A Ghostly Haunting
Copyright Chasity Nicole My life is far from ordinary, but who would expect a person that sees ghosts to have a normal life. I spend my days talking to people that do not physically exist—well they did at one time, but now they are dead. Usually these people have some form of unfinished business. They’re too scared to move on, or they simply don’t want to move on. Those who don’t want to move on, spend their entire afterlife haunting the living. They claim it is the only thing that makes them feel whole again—whatever that’s supposed to mean. I was able to see the dead at a very young age, and it freaked my family out. Ever since I first realized that I could speak with the deceased, I have had a strong bond with both the spirit realm and the world we live in. I was the only one that understood my ability to see ghosts and communicate with them; everyone else pinned me off as nuts—until they needed my help because they were being haunted. Everyone calls the psychic chick when they need help, but, aside from that, I’m just your average seventeen-year-old nutcase that lives down the street. I had received a call from my aunt that she thought her home was being haunted and decided to go take a look. Today was the day that I was heading to Harrisburg, North Carolina to stay with my aunt and uncle, to see what was really going on in their home. As I pulled into the driveway I had a very eerie feeling that caused me to pause for a moment. Creeping closer to the house, I noticed its old Victorian structure. It was one of those old houses, that you just know is haunted, or has a very spooky past. From school, I knew that it was common for these style Victorian homes to be built upon the land that used to be slave plantations back before the Civil War. Not only did the house scream that it was built to cover up a slave plantation, but the land did also. Average acreage for a slave plantation was about one-thousand acres, and this neighborhood was about that, if not more. Each home had the same old Victorian structure. Yes, this had definitely been a slave plantation at one point in time—and one with a very disturbing past—I was sure of that. I stopped my car, short of the garage, and noticed a strange figure in the attic above the garage—someone was definitely haunting this house. “Mom, Harper is here,” my cousin cried from the front door of the bluish-white home. “Oh dear heaven’s, child, stop that awful shoutin’. You’ll wake up your brother. It’s hard enough for me to get him to sleep in this haunted place. Now what did you say?” My aunt yelled from inside the house. “I said, Harper is here,” my cousin shouted again as I ran up the stairs, to make the yelling stop. I had only been here a few seconds and already they were giving me a headache. “Hey, Aunt Marissa. Laney was yelling about me arriving. My mom said yaw needed me to check out some troublesome ghosts that are wandering your house, so here I am.” Laney moved to the side, letting me in the house. “Oh, hi dear. Yes, I called your mother about this house being haunted. Laney and Luke have such a hard time sleepin’ at night because of what is going on in this house. I have reached my last nerve on what to do about the pesky little things, so I called you to help us figure it out.” My aunt was wandering around her kitchen, clanging pots and pans—trying to get dinner cooking. “Well I’ll do my best ma’am. But, I honestly don’t know what I can really do. I really can’t get rid of the spirits, but I can at least let yaw know if they are harmful and why they are still here. I can possibly help them crossover. But, I can’t make a promise that that’ll happen.” “Come on, I’ll show you to your room.” Laney said, pulling my arm. I had a sinking feeling this was going to be a very long week for me. I felt so much activity in this place. I had already seen an apparition in the attic above the garage, and I knew something bad happened here—I could feel it. “Oh Laney, don’t go a draggin’ her everywhere. Let her get settled in after you show her to her room. Don’t want to drive the girl bonkers before she even is here for a day.” My aunt laughed from inside the kitchen. No matter how old Laney was, she pulled me around like she was still four, an odd thing for a twelve year old to do. “It’s ok, I’m used to being dragged around, Aunt Marissa.” Laney continued pulling me to the guest room. The room was plain white, furnished with a bed, bookcase, television, and its own private bathroom—thank goodness. “Want to show me around the house, Laney?” “Uh-huh. But we gots ta be quiet. Luke is asleep, and he’s been very grumpy lately.” Laney giggled as she tugged me towards the living room. “Oh, you’ll see a…” “Don’t tell me what ghosts I may or may not see. Let me find them on my own, that way I can figure out what is going on and help yaw. If you tell me where they are, they may not show themselves to me. Just give me the grand tour, without the haunted tour tacked on, please?” “Okie doke. Well this is the living room. Momma doesn’t like it in here much. Neither does dad, so we have all