My brother disappeared on Halloween night, with a pale full moon in the sky, and a rampant killer on the loose. It was 7 PM, and the sun was just setting, giving an eerie blue glow to the kitchen. We had been sitting at the breakfast table, watching the news together and speculating over the recent murders that had been happening in our town, Angelsville. Two people had been killed last week in their home, and another boy had been found yesterday in a river. Pictures popped up on the tv screen, bringing to life the horrific account of mutilated, bloody bodies. Police were saying that the same killer had murdered all three people, and they already had a suspect. The suspect was a kid from my school, Joshua Donovan. The police reported that he had a mental illness that caused him to be violent and uncontrollable. Apparently, he had been spotted following the first couple home, looking extremely angry and carrying a black backpack. The backpack was later found in the river next to the third body, filled with bloody rags and a knife, and the police say the blood on the rags matched the blood found in the couple’s house. I watched in horror as they nicknamed the murderer “The Halloween Killer.”
“I know Josh. He’s my friend,” my twin brother Mark said sadly, breaking the silence. “There’s no way he could’ve done this. He’s only 16.” He looked like he was about to say something else, but he couldn’t quite get the words out.
“You know, I know Josh too,” I said. “He’s a pretty nice guy, and it would be horrible if he went to jail if he’s actually innocent.”
“I know where he was,” Mark said quickly. “He was with me.”
“What? How? Why haven’t you come forth as a witness?” I was shocked.
“We had used fake ID’s to get into a party. We were drinking underage. We’d be arrested, and the rest of our lives would be ruined.”
  I was livid. “His life is already ruined! Are you stupid? You’re letting an innocent man go to jail! He’s only 16!”
  “I know! I know! Don’t you think I feel horrible enough?”
“You deserve to feel horrible. Poor Josh! You’re just going to let him get convicted of murder!”
  Mark grabbed his jacket and stormed off angrily to the door. I got up and ran after him. He yanked it open and turned around to face me. We were inches apart.
“I thought you would understand! You’re my sister!”
Before I could respond, he turned around and slammed the door. I sighed, leaning my head against the door and closing my eyes. How could Mark be so stupid?
“Eliza?”
I turned around. It was my little sister, Emily.
“Where did Mark go?”
I knelt down so I could be at her height. She was 11 years old, and she was still pretty short.
“He just had to run a few errands. Don’t worry. When mom and dad come home from their date, we can all do something fun as a family.” 
I knew that she wanted to go trick-or-treating, but our parents hadn’t allowed it this year. There was a killer running around, after all.
An hour later, I was sitting on the couch watching a movie with Emily when my phone rang.
“Mark? What is it?”
The phone was cracking up, and I could barely hear what he was saying. He sounded breathless, like he was having a panic attack, and his voice was overcome with terror.
“Killer...house...Dan...1..5..1..7.” Then he hung up. I was frozen as fear rushed through my body. Killer? House? What could he mean? If there really was a killer after him, I couldn’t let him die. Especially when our last conversation had been such a horrible fight. That’s when I noticed Emily staring at me.
“Is everything ok?” She asked. “You look worried.”
  I didn’t want to tell her what I had just heard; I didn’t want to expose her to something as dangerous as killer, but I had no choice.
“I think Mark’s in trouble. I need to go help him.”
Looking back, I knew this was the moment where I should’ve called the police. I could’ve called for help right there, from the safety of my sofa. If I had gotten help, maybe she wouldn’t be gone now. It’s all my fault. Of course, I wasn’t thinking clearly at the time. I was scared out of my mind about what could be happening, and I knew I had no time to stand around and think it over.
“I’m coming with you. You’re not leaving me in this big scary house alone!”
Emily looked like she was about to throw one of her signature tantrums, and with a killer running free on the scariest night of the year, I wasn’t exactly disagreeing with her side of things. Over the course of the hour in which Mark had been gone, the shadows had crept up the unlit walls, and the only source of light in the house was the glow of the moon, interrupted by scraggly tree branches. The house looked like it was straight out of a Tim Burton film.
“Ok. You can come with me, but we need to be quick.”
