18

18
By: Lucy Miller
It was dark and damp in the dreary closet. I smelled smoke and heard muffled noises. These noises were the muted screams of my friends that were soon to be dead. I was the only one left. One sound, one squeak and I was done for.
This all began at my best friend Chloe’s 18th birthday party. It was one of her biggest parties yet. She was well known for throwing amazing parties. Anybody who was anybody was invited. Me, being her best friend, was always invited. My life was perfect; I had a great best friend, I was the most popular girl in the school, and I was adored by all of the boys. But of course there are the less fortunate like MaryAnn. She had braces and her hair was as frizzy as a wet cat. Her glasses were 2 inches thick and she was never going to be as pretty as me, the head cheerleader. But who knew she would have the guts to ask Chloe and I if she could come to the party.

“ Hey Sophie! Hey Chloe! I was just wondering… maybe I could… I don’t know… come to your birthday party…” she said with a hint of gooey hair gel dripping down her forehead.

“Um… not in a million…” I started.

“She meant to say not in a million years that I wouldn’t let you come. Sure you can come. Just come by my house at 7:00 sharp. See you there!” Chloe said enthusiastically.
“Oh my gosh! Thank you so much!” MaryAnn squealed with joy. She jumped and skipped down the hallway yelling “I was invited to Chloe Hornwrath’s birthday party!”

“What did you just do? I am not losing my popularity for having you invite such a freak to your party!” I said viciously.

“Well I couldn’t be mean. I felt so bad. This is probably her first part anyways. She won’t cause any problems. She will probably be too overwhelmed and just sit in the corner.”

“Fine. Let’s just get to class.”

After the bell rang for the last class of the day something strange happened. I thought I saw someone hiding behind a tree outside the window. I looked again and it was gone. It must have just been my imagination. What else could it be?
Chloe and I started to walk home from school as usual. It was Friday and not just any Friday. Party time! Chloe has a mansion and is very rich. No wonder her parties are so great. Well, we got our manicures and pedicures and headed over to her house to get ready for the party. We picked out some dresses that were sure to impress. Then the guests started to arrive.

It was a usual and fun party. All of a sudden we hear a “tap tap” on the window. We thought it was a tree. We thought wrong. The lights went black and everyone screamed. They were out for only a couple of seconds but when they turned back on something terrible had happened. One of the boys from our school named Mitch had been brutally stabbed to death. He was laying in the middle of the floor. The confusing part is he was alive a few seconds ago before the lights went out. His blood had been splattered across the white leather couch and across the windows and ceiling like paint. There was a message. It read “Don’t be afraid. You only have 10 minutes to live. Run and scurry all you want but I will get you.”
Everyone ran around screaming. Chloe’s parents were not home and we were panicking. Someone tried to call the police but the lights went out again. This time there was a voice. It said “Little girl, do not call the cops. I am only trying to hurt you… hahaha.” The girl screamed. The lights went back on and the girl was dead. Her head was not connected to her body anymore. The head was trapped in between the door like a doorstop would be. The body had metal stakes through it keeping it stuck to the wall.

Now we were scared out of our minds. We had seen two of our classmates die. Everyone ran for the doors but they were locked. I tried to calm myself down by washing my face in the sink. I go to the bathroom and close my eyes. While I am washing my face I hear Chloe talking in the background.

“Where’s Janet? Oh my god! Where is she?” Chloe screeched.
I open my eyes to find the remains of Janet in the sink. I look in the mirror. My face is covered in blood. I scream. Everyone ran to the bathroom.

“What is that Sophie?” Chloe said with a disgusted face.

“It’s the remains of Janet… and it’s on my face!”

“Someone get a towel!.... NOW!” Chloe screamed.
Some random person came in with a towel. I wiped off the rusty smell of blood off of my face. No matter how hard I tried to get that image out of my head, it stayed. There was nothing anybody could do now. We all just sat there in the mansion living room waiting. Then this guy named Ken had a great idea.

“Hey Chloe. Don’t you have a security system?”

“Yeah. Why?” she said confused.

“Well if you know the code we can get out of here! It will unlock the doors right?” he said with a smirk on his face.

