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The Rule of Threes

What if your worst enemy was stuck in your head?

By Charleigh JusticePublished 2 years ago 20 min read
6
The Rule of Threes
Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash

Olivia Cassidy was not crazy.

Sometimes she did crazy things, she knew that. But she wasn’t crazy. Her mother said so.

“You’re just my quirky little duckie,” her mom would say reassuringly, pinching Olivia’s cheeks and brushing her fingers through her hair. Olivia thought maybe she was a little too old to be called ‘duckie’ now that she was ten years old, but it was one thing she couldn’t bear to part with in her old age. She liked being her mommy’s little duckie. Ducks were happy and cute, and so was Olivia. Wasn’t she?

“Yup, yup, yup,” Olivia told herself.

She was still twisted up in the soft blankets of her bed, her face shoved into the pillow and refusing to start the day. She’d actually slept well last night, and she did not want to waste the sweet comfort she’d found in her mattress.

Her alarm clock, as usual, was defiant against her wishes. “Blriiiiing! Blriiiiing! Blriiiiing!” it cried.

With a groan, Olivia flipped herself over and, as was routine, flapped her eyelids open and closed. Twenty-one times. That was the deal she had made with herself. Her usual three time limit seemed a bit lackluster when it came to her blinking, and she wasn’t a fan of any of the other multiples of three. So it was twenty-one blinks, or she would have a disastrous day.

Twenty. Twenty-one.

Olivia sat up, her vision blinded with spots of color and her skull nauseated by the repetitive motions. She smacked her alarm clock and reached for her glasses. Thin plastic rims with sapphire and coffee-colored leopard print adorning the temples. She tied her long blonde hair back with a clip.

Finally her legs swung over the edge of the bed and headed for the door. Fingers flicked over the gold lock. Flick. Flick. Flick.

To the dresser now. Slip a puffy plum sweatshirt over her slim, bony figure and pull a baggy pair of jeans over her thighs.

Back to the door. Unlock. Out the door.

Olivia caught a whiff of hot toast emanating from the kitchen, entering with a swift turn from the hall. As she thought, the little red handle on the toaster had been pressed down by two thick pieces of sliced wheat bread. But she couldn’t eat yet. There was one final obstacle to surpass before she was guaranteed a good day.

The silverware drawer called her name. Stumbling on unknowing feet, Olivia pulled open the drawer and poked at a spoon. Then a fork. Then a butterknife. She left the drawer gaping open and turned to the microwave. Her fingers passed over each of the bouncy buttons. Start, stop, defrost, popcorn. Each number, each quick function running over her skin like warm water. Lastly, she headed to the knife block, a dark mass of plastic engraved with nine slits. Olivia wrapped her shaking hands over the sides of the knife block, staring at the seven knives of varying size. Her mother must not have finished the dishes yesterday. Must not have cleaned the last two knives.

“Oh well,” Olivia said. “Should still do the trick.”

She unraveled her hands from the base of the knife block and closed the silverware drawer. She grabbed her toast.

Nothing bad could happen now.

Olivia pranced to the garage door, where her mother would be waiting in her silver minivan.

“Good morning, duckie!” her mother called from the rolled-down glass of her side door. “Took you long enough. I’ve been waiting here for fifteen minutes! You’ll be late to school.”

“Sorry Mom,” Olivia said. “Had to eat my toast.”

Her mother scoffed, not looking at her daughter as she pressed the unlock button on the dashboard. “Then how come it’s still in your hand?”

Olivia didn’t answer. She climbed into the passenger seat, buckled herself in tight, and fiddled with the stereo. “We’ll be more late if you keep bickering at me,” she joked.

“Better watch your mouth, kid.”

“You know I’m kidding, Momma.”

“Better be,” her mother said with a wink. She stabbed the key in the car and pressed into the ignition, beginning their journey to the school.

Olivia loved mornings with her mother. Her mom had a warm, positive aura about her that was exacerbated by the morning sun in their eyes. It always made Olivia feel like everything was going to be alright. Like no matter what she did or didn’t do, everyone was going to make it out okay.

Outside, a comforting landscape stretched out before her. Oaky trees with bright emerald leaves and puffy, white clouds that twisted and contorted to all sorts of fun shapes. Tiny houses with creamy white shingles and decorated patios, and a family of dumpster cats relaxing in a patch of sun-soaked grass.