Ten minutes later, we were walking down a dark street nearby the outskirts of town, where our house was. I was planning to walk around and ask people if they had seen Mark. I was already feeling scared, and the atmosphere of Halloween was only making it worse. Every few minutes, we would walk by a motion-sensored yard decoration that would light up and cackle hideously. They never moved, though, until we were about to cross through a yard to get to a busy street in town. In one swift motion, a figure dressed all in black ran forward from behind a life-size ghost that had been swaying in the wind. Emily screamed, and I pushed her out of the way as it grabbed me and pulled out a knife. The figure shoved me into a tree and held the blade against my neck. Suddenly, Emily lept forward, still screaming, and knocked the figure down. My little sister had just attacked a murderer! I quickly pushed her away from him as I jumped onto his stomach and dug my knees into his chest. The figure struggled with me for a second before I pulled his mask off and saw that it was one of Mark’s close friends.
“Dan? You’re the killer!”
Dan had been laughing up to this point, but suddenly he got serious.
“No! Of course not! I was pranking you! Look, the knife is plastic.” He held it out and bent it slightly to show that it wasn’t metal. I grabbed it from him and angrily snapped it in half.
“That wasn’t funny. Why would you do that?”
“Mark was ranting about how mad he was at you when I decided that I could get you back. I was headed to your house right now.”
“Wait, you were with Mark?”
“Yeah. He’s at Tom’s Halloween party.”
That’s what he was saying in his phone call! Tom, one of Mark’s other closest friends, lived at 1517 Harvard Lane. Why would he mention Dan, though? Maybe he was just trying to warn me about this stupid prank.
“Ok. Dan, we’ve got to go.”
I grabbed Emily’s hand and cut across onto the busy street, leaving Dan alone in the dark yard. It only took us five minutes to get to Tom’s party. His large manor-like house was crowded. From the grand front porch to the stairways leading to the attic, people were dancing shoulder-to-shoulder, and I kept tripping over discarded red cups. We were searching every room, but it was too difficult to try to find him. Everyone was drinking, and almost everyone was under 18. No one would act serious or listen to me, and I didn’t want to stay here too long and expose Emily to any more of this.
“Let’s find a quiet place to think,” I said.
Soon, Emily and I had found an empty, freezing cold room in the basement of Tom’s house. We couldn’t find a light switch, so I used the flashlight on the back of my phone. After a quick inspection of the room, I realized that this was a storeroom for old furniture, and the most noticeable part of the room was Halloween decorations that hadn’t made it into the party this year. Old, broken skeletons hung from the gray cement walls, and I kept tripping over boxes of fake bats and body parts. The main feature of the room, though, was a giant black coffin right in the center.
“Is that a real coffin?” Emily asked.
“I don’t think so. Those are really expensive.”
Emily shrugged and sat down on top of it. “Do you think there’s a body in here?”
“No, Emily. It’s fake.”
“So do you think there’s a fake body in here?”
I was about to answer when suddenly we both heard a loud banging noise. Emily’s eyes widened as she looked down. The noise happened again, over and over. Something was inside the coffin, trying to get out! Emily jumped off the coffin and ran to the door. She  yanked on the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. I ran over and tried to open it too, but I couldn’t do it either.
“Either this is really stuck, or we’re locked in.”
Another series of bangs came from the coffin. It started to shake.
“Help us!” Emily screamed.
“No one can hear us, Em!”
She turned around to try the door again, knocking into me. I saw my phone fall out of
my hands and hit the concrete floor. The flashlight had gone out.
“You broke my phone! What are we going to do now? We can’t call for help, and we
definitely can’t see anything!”
It was pitch black inside the room now. I heard Emily run over to one of the Halloween
boxes and dig around in it for a moment.
“Will this work?”
“I don’t know! I can’t even see it!”
I heard a small click, and the eyes of the plastic Jack-O-Lantern that she was holding lit
up.
“Good thinking Em!”
Another loud bang occurred, and before we knew it, the coffin lid had slowly creaked
open and then dropped to the side. It bounced around on its hinges for a second before a dark figure sat up. In the dim light from the pumpkin, I saw the profile of the figure turn to slowly face me.
“Hello? Dan? You better not be pranking us again!”
I pulled Emily behind me before grabbing my shattered phone; my hands were trembling
out of fear so much that it was hard to grab it. The figure turned around and started to climb out of the coffin, and that’s when the pumpkin’s battery died.
“It won’t turn back on! Eliza, what do we do?”
I took a few tentative steps in the direction of the coffin, ignoring my sister’s question.
Everything was blurry. Was I crying?
