Miraculous: Tales of the Unknown

Miraculous: Tales of the
Unknown

A Paranormal Indie Author
Anthology

Compiled By:

Krystal George and Amber
Streed

Featuring Stories
From:

Krystal George

Amber Streed

Amanda Alberson

Kate Marie
Robbins

Cheryl Casey

Heather Kirchhoff

S Cu ‘Anam
Policar

Donna Kelly

Lisa Marie
Pottgen

Illustrated by:

Cheryl Casey
Ramirez

www.ccrbookdesigns.com

*
Each story was edited by the individual Author*

Formatted by: Krystal George

For All of the
Readers

This is a compilation of
stories written for you…

Thank you all for your
dedication and support of what we do!

The Babysitter

By: Krystal
George

©2013 by Krystal
George

I hate babysitting. There
was something about kids that really irritated me. They were
smelly, loud, foul little creatures and there always seemed to be
something sticky or soggy about them. So when my mom volunteered me
to babysit the Anderson kids, I could have strangled her. There
were three of them.

Tessa was the oldest at
eleven. She had short wavy blonde hair and big brown eyes. Next was
Malcolm at eight. He had brown hair that he wore in a spiked faux
hawk. Last was Priscilla. She was only four and the biggest brat I
had ever seen. If you spent any time hanging out at the local
grocery store, you had surely seen one of her tantrums. Her long
blonde hair was always tangled, her face was always red and her
eyes were always full of tears. It was enough to cause me a
headache just thinking about them… and I was about to embark on an
entire night with them… a Friday night… alone… with the Anderson
kids… UGH!

“Call me if you need
anything,” my mom said as I walked out of the front door. I rolled
my eyes, but she didn’t see me. I was just so annoyed at her for
volunteering me like she had. Why would she even think I’d be
interested in watching those little monsters?

The walk to the Anderson
house was actually pretty pleasant despite my bad mood. There was a
crisp breeze and the smell of rain in the air. I loved the rain. I
loved the way it made the ground smell earthy and musky. I am
obsessed with dirt. I know that it’s strange, but it’s true, and
there is just something about mud that excites me.

My cell phone was tucked
away safely in my pocket and I jumped when it started vibrating
against my hip. Then I laughed for being such a sissy. When I
pulled it out, I smiled because it was Ben, my boyfriend. “Hi
there.”

“Surrounded by kids
yet?”

“Ugh, not yet. So not
looking forward to it.” I groaned.

“Where do the Andersons
live again?”

I laughed, “no way Ben.
It’s going to be bad enough without getting into trouble for
sneaking my boyfriend in.”

“Come on Shaina, live a
little.”

I rolled my eyes once
again to myself. “I’ll see you tomorrow, promise.”

“Ugh, fine.”

I smiled when I ended the
call. I was expecting that he’d be at the Anderson’s within the
hour. He wasn’t the type of guy who took no for an answer,
especially when it involved an almost empty house.

It was just starting to
get dark when I walked up to the front door. Before I even rang the
bell, I could hear the fussing going on inside. Someone was
screaming, someone was laughing, and someone was crying. I groaned.
This was going to be a long night. I reached forward and rang the
bell.

Carrie Anderson opened the
door with an exasperating sigh. “Shaina, thank God.”

“Hello Mrs.
Anderson.”

She was dressed up in a
slinky black dress and bright red heels. Her makeup was flawless
and her hair was perfect… almost. There was a gummy bear stuck in
the chestnut strands and I had to stifle a laugh as I picked it out
and handed it to her.

She laughed, “Come in,
come in! Please come in!”

It took every ounce of
self-control I had to keep my composure. I was pretty sure that she
wouldn’t appreciate it if I rolled my eyes or groaned at the
thought of walking in to her house.

“I’m sorry that the house
is a little messy right now, but please make yourself at
home.”

The word little wasn’t an
adequate description of just how “messy” her house was. There were
toys scattered across the floor like a broken battlefield. Clothes
were stacked in piles that looked as if at one time they had been
neatly folded, but now resembled something along the lines of
falling towers. There was a fresh red stain on the carpet by the
steps and a bottle of carpet cleaner and a scrub brush lying next
to it. Luckily, for now, the kids were nowhere to be
seen.

“What time are you going
to be home again?”

She looked at her watch
with panicked eyes. “I have to meet my husband in twenty minutes.
We shouldn’t be later than one; I told your mom one o’clock. That’s
okay, right?”

I could hear the panic
rising in her voice and smiled trying to look reassuringly. “Of
course, I was just curious.” Crap I thought, six whole hours of
these freaking kids.

She looked down at her
watch again and then smiled at me apologetically. “I guess I should
go and get the kids and make sure that you all are alright
together.”

She said that, but I could
tell she wanted nothing more than to just get out of here, so I let
her off the hook. “Don’t worry about it Mrs. Anderson. I’m sure
that we’ll be just fine.” Yeah and the pay better be worth my time,
I thought.

“
Are you sure?” She asked,
visibly sighing in relief.

No! I wanted to scream,
but instead I nodded and plastered a fake smile on my face. “Yup,
I’ve got this.”

