Macie's day was going perfectly fine until she stepped on a big piece of bubblegum on the way home from school.

     "Ew!"  She screeched, her voice shrill with annoyance.  "Seriously?  I just bought these shoes!"

     After frantically scraping it off with whatever she could find in her bag—in this case, an expired library card—she looked both directions, and quickly threw the wad in her neighbor's garbage bin.

     After checking the sole of her shoe once more, just to be sure she'd gotten it all, she continued down the path to her house.  It was now only a street or two away.

     She nearly jumped out of her skin when her friend, Erin, suddenly emerged from a nearby bush. "H-Hey Erin!"  She tried to hide the fear written all over her face.

     "Ha-ha!  Got you."  Erin grinned ear to ear, and started walking with Macie.

     "Whatever."

     "I saw that little scene, by the way. With the gum on your shoe?  That was pretty funny from here.  I almost blew my cover."

     Macie smiled slightly.  "But you won't tattle about the garbage can thing, right?"

     "Of course not.  Mr. Moore deserved it!  He let his dog um . . . go on our lawn and never picked it up.  Mom got pretty mad."

     "Oh."  Macie said, trying to find a way to keep the conversation going before Erin had to go down a different route.  "So, how's Reese?" 

     Reese was Erin's new baby brother.  Sometimes, Macie kind of wanted a sibling of her own, but she knew that would never happen.

     "He's good, but he cries constantly! It keeps me up at night, and it's driving me crazy!"

     "I wish I had a little brother."  Macie sighed.

     "No you don't."  She said, shaking her head violently.  "Well, I have to go, but I'll catch you later.  See you, Macie!"  And, with that, she trotted away to her own house.

     Macie watched her for a few moments, and then quietly whispered, "Bye, Erin," knowing her friend wouldn't be able to hear her now anyway, being so far down the road.

     Something told Macie she wouldn't be seeing Erin for a while.

~~

     After Macie had opened the door and gotten inside the house, it took nearly all her effort and strength to close it.

     "Boy,"  She said to herself.  "Those winds sure came out of nowhere."  She walked into her bedroom and tossed her bag on the bed.  She then headed into the kitchen to scrounge for a snack.  "I'm home, Mom!"

     No answer.

     "Mom?"  She slammed the pantry door shut and walked up the stairs. Peering into her mother's bedroom and finding no sight of living was rare. Not even one Enchilada (what Macie's mom calls her cats).

     After a couple minutes of racing about, Macie still hadn't found her mother.  Her voice was shaky and worried.   "Mom!"

     Still, no answer.

     Suddenly, the phone started ringing.  Macie flew downstairs so fast you'd think she were a jet.  Into the kitchen she went and yanked the phone up from its handset, then put it to her ear.  "Hello?  Mom?  Is that you?"

     Macie waited to hear her mother's sweet tone from the other line.  Sorry, sweetie pie!  I was on my way home from the grocery store but I got stuck in traffic.  Don't worry, dear, I'll be home soon!

     But Macie didn't hear that.  She waited and waited, but not a single wave of sound emitted from the device.

     "Hello?"  She said again, panicking even more by the second.

Finally, Macie decided to hang up and try to dial her mother's number.  "Oh . . . what was it again?"  Just as she was about to check to find it under a magnet on the fridge, the phone rang again.

     "Hello?"  She asked.

     There was a deep sigh from the other end.  A scratchy voice hissed, "Look on your front porch."

     "Excuse me?"  Macie questioned, confused.

     Just then, the line went dead, and she heard the sound of a lock twist.  Her lock.  The one to the front door.

     Macie was terrified, but she had a feeling she had to see whatever was outside in order to get her mom back.

     Hesitantly, she turned the door handle.  A small cardboard box was sitting on the welcome doormat, screaming, open me . . . I dare you.

     With wide eyes, she scanned around her neighborhood, searching for any sign of someone who could be trying to prank her.  But she saw no one.

     She carried the box into the house, and set it on the kitchen counter.  After that, she cut through the masking tape with a knife, and opened the flaps.  Macie accidentally dropped the utensil onto the floor, causing one of the marble tiles to chip.  Once she had placed the knife in the sink, she peered into the box with horror.

     Inside was an amputated finger.  Iridescent nail polish colored the fingernail.

     It was her mother's.

     Macie was so petrified, she nearly blacked out.

     But she managed to keep herself together, for the most part.  She jumped at the ringtone of a dog barking—this meant she had received a text from her mother:

     Don't forget to lock the front door!  I accidentally left it open on my way out.  Love you, have a good day at school :)

     The text message had been from earlier.  Her phone was off all day, so she just now had been notified. 