“Stay there, Em. I’ll protect you,” I whispered. Why was my voice so shaky? 
I pulled my arm back and chucked the phone as hard as I could in the place where I best
guessed the figure’s head to be.
“Ow! What did you do that for?”
“Mark! Mark, oh my gosh! What are you doing here? I’m so sorry that we fought.” I ran
to Mark’s side and threw my arms around him. I let silent tears fall from my eyes as I listened to the familiar pattern of his breathing.
“I’m sorry too. Listen, Eliza, I can explain everything, but we need to get out of here right now!”
“What? Why? Is there actually a killer after you?”
“Sort of, but we need to go now!”
Listening to Mark’s advice, I grabbed his arm and guided him from the coffin to the door.
“It’s stuck! How can we get out?”
I heard Mark rummaging through some boxes before he returned to my side.
“Stand back, little sis.”
“I’m literally two minutes younger than you.” I took a few steps back, anyways.
I heard something metallic hitting the doorknob, and soon enough, the door was open. In
the light, I could see that Mark was holding a metal rod which he had used to pry open the thick wooden door. He threw the rod backwards into the room, and we both raced up the stairs into the main floor of the party. Mark grabbed my hand and guided me to the back porch, where the music was only a faint beat and we could actually have a private conversation. The trees in the yard cast long shadows, and moonlight illuminated his pale face. He led me to an old wooden bench that was covered with wet fallen leaves. It had rained while we were down in the basement. Mark sat me down and took a deep breath.
“I’ll start from the very beginning. When we had that argument, I left to go meet Tom
and Dan downtown. I told them what had happened, and that was when they invited me to Tom’s party. We all went to the party together, but they started to pressure me to drink again. After everything that you had said to me, I didn’t want to do anything like that.”
“Believe me, I’m proud of you for that, but I still think you should go to the police.”
“I’m getting to that. I was so tired from our fight that I just decided to take a nap. So, I
went down into the basement and decided to take a nap in that fake coffin. Laugh all you want, but it’s actually the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept in.”
“That’s so morbid.” I stopped laughing when he glared at me. “Fine, continue with your
story.”
“So I fell asleep, and I closed the coffin lid so that none of these drunk partiers would
find me and draw all over my face or something. The first time I woke up, I heard someone talking, and it was Dan. He was talking to Tom about the murders, and they both were speaking as if they had killed the people. I recorded the whole thing with my phone. In the recording, you can hear them talking about how a drug deal went wrong. The first couple was an accidental witness to the whole thing, and the 20 year old boy in the river was the person they initially killed over the drugs. I’m going to give it to the police, so now Josh and I can both keep our clean records. When I tried to leave and return home after Dan and Tom were gone, I realized that the coffin lid had stuck shut. That’s why I was banging on it. I called you for help. I wanted to tell you that Dan and Tom were the murderers and that you needed to come get me at 1517 Harvard Lane, but the phone connection was too spotty. If I sounded like I was gasping, it was because I thought that I was going to suffocate, and I had a panic attack and got really scared. My phone died before I could fully communicate the message to you. I fell back asleep once I calmed down and realized that my situation was helpless for the moment. The second time I woke up, it was when you almost killed me with a cell phone.”
“Sorry about that.” I laughed. “I’m really proud that you’re going to the police. I just
can’t believe that Tom and Dan would commit the murders! Dan pranked us when we were walking over. He pretended to try to murder us. That’s pretty creepy, now that I think about the fact that he’s actually a murderer.”
“Us?” Mark looked confused.
“What?”
“You said ‘us’ when you said that Dan pranked you. Who was with you?”
Suddenly, panic took over my entire body. I was paralyzed with the realization that had
just occurred to me.
“Emily! I brought Emily here! She’s missing!”
“What? Why would you bring an 11 year old girl to rescue your brother from a
murderer?”
“That’s not important, Mark! Where is Emily? I swear that she was with me when I
found you in the basement. How did you not hear her when she was screaming for help?”
“I was half asleep, and I couldn’t even hear anything over the sound of you screaming.”
“I was screaming?”
“You were hysterical. Do you not remember it? I tried calling your name while I was
getting out of the coffin, but you couldn’t hear me. The only reason no one else heard you was because of the thick walls and ceilings. Don’t worry about Emily. Tom and Dan have no reason to hurt her. She probably followed us upstairs and got lost in the party. Let’s go find her.”