A loving heat bubbled in her chest. Happiness, she supposed.

She arrived at the school in little time, as they lived in the neighborhood of the district. “Have a wonderful day, Liv!” her mother said with a sweet smile.

“Yup, yup, yup,” Olivia replied.

The first few hours of school rolled by seamlessly. “Just as they should,” Olivia thought happily. She was coloring in a huge picture of a rhinoceros with the new box of crayons her mother had bought for her over the weekend. She ground down the fresh tip of the gray crayon with earnest.

“Class,” the teacher said at the front of the room. Olivia looked over the rhinoceros, pausing in her coloring mid-stroke. “It's time for lunch. Please put up all the materials you took out for your colorings just as you found them and head to the cafeteria.”

Olivia examined her half-colored drawing. Its edges were overflowing with a gray mass of crayon, its eyes drawn down like it was about as upset as she was to leave her. She waved it goodbye as she shoved it into her desk.

She stood up quickly, a handful of crayons in her little fist. The brand new cardboard box from her mother lay crooked on the little wooden desk. Olivia gingerly lifted each crayon into the box, watching closely as to which color sat next to the other. The robin’s egg blue seemed to be a little too close to the popcorn yellow, so maybe she should adjust it a bit more. Oomph, but now the peachy orange was next to the amethyst purple, that wouldn’t do.

Coal black next to juicy orange? Ridiculous. Olivia would not hear of it.

She sat back down and dumped the entire box onto the desk. She sorted them all into colorful, equal rows resulting in a delicious gradient. Starting from the left, she refilled the box with her newfound color sequence.

Olivia smiled. Now she could go join the class and enjoy the tuna sandwich her mother had packed for her.

But as she left her desk and stepped out the classroom door, she heard shrieks of laughter. Children filled the halls, all of them coming towards Olivia.

In an instant, the classroom was full again, the teacher was back up at the front, and Olivia was standing in the doorway in bewilderment.

“Olivia, dear, please sit down,” the teacher said. “Lunch is over. It's time to learn again.”

Olivia did as she was told and sat back down at her desk. How could this be? She couldn’t have missed lunch, it was a forty-five minute long class. She had only been sorting her crayons for, at most, five minutes.

“Who knows,” Olivia thought to herself. “I can go back to coloring my rhino.”

The class proceeded as usual, as though nothing strange had ever happened. Her rhino filled with crayon, she played with her friends, her teacher lectured over some weird thing about the Earth’s crust. Olivia had never really thought about the Earth as pie before, but it was an interesting concept.

“Olivia,” her friend Suzy whispered.

Suzy sat in front of Olivia in a hard black chair instead of a soft, plastic blue chair like the rest of the class. The teacher had run out of pretty blue chairs, apparently. It bothered Olivia.

Olivia lifted her head from her work. “What, Suzy?”

“What do you...uh, shoot,” Suzy stumbled. Her eyes lit up. “Oh yeah! What do you call a, wait no. Y-yeah! What do you call toothpaste??”

Olivia was stumped. “Um...I call mine Gerald.”

“No! It’s a joke, Livvy. Now try again. What do you call toothpaste?”

“What?”

“A...tuba toothpaste!”

“That’s not a very good joke, Suzy. I don’t think you did it right.”

Suzy furrowed her brow, crossing her arms in front of her. “Yeah, well, you try being funny for once and see how hard it is!”

“Suzy,” the teacher called. “The rest of the class is learning about the Earth’s crust. Would you like to join us?”

Suzy grumbled but turned around again, her long black hair swishing over her shoulder as she did. When she stood up, it landed below her waist in a sea of tangles. Apparently Suzy’s mother didn’t hound her about brushing her hair everyday like Olivia’s did. Something was off about her friend’s appearance today, however. A little cloud of something was stuck in her tangles. A fuzzy.

“Suzy,” Olivia whispered.

Her friend paid no attention to her. For once in her elementary school career, she was completely focused on the teacher.

“Suzy,” she repeated, “You have something in your hair.”

This time Olivia was met with a growl. Suzy did not want to get in trouble again, which was fair, but Olivia doubted she wanted to walk around with fuzz in her hair, either.

As gently as she could, Olivia plucked the fuzzy out of the cluster of dark hair. Suzy did not seem to notice.