our toys in here, well mostly Luke’s toys.” The living room was a disaster. It’s what you would expect from two kids with tons of toys. “This is the dining room; we rarely eat in here. We eat in the den mostly. It has comfy chairs.” We walked the rest of the house, my cousin pointing out each room to me. My aunt’s house was rather large—larger than it had seemed from the outside. As I walked through each room, I could feel the activity that had occurred within its walls. “Dinner’s ready!!” My cousin and I must’ve been touring the house for a while, because I hadn’t even noticed the smells flowing from the kitchen—it smelled amazing. “Comin’ momma.” My cousin grabbed my shirt and pulled me to the kitchen. I slowly began to decipher the smells. I smelled beef, tomatoes, corn, green beans, carrots, and potatoes. “Yum, momma made beef stew, my favorite.” “I wasn’t sure what to make for dinner, figured stew was great since it’s gettin’ a bit nippy outside.” Aunt Marissa sat the crockpot of stew down on the kitchen table with four bowls, four spoons, four glasses, a pitcher of sweet tea, and a pan of cornbread. The three of us sat down at the table just as my uncle, Mark, walked in the front door. “Whose car is parked out front?” Uncle Mark must not have known I was coming today; he looked shocked to see me sitting at the dinner table beside my extremely hyper little cousin. “Hey, Uncle Mark. I came to stay the week to help Aunt Marissa with a problem.” “Is it that blasted ghost thing she keeps goin’ on about? I swear the neighbors are gonna think yaw are nuts. There ain’t no such thing as ghosts.” He shook his head as he put his jacket on the back of one of the chairs and took his seat. “Well, let me take a look anyway. I can at least say if there are any or not. Worth a shot, and no one will know that’s why I am here, so your neighbors won’t think you’re nuts.” I smiled as we all scooped out our stew, and said grace before digging into our food. Dinner was really quiet, as it was at my house when we had dinner together. I was used to the quietness around the dinner table, and I supposed that was something that most southern families did. Dinner was a time to eat dinner, not talk. Once dinner was finished, we went into the den and watched television. The show was soon interrupted by the sound of Luke crying. “Oh for Pete’s sake, the baby is up. Cut that down, so I can go get him back to sleep.” My aunt walked out of the den to Luke’s room, coming back with my sleepy two-year-old cousin. “Harpy, Harpy. I want Harpy.” Luke held his arms out as he reached for me. “Hey Luke, you have a bad dream?” My aunt sat Luke down in my lap, and he snuggled up to me, closing his eyes. “I had bad dream, Harpy.” “It was only a dream though. It is ok now.” I rubbed his back as he began to softly snore—apparently I was good with kids. “Goodness child, you’re here to de-ghost our house and you put our youngin’ to sleep.” My aunt smiled at me. “Well, you’re family ma’am, so I’ll do what I can to help.” I smiled as I carried Luke and put him back in his bed. “I’m actually tuckered out myself, so I’m going to go to bed too. Night yaw.” “Night, Harper,” Laney ran towards me and gave me a huge bear hug. After that, it was off for bed for all of us. It was going to be a rough night for me; different house, haunted with ghosts—I didn’t think sleep would come to me. Luckily I was wrong. As soon as my head hit the soft pillow, I was out. •••• I awoke to the sound of something crashing in the kitchen. Turning to look at my clock I saw it was only one a.m. I was pretty tired, but I got up to investigate. Sleepily walking out of my room, my skin instantly began to crawl as I felt an electrical current surge through my veins. I slowly turned and looked at the doorway leading into the kitchen where I saw a shadowy figure moving frantically around. I took a step backwards, glancing at the shadow that had now stopped in front of me. It had the shape of a male, a frail male, he looked scared of something, but what would a ghost have to fear? The air around me grew very cold, and I noticed the door knob to the side door was shaking violently as if someone were trying to come in and couldn’t. The shadowy figure began to step backwards, as if trying to escape. “Is that what is scaring you, the door? Is someone at the door going to hurt you?” I asked, knowing that if the ghost said anything I wouldn’t be able to hear it—I didn’t have my EPV recorder on me. However, the ghost seemed to understand this and nodded his head at me; he was a smart ghost. “You don’t want me to open that door, do you?” The ghost shook his head, indicating a ‘no’. “I won’t then, but it is ok. Whatever it is cannot get you in here, ok?” The ghost nodded once more before vanishing into thin air, and I went back to bed. •••• “Harper, time to get up, ya sleepy head you.” My aunt called. I groggily got up only to fall back on the bed. “What in the world?” I looked down at my leg. It was covered in blood. Something had cut me in my sleep. “You ok, hun? Where’d those cuts come from? Those some deep cuts. Mark, I