Suddenly, Mark’s face went pale. I turned around to see who he was looking at. Tom was
jogging across the lawn, directly to us.
“Oh, hello guys.” His voice was slurred, but you could tell that he’d taken in more than
just alcohol that night.
“Aren’t you worried that your sweet little sister is missing?” He laughed maliciously
before kneeling down beside the bench to stare directly into my eyes. “Don’t worry, Dan has kept her nice and safe while you two bimbos completely forgot about her. You’re confused? Let me explain. After Dan and I had our conversation in the basement, we realized that someone had been in the coffin. Dumbo over here let the light from his phone screen shine through the crack on the lid. I waited in the shadows with Dan while Mark called you, but I knew that the service wasn’t good in the basement. It’s my basement, after all. We knew we needed to shut all of you up, but we didn’t want to kill anymore people; we decided to kidnap the girl. Dan went to ‘prank’ you to make sure that you didn’t already know that we were the culprits. After that was confirmed, and Dan had convinced you to come to my party, I just waited. I was going to wake Mark up and threaten him with Emily’s life, but I never actually planned to kidnap the girl. I was just going to scare you into deleting the evidence, so then no one would ever believe you. I never got the chance to do so, for Eliza and Emily came into the basement and got themselves stuck. I waited until you two were distracted with each other before grabbing Emily and depositing her over to Dan. Neither of you have been in my basement before; you wouldn’t know that you have to jiggle the doorknob to get out. It was so easy; Eliza over here was in hysterics. I’ll return the girl, but you need to delete the recording.”
Suddenly, Tom’s phone went off. You could hear audible sobbing over the receiver.
“T-Tom! Tom, I-I’m sorry! I d-didn’t mean t-to! I didn’t w-want to d-do it; I had no
c-choice!”
“Dan, shut up! What happened?” Tom asked.
Dan was quiet for a second while he composed himself.
“The little brat bit my hand and made a run for it. I tackled her, but when she hit the
ground, a branch impaled her neck.”
Everyone was silent for a second. I could feel my entire world crumbling beneath me. I
was falling through a black hole, far away from any sense of reality. One sentence repeated inside my head; it’s all your fault. Tom was staring at me with a look that was almost frightened, but he quickly put on a cold and calculating front and spoke back into the phone.
“Hide the body, and come back to the party. We’ll need alibis.”
That was when I fainted.
When I came to, I was lying on the blue velvet couch in our living room. I remember
concentrating on the feeling of the sofa against my arms; I couldn’t stand to think of what I had done. Mark was sitting above me, silently crying as he stared at the clock emptily. It was 12 midnight. So much had happened in the five hours since the initial fight with him. I had caused the fight. If I hadn’t gotten mad at him, he would’ve never stormed out. Emily would be alive.
“Where are mom and dad?”
Mark just nodded his head in the direction of the kitchen. I sat up and looked over his
shoulder to see what was happening. There was a police officer in the kitchen talking to my parents, who were crying and hugging each other.
“I did this, Mark. I screwed up our whole family. Emily’s gone, and mom and dad
probably hate me. It’s all my fault. I was the only one who knew she was there. The last thing I told her was that I would protect her. I didn’t even keep that promise! I hate myself!”
Mark just shook his head.
“You don’t need to worry about anything right now. I’m going to take care of you.”
“Where are Dan and Tom?”
“Dan is going to jail for a very long time. The police know about everything he did.”
“What about Tom? Did he get away?”
“I took care of Tom. He won’t bother you any more.”
I raised my head from my hands to look into his eyes. I spoke very slowly. “Mark. What
happened after I fainted?”
“I’m always going to protect you, Eliza. I love you. That’s all you need to know.” I
hugged Mark for a very long time.
Two years later, I’ve started to accept what I did that night. The doctors all say the
thought of my sister and I getting murdered in that basement was enough to trigger an emotional response in my mind. It would’ve been impossible for me to calm myself down to be rational enough to remember to get my sister. I don’t remember screaming, crying, or acting hysterically, even though Mark swears that I was. I still have bad days, of course; there are days when I can’t even get out of bed or look in a mirror. I still blame myself for most of what happened that night: the fight with Mark, losing Emily, and allowing her to be killed, but my family has helped me to cope with the pain and guilt. The biggest lesson I’ve learned throughout all of this is to never take your siblings for granted because, in the end, they’re the ones that you would kill for.