An Old photograph

         Clearing out my attic  I stumbled across a very old picture. In this picture I was standing beside another girl, we were arm and arm and no older than 8. I must have studied that picture for three days, simply trying to figure out who the girl beside me was. It was starting to bug the hell out of me, it kept feeling like this was someone I should remember. I did the only reasonable thing I could think of, I called my mother - don't get me wrong, I love her, but I hate her at the same time-  she would remember.
         “Rachel was your best friend when you 8, you two were thick as thieves” my mother told me in that matter-of-fact way that irritated the hell out of me.
         “Okay thank you mom, love you, got to go!”  rushing to hang up before she could say another word. “Rachel, Rachel, Rachel” I muttered to myself as if almost a prayer. “Oh!” it was then I remembered,  some of my old journals were in the attic.
         I rushed up the stairs and dove into the old boxes. It wasn't long before I found it, a tattered old blue journal. My lungs began to burn, as the air swirled the dust around. Grabbing up the journal, covering my mouth from rampant dust bunny attack, I made my way back  down stairs.
         It was dusk when I started thumbing through the old journal. I was confounded by the blank pages and the dried drops of blood throughout, but there was no mention of Rachel. Time seemed to fade away as my desperate search came to an end. It was 3:30 in the morning when my doorbell rang. Muttering to myself “Who the hell,” I made my way to the front door. Glimpsing out the peephole, I saw a small figure the size of child. “Grand, someone's kid got lost again,” I thought with a heavy sigh and began to unlock the door.
         The door was barely open when a wave a nausea over came me. The air outside my door, around the child, popped and hissed with an ominous force.
         “Hello, Goldie,” the child's voice resonated throughout my head, though her lips never moved. I suddenly fell to my knees in horrid pain.  She smiled at me, patting my head as she invited herself in.
         “Well Goldie, will you not say hello to an old friend?”  My head was still in agony as I slowly forced myself to turn and gaze upon this child, now standing in my living room. My eyes widened, it was the girl from the photograph, it was Rachel. There was no mistaking it, it was as if she had been frozen in time.
         A crooked smile crossed Rachel’s face, “Oh me, oh my, it seems you have forgotten your manners,” she laughed, “I told you we would play again.”  With every unspoken word, my body felt like it was being torn from the inside out, and my head on the verge of exploding. It was in this moment of gruesome trepidation that I remembered Rachel.
         She had lost her father that summer when we were 8. Stricken by grief, her mother turned into an abusive alcoholic. One of the older kids in the neighborhood told Rachel about a spell that would bring her father back from the dead. We messed it up, Rachel was burned alive. I ran away, screaming in terror that night, as her family's house went up in flames.
         As I looked at Rachel I realized that the girl I once knew was nothing more then a husk hiding something menacing. With every ounce of my being I tried to speak, desperate to know who or what it was that wore my friend's skin.
         “So you think I am not Rachel, that Rachel is not I?” it laughed. “You see my dear, we are as one, but we are missing you.” 
         Within the blink of an eye it lunged towards me, stopping millimeters from my face. It's mouth opened to reveal thousands of sharp jagged teeth, and a snake like tongue. Unable to move, my end looked inevitable. As I closed my eyes, a single tear was able to escape.
         I could feel its teeth ripping into my flesh, tearing out chunks of my abdomen. I managed to open one eye, only to see my innards hit the blood soaked floor. I was in hell, a deathless state of  torture. I watched Rachel tear apart my body and eat my vital organs. I was unable to die. Unable to live. Forever trapped in a hellish limbo.