She flicked it onto the floor and tried her hardest to concentrate on her teacher.

But there was a sudden blanket of dread draped over her thoughts.

Touch her hair again.

“Why would I want to touch Suzy’s nasty hair again?” Olivia thought to herself. “No. I don’t want to.”

You only touched it once.

“So what?”

You know that’s not allowed.

“I know.”

You’re breaking the rules. You know what happens when you break the rules.

“I...I know.”

...

...

...go on.

Olivia’s quivering hand edged closer to Suzy’s ratty hair, draped not-so-delicately over her black chair. She knew her fingers didn’t have a nose like her face did, but she couldn’t help but notice a stinging in her skin like her nostrils when she smelled a bad smell.

She quickly poked the hair. Twice. And lowered her hand back to her desk.

“There,” she thought. Her chest was heaving, anxious and shivering with effort. It was just a little touch, a miniscule movement on her part. Why did it leave her so tired? She supposed it didn’t really matter. It was over for now.

Again.

“What?” Olivia said aloud. She hadn’t spoken loud enough for the entire class to hear, but the kids closest to her cocked their heads at her. Some of them frowned at her. Some of them giggled.

She retreated back to her mind. “What do you mean ‘again?’ I did what you wanted. I did what we agreed on. Threes, right? I touched her hair three times.”

No...you did once. And then two times.

“One plus two is three,” Olivia retorted.

It doesn’t count. Do it again.

“Fine.” Olivia reached over her desk and patted the hair again. Three times. One right after the other.

One. Two. Three.

“Now leave me alone,” she said.

But now you’ve done it twice.

“What?”

The sequence. You did it twice. Do it again. Olivia touched the hair again.

The first time didn’t count, though…

Once again, Olivia tapped the hair. She felt a tear stab her eye. She quietly awaited the voice’s next demand, her head hanging sadly.

...

No voice. She must have silenced it for now.

She turned her attention back to the lecture, her small hands fixed in fists to keep herself from crying. To her surprise, her teary eyes met her teacher’s stony cold ones. “Olivia,” the teacher said, her arms crossed in dismay. “In this classroom, we keep our hands to ourselves. I thought you would have figured that out by now, but I guess I was wrong. Please go to the office.”

A sharp, icy ping of surprise and, strangely, guilt sliced Olivia’s heart. She looked around the room to see everyone staring at her, a room full of beady, judgmental eyes including Suzy’s narrowed blue ones. Her friend, or rather who she thought had been her friend, stroked her hair pompously, happy that Olivia was in trouble and not her. Happy that Olivia had made a fool out of herself despite the fact that she had been forced to.

She stood up from her seat, shaking like the whole school was under a snow weather advisory. Slowly, she convinced her feet to slide themselves out the classroom door, down the hallway, and into the main office. A terrifying brunette woman sat at a desk, staring at her. Her desk was a lot nicer than Olivia’s.

“How can I help you, sugar?” she asked in a deep, monotone voice.

Olivia swallowed. “I got in trouble.”

“That’s no good, buttercup. Let me call up your teacher real quick. You can take a seat.”

Olivia examined the room, finding three large cushioned leather chairs at the right side of the office. “That’s awfully fancy for an elementary school,” she thought to herself. She sunk into the middle chair, her back slipping against the material as she hung her head in shame. How could this have happened? She was not a bad kid. She was not like Suzy. She had just been following orders, the demands of that strange monster in her mind.

A monster.

Her mother read her stories about monsters when she was younger. They were bad creatures, and they did bad things to people. They were not to be trusted. Why had Olivia so blatantly believed the beast when it asked her to do such strange, silly things? Every morning she delivered what it asked. She messed with the silverware, played with the microwave buttons, uneasily grappled with the knife block. All for the promise for a good day, that it would not bug her throughout the rest of the day, but apparently it had gone back on its word. It didn’t like to play by the rules it had set upon her. It liked to change things up.

“Maybe I should too,” she thought to herself with a smile.

“Oh,” the scary receptionist lady said at the other side of the room. The receiver of a telephone was pressed against her ear, a worrisome frown upon her face. “Strange, that’s not what I thought it was. But ok, if you think that is best, I will send her home.” She turned to Olivia, who pretended not to notice. “Well, sugar pea, your mother is going to pick you up. You can stay here until she does. Get comfy.”