“Oh my god that’s a great idea! Ok here’s the code. Ready?” Chloe fallowed Ken over to the security pad.

“Yep.”

“32, 12, 29, 6.” Chloe said a little shaky.

“It’s not working Chloe!” Ken shouted.

“Ok. I will go check what is going on with the system. Try again.”

“Ok.”

Ken punched in the numbers again. Seconds after Chloe left, there was an electrifying buzz. Ken was being electrocuted by the security pad. Blood was everywhere. There was nothing we could do but watch in horror. Blood started to spew from his eyes and mouth. Then he was dead. The burnt smell of flesh and bones drifted among the room. I felt like vomiting up my guts.
Where was Chloe? She should have been back by now… I started to think about who could possibly be doing this. Then it came to me. MaryAnn. She would do this. She was always at the bottom of the food chain and must want her revenge. I ran up to her. She was sitting in the corner, her hands wrapped around a bloody knife.

“ You’re the killer MaryAnn Admit it!! I know you did this!”
I smacked her so hard across the face I heard her nose snap. It started to spurt out blood.

“What did you do that for? I am not the killer!” she said with a crackly voice.
She held her hand up to her nose to stop the blood from rushing out of her nose.

“You’re the killer and you know it!” Sophie said frustrated.
MaryAnn got up. She had actually dressed ok for this occasion. She was wearing makeup for one. I could tell because her mascara was dripping down her face from all of her tears. Big black chunks of mascara were clumped to her eyes.

“I’m not the…” MaryAnn stopped. All of a sudden she screeched and screamed at the highest pitch. Everyone stopped and stared. No one knew why she was screaming. The screaming stopped. Abruptly a knife protruded from her open mouth. It must have started from the back of her head. MaryAnn dropped to the floor. And standing behind her was the killer grasping the very knife it used to kill MaryAnn. The knife was drenched in blood, splashing to the white carpet. It wore a black ski mask and ripped up sweat pants. The shirt was white and almost entirely covered with blood.
Now everyone had become hysterical, running and screaming. But the killer was gone. I was the only one who had some logic in my mind. The killer obviously was not MaryAnn; she was dead. Then who could it be?

It was 10:00 at night and Chloe’s parents still were not home. No one dared to even look at the phone for fear that they would be next. There were only 5 of us left in the living room: Me, Chloe, a girl named Brenda from the cheerleading squad, Brad the quarterback, and James the star basketball player. The remaining party guests had all ran upstairs to hide. We took turns eating and going to the bathroom.
It was Brenda’s turn for the bathroom. We waited about 2 minutes and another scream came from the bathroom. We all ran but Brenda was dead. The shower pole had been impaled through her heart and she was hanging from it like a shower curtain. The bathtub was splashed with blood. The door closed behind us. The only person left outside was James. We were locked in the bathroom with the limp body of Brenda. But where was Chloe?

We heard a painful scream from the kitchen. It must have been James. I picked the lock with my bobby pin to let me and Brad out. We slowly crept to the kitchen not making one sound. I stuck my head through the door. And there on the floor lay James dead as a doorknob. Every single kitchen utensil had been pierced into his body. A puddle of blood drizzled along the cracks in the floor. The garbage disposal was on. I walked over to see what could be making such a horrible sound. I looked in the sink to see an arm sticking out from the garbage disposal. The sound of the bones grinding and crushing made me sick. Obviously this person had gone missing a long time ago or there would be more left. I screeched and turn it off. Brad was crouching over his dead friend, mourning.

“We have to get to the bottom of this Brad. We can’t just walk around this graveyard Chloe calls her house saying nothing is going to happen to us.”

“I know. I am going to go to the basement to see if there are any tools I can use to defend myself.”

“Ok, be careful.”

I sat there on the freezing floor trying to regain some confidence. I saw a quick flash of a ski mask. I ran and hid in the nearest closet. I stumbled as I tried to make it before I was slaughtered. In the closet it is damp, dark and dreary. I hear some of the people left over being killed; some my friends, some not. Then I hear quiet foot steps heading my way. The door creaked open and there stood the killer. It ripped its mask off of its head. It was Chloe.

