MY NAME.

In early 1988, I was a teenager with plenty of friends; we wanted to party every day, we did drugs, we had sex, we had our little dramas, putting it simple we were absolutely normal.

One weekend we decided to have a small reunion, in a large and old storage house, property of the father of one of our friends. We would do the usual, get drunk, get high and behave stupidly in “dare” and other games. That night we had a new toy to play around: An Ouija Board.

Most of us didn’t know jack about it, but the idea was awesome, talk to ghosts!

We crowded in a small circle around it, light up some candles for the heck of it and we started playing. Most of the questions were plain stupid, like “how you died”, “what’s the size of your dick?”, ”how much of a fag that guy is?” and so on, we asked for names and we got plenty of them, which we didn’t bothered in remember, once we thought it was only our pals screwing around.

The game was hilarious, or so it looked like to a bunch of stoned drunk teenagers, and it went for hours. Around 3:00am. Only a five of us were left and playing it; I was busted, so I crashed in the old mattress close to the table to watch the game and have some laughs. Every went well, until Sandy got her turn on it. Sandy was wasted, and didn’t look much fine, to be honest she looked like a zombie. From our little group, she was the one most interested in the Ouija thing, so no one cared much while she kept playing alone, while the last couple start having some after part action right next to her. The other girl, Mel, Was already over me, but I had the hots for Sandy so I kept half of my attention on her.

At some time she start talking in a deep, mechanical voice:

“ My. Name. Is. Dood Meisje.”

-Cmmon Sandy! No need to keep it up with a weird voice, only you are still playing that-I said.

But her voice kept in that monotonous deep tone. She spoke many things in a foreign language, and suddenly Mel throws a question for the laughs:

-Hey Doody! When we will die?

Among the muffled laughs no one took it seriously, but I saw Sandy’s body becoming stiff and frozen, she even stop breathing. Then it started:

The little arrow flied over the board faster than I could follow it, then suddenly it stopped and she spoke in a loud, but cold voice that looked somehow different than her own:

-April, drieëntwintig.

Before we could ask what the hell she said, she started again, her hands moving with strange speed and precision:

-Mei, twee.

And again:

-Juni, negen.

-Juli, tien.

-Morgen, middag.

We were all a little spooked at the time. She was kinda serious about strange things, and she wasn’t looking fine. Suddenly she got up and started screaming:

-NO! I don’t want to! PLEASE DON’T!

She grabbed her own hair and pulled it off, acting like crazy, and then she grabbed the Ouija board and throws it away.

More and more disturbed, she scratched her own face very deep, and we saw the blood pouring for her wounds as she babbled like a crazy person.

She ran out the room, in shock, we took no more than a couple minutes to go after her, but she had disappeared. It was April, 3^rd.

We were all worried about her, but we went home, expecting her to come back to her senses, but she didn’t show at school, neither returned home.

In the next day, we all heard about a strange death on the old storage house we used to have our parties. Even if the name of the person, or any other details, were kept secret, we all had a bad feeling about it.

Two days later we were at Sandy’s funeral. Her coffin shut tight, her family mourning, we didn’t had much information about it, we just knew she died April 4^th, close to midday, or so told the cops. She had the body full of wounds, so deep they couldn’t fix her face to her own funeral. Her mother was traumatized, Sandy didn’t had a father, both lived together and were very close, and worst: Her mother had to identify the body.

We were close to her mother too, she wont patronize nor support our habits, she would just ask us to be careful and play nice, and we respected her for it. When we visit her to comfort and help cleaning, we encountered two cops making her some questions:

-Miss Cross, are you sure you don’t know anyone called Morgen Middag? We had reasons to believe she had a encounter with this person in the day of her death.

-No… I knew all her friends, she didn’t kept secrets from me…she would tell me about any new friend…that was how we are… no… we used to be…

Few days later, we were called at the precinct to be asked a few questions, we didn’t said much, we really didn’t know nothing, and we even told about the party we had and about Sandy running wild later. We just omitted the drug part.

-You are sure about it? Nothing else? Maybe something about Morgen Middag?

He shown up a picture of and old man, around it sixties.

-No we never saw that guy before. He is the killer?