need the first aid kit, Harper is bleedin’ all over in here.” “I have no idea. I was woken up by a ghost in the kitchen at one, then went back to bed. Then just now I wake up with these cuts. They burn like hell too.” “Here dear. Dang child, what’d ya do, nick yourself in the middle of the night with a sharp knife, or somethin’?” My uncle handed my aunt the first aid kit as she walked over to me and pulled out the rubbing alcohol, and some bandages—this was going to hurt. “Now sit still, youngin’, while I clean up this mess. This will only hurt for a minute ‘er so.” My aunt knelt down and poured the rubbing alcohol on my bloody leg. I winced in pain as the liquid filled the cuts on my leg. It hurt way more than a minute. “You lied!” I sat there holding back tears as my aunt bandaged up my bloody leg. I noticed that all the blood was coming from three deep cuts on my leg. Three cuts all in a row, all jagged, and I knew exactly what that meant—I had been scratched by a demonic entity while I had slept, lovely. “I’m sorry hun. You better be stayin’ off of that for a bit, to let those cuts clot up. Or you gonna soak through the bandages.” “Yeah, yeah, I know.” “Well I am off to work, you two. Honey take care of Harper, looks like she is going to need it today, and I’ll see yaw this evening. Love you.” With that my uncle walked out of the room and out of the house. “Come on, hun, we’ll get you set up in the den so you can be more comfortable, and watch some television. I’ll bring you breakfast in there.” “If it is all the same, ma’am, I think I’ll just prop up in here and do some research on my laptop on what may have gone on in this house. I need to know what I’m heading into before I jump into it. Normally, I don’t care to know, but after the demonic cuts on my leg, I need to see what happened here.” “Demonic cuts?” “Three consecutive scratches, that burn like fire, and are jagged in nature, are the marks of the beast. Those scratches were not self-inflicted; some demonic entity scarred me sometime after one in the morning. I believe trying to scare me away from releasing some of your ghosts. I guess I pissed it off when I spoke with the ghost that lives in your kitchen.” My aunt stared at me blankly, not sure of what to say. “That is pretty frightening. I’m assumin’ you think we need to be movin’, don’t ya child?” I nodded as she added, “I’ll bring your breakfast in here then. I have to get my youngins’ up first and then I’ll get breakfast goin’. We’ll talk to Mark, about getting us outta here tonight, the two of us.” She walked out of the room, her footsteps headed in the direction of my cousins’ rooms. Sliding my legs back onto the bed, I pulled my laptop out of my bag and began booting it up. I checked my e-mail then was off to search for information on my aunt’s house, unsure of what I might find. After about an hour, my aunt brought me breakfast—scrambled eggs, cheese grits, crispy bacon, and hash browns. “Any luck?” “Nada. It seems that I may be searching for a good while. I have a friend doing some research at the local library to see what she can dig up, but so far we’re both coming up short. I’m determined to find it out though. I just want to know before I go talking to the kitchen ghost again.” “Kitchen ghost?” A sleepy Laney asked as she walked into my guest room, before screaming, “What happened to your leg?” “I was attacked in my sleep by something in the house. And I found a ghost in the kitchen; I spoke with him this morning. He seems harmless enough, though.” I smiled as Laney climbed in the bed with me. “Oh, him, I call him George. He’s a nice ghosty. But something always freaks him out, something with the side door. That is why I refuse to go near it. I think he is warning me about it.” My aunt nodded her head as my cousin spoke. “Any idea why he’s here? I figure you may know some of the house’s history, better than me.” “Well, the man next door told me one time that two women died in this house of cancer, and that a man hung himself. Other than that, I really have no idea.” My aunt shrugged her shoulders. “Well that is something for me to go on at least. I’m going to keep looking, maybe I can dig something up soon.” Another hour passed by before my cell phone went off. It was Hope, she had sent me a text message--Call me ASAP, I’ve found something I think you’ll find interesting. I dialed her number. “Hey, what did you find?” “You’re in the house where a young girl was brutally stabbed.” “Really? That explains these gashes on my leg then.” “Wait, what?” “Yeah, something got me overnight. Not a stab, more of a demonic gash type. Burns like fire.” “You’ve got to be kidding me. Get the hell out of there Harper, before you’re killed!” “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be careful. Let me know if you dig up anything else.” With that I hung up and went back to searching the web. Having a lead to go on, I typed in murder at my aunt’s address. Just as Hope said, there was a brutal stabbing of a young girl at this house. There were images of the house and it turned out the murder occurred in the