“Why?” I stuttered.

“Because, I was tired of always living in your shadow! All of these people here have always thought you were better than I and I am sick of it! Now prepare to die a very slow and painful death, Sophie.”

“No!” I whispered. I heard a chainsaw in the background. Then a chainsaw sawed through Chloe’s neck. It was Brad. He saved me. The decapitated head rolled through the closet like a bowling ball.

“Oh my god!” I cried into Brad’s shirt.

“It’s ok…” he said calmingly.

We sat on the couch watching T.V until it was late. Then we heard a high pitched shrill yet again. A hatchet jetted through the air and through Brad’s forehead. Blood spilled out from his head. I was alone. But who was it this time?

Speak

Without symbolism within a book, the story would not be full of mysterious meanings. Figuring out what they stand for is part of the fun. The authors connect symbols to real life so they are easily understood. When there are no symbols there is no magical experience.Symbolism is something that Laurie Halse Anderson uses to communicate with the readers in the novel Speak.

When you look in the mirror you see yourself. Melinda sees a completely different person. It is part of her identity crisis. She feels one way but looks another. Melinda wants to hide and not to be seen. But the mirror does the opposite. It shows her face to herself and the world. The lips on her face are cracked and so are her feelings. She is scared of who she is and who she can become. She could become more but decides to stash it away and keep her secret. She wants to forget and dispose of what happened, not face it. On page 20 Melinda finds herself in this same situation . She looks in the mirror and wants to hide in her own shadow. As the book goes on, she finds that she can use her identity to her advantage. Melinda stands up and faces her fears using her own identity to do it. The mirror symbolizes her identity in the book. Page 195 shows the true identity of Melinda ; “Shards of glass slip down the wall and into the sink. IT pulls away from me, puzzled. I reach in and wrap my fingers around a triangle of glass. I hold it to Andy Evans neck. He freezes. I push just hard enough to raise one drop of blood. He raises his arms over his head.” In the end Melinda can use the mirror and her identity as a weapon to end up on top.

Melinda has no sense of identity at this point and time of the book. She tries to cope by creating her own comfort zone. The closet. She feels safe there like nobody can hurt or touch her. All of her things are in there that have any meaning at all. The poster of Maya in there symbolizes that she is not the only one who was banned from the school. In her head that author must have written or done something very dreadful to get banned. Melinda only called the police and yet she was banned as well. The student body either ignores her completely or mocks her. Both ways she will feel hurt and sorrow. She can relate to Maya because they were both shunned into their own reality. Here in the closet Melinda feels that she doesn’t have to worry about the world outside. She is living in her own world. She draws pictures and hangs them up there so she can sit and stare. Each one secretly has a meaning that is hidden inside. For example she drew a picture of a tree drooping into the water. This symbolizes that she is getting better and is trying to breath. Trees need water to live and that’s why it is reaching out to drink. “ I sketch a willow tree drooping into the water. I won’t show it to Mr. Freeman. This one is for my closet. I’ve been taping some of my drawings on the walls.” She is finally ready to try and recover from her horrible predicament. She feels as though she can get through it very easily, where at the beginning of the book it was hard for her to even talk. She is still a nobody, but it helps her to know that she can move along.

The closet shows security but the hospital means help. Melinda is broken and needs to be put back together. The hospital symbolizes how she can and will get better. She knows somewhere in here heart she has the ability to feel better and wants that feeling. She goes to the hospital without knowing why she is there. It was a mistake but she feels she was meant to be there at that time. She finds this can help her get by and try to solve her problems. In some way it is as if she is recovering from a very bad illness. Being sick can be tough and hide peoples’ true feelings. That is what Melinda is doing, hiding her feelings from the world. People go to the hospital for help and medicine to get well again. Melinda may not know it but she wants to be well again.

If there are no symbols there isn’t any fun in reading the story. Symbols are part of our everyday life. We use them to correspond with one another. They do not have to mean what they are suppose to. They can have any meaning that you want. Symbols are creative and part of the real world. Using symbols can help people to understand that life is not all about winning. You use them to express your feelings, not to hide them.