She grabbed her purse and
car keys off of a table next to the front door and smiled at me,
“thank you so much Shaina. We really appreciate this,” and then she
was gone.

It was like they sensed
the moment their mother was gone. The house exploded with noise. A
radio somewhere in the house blared to life and someone started
singing along with it at the top of their lungs. Somewhere else in
the house, a television was turned up and an action scene complete
with squealing tires and shots being fire echoed through the
downstairs. Then to add even more noise to the already chaotic
sound, someone started screaming.

I closed my eyes and took
a deep breath and then began chanting to myself.
I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. Six
hours… I can survive anything for six hours.

I chose to deal with the
television first since I was already downstairs. Following the
sound of crashing and glass breaking, I found my way into the rec
room where Malcolm was standing on the couch and cheering for the
bad guys. He had a stick of licorice hanging from his mouth and
when one of the bad guys was shot and killed he started yelling at
the screen.

“What the heck you
idiot!!! You so could have gotten away.”

“Malcolm?”

He turned and looked at me
before pulling the sticky licorice out of his mouth after biting
off a huge piece. Then with his mouth full, he asked, “who are
you?”

I smiled even though
inside I was thinking about where I could potentially lock him up
for the night. “I’m Shaina, the babysitter.”

He plopped down on the
couch cushions and sat his sticky treat down next to him… on the
couch… on the fabric of the couch cushion. I wanted to scream at
him for being such an idiot… but I didn’t. I kept my
cool.

“I don’t really need a
babysitter, you know.”

I looked around the messy
rec room and raised my eyebrows, “oh no? Really?”

“Nope, I’m sort of the man
of house, actually. My dad works a lot.”

Before I could answer him,
something sounding like a crash echoed upstairs. “I need to go and
check that out. Do me a favor, would you, and turn down the volume
on the TV?”

He rolled his eyes, but
grabbed the remote and turned down the volume.

“Thank you.”

See, that wasn’t so bad, I
told myself… one down and two more to go. I can do this! I walked
up the stairs and into the bedroom where I thought the crash had
come from. Once there I stood in stunned silence at what I
saw.

I can’t do
this…

“It’s a slide! See,”
Priscilla said pointing at her bed and dresser.

She had pushed her dresser
down onto her bed at an angle. I wasn’t even sure how she had
managed it, but now she was using the back of her dresser as a
slide. The front was facing the floor and the drawers that weren’t
blocked by the floor or the bed had slid open and all of the
clothes had fallen out of them.

“Wanna try?” She
asked.

I closed my eyes and
prayed for a little patience. I just needed enough to get me
through this night. That’s all I was asking for.

“We need to pick this up.”
I told her slowly. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Those were the wrong
words.

Tears began spilling down
her reddened cheeks, her lips began to tremble, and then a
horrendous scream tore from her throat.

“I… don’t… want… to…!” She
cried.

I took a deep breath.
“Priscilla, I’m sorry, but we have to get this mess cleaned up. If
you don’t want to help, you’re going to have to sit in the corner
until I’m finished.”

She cried, she pouted, she
refused to help and in the end, she sat watching me from the corner
with tears still streaming down her face and hatred blazing in her
eyes. I allowed myself the satisfaction of the small victory that
at least she was sitting where I told her to sit.

When the dresser was
finally pushed back into place and the room picked back up at least
most of the way. I turned on her TV and put in a movie to calm her
down. With any luck, and I wasn’t really counting on any, she’d
fall asleep while watching it.

Once I was back in the
hallway, I strained my ears to see if the TV was still turned down
downstairs, but I couldn’t hear it over the blare of the radio
coming from down the hallway. Two down and one to go, I told
myself. I looked at my watch. I’d already been there for an
hour.
I can do this… I can do this… I can
do this. I can survive anything for five hours.

Tessa’s bedroom was at the
opposite end of the hall as Pricilla’s had been. I knew which one
it was right away because the stereo was so loud that it was
practically shaking the closed door. I knocked out of courtesy but
I knew that she couldn’t hear it so a few seconds later I turned
the knob and walked in.

Her room was decorated in
true pre-teen fashion with posters of celebrities torn out of
magazines papering the walls. She had a fuzzy hot pink rug covering
the majority of her wooden floors, and her bed was covered with
stars and peace signs. It was on her bed that I found her. Sprawled
out on her stomach, chewing gum and flipping through a book. She
looked up when she sensed I was watching her and rolled her
eyes.

“I don’t need a
babysitter.”

Without even waiting for
her to hear my request, I walked to her dresser and turned down the
volume of her radio. “Well your parents disagree.”

The look she sent me was
so angry and so full of attitude that I almost started laughing. I
couldn’t help it. She was this little girl who was just coming into
her own as far as starting to grow up and she thought she could out
do me when it came to the ‘tude? I don’t think so.

“I’m going to go
downstairs and make something for your brother and sister to eat,
are you hungry?”

She shrugged and turned
her attention back to her book, “I don’t know… maybe.”

Awesome, I thought. “Okay
well I’ll call up here when it’s ready so please leave your radio
turned down so you can hear me.”