The Polaroid

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when I hear Mum and Dad go to bed. It must have been at least 10 minutes after I heard Mum and Dad close their bedroom door when I start to hear the sound of timber floors creaking, as if someone was still moving around the house. I wake Jacob up, my heart feels like it’s pounding out of my chest as we both listen to the footsteps which appear to be coming from the basement below.

Jacob silently listens, his face full of fear, he tells me it’s nothing and wants me to go back to sleep. I know he is trying to put on a brave face for me but I can see the terror in his eyes. He gets out of the bed and heads towards the door. “What are you doing? I shriek. “I’m just going to the bathroom.” He says softly “be quiet and go back to sleep before you wake everyone up” he says. “Fine” I say, “Just be careful” I warn him. “I will, goodnight Tom” he said, “Goodnight Jacob I reply.”

I wake up to sunshine beaming in my face from the window and turn around expecting to see Jacob lying by my side. But he’s not. I swiftly get up and call out for him. No reply. I open the door and run down the stairs, I must have woken up Mum and Dad because I hear their door open. “Tom, is everything alright?” Dad asks. “Jacob!” I’m screaming at the top of my lungs. I’m running in every direction, looking in the kitchen and the bathrooms but he is nowhere to be seen. I see the basement door wide open and the light shining at the bottom of the narrow staircase. I hesitate for a moment, and then thinking of my brother, run straight down the stairs. I pause on the last step as I see him on the floor, a pool of his blood surrounds him. Everything feels like it is going in slow motion, I’m speechless and cannot move. I feel the pinching sensation in my eyes knowing that I am about to start crying. I see something on his body and build up all the strength I have to walk over there and pick it up. Behind me Mum walks down the basement stairs, her piercing screams and wails of pain and agony fill my ears. It is another Polaroid, the exact one that Jacob threw out two days before. Only this time the clown isn’t holding up three fingers, he’s holding up four. I collapse and grab a hold of Jacob’s lifeless body and give in to my emotions as the tears roll down my face.