-We don’t know. But he is the only Morgen Middag in all state. If you remember something, please call.

After we left, we were all a little off. Sandy was very closed, and the idea of her having an OD and running into the arms of a old prick was horrible. We should have searched more for her that night, called the cops, anything.

Mel was behaving strangely, but I assumed it was the same guilty messing with her mind. We split up and went back home, were we stayed “grounded”, more like a protective custody from our parents. Details of Sandy’s death leaked, and her body, slashed, broke and mutilated soon become the city’s main concern. We discovered why they asked about the old guy: His name was written in the wall, with Sandy’s blood, and also carved over her shoulder. Everyone wanted to have a private talk with the old asshole, and didn’t took long to people discover that Morgan S. Middag, age 78, was in vegetative state since eight of October, 1984.

It was April, 23^rd, a Friday, and we simply stood home with our heads filled with crap, while the city become more and more paranoid…

The next morning I receive a visit from the cops, and was asked, in company of my parents to the precinct were investigations were been handled. The reason hit me like a bomb, right in the head: Mel had been found dead, soon after she got home last night, in her own bedroom. Someone locked the door and killed her while her parents tried to break in. They couldn’t get in until the terrible screaming stopped, and inside they found only the broke body of her daughter, arms, legs, neck, everything twisted and almost ripped of her body. The parents weren’t suspect, once the cops arrived while Mel was still screaming for help, and entered the bedroom with the parents.

This time the detective asked me about someone called April, but I couldn’t really pay attention. I had just realized how much I loved Mel, and how much I would miss her. I just cried there, in front of my parents and the detectives.

The city become paranoid as fuck, and we were kept under surveillance of our parents, teachers and the police, some afraid we were possible victims, others afraid we were the killers. All kind of sick story start running around, and I was more and more fucked in my own depression. I lost contact with my friends until my pal, Brad, called me at home. He was strange, and very afraid:

-Bro, it’s me, brad! Look I think I found it! It’s insane, I say INSANE! It’s all ab.

Suddenly the line disconnected.

It was a Monday in May.

That night a couple patrol cars stopped in front of our house and we all were took to the precinct. I already knew it was something about Brad.

This time the detectives gave us a hard time, specially me, asked a lot about some May person and why Brad called me minutes before his death. I told them what Brad told me, and look like they believed, once I and my remaining friends were moved each one to a different location and got police protection. The case was going out of control: The brutality and the fact the killer could appear and disappear without traces or warning made everyone paranoid about dying in their own beds.

Me and Lily, Brad’s girl, where the two last survivors, and It was driving Lily insane: She tried to run from the cops a couple times, and in the end everyone agreed that going out of the city was the best option to her. The local authorities called some favors and the police of Detroit, two hours flight from our city, told us they could guard her, something that brought great relief to her and her family. At the time no one knew to were she was going, it was a big secret that only a couple of guys knew about.

She took the night flight to Detroit nine of June, and the cops were already planning to move me to another city soon.

Lily never arrived: She was killed in her own seat, just like the cop sit next to her, both heads twisted in 360º degrees. No witness, and again something carved over her shoulder: Juni Negen.

My parents and the cops freak out. FBI was called in, every single passenger and crew member was keep under custody, and I was moved to a secure room on the precinct, surrounded by six huge guys armed to M-16s, one of them was the detective who lead the case, he tried to make me feel secure, but I was shitting my pants.

Then it hit me, I asked for a piece of paper and a calendar, and ordered the deaths by its dates. To my surprise, it actually worked. I soon remembered, Mel’s question:

“-When we will die?”

Sandy responded:

-April, drieëntwintig, Mei, twee, Juni, negen, Juli tien, Morgen, middag.

We were seated in a circle around the Ouija board, and our positions coincide with the dates of the deaths, Sandy, the reader, was the last of the circle, but also the first.

And I was next, no, I was the last one.

I took the pencil and wrote everything in the smallest details possible, took me hours and a entire notebook, but I made it, just before the clock in the wall marked the first minute of  ten of July. The light flickers and goes off. I feel an excruciating pain in my shoulder, and I heard a voice whispering on my ear:

“-Mijn naam is Dood Meisje…”

Fin.