same room I was sleeping in. I decided to pull my black-light out and looked around the room. As the light shone on the walls all sorts of smears came into view. I shivered as I thought of a bloody hand gliding across the wall, as the woman tried to get away. Out of nowhere, I was in a room with a young girl and a strange man. The man looked like he was up to something. The woman appeared to be drunk. It looked like a date that went wrong. Without warning the man pulled out a knife and began stabbing the young woman. Over and over he stabbed her and blood splattered all over the room. She tried to grab the door handle, trying to escape, but every time she moved the man caught her and stabbed her again. Eventually she just lay still covered in blood and the man left the room. I came back then. Sitting on the bed, I decided to look up addresses of old slave plantations—because of the original feeling I had when I first arrived. With a bit of digging I uncovered that this house was built on top of an old slave plantation dating back to the Civil War. Thousands of slaves died one dreaded night when the owner decided to burn down all of his slave’s homes on January 1st, 1863, the day the Emancipation Proclamation was signed. The owner didn’t want to grant them freedom, so instead he killed every one of them, even throwing himself into the fire when the authorities arrived. I sat back and stared at the information on my computer screen, shocked that I had just solved what was in this house—a confused male slave, a peeved slave master, a murderer, two cancer victims, a suicidal man, and a murder victim; but still I felt like something else was here, something evil. •••• “Did you find anythin’ hun? Feelin’ any better?” My aunt asked as she walked into my room, making me jump. I’d almost forgotten I was in her home. “Yes, I’m feeling fine. I found out a ton. I’m going to speak with ‘George’ tomorrow and see what he can tell me. But I have a feeling yaw may want to start looking for another place. I think things are much worse than you can ever imagine.” “Oh dear. We’ll talk to Mark about that after dinner. Speaking of which, you skipped lunch with all your researchin’, so dinner time. Up and attem’ girl, to the table you go.” I laughed at the way my aunt spoke as I hobbled to the dining room. “So did you find anything?” my uncle asked between bites of his spaghetti. I simply nodded. “What’d ya find out?” “We need to move, Mark.” My aunt blurted out before I could say anything. “Now no child of my sisters’ is goin’ to come in here and tell me I need to move from my home!” He slammed his hand down on the table—I jumped. “It’s just, this place isn’t safe, Uncle Mark. Something attacked me, and it’ll start attacking yaw too. It has a thirst for blood. The house has a murderer haunting it, two cancer victims, a suicidal man, a slave burned in a fire, an angry slave owner, a murder victim, and something far more sinister that I can’t figure out. You need to move, for the sake of your kids.” It was just then that something went flying in the living room, shattering against the wall in front of the door. “What the hell was that?” My uncle ran into the living room. Family pictures lay broken, scattered all over the floor, with a note that said GET OUT! “Whose cruel prank is this?” “No one’s, sir.” I tried to explain, “This thing is trying to kill yaw, and it will kill yaw. Why do you think it attacked me? Because it knows I will get yaw to move. It doesn’t want you to leave. Once you leave it will have nothing to feed off of—no negative energy exists if no one lives here.” “The hell you will.” “Listen to her, Honey. She is trained in this.” “No.” That was all my uncle had to say before heading out of the house, slamming the front door. “He doesn’t act this way. I wonder what has gotten’ into him?” My aunt said behind tear filled eyes. “The demons are corrupting him, making him evil. The kids are next, then you. I got to stop this. You need to pack, with or without Uncle Mark’s agreement. Do it, and do it now.” It was then that a scream came from Laney’s bedroom. I darted for her room, to find her lying in her bed, pointing at her closet. I peered, slowly, into the closet, to find an Ouija board floating in mid-air. There was my answer to the demonic entity haunting this house. Someone must have released a beastly creature while goofing off with that damned thing. “Aunt Marissa, I found an Ouija board in Laney’s closet. Your house is haunted by one of the Devil’s henchmen. You got to get out of here.” “Yes, yes we do. I just found a noose in my husband’s dresser. We are leaving today, and that is that.” “Laney and Luke need to sleep with you tonight. It isn’t safe for them to be alone.” “I want to stay with you,” Laney rubbed her sleepy eyes. “I’m sorry sweetie. I have to do something dangerous tonight so yaw can move in peace tomorrow.” With that we all walked out of the room and headed for our bedrooms, I grabbed my Bible as soon as I walked into my room. This was a long shot, and I had never done it before—never needed to. I walked back into the