Cara

Cara was my cousin and I hated her. She was loud, obnoxious, rude, and fat. This was typical of my family, but Cara was the worst. She was nothing like the petite, lady like girls at our small town middle school, the ones I longed to be like. But, she was my only female cousin close to me in age. So, of course, my mom had to invite her to my twelfth birthday sleepover party. I’d never felt so simultaneously infuriated and embarrassed. But like most moms, once she’d come to decision it was final and there was no arguing with her.

The threat of Cara’s presence was especially disheartening since my friendships were new and tenuous at best. Over the last year I’d been able to break out of my previous role as the chubby, clumsy, horribly unpopular girl of our grade. I’d lost weight and gotten pretty good at track, joining the school team and actually placed in some events. My own personal renaissance had led to me finally being accepted by my peers and finally making some friends. My birthday was occurring the week after school was out. And, if I wanted keep my place in our little circle over summer, I would need everything to be perfect.

Thankfully, for me and and my anxiety induced stomach cramps, Cara’s mom never figured out how to arrive anywhere on time. All eight of the other girls were there long before she showed up, our “camp” half set up in the basement. Pizza and soda had been handed out by my parents as they smiled and told us to have fun. Once we were alone, I hurriedly warned them about the horror of Cara, and played up my role as unwilling victim.

“I’ve got an awesome idea.” Destiny both smiled and sneered when she spoke, a look I knew too well. If I had to name a leader of group, it would be her. “Why don’t we prank her?”

“I don’t know, my mom would be super pissed.” And I really wasn’t sure I wanted to do that to Cara.

“It’ll be fine. Besides, it’s not like we're going to kick her ass, just teach her to not show up where she’s not wanted. She knows you didn’t invite her and she’s coming anyway, isn’t that rude?”

Somehow, I couldn’t argue with her logic, even though it still felt a bit like it’d be a betrayal of my unsuspecting cousin. But I told myself that one little prank couldn’t possibly be that bad. Who knows? Maybe Cara would take the hint and not show up at anymore of my parties. I finally nodded in agreement as we finished setting ourselves up for the night.

My family had a split level house built on a hillside. The top floor had all the bedrooms, the living room, kitchen, dining room, and bathroom. The bottom floor was a storage area, the laundry, and a large rec room with bathroom. The rec room had a door that opened to a patio area facing the woods behind our house. It was this room that we had been given the run of for the night.

Cara eventually did show up. Just I had began to have hope she was just going to stay home too. She carelessly dropped her things in the middle of our carefully arranged sleeping bags. “Howdy!” She crowed loudly, waving a little too enthusiastically at everyone, and I died a little inside.

Cara then proceeded to be Cara in full force; she greedily scarfed down pizza, shouted, and laughed her obnoxiously loud laugh. When she wasn’t looking the girls rolled their eyes at her and made faces at one another. We did our best to ignore her. We had movies playing in the background, we shot pool, threw darts, and tried some truth or dare. Finally, mom called down for lights out.

Sitting on our sleeping bags, we pulled out several flashlights we’d taken from upstairs when we’d formed our plan earlier. “Hey Cara, do you want to come ghost hunting with us?” Destiny asked, her false sincerity gave no indication of what was to come.

Cara, understandably balked for a moment. “Y...You’re kidding right?”

Amber, Destiny’s minion and BFF laughed that laugh she had that could make anyone feel very small. “Oh, you’re not scared of the big dark woods are you, Cara?”

“No, of course not, I just don’t want to get in trouble.” She was scared, she probably had more sense than all of us put together.

“Come on, it’ll be awesome, and I promise we’ll be back before anyone notices.” I pleaded, breaking through the last of her resistance.

Finally Cara shrugged her shoulders in an effort to look nonchalant about the whole situation. “Sure, why not?” Most days I wish I would have had the compassion to hear how terrified she was.

Within a couple of minutes we were huddled by the back door strategizing. We knew we would have to all exit and make a break for the woods within seconds of each other. Once we opened the door, the motion light would turn on. If we kept it to only one time when we left, and once when we returned, my parents would chalk it up to an animal of some sorts. The light did have the benefit of illuminating our path to the woods, we wouldn’t need our flashlights until beyond the tree line.

It was decided I would go last since I had the best chance of shutting the door quietly. Gently we swung it open and everyone got set for the sprint. “One, two, three!” I whispered and there was a flurry of motion that quickly brought the light above us to life. I guided the door shut and made my way to the tree line, the light behind me dying just as I passed into the woods, replaced by the small beams of flashlights.

Destiny stuck her beam under her chin illuminating her face, and the rest of tried not to laugh too loudly at the cheesy effect. “Are you ready ladies?” She cackled.

