They Can't Protect You, So Hear Me Sing

"You can't hire her!" Matt demanded, but Michelle was having none of it. She'd planned this night for weeks and when their regular babysitter couldn't come she'd been heartbroken. Nevertheless Matt refused to agree with this.

Carter May was no different from her family. In this small town, news spread like wildfire, and it was an old chip paper story that the Mays were cannibals. No real proof had been found but enough people had vanished 'round them to know there was something up. Matt had always knew the May's were dodgy, right from the word 'Go!'

"Matt, calm down! Carter's a nice girl. She's even started a case against her family for who knows how many counts of murder and cannibalism," Michelle protested, enraged that Matt would question her.

"Look me in the eyes, Michelle! Look me in the god damn eyes and tell me you're not concerned that when we get back we'll find Carter hunched over our kids' dead bodies munching on their organs!" Matt screamed desperately at her.

Putting the palms of her hands on his shoulder, Michelle calmly replied, "I'm not worried. Not one bit." Matt felt he should trust Michelle, she was his wife after all. Despite that he couldn't, he won't believe Carter could be any different. Instead of quelling his paranoia, Michelle had just sparked it back up.

It had been about an hour since Matt and Michelle had left. Carter liked to consider she and Michelle friends, but Matt didn't seem to have such a liking of her. Carter had put Joey, an adorable baby boy just beginning to walk, to bed a few minutes ago having only just got him to sleep. As for Amelia and Molly, the two older children ages five and eight, as far as she knew they were upstairs in their room playing with their dollies. With the kids out of the way Carter could finally sit and relax, her feet were killing her.

Lounging back on one of the lazy boy chairs that sat proudly in the living room the teenager was just getting comfortable when she heard a knock at the door. Reluctantly she pushed herself up off the chair, trying not to look at it as she walked to the door. The chair seemed to taunt her, tempt her to forget the chapping at the door and go for a rest. Sighing, Carter opened the wooden door, and a hand swiftly went over her mouth and another around her waist.

Kicking, flailing, and trying to scream, Carter's captor began to haul her off. Carter had been gagged, bound, and thrown clumsily into the back of car. With tears dripping off her face, she was shocked to find Matt in the driver's seat. Terror ran through her veins and she began shaking. Pushing herself up against the left back door of the car, she wished she was someplace else.

Trying to shriek through the tape across her lips, Matt turned around to look at her for a moment as the car grinded to a halt. The older man looked at her with utter disgust lurking in his glare. Looking down at the dirty carpeted floor of the car he mumbled, "You're doing it for the kids."

With that, Matt got out of the car and opened the backdoors, dragging Carter out of the Volvo. Clearly he didn't care for her, letting her injure herself by banging her tense boy on the doorframe on the way out, along with scratching her arm. Pulling her out onto the muddy ground of what Carter found was somewhere deep within the woods, Matt walked to the passengers seat of the car. Pulling out a large hunting rifle he cocked it at her chest, and more and more tears began to flood her face. She tried to beg, to reason, but the duck tape stopped any attempt of that.

"I could kill you now, you know. One pull of my finger and you'd be gone. I know what you were going to do and... It'd be a waste of a bullet. It's too good for you," Matt said, moronically throwing the loaded rifle away.

Instead of, as Carter had first feared, shooting her, Matt walked up to her and struck her face. She tried to scream but the tape kept her silent as teardrops cascaded down her cheeks. It had been maybe an hour, and Carter was covered in bumps, bruises and blood. She kept her knees close and if she survived this she knew she would be permanently scarred.

Matt had retrieved a shovel from the car and had dug a deep hole in the ground. Dragging her over to it, he spat on the petrified girl before kicking her in the chest and sending her tumbling in. As Matt began to bury Carter alive, barely alive, he mumbled curses and abuses at her.

Carter squirmed trying to stay on top of the gravel and dirt raining down on her, but eventually she was covered, all light had vanished. She'd soon run out of air and suffocate. As her blood and salty tears mixed with dirt and it became ever harder for Carter to breathe, as she tried to scrabble at the dirt and free herself, hate was all she felt. Hate was her last emotion before slipping into the land of the deceased.

Carter's eyes slowly opened, pushing away the debris that had gather upon her eyelids. Flailing for all she was worth, Carter pushed the earth which had already began to harden aside, pulling herself up into the little light the forest provided. Looking in a mucky puddle to her left, Carter dragged herself a little closer looking down at her mangled reflection. Her skin was paler and her wounds were still fresh. The most noticeable thing was her eyes. Her once green eyes were a bright, demonical crimson.

Lashing at the puddle, splashing it at the ground to the left she frowned and picked herself up. Wiping some of the muck from her clothing, black three quarter length jogging bottoms and a green V-neck T-shirt with the words 'I'm Going Crazy, Want To Join?' printed in black across it. Walking off in a randomly chosen direction, Carter began to silently plot her reprisal.

Matt sat on the edge of Molly's bed, watching Amelia who was sleeping on a single bed on the other side of the room. Suddenly he heard singing. Not just any singing, this had to be the most beautiful melody that had ever come across his ears. Even so, whomever the talented singer was, they had to be pretty far away, the words were muffled by the house's thick walls. Looking down at Molly and across at Amelia he realised they had stirred, too hearing the lovely notes.

Before he could think twice, he walked to the girls window, opening it all the way. Now he could hear the words of this magnificent beat. Yet despite loving the tune so, he was utterly terrified by the words of the mysterious singer.

"Come little children, it's time to play, wander away from the pity and pain. Parents never listen, so I make it my deed to take you away. They can't protect you, so hear me sing."

Matt tried to shake himself out of it, but he couldn't. He stood frozen with fear as he looked down to see Carter, standing in the garden. In her arms was Joey. She had Joey! In his state of shock he didn't notice Amelia and Molly get up and wander down the stairs. He didn't notice until he saw the girls walk out and flank Carter, happily joining their one time babysitter as she sang.

Reaching out the window towards his children, he quickly backed away. Racing out of the room and out into the back garden he watched, feeling utterly powerless as Carter began to walk away with his daughters at her side and holding Joey swung around her waist. "Stop." Matt tried to scream, but it was barely above a whisper.

Racing at Carter, aiming to knock her down, the ghostly girl simply sidestepped him. He fell forwards into the mud and turned around quickly, still on the ground, and looked up at the group.

As soon as he looked at his children he wanted to vomit. Each of them had large holes across their body, fresh blood and guts falling out of them, their entire bodies looked like they'd been mauled by a vicious animal. They should've been dead, yet they walked. Each child had ghastly blank eyes, no pupil, no optics just...white, eye white.

Then Matt's gaze switched to Carter. She was adorn in the wounds he'd given her, they seemed ever fresh. Blood and what seemed to be the leftovers of organs caked her body, clothes and hair. Matt was pretty sure most of blood and guts weren't hers, especially not the shredded guts hanging from her mouth. Apart from that, the thing most disturbing about the girl was her eyes. Horrid blood red eyes. She was the definition of carnage.

"P-Please." Matt stuttered, fear above anything he'd even known consumed him. He began begging for his life, as the girl had once begged to him for hers. Carter ran her index finger along his chin and chortled. Then without warning her hand shot through his chest and tore out his heart. Impossibly he could still see and hear, even if he now found he couldn't move nor speak.

As Carter walked away he found himself forced to watch as his children wandered over to him, now their skin pitch black and their eyes crimson red. The rest of their features now impossible to see, even their ragged clothing couldn't be seen. Not a trace. Matt was forced to the worse torture anyone could ever have. He was forced to watch his demon-turned children tear him apart and fight over his remains, chomping down his insides without second thought.