Chapter 2 – Chap 2

I opened my eyes. You know those moments when you wake up, and everything about the day before is still fuzzy. You're awake, but not truly. I wish those blissful fuzzy seconds lasted forever, because when I turned my head to look at my alarm clock it all came back to me. The door in the school basement. The umbrella in my closet. The note…

“See You Real Soon”

It was 6:20 AM, so I still had time before school started. After finding the umbrella I must have passed out on my bed. I was still wearing my school clothes from yesterday. I looked over at my closet. The door was still open. My eyes went to my bedroom floor. I hoped it wouldn’t be there, that maybe I did just dream it all…

But the black umbrella was there and so was the white piece of paper. I closed my eyes, then opened them, forcing myself to look at the umbrella.

“It’s just a stupid umbrella,” I said to myself. It didn’t help. Most umbrellas don't tap on your closet door like a serial killer. Most umbrellas don’t have ominous notes left on them. I somehow found the courage to get off my bed. I picked up the note and put it in my pocket. Then I hesitantly picked up the umbrella.

Nothing happened. My skin didn’t burn. I didn’t receive any scary visions. It was just an ordinary umbrella. At least it felt like it.

I stepped into the hallway, I could hear my dad snoring in the other room. Resting after a long day of work. I walked down to the kitchen and was surprised to find my mother sitting there smoking a cigarette with the window open.

“Oh, Ash I wasn't expecting you up so soon,” my mother said as she hurriedly put out the cigarette in a coffee mug. “Please don’t tell your father I’ve started smoking again. It’s not serious. Just one every once and a while.”

“I won’t.”

“Thank you.”

I sat down at the table across from her. Her eyes went to what I was holding.

“Did your father buy give you that umbrella? It’s very nice.”

“I found it in my closet,” I said putting the umbrella on the table between us. “You’ve never seen it before?”

My mother shook her head. “I know we have a blue and red one, but I’ve never seen that black one before. Ash sweetie, is everything okay?”

“Y-yeah, I just kind of had a rough day yesterday,” I said. I had no idea how to tell my mom about anything I experienced. She was already going through so much with the move and with dad. “Mom….do…do you believe in monsters? Or weird stuff like that?”

I regretted asking the moment the words came out of my mouth. I had never known my mom to be a superstitious person. Of course she didn’t believe in monsters.

“Yes.”

“Huh? You do? Really?”

My mother stared out the window. “When I was very little my parents would take me to my grandparents’ house, your great-grandparents’ house that is. I use to love seeing grandma and grandpa. Playing with them. Grandma use to call me Little Katie. ‘Lets go water the flowers, Little Katie. How about we go for a walk Little Katie?’ Most people called me Kaitlin, even at that young age, but not Grandma. It was always Little Katie.

“One day grandma got very sick, and it wasn’t long before she passed. I saw her before she died. Seeing her on her bed like that. Seeing the life leaving her body little by little. It terrified me.

“Not long after she passed we visited grandpa. The house felt different. Lonely. It felt…less. The lights seemed dimmer. That night I couldn’t sleep, so I crept out of my room. I was planning on going down to the living room and watching tv with the volume turned down.

“But as I was walking down the hallway, I heard a voice.

“‘Little Katie,’ the voice said. ‘Little Katie I’m over here.’ The voice was coming from the door at the end of the hall. The door that led to the attic. I never went up there because it frightened me. But I couldn’t help myself. There was no question that was grandma’s voice.

“I went to the door and opened up. No one there. Nothing but the stairs that went up to the attic. Up into the dark. I flicked the light switch at the bottom of the stairs, but no lights came on.

“‘Little Katie I’m up here. I’m up here Little Katie,’ the voice said. It was my grandma’s voice, but there was something wrong about it. Something underneath the voice. Still, I went up the stairs. My eyes adjusted to the dark.

“‘Where are you Grandma?’ I said.

“‘Over here,” I heard my Grandma chuckle. ‘I’m right over herrrrrreeee….’. I walked over to the voice. I saw the shape of something in the corner of the room.

“‘Grandma?’

“Something reached out and grabbed my arm. It was a hand, but it felt wet and grimy. I looked up to see cold black eyes staring at me. The thing that held my arm was smiling, and it’s teeth were yellow. It’s features were twisted, and it was drooling. It looked like my grandma but also nothing like her.

“‘Hellllooo, litttllle Kattttiiiie,’ the thing drooled. I screamed.

Somehow I managed to break it’s grip on me. I ran down the stairs screaming blood. My parents and my grandpa woke up. I told them what happened. We all went up to the attic together. The light switch worked this time. Of course it did. There was no one up there. Of course there wasn’t.

“My parents said I experienced an episode as a result due to grief. For most of my life I told myself that same thing, and sometimes I would even believe it. But deep down I knew the truth.”

My mother lifted up her right arm and examined it, as if she was examining some scar, but there was nothing on her arm.

“I know that thing in the attic was real. I can still feel it’s wet hand on my arm.”

"Oh," it was all I could say.

“Are you seeing monsters, Ash?” My mother asked.

