Wilma Jean Helker was an odd little lady. While the girls from her class played happily with dolls, Wilma popped their heads and cut off their hair with safety scissors. Then, she’d pull apart the bodies, limb from limb, and cut their rubber skin with safety pins and color them red for blood. After that, she’d hide the mangled things in a box under her bed. When her mother asked her where they went, Wilma would start to cry, and say that Mary Kate, a mean girl from her class, took it from her. Her mother would only sigh, and buy her daughter another doll, which Wilma would destroy just like the last one.
Wilma didn’t like to go outside, which drove her parents mad. While all the other children ran around, laughing and yelling, Wilma would sit in her room. Behind her closed door, she would draw pictures. Dark pictures. Pictures of the things she saw in her nightmares. These pictures made Wilma smile
Once, Wilma left one of these pictures sitting on her bed. Her mother started to weep when she saw it.
The picture seemed to be in a woods, as there were trees in the background. The focus of the picture was what appeared to be a man covered in animal fur. His eyes were bright red, with no eyelids, so they could never close. The man held a bloody kitchen knife.
Beside the man stood Wilma Jean Helker. Her curly blonde hair was matted with dirt, and her bright green eyes seemed dull and glazed. How a third grader could capture this so well, Wilma’s mother had no idea.
But the most upsetting part of the picture was this: On both sides of Wilma’s face, running from the edge of her nose to where her jaw met her neck, were thick, red scars. They ran diagonal across her cheeks. Blood seemed to drip down the sides of her face.
Horrified, her mother grabbed the picture and ran to find Wilma. She was playing a dark melody on the grand piano that she knew by heart.
“Wilma, honey?” her mother asked cautiously.
Wilma abruptly stopped playing and turned to face her.
“Sweetheart, I found this on your bed. I just wanted to know, um, where the idea came from.”
Wilma glanced at the picture, looked her mother dead in the eye and said:
“I saw it in a nightmare. I was walking around in the woods, wishing I looked scarier. Then, suddenly, that man came out of the trees and said he knew how to make me look scarier. So I followed him further into the woods. Then we stopped, and he pulled out that knife and cut into my cheeks, see? I told him thank you, and then I was walking home and that’s when I woke up.” Wilma’s eyes shined as she spoke, and by the time she was done, she was panting from speaking so fast.
“Oh, well…okay, dear.” Wilma’s mother’s legs shook as she stepped away from the piano. Wilma resumed playing her dark tune.
Wilma’s mother hurried to the phone. She dialed her husband’s number as fast as she could.
“Hello?”
“Joe? This is Cara. I found a picture she drew and it was really…disturbing. I think we need to get her some help, Joe. This isn’t normal for kids her age, especially girls. I’m really worried about her.”
Joe Helker nodded as his wife spoke, and when she was finished, said:
“Alright. I’ll call Dr. Webber as soon as I get off work. She’ll be normal soon, Cara, don’t worry.”
“Thank you.” Said Cara in relief.
After hanging up the phone, Cara disappeared into the master bedroom. Wilma continued to play, louder this time. She had heard what her mother had said. She didn’t need “help”. She was just fine, right?
In the days after, Wilma shut her door and drew more pictures. Pictures of little boys with no skin. Pictures of kittens with black eyes and rubber instead of fur. Herself, with angry scars running down her cheeks. She made sure to hide them under her bed, along with the mutilated Barbie dolls and pieces of sad hollow music.
Wilma met with Dr. Webber, but he didn’t see any problems. Even with Cara Helker showed him Wilma’s picture, he just said that Wilma had a wild imagination, which was perfectly normal for kids her age.
Still, Wilma’s parents were unconvinced, and they took her to see more doctors, who all said the same thing.
After seeing the eighth doctor, Cara and Wilma got into the car. Cara lay her head on the steering wheel and shut her eyes. After a full minute of dead silence, Wilma quietly asked:
“What…what’s wrong, Mommy?”
After a beat, Cara answered: “You. Something is wrong with you, I don’t care what those doctors say! I don’t know why you can’t just be normal! You’re a disgrace, Wilma Jean!” Silence was restored in the car. Then, as an afterthought, her mother whispered:
“You will never make me proud.”