living room and said a prayer that known as the Spiritual Warfare Prayer. Within a matter of minutes everything in the house calmed down. I headed to my room to sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day. We were going to get everything moved out in less than twenty-four hours. Sleep did not come easy this time. Spirits haunted my dreams; George looking for a trinket of his daughters, a man burning in flames, and a woman being stabbed. I awoke to a massive pain in my stomach, and to see blood spilling from my mid-section. Quickly, I stopped the bleeding and bandaged myself up—this house was definitely going to kill us if we didn’t leave soon. The prayer hadn’t worked. The demons were stronger than I had imagined. I sent a message to a few of my friends to come help with my aunt and uncle moving. I stared at the wall blankly as I thought about all the information I had found out. The room suddenly went dark, and grew very hot. I was taken to the time of the Civil War, just after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. There sat George and his daughter working in the fields. The two looked relieved that they would soon be free. I realized that I had taken the appearance of a slave, and apparently one that the owner had some quarrels with because he came rushing up to me. The slave owner began whipping me. With each crack of his whip the pain grew worse, and the blood dripped down my back. “Stop whippin’ my youngin’. She ain’t done nottin’ to you,” George, or my father, shouted as he charged at the slave owner, Chris Phifer. “She ‘as, yaw are all free come night time. But don’t count yer chickens befer they hatch. Yaw ain’t goin’ no wheres. Ya ‘ere?” With that he stormed off for his home. Little did we know he would come out later that night. At midnight our house seemed to grow extremely hot. My father ran to the window to see red flames roaring around. I darted for the door, trying to open it, but it simply would not budge. We were trapped. Chris had set the entire plantation on fire. I panicked while I continued fighting with the door, until the flames engulfed the door, forcing my family into a huddle in the middle of our tiny home. We sat there together, as we slowly burned. •••• Daylight brightened up my room and I heard knocking at the door—I had forgotten I told my friends to come help us move today. I quickly ran for the door letting everyone in. They had boxes, tape, everything we needed to pack up a house. We began packing up my aunt and uncle’s entire life and taking it out to the moving truck my friends had rented to help. “What’s all this now?” My uncle asked as he stumbled in to a now empty living room. “We’re helping you move, sir. Ain’t safe here. Harper’s been stabbed twice now, next time it could be worse.” my friend Craig said backing away from my uncle. “Where we gonna go child? Ya think of that?” My uncle asked. “Yes sir, she did. My parents have a house similar to this one, a few miles up the road, which they are happy to rent to yaw at a cheaper price.” My friend Craig said with a warm smile. “Really?” My uncle asked. “Yes sir,” I smiled as he gave me a reassuring look, thanking me for my hard work, then he began helping us box up things. I guessed the demon released his grasp on my uncle, allowing him to finally realize that he needed to move, or it could’ve been because he didn’t have to worry about a place to go. I had gotten everything under control for him, so I suppose moving was no longer going to be a stress on him—nor was he going to say no. How could he say no, when all of his stuff was already being carried out, anyway? A few hours passed by the time we finished packing up the entire house and taken it out to the moving truck. My aunt whipped up some lunch for everyone, and we took a break to eat, realizing we’d skipped breakfast. We grabbed the rest of the stuff and were out of there, except there was one last thing I needed to do. I walked back into the home, with a trinket in my hand. I had found it while boxing up things in the attic above the garage. I stopped in front of where I had first seen George, laid the trinket on the ground and walked away. “Thank ye, child,” George appeared in front of me—causing me to jump out of my skin—he spoke through my cell phone. “You’re welcome. I figured I could help one of you in this house. I can’t help the others, because lives are at stake.” “I know. Off with ye, child. He be comin’.” George disappeared and a weird feeling washed over me, as every window and door in the house slammed shut—locking me in. I heard my aunt scream from outside as something cold pierced my body, taking control of me—I had been possessed. Something unreal happened after that. George materialized, and went hand to hand with the demon that had possessed me. The trinket was what he needed in order to move on, but instead he chose to fight for my freedom. He chose to save me. A ghost saved my life. I made a vow from this day forth that I would continue helping those unseen, because you never truly know when one may save your life. 1) Why write horror?