Olivia nodded. Weird. She hadn’t even done anything that bad, so why was she being sent home? Was she being suspended for simply touching her friend’s hair too much? School had funny rules.

But at least she could confide in her mother. She had told her about the voice before. She assured her it was nothing to worry about, but everytime Olivia mentioned it, her brow furrowed and her lips pursed like she was scared. Maybe she knew something Olivia did not.

She doesn’t.

Oh no.

“So you’re back,” Olivia thought to herself.

Never left.

“Right.”

You see the scary woman’s stapler over there?

“Yes. I do. What about it?”

No one has used it in a while. Look at all that dust. It’s begging for a use or two. Or three.

Olivia smirked. “You don’t follow the rules.”

I make the rules. I can change them whenever I want.

“That makes it a horrible game,” Olivia said. “I don’t want to play it anymore.”

You have to.

“No. I don’t.”

You have to. Trust me.

“I will never trust you!” Olivia shouted. “And I never should have. Leave me alone. I don’t want to hear from you ever again!”

But if you don’t...

Your mother will die.

Olivia felt every muscle in her body tense up. Her mother, her beautiful, sweet momma who laughed with her and made her feel better and reassured her that she was not out of her mind. Her powerful, single mom who was strong enough to take on whatever was thrown in her way. She was coming to pick her up right now, and they lived right across the street so it wouldn’t be long now. Nothing bad could happen, she couldn’t die. She wouldn’t.

“You’re lying again,” she said with a sniffle.

No. She will die if you do not do as I say. And it’ll be all your fault.

“That’s mean.” A tear rolled down her cheek onto her lips. Salty.

It’s the truth.

“We live just two minutes away. She can’t die in just two minutes.”

Press the stapler.

Olivia did not respond.

Press. The. Stapler.

A sound at the door. A figure walked through, dressed in a short, colorful polka-dot dress with gorgeous golden ringlets tumbling down its shoulders. Olivia felt a spark of hope explode in her heart.

“Mommy!”

She ran to the beautiful figure as it turned to face her. The hope in Olivia’s chest quickly dissipated to disbelief. It was her mother, it really was, it had her shining sage eyes and patient smile and faint freckles and everything was just right but something was horribly wrong. The polka-dots of the dress were splattered with something grotesque. Its right arm was stationed at a strange angle as was its left leg, which forced it to jump from place to place to move anywhere. The strange red fluid on the dress was also oozing from a gash in its forehead peppered with large triangles of glass and pooling in the chasm of its collarbone.

“Baby!” it cried. Its voice was just like her mother’s, sweet and silky like honey. It was so horrifically wrong.

“No!” Olivia screamed. She flung herself behind the receptionist’s desk, practically sitting on the poor confused woman’s lap. “No! You can’t, how did you--? Mommy no!”

“What are you screeching about, child?” the receptionist said as she pushed Olivia as far as she could from her spot behind the desk.

Olivia’s body shook with horror as she lifted a shaking finger to the bloody beast in front of her. “This is not my mom!”

The receptionist seemed uncertain about this. She reached for her computer mouse, typed a few things in a search engine of some sorts, and clicked on a link titled “Olivia Cassidy.” An image of Olivia popped up on the screen, as well as one of her biological father and the oozing monster. She looked from the screen to the beast, back and forth and back and forth.

“Um, darling, this is the woman we have on file as being your mother.”

Olivia shook her head violently, lifting a pen from a cup on the desk in defense. She clicked it open and pointed it at the thing. “No no no this is not my mommy, my mommy is not dead I swear she isn’t, she couldn’t have died in two minutes it’s just not possible how could she have...

“Duckie what on Earth are you saying?” the monster said.

Olivia’s lungs gasped for air. This could not be happening, this just could not be real. She had to be dreaming again. She would wake up and she would blink twenty-one times just as the voice asked and she would touch the silverware and the microwave and the knife block and she wouldn’t complain anymore, not if it meant her mother was...

Dark dots invaded Olivia’s vision. She stumbled, the pen slipping from her now feeble grip. She was on the ground, the receptionist staring at her like she was crazy and the terrible beast looming over her, dripping blood onto her cheeks and smelling of crusty dirt like its skin was decaying on the spot.

