had interfered with the recording, making the video become distorted, when an image appeared on screen. My dad clicked back, frame by frame. My hands flew to my mouth. Within the pixelated video I could make out a little girl, exactly as my brother had described. The video jumped and flickered. I watched as the girl appeared to be teleporting closer and closer to the camera. I took a step back, feeling my heart thump loudly in my chest. The demonic look on her face terrified me. What she did next, made me and my father scream.

The girl continued to stare unblinking into the camera. Then she smiled and opened her mouth into a grin, showing a pair of long, razor-sharp fangs. A loud shriek erupted from the speakers and the video shut off.

I don’t remember what happened after that.

Why am I writing this? Because a few days ago I turned on my laptop and I heard a little girl giggling through my earphones. Now I know she’s after me.