I grew up on 80s horror and action movies. I was a massive consumer of all genres growing up yet never started reading horror specifically until after I started writing it. I love being in control. Im not a confrontational person at all. In fact I flinch if a person raises their voice. So horror, or the writing of is a place where I can control the pain and terror. I write out injustices that I otherwise feel helpless against. 2) Tell us about your writing style - is it gore, psychological etc? I guess I write high action, splatter. I enjoy my monsters, even the human ones. 3) Who is your favorite woman in horror author? I've Ania Alborn's "Brother" which I really enjoyed. At the moment I am consuming England's "Baba Lenka". But for splatter, it always comes down between D.J Doyle or Sam West. 4) Who is your favorite scream queen? I just watched American Mary and I just loved everything about her character. Otherwise it would be Ripley. 5) What's next for you? 2021 is the year of sequels. I have promised myself to finish and publish the sequel to my novel Berserker-Green Hell. It has been far more research intensive then the first novel, but I am starting to enjoy it. I was really pleased with how my Goddess revenge novelette Nang Tani has been recieved. I never intended too but I know have a sequel plotted out for that aswell. Then, only then will I look at the 50 bazillion other projects I have in mind. 1) The Haunting of HIll House by Shirley Jackson
2) Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 3) Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice 4) Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell 5) Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier White Meat by Rita Kruger
Copyright Rita Kruger You wash your hands repeatedly. The water runs down the drain in crimson rivers. The blood. God, so much blood. You wait for the water to turn clear before you reach for the soap. You rub it liberally over your hands and forearms, watching the suds turn pinkish. You rinse under scolding water. Closing the tap, you open the cabinet above the basin, groping to find the nailbrush. As you soap up the bristles, images of your day flashes through your mind. The naked soft white skin under your fingers. The knife in your hands. The first cut. The layers of skin, fat, flesh and bone. Life’s wonder revealed to your eyes. There are moments when you stand amazed at the body’s beauty. You remember with a smile how intricately everything fits together. You stripped the cadaver completely: organs to one side, tough cuts heaped in a bowl, away from prime meat, then excess fat and bone. Each will be disposed of differently. Organs, bones and fat goes to a dog food factory at edge of town, prime cuts to restaurants, tough meats to a local butcher. You might keep some for yourself. Your wife makes a mean pork stew. 1) Why write horror?
Writing horror is catharsis; it allows you to take ownership of your fears and in a way, writing about them helps me overcome them. In my first horror short story, Trapped Within a Dream, I included a scene with spiders. I'm deathly afraid of spiders. And after working through that fear, they don't seem as scary. 2) Tell us about your writing style - is it gore, psychological, etc? I love to build suspense, twists and turns with a hint of gore! 3) Who is your favorite woman in horror author? Tananarive Due 4) Who is your favorite scream queen? Jamie Lee Curtis 5) What's next for you? Black Bayou Check out the Blurb: An unspeakable evil haunts the Black Bayou … dare she tread where no soul has ever returned? Living in her parents’ shadow is what Willa Blake does best. And even though she longs to break free, she reluctantly agrees to a family vacation to New Orleans and finds herself in a literal vacation from Hell. Everything that could go wrong does. And to make matters worse, Willa's younger brother Elwood goes missing. In the fabled Black Bayou, a place locals fear more than death. Refusing to believe he is lost forever, Willa follows every possible lead to save her brother, scouring the whole of Louisiana only to learn that the things that go bump in the night are real, the scary legends are true, and the locals are desperately trying to keep something sinister hidden. And if she can't uncover their dark secrets in time, her brother will die a horrific death-- and worse, the bayou will swallow up his soul in its sinister darkness. As usual, we can't host a Women in Horror event without talking about the Final Girl. A Final Girl is the last standing woman in a horror movie - think Laurie Strode or Sidney Prescott.