     Macie muttered a curse under her breath.  I forgot to lock the freaking door.  Great.  Now I'd probably
given my mother a first class ticket to death.

     As she paced around the kitchen, she suddenly began to hear the sound of faint baby cries.  Macie tensed up, trying to figure out what the source was.  She knew her neighbors didn't have any kids.  Where was it coming from?

     She started walking through her house, and her heart sank to her stomach when the volume of the crying had increased at the foot of the staircase.

     It was upstairs.

     Using all her confidence at once was hard, in this case, for Macie.  Only God knows what's up there. But she faced her fear, and began to ascend.

     At the top, she decided that the noise was coming from the left side of the hallway. 

     Oh God, Macie thought.  Down this section was the office, the bathroom, and Macie's bedroom.

     It was easy to decipher that the wails were sounding inside Macie's room, and not the one next door.

     In terror, Macie braced herself for the horrific image as she turned the handle.

She gasped at the sight of a completely different room.  The walls had been painted a pretty light blue and were decorated with circus animal decals, here and there.  A diaper changing station sat along the back wall, half under the window.  To the right of that was a bin of plush toys next to a cradle.  Last but not least, the crib was to the left of the entrance, withholding a small baby boy inside. 

     It was a nursery.

     Before Macie could do anything else, she noticed a pink jewelry box on the table in the center of the room.

     She seemed to be drawn to it, as if her instincts knew that its contents were important.  She approached it, and slid a key—which sat beside the box—into the lock.

     Inside, a note in fine handwriting read:

     Macie,

     I thank you for all the kind things you have done for me.  Now, I wish to return the favor.  You said you wanted a brother, yes?  Well, here.  Have mine.  There is one requirement in order to claim him as yours.  Your mother has already obliged to the term, so now it's all up to you to finish the task.  You will need the item from the cardboard box and the tools from this one to complete the job.  No need to thank me, this is just what BFFs do for each other. 

-Your Best Friend :)

     Macie was not sure how to feel.  She was confused; heavily wondering what was real and what was not.  Curiously, she looked into the box and examined the "tools".  She saw a needle with beige thread, a polka dot patterned sock, and plain gray duct tape.

     She felt even more puzzled.  "What do I do with this?"

     Macie then turned around to see the baby, Reese.  His brown eyes were wide and his face was red.  She saw that one of his sleeves was rolled up.  This revealed an unnatural image of a long, female finger in place of one of his. 

     Her mother's other finger.

     Macie held back a scream when she realized what the "term" was.  She would have to remove another one of Reese's fingers and replace it with the one in the cardboard box. 

     "God, NO!"  She backed to the other wall.  "No way, Erin.  I'm not doing this."

     "Do it,"  Erin crawled out from underneath the crib, grinning enormously. "Do it to him or you can instead do it to your mother."

     "This is insane,"  Macie shook her head, wildly, frightened even more by the cruel look in Erin's once innocent eyes.  "Why are you doing this?"

     Erin frowned.  "You say that as if it's a bad thing...?"

     "Of course it is, you lunatic!"  I shouted.  "This has gone way too far, you need to chill!"

     Erin smiled.  "Well, if you wish to not harm Reese then you can do it to yourself, instead.  And then you would get his finger."

     "No!"

     "Pick your poison, Macie Aroughmen."

     "What happened to you?  What happened to us?"  Macie's voice cracked at the end.

     "What do you mean?  This is your reward for being such a good friend."

     Macie sighed.  "I'm sorry, Erin.  Unless you are on drugs, you are definitely going to a mental asylum."

     "No, I'm not, you idiot."  She laughed, disturbingly, pulling a blade out of her back pocket.  "Did you really think I would go to such extent and not have thought it through?"

     Macie held a firm posture as Erin approached her.  She knew any sign of fear would get her sincerely hurt.

     "Give me your hand."  Erin spoke calmly. 

     "Can I do it myself?"  Macie pleaded.

     Erin thought for a moment.  "No.  You took too long to decide.  Now I have chosen for you."

     Just then, Reese began to cry again.  Erin rolled her eyes and angrily stomped over to his crib.  Macie ran after her and grabbed her shoulders.

     "The hell...?"  Erin kicked Macie in her stomach and turned around to face her.

     "Don't touch him."  Macie warned.

     "Oh?"  A smirk tugged at Erin's lips.  "And what are you gonna do if I don't listen to you?"

     Macie snatched the knife from Erin's hands and raised it above her friend's head as she cowered.

     "Goodbye, Erin.  Maybe we'll see each other at the asylum."