Nothing more was said on the way home. Cara gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned white.
For an ordinary child, an outburst like that would have left them crying and apologizing profusely. Wilma Jean Helker was no ordinary child.
When Wilma and her mother returned home, her mother had calmed down enough to begin making dinner. Wilma, of course, went to her room and closed the door. Upon hearing the soft click of the lock, Wilma’s mother just rolled her eyes and shook her head.
Wilma pulled out her paper and crayons and began a new drawing. This time, though, it wasn’t from a nightmare. It was from her real life.
In the picture, Wilma’s mother lay on her bed. Her eyes were wide, and she had no mouth at all, just skin where her mouth should have been. Wilma stood beside the bed in the picture, grinning madly. Her cheek scars could clearly be seen.
That night, after her family had gone to bed, Wilma crouched outside the door to the master suite. She didn’t move until she could barely hear her parent’s soft, slow breathing.
Wilma’s legs ached as the blood flowed painfully back into them, but she ignored it.
Like a shadow, Wilma sneaked into the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife she could reach. Then, she slipped into her room without a sound.
Standing in front of the mirror she had stolen from her mother’s vanity, Wilma shoved a sock into her mouth. She then picked up the knife with shaking hands. Taking a deep breath, Wilma brought the knife to her face and plunged it into her skin. She whimpered in pain, but the sock muffled the sound.
Starting at her nose and ending at her jaw, Wilma carved a line down her left cheek. Switching hands, she did the same to her right cheek. By now, tears and blood were streaming down Wilma’s face and onto the carpet, leaving little pink blotches on the carpet.
When her job was done, Wilma admired her work in the mirror. She looked just like she did in her nightmares, and that made her happier than she had in weeks.
Noiselessly, Wilma slipped into her parent’s bedroom and glided to her mother’s bedside.
She lay on her back, fast asleep.
Praying that her nightmares could really come true, Wilma slowly brought her hand to her mother’s face. She placed it over her lips.
After a few seconds of deadly stillness, Cara Helker’s eyes popped open in surprise. It was then that Wilma Jean muttered the last words she would ever say to her mother:
“Are you proud NOW, Mommy!?”
Wilma gripped her mother’s mouth with an iron fist. In a matter of seconds, Cara’s lips were melting together. Soon enough, there was nothing left of her mouth, save for a thin line slightly darker than her skin.
Cara Helker tried to scream. No sound came out. She tried again. Nothing.
Her eyes grew to the size of saucers. Cara began thrashing around violently, trying to escape her daughter’s strong grip.
But Wilma was unrelenting. Gazing upon her mother’s panicked expression, she began giggling quietly. Then the giggle became a laugh. Then the laugh escalated into a manic howl.
At this point, Joe Helker awoke due to the commotion. Cara sat up suddenly, praying her husband would see her distorted face in the semi-darkness. Praying he would run.
Wilma Jean would have none of it. She jumped onto the bed and reached for her father. Cara, her heart hammering, clawed at her daughter’s arms, legs, and face. But it was too late.
Wilma managed to evade her mother’s desperate swipes, and locked her hand firmly around her father’s mouth. Joe didn’t stand a chance. In seconds, his mouth was gone, replaced by a thin, haunting line.
Like his wife, Joe tried to cry out. When he couldn’t make a sound, an icy sweat broke out on his skin. He shivered and shook. His head throbbed violently.
Wilma Jean Helker walked back around to her mother’s side of the bed, where she was in the process of getting up.
“Don’t move, Mommy. You don’t want me to hurt you more, do you?”
Slowly, Cara Helker sat back down.
Wilma crossed the floor and made it to the window. From there, she observed what she had done. Her mother sat motionless, boring holes into her with fear-filled eyes. Her father was slumped against the headboard. His eyes were squeezed shut, and a puddle of his own sweat surrounded him.
Wilma grinned. She opened the window and jumped to the ground. Leaving her life behind, Wilma Jean Helker ran into the night.
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