In the past, this girl survived because unlike her friends, she is usually viewed as the virginal character, the one who isn't off with her boyfriend or getting drunk, which means she has more chance of noticing when things start to go wrong. She is usually a good character, who ends up fighting for others and not just herself. While they may not be physically imposing, Final Girls have a way to outwit and outsmart the bad guy, sending him to a grisly end - at least until the sequel. Playing the same character for six decades now, Jamie Lee Curtis is the ultimate Final Girl, even if there was that one film where she didn't make it through the opening credits. She did return however, when the Halloween franchise was retconned, to skip the intervening films and only focus on the original 1978 film. Her character has grown from the first film, being more prepared and well armed. In the original movie, she took Michael Myers down with a pair of knitting needles and a lot of running. In the latest movie, she uses a gun, secret traps and fire to stop Michael Myers and it still isn't enough considering there are two more films to go. We can connect with Final Girls because they are ordinary everyday women, thrust into a dangerous situation where they become the target of a crazed killer. They don't have kung fu moves or a grenade launcher to help them, they have to rely on themselves to survive. But it is the actresses who make the character and we have to give credit for their stellar performances in bringing the character to life. Who is your favorite Final Girl? “Darling Layla” Copyright Lily Luchesi “Rock-a-bye-baby … in the treetop … when the wind blows…” Layla paused, unsure of how the song ended. It had never been sung to her as a baby. She gently brushed the doll’s pretty blonde hair back and smiled at it. At the age of sixteen, she’d never had a doll before. Never been allowed toys at all. Mummy thought toys were vain things given to naughty children by sinning parents. So Mummy never got her a doll, a teddy bear, or anything. The cuddliest thing Layla had ever had was a pillow, and even those had been fairly rocklike as a child. Threadbare dresses and sensible shoes had been all she knew. She never had friends, only Mummy and the little old lady who would babysit sometimes. The same lady who had given her the doll tonight. She was nice, much nicer than Mummy… “The doll needs care, Layla,” Marie the babysitter said. “She’s made of porcelain, and it was all your mother would permit me to give to you for your birthday. You mustn’t drop her or leave her on the edge of the table or bed. She’ll break.” Now she sat alone in her barren room, cradling the doll which was the brightest, prettiest thing that had ever entered their little shack of a house. The front door slammed, and that meant Mummy was home and Marie was gone. “Layla?” Mummy called. Then she hiccuped. She’d had the Bad Stuff while she was out. Mummy was always telling her how the things that came in glass bottles with an amber hue contained the Bad Stuff, yet she always drank it. It didn’t make any sense. “Yes, Mummy?” “It’s bedtime. You had better be ready.” “Okay, Mummy. Marie made sure I was.” Her mother came to the open bedroom door, listing to the side. “What is that?” she asked, her voice deadly and low. It never failed to send a shiver down Layla’s spine. “The doll Marie told me you said she could give me. The one made of … of glass. Because I always wanted a doll.” Layla, having never been to a proper school, couldn’t recall the word “porcelain”. Mummy just sniffed, her upper lip pulled up in a sneer and her blue eyes bloodshot. “Get to bed. Now.” Layla nodded and quickly leapt under the covers, leaving her new doll next to her on the pillow, not too close to the edge, just like Marie had said. Mummy brought her a glass of warm milk, her steps unsteady. She spilled a little of it on Layla’s thin blanket, but she was so surprised with the kind gesture that she didn’t even mind. “Thank you, Mummy.” “Drink it all, Layla.” She did, tasting bittersweet honey in the mix. It was unusual for Mummy to be so nice. The last time she had was when Layla was eleven and had taken in a stray kitten from the scraggly backyard. She’d given the same bitter milk to Layla at bedtime, and when Layla had woken in the morning, the kitten was never seen again. Poor kitty, she thought as her limbs began to feel heavy and her thought process became sluggish. I wonder whatever happened to her? It must have been late at night when she next woke, her head heavy and hard to lift off of her pillow. There were voices yelling. “What do you want? It’s three in the morning and you’re drunk as a skunk.” That was Marie, the old babysitter. “I told you she’s not allowed to have dolls! Vicious little tokens of vanity! How dare you disobey me?” Mummy screamed. “When you weren’t drunk, you said it was fine if I gave her one, as long as it wasn’t soft, whatever the reason for that! Abigail, I love that little girl, but you’ve