We followed Destiny deeper into the woods, half heartedly calling out for the spirits to speak with us or show us sign. Cara, though, just had to start being Cara, and complaining about everything. She cold, she was tired, we were going to get in trouble, and on and on. If we had actually been looking for ghosts, I would have been livid.

Finally Destiny held her hand up, signaling us to stop. “Now, not everyone knows why these woods are the perfect place for spirit communication, so I wanted to share the story so we can all try to connect.” Her mom was big into all things paranormal, and Destiny managed to sound like a talk show medium. “Years ago, in these woods, a little girl was playing with her two brothers. As happens with girls, she got tired of their loud and obnoxious games, and sought some quiet place to play with her doll. In the police reports, the boys admit they had no idea how long there sister was gone. That she had said she was going to sit by a tree with “Dolly”. When they went to leave, she was nowhere to be found.

The town searched the woods for the next week, but with cold weather settling in over night, hope was quickly vanishing. Finally, a local hunter with a trained hound got a trail, and everyone rushed along behind him, daring to believe the little girl was safe. They let out a collective gasp of horror as they reached where the hound had stopped. Strung up in an enormous tree was the little girl, cut into pieces! Her severed head hung upside down, her blue eyes glaring down at them. They took down the pieces, and noticed that the little girls heart had been cut out and was missing. They had no choice but to bury her without it, and it’s said that little girl will never be able to rest until her heart is found.”

It was pretty good story, something Destiny had seen on one of those “true hauntings” always playing at her house. It wasn’t just a scary story though, it was also our signal. While it was being told we all edged away from Cara, giving ourselves room to run. Destiny crossed her hands over chest dramatically as she finished, and we all instantly turned off our flashlights and bolted in the direction of the house, leaving Cara far behind.

During our flight, between panting breaths and the crunch of sneakers on the forest floor, I thought I might have heard a distant scream. I brushed it off though, and concentrated on getting us back in the house undetected. Off course Cara was screaming, she was probably pissed.

We burst through the trees into yard, and part way across the light came on. We sped up, and hit the porch all roughly at the same time, pushing through the door as silent as possible. Leaving the door unlocked, we settled on our sleeping bags, breathlessly giggling at what we had just pulled off.

“Oh my god, I saw her face just as we took off, amazing.” Alicia whispered between smothered laughter while Heather did an exaggerated impression of Cara’s terror stricken features.

After catching our breath, we grabbed some of the leftover pizza and waited for Cara to storm through the door. We’d have to keep her from immediately blabbing to my parents. It wasn’t long before I began to drift off though, the last thought I remember clearly was how it was taking Cara so long to get back I’d have to make it up to her to keep her mouth shut.

“Girls, I’ve got doughnuts!” Mom’s cheery voice stirred me out of a vague nightmare while around me I heard everyone else begin to stir. “Where’s Cara?” Her question shook the rest of sleep from me.

I quickly scanned the room, finding my cousin’s sleeping bag, but no evidence it had been slept in. “I...I don’t know mom, the bathroom?”

“Cara?” She called a bit louder before making me help search the rooms on our level. “Oh god, why is the door unlocked?” There was no sign of Cara and her voice became a panicked screech. “Dan, call the cops!” She flew up the stairs to where my dad was.

“We need to tell them what happened last night.” I hissed at everyone around me.

Of course Destiny challenged me. “Are you nuts? We’ll all be grounded forever. She probably just walked home anyway. Don’t say a damn word, all of us will deny it if you do.” I looked around the faces of my “friends” and knew it was true. No one was on my side, they all either wanted to stay out of trouble or keep Destiny happy.

The cops arrived shortly thereafter, followed by Cara’s mom. She hadn’t walked or even called home. We all told our agreed upon story when questioned. We did of course stay up after lights out, but Cara was with us until we all fell asleep. None of us heard or saw anything. I rationalized that I didn’t need to tell them about the prank since they would search the woods anyway, and I didn’t even really know where we had been last night. Really though, I was scared, scared of what we’d done, scared that without anyone to back me up I sounded either crazy or guilty of something.

It didn’t take long to find Cara, a couple of days, but it was far too late. It had been too late the moment we left her in the dark. She was found propped against a tree, her pants and underwear around her ankles, and her throat slit.

The town went into an uproar and all the kids were basically locked down at night for months. No suspect was ever caught though, and after awhile everyone assumed it must have been a drifter or something. It didn’t matter though, I knew who murdered Cara, I had to face them every time I went to school, every time I looked in a mirror. Eventually I dropped out of school and became a recluse living with my parents.

Which brings me today, and writing this. My parents have been hiding something from me, trying to protect me from more “trauma”, but last night I got a text from Destiny. I have no idea how she got my number, but she told me that for weeks she’s been dreaming about the woods and that she headed out there to make it stop one way or another, just like the others have. She said that just leaves me, the last of us. I’m not waiting for dreams, I’m headed out there tonight, and maybe we’ll all find peace after.