I felt the tears well up in my eyes. Then I noticed the empty bottle of wine. My mother had been drinking since yesterday. Her voice had sounded slurred, except when she told that story. Her voice was firm then.

My mother was drunk. Who knows if she would even remember this convo tomorrow.

Nothing but silence between us. And then my mother said, “I’m tired sweetie. I’m going to bed.”

She left.

“Yes, mom. I’m seeing monsters,” I said to the empty kitchen.

When I walked into first period English, five minutes before the bell was going to ring, my eyes immediately went to Jack. I saw Elizabeth in the corner, but she ignored me as if our conversation yesterday never happened. Jack however looked terrified of me.

Or terrified of what I was holding.

I put the umbrella on my desk.

“You know what this is don’t you?”

“An umbrella?” Jack said nervously. “Yeah, they’re used to keep rain off-”

“You know what I mean. I saw your face when I mentioned the umbrella door in the basement. This was in my closet last night. Tapping on the fucking door. And so was this.” I threw the note at Jack, who cringed away form it. “What the hell is going on here? You know don't you?”

Jack looked around the class. “Meet me in B1 after school. We’ll talk about it then. We can’t now, okay? Please, just put that thing away. I promise we’ll talk about it then.”

The rest of the school day went painfully slow, and again I had that feeling that people were staring at me when I wasn’t looking. Finally, the last bell rang. I made my way down to the basement floor. It was only a normal flight of stairs, but it felt like I was descending Everest. Every step I took felt like an eternity.

My knees felt week when I reached the bottom. I saw the door for B1 on my left, but of course my eyes looked down the hall. The umbrella door was there. It almost felt like it was pulsing. I wanted to go to it, but also run away. The door to B1 opened.

“In here Ash,” Jack said.

I walked into B1. The room was about the size of a normal classroom, but there were no desks, only chairs. Jack was there. So was Elizabeth, Henry, and two other kids from my class I had spoken with briefly yesterday, Isaac and Danielle.

“I didn’t know all of you were on the student council,” I said.

“They aren't,” Jack said. “No SC meeting today. These four…they also know what’s going on with you.”

“Besides I wouldn’t be caught dead in a student council meeting,” Henry said with a smile. Despite the tension in the air, Henry didn’t seem worried at all. Out of all the kids at Jasper High, Henry had the most easy going attitude. He was an outlier in the town. The gloom didn’t seem to bother him at all. It was like he didn’t feel any of the oppressive vibes that the town gave. I envied him a lot. He was a cast away who’s raft was surrounded by sharks, but all he cared about was getting some sun as he lied down on his raft with his arms behind his back.

“Now isn’t really the time for your views on school clubs,” Isaac said. Isaac was a much more stern person than Henry. He wore glasses, had high ambitions of getting into a good college. He told me as much yesterday. While Henry was getting some sun, Isaac would be trying to repair the raft’s sail.“And a lot of people know what’s going on. They're just too afraid to talk about it.”

Henry shrugged.

Danielle stepped toward me and then pointed at what I was holding. “That’s it isn’t? The umbrella He left you? That’s really it.” Danielle was the exact opposite of Henry. She seemed to feel everything wrong about Jasper and it made her a jittery person. She would be panicking on the raft.

“Who left it for me? What the hell is going on?” I lifted the umbrella towards the others, and they all cringed back, except for Henry. There was silence and then Elizabeth spoke. I get the feeling that if she was on the raft, she would dive in the water and eat the sharks herself.

“The Umbrella Man.”

I almost laughed. “The…Umbrella Man? Is that like some reject super hero?”

No one laughed. Even Henry seemed tense at the mention of The Umbrella Man.

“We don’t know His real name,” Jack said. “It’s just what we call Him, due to..well, his affinity for leaving Umbrellas for his victims.”

“Victims?” I said. “That means I’m…”

“You’ve been marked,” Elizabeth said. “Every couple of years, someone sees the umbrella symbol on the door down here. Not everyone can see the symbol. None of us here, except you, see it. The person that sees it receives an umbrella and a letter, and then He comes for them several days later, and they’re never seen again. It’s been happening for years. Maybe for as long as Jasper has been around. Not everyone knows, or believes. For some it’s an urban legend, for others it’s a truth. But most of those who do know try to ignore it.”

I sat down in a chair trying to process everything I was hearing. It all sounded so ridiculous. The Umbrella Man? Marked as a target? All because I saw a symbol on a door…But I thought of the tapping coming from the inside of my closet. That wasn’t my imagination. And neither was the note. That happened. That was real. Monsters were real. My mom found that out years ago. Now I knew it too.

“I know what you’re thinking, ‘I’ll just go to the police’”, Elizabeth continued. “They won't help. They won’t believe you. Or at least they’ll pretend they don’t. Not like they could help you anyways. I told you to leave town. Maybe He’d still get you, but it was better then staying here.”

“What does this Umbrella Man look like?” I said finding my voice. It was Jack who spoke.

“No one really knows. Some people have said on the night he comes for his target, they’ve seen a silhouette of a man in the sky. Floating with an umbrella.”