abused her far too much!” Marie said. “You need help, serious help.” “Fuck you, you old bitch,” Mummy hissed. Layla had never heard those words before and gasped. She knew they were bad, just by the way Mummy said them. “I should take this hammer to you instead of this!” There was a loud shattering sound, like glass breaking. Layla looked next to her and saw that her doll was gone. She knew, instinctively, that Mummy was destroying her doll. Maybe it was the drug in her system that Mummy put in the milk, maybe it was all the years of being whipped and locked in this vile house, but something in Layla snapped at that moment she heard her beloved doll being destroyed. She got out of bed and yelled for Mummy. In the kitchen-slash-living room, Mummy was holding a hammer over the doll, its pretty face smashed to pieces. “No! My dolly!” Layla cried, tears springing to her eyes. “Why do you do this to me, Mummy? Why can’t I have a doll to play?” “Go to sleep, Layla,” Mummy said, her voice still slightly slurring. “You drank the Bad Stuff. Just like when my kitten disappeared,” Layla said. “Flea-ridden monster. It scratched my face even as I drowned it,” Mummy said with a sneer. “You’re an evil little girl and you don’t need these things to bring vanity and joy!” “I’m not evil!” Layla cried. Something inside the girl, who was sixteen but had the mind of a five-year-old, broke open and she ran, screaming at Mummy. Marie cried out, perhaps to stop. Layla wasn’t sure. She ran into Mummy, but Mummy was bigger and knocked her back into the table. Marie screamed something again, and Mummy turned and hit her over the head with her hammer. She fell to the ground with a thump, blood soaking her wispy white hair. Layla scrambled to stand, knowing that Mummy would hit her next. She grabbed a piece of her doll’s broken face and lunged forward, embedding the sharp porcelain into Mummy’s throat. Mummy gagged and gasped, blood coming at her lips and at the wound. She, too, fell to the ground, her jugular pierced by the doll she had shattered. Her eyes were wild, staring at Layla as she tried to say the word, “Help.” Layla bent down, matted, dark hair hanging over her mother’s weathered face, unsure of how to help her. Then she spotted the large porcelain shard in her throat. That must be what Mummy needs help with, she thought. She reached down and touched the shard, and Mummy began to shake her head a little. “Don’t worry, Mummy. If I remove this, you’ll be nice to me, right?” Again a head shake from the drunk woman. “Why are you never nice to me?” Layla wailed. Mummy wasn’t talking; it must have been because of the glass in her neck. Layla wanted an answer, so she yanked the glass out, bringing forth a torrent of dark red blood. It spurted out like a fountain, splattering her nightdress, hair, and face with coppery warmth. Mummy barely had a chance to yell in pain as death found her quickly and the fountain began to slow to a thick trickle that soaked her hair and neck on the dirty linoleum. Both women were still, and Layla stood in place, marvelling at the sense of quiet that came over the house. Her doll’s face was broken, but its body was intact. She picked it up and rocked it, soothing it as a good mother would soothe a baby. Now it was quiet. No one was drinking the Bad Stuff, and Layla could play as much as she wanted. That was where the police found her the next morning, after Marie had been reported missing: surrounded by two dead women, rocking her doll as blood soaked her knees. She was singing Rock-A-Bye Baby. Lily Luchesi is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of the Paranormal Detectives Series.
Her young adult Coven Series has successfully topped Amazon's Hot New Releases list consecutively. She is also the co-owner of Partners in Crime Book Services, where she offers a myriad of services alongside her business partner Annie Smith, including editing. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, where many of her stories are set. Ever since she was a toddler, her mother noticed her tendency for being interested in all things "dark". At two she became infatuated with vampires and ghosts, and that infatuation turned into a lifestyle. She is also an out member of the LGBT+ community. When she's not writing, she's going to rock concerts, getting tattooed, watching the CW, or reading comics. And drinking copious amounts of coffee. She also writes contemporary books for adults as Samantha Calcott. Welcome to Women in Horror Month. Every February we celebrate the women in the horror industry including authors, actresses and film makers. Across the month we will be featuring a host of authors who will be sharing short stories with us and answering our Q&A. Enjoy!
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About the Author:S. K. Gregory is an author, editor and blogger. She currently resides in Northern Ireland. “Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.” Archives
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