The spots of blackness in her eyes crowded together until finally everything went dark.

She woke up twelve hours later in a familiar heap of blankets.

The back of her head pounded with the rapid pulse of her heartbeats, and her eyes swam through her skull as they looked out upon the ceiling above her. She always thought her bedroom ceiling looked like meringue, with the paint curling just like soft serve and having sharp, pointy tips that would make a satisfying crunch if you were to dip a fork in them.

Just this morning, Olivia had woken up to this exact ceiling and blinked her eyes twenty-one times.

“No more,” she whispered.

“But what if it wasn’t a dream?” she asked herself. “What if Mommy–”

She refused, throwing herself out of the bed and stomping her way to her bedroom door. “I’ll prove it wasn’t real. Mom is just outside the door in the living room watching her shows and eating those crackers she likes and knitting…”

Even as she told herself these words, Olivia didn’t believe it. She hoped it was true, sure, but there was something wrong. The thick curtain of dread that was constantly wrapping up the thoughts in her mind had somehow permeated the veil between her world and the real world.

Somehow she was in the space her intrusive thoughts created.

Whether it was real or not, though, was still up for interpretation. Olivia shakily reached for the handle of the door, the tips of her fingers awaiting the cool sensation of metal against her skin. That would be real. That would ground her.

Her hand wrapped around the doorknob. Instead of sweet cold, she felt a distinct heat emanating from the door.

Welcome back.

“Let me go see my mommy,” Olivia said, her breath wavering as the words tumbled from her mouth. The inflection in her voice made it sound like a question.

Hmm…

On the other side of the door, something made a gurgly croaking sound. A pungent stink enveloped Olivia’s nose, and her free hand quickly pinched off her nostrils. She staggered, trying to hold herself together enough to keep herself from puking.

If you insist.

“Olivia!” the tortured voice called out. It sounded like it was coming from the kitchen. “Sweetie, are you awake?”

Olivia’s ribs squeezed hard against her abdomen and released three shivering gasps. This couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be real. She had always feared her mother dying, sure, but it was never reality. None of her fears had ever actually happened. She was just always scared.

But that woman out there. That was not her mommy. And that was real.

I see you don’t like what I made for you.

“I want my mom,” Olivia whimpered.

You didn’t listen. You didn’t touch the stapler.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed.

You don’t listen and there are consequences.

The heat of the doorknob in Olivia’s hand tickled her fingers, traveling up her wrist and forearm. It caressed her skin with its warmth. It reminded Olivia of when her and her mother went camping a few years ago. She had thrown a marshmallow deep into the fire, and when they went to dig it out it resembled a piece of charcoal.

Now…

The warmth was at her armpit now.

I am going to offer you one last choice.

“Okay,” Olivia sniffled.

Good.

You will either touch this doorknob a total of three times…

Or you will die.

“Just like my mom,” Olivia said.

Yes.

She thought about this. In actuality, simply touching something a certain number of times was much more appealing than death, but she knew how the voice was. It was say three times but it would actually mean a certain number of sequences of different numbers, but those numbers would change each day and the rules were never the same and it was a difficult game to win. She would torment herself with this hot door, maybe for just three minutes, but over her lifetime a series of a bunch of three minutes would add up quickly. Three minutes would become three hours, three hours would become three years. She would never be free.

But dying was scary.

Her real mommy would know what to do. She’d tell her to always keep fighting no matter what and stick up for herself against bullies. The voice was a bully, alright. The worst bully Olivia had ever laid eyes upon.

And it was stuck in her head.

She knew what her mom would want her to do. But her mom was dead.

In Olivia’s eyes, the choice was obvious.

Horror
6

About the Creator

Charleigh Justice

Hello! My name is Charleigh, and I am a freelance writer taking a gap year before studying creative writing and theatre in college. I love writing and constructing sentences from nothing, and I hope you enjoy the ones I've made for you!

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Comments (3)

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  • Thaumus the Bard2 years ago

    I really enjoyed this, it was intense, kind of creepy, has a Dean Koontz vibe (in my eyes), and made me wanting more. Keep up the great work!

  • Beth Ray2 years ago

    Brilliant idea bringing to life what people with OCD fear happening if they don't play out their compulsions.

  • Whoa… that was intense!!

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