“Kind of sounds like a freaky Marry Poppins, doesn’t it?” Henry said. “But it’s true. My neighbor says he saw His silhouette 15 years ago. That was the same night, David Backers, the guy the who use to own the pet store in town, went missing. Rumor is they found an umbrella in his shop a couple days later.”

“Wait, he wasn’t a student here?” I said. “Then how did he see the umbrella door?”

“He was here for some Parent-Teacher meeting,” Henry said. “It’s usually a student that sees the door, but every once and a while an adult who comes down here sees it too. And since it happens so randomly, it’s usually written off as a kid or some adult bored with their small town life running away. David Backers was never declared dead, he just…disappeared.”

“So as long you don't ever come down here, there’s no chance of you ever seeing the symbol on the door and getting marked.” Just my luck. My life was over, all because of some fucking art supplies. “Thanks a lot Ms. Loach.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner,” Jack said. “But when you said you saw the symbol, I got scared. I should have said something, Ash. You’re the first person in 4 years to have seen the symbol.”

“Who was the last person that saw it?” I asked.

Silence.

“My older sister Judith,” Elizabeth said. “Four years ago she saw the umbrella door.”

“And he took her?” I said.

“Not exactly,” Elizabeth said. “My sister had a theory. She believed that if she returned the umbrella to the umbrella room, that He would leave her alone. She said it was like a game, you just got to return the Umbrella before your time is up.”

“If it were that easy, you’re sister would still be here wouldn't she?” I didn’t mean to sound so blunt, but it was no time to mince words.

“Right,” Elizabeth said, her eyes cold flints of stone. “My sister went into that room and never returned.”

“What the hell is in that room?” I said. “How could something like that be down in here in a school?”

The five eyed each other. It was Isaac who spoke. “Lets show him.”

We walked into the hall. It was worse then it was yesterday. The walls felt way too close, and the hall seemed to stretch even further.

“C’mon,” Elizabeth said. “Lets head to the door.” We followed her reluctantly.

As we walked by the other rooms, I thought I saw faces staring from the other side of the doors, but when I blinked they were gone. As we walked down to the umbrella door I felt like a prisoner walking down to the execution chamber.

We reached the door. The symbol was on it. It felt like the door was leering at me.

“Do you see the symbol, Ash?” Elizabeth asked.

I nodded.

“None of us can. Now watch this.” Elizabeth reached for the door and opened it. I gasped and cringed back, expecting something terrible.

But inside was just a small storage room. I stared inside, speechless.

“It’s just…a room,” I said.

Elizabeth closed the door, and then said, “If someone who doesn't see the mark opens the door, that’s all they’ll see. Just a plain room. We’ve heard that much from all the stories, and I've opened this door many times before, hoping to see something different, but it's always this storage room. Until now though I had no idea what YOU would see if an unmarked person opened the door in front of you. Now we know you see the same thing we do. But I can guarantee you Ash, that if YOU open the door we’ll all see something different from a plain old storage room.”

“You’re sister went in there and never came back?” I asked Elizabeth.

She nodded.

“And she believed that returning the Umbrella would stop Him from coming to get her?”

Again she nodded.

I looked down at the umbrella I was holding. I had forgotten that I was still holding it. I thought of the note. See You Real Soon.

I made my decision.

“Then I’m going in there. I’m going to return this thing and then Mr. Umbrella can fuck right off.”

“I’m coming with you,” Elizabeth said. “Maybe…Maybe my sister is still in there. This might be my only chance to see what's in the Umbrella room. To try to find her…if she's still alive.”

“I’m coming too,” Jack said. “You already lost a day because I didn’t tell you any of this sooner. Besides, as a student council member I can’t let the new guy explore the school un-supervised.” And a little bit of Jack’s wry smile returned to him.

“Well, if you idiots are going then I’m going to,” Henry said.

Isaac pushed up his glasses. “Count me in. This town has been crazy my entire life, maybe we can put an end to that.”

Danielle shifted nervously. Seemed to consider the stairs at the other end of the hallway, then sighed. “C-count me in too.”

“None of you have to do this," I said.

“We know,” Jack said. “We want to.”

I nodded gratefully. I had been so angry at Jack this morning, but I now felt ashamed for how I had confronted him. The moment I mentioned the Umbrella door yesterday he had been terrified. He knew what it meant when I saw it, and was afraid that associating with me could cost him his life too. I couldn't blame him for being afraid. Yet he was still helping me now.

“Ash,” It was Elizabeth. “No one really knows if returning the Umbrella will stop Him. It was just a theory my sister had. And we have no idea what will be in that room when you open it.”

“I know,” I said. “But what other choice do I have?”

I also took one look back at the end of the hallway. I could climb back up the stairs. Pretend none of this was real. Then I thought of that terrible tapping from my closet. The drowning feeling I had being down on this basement floor. The oppressive woods that surrounded Jasper. And for some reason I also thought of my mother sitting alone in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette. Then I turned back towards the door with the umbrella symbol on it.

I took a breath.

I reached my hand out, grabbed the door knob, and opened the door.