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redditnosleep · 7 years

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I Read My Sister’s Facebook Page

by sleepyhollow_101

When my sister died, I came into possession of her Facebook account.

That looks a bit weird, now that I’ve typed that out. To be honest, I’m probably not the first person who should have access to her account. Logically, that honor should go to her husband, Ted, if it goes to anyone at all.

The thing is, nobody knows that I have access to the account.

She gave me her password… Jesus, six years ago. She had asked me to log in and check something for her on my computer… I can’t remember why now. It’s one of those little memories that seemed unimportant at the time but I miss dreadfully now. A million little interactions and words and smiles between us and I’ll never remember most of them.

I digress.

Anyway, the password. About a week after she died, I tried the password on a whim. I figured she must have changed it at some point within the last six years, but to my surprise I was granted access right away. Honestly, Annalise. She never was very good with cyber security.

I know I shouldn’t have gone into her account. I get that, really. Even if she’s dead, it’s an invasion of privacy. Not just for her, but for everyone else. But I had just lost one of the most beloved people in my life and I was grieving. It seemed okay at the time. It seemed justified. And besides, it’s not like anyone had to know – I set her status to “offline” so nobody would see that I’d logged in.

I spent many sleepless nights looking through her Facebook. At the groups she was a part of, at the pages she liked, at the photos she posted. It quickly became an unhealthy addiction. Not that I cared. I was desperate for some kind of connection with her – anything at all. And so much of her life was catalogued online. It was the perfect poison.

To my great shame, I eventually began to go through her inbox.

If it makes it any better (I know it doesn’t), there wasn’t anything groundbreaking or terrible in her messages. Annalise preferred talking to people in person as opposed to over text. Most of it was pretty mundane. Sharing pictures of her little ankle-biter dog with our cousin, Sam. Ironing out details to a party invite with a group of college friends. Planning a last-minute trip to see her best friend, Freida.

That last one hurt a little to read. They were set to meet up just a few days after Annalise’s accident. Their messages were tense and curt as though they’d gotten into a fight. Freida had seemed so distressed at the funeral, crying that Annalise would never forgive her. It must have been hard, her best friend dying without making up for whatever stupid argument they were having. I imagine that stays with a person forever.

It’s funny how we always think we have time. The day of the accident, I was actually at the pharmacy picking up iron pills for my sister at her request. Her anemia was back and her arms had been bruising up like crazy. She had been a little blue lately, so I was looking at the candy isle, thinking maybe I’d bring her some Cadbury Eggs to cheer her up – they were always her favorite, and I used to give her all the ones out of my Easter basket – when I got the call.

My sister. My stupid, clumsy, lovely sister. It wouldn’t be the first time she fell down the stairs – that had happened to her a lot as kids. But it was her last because this time, she was unlucky.

This time, she broke her neck at the bottom. She died instantly.

The memory of that awful moment – standing in the pharmacy, my mouth hanging open in a scream that seemed to have died somewhere deep inside my chest – flashed vividly in my brain and my face crumpled as I sat there, reading Freida’s message over and over.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair.

I was still crying, curled up in my computer chair in a fetal position when Annalise received a new message.

It wasn’t rare for people to send new messages to Annalise’s Facebook page. Most of it was clearly sent in a state of grief – people wishing she hadn’t gone, wishing they’d had more time. I didn’t read any of these messages. To be honest, that felt like too much of an invasion. Plus, they just reminded me of the fact that she wasn’t coming home. And, weirdly enough, that was what I was trying to avoid by scouring her Facebook all the time.

But something was different about this one.

This one was from Ted. Before I could close out of the window, I read the first line.

“Why did things have to be that way?”

Visions of Ted flashed in my mind from the funeral. How pale he’d been, how shaky. Like he was dying under his grief. Like he had no one to share it with, although we all tried.

Ignoring that little voice of my conscience, I kept reading.

“Why did things have to be that way?

“It didn’t have to happen like that. You have nobody to blame but yourself and I’m so, so angry with you. We could have worked things out. We could have made it work. I love you. Even in our worst moments, you knew that – how could you not? I did everything for you, GAVE everything for you. You were so ungrateful.

“You know I didn’t mean it. I just got so angry. You do that to me, you know – you make me angry. And it hurt me, too, to do that. You have no idea how fucking bad I felt about it the next day. And besides, that fight nearly broke my hand. You aren’t the only one that came out hurt.

“I wish you’d listened. I wish you hadn’t tried to run. You thought I wouldn’t find out about your plans with Freida? You thought you’d be safe with her? What a fucking joke. You KNEW you were safe with me. I just lose my temper sometimes – who doesn’t? You’re supposed to love me and that means loving EVERYTHING about me. Or were those marriage vows a lie?

“It’s your fault. It’s your fault for leaving your phone open so I could read those messages. It’s your fault for hurting me when you knew I was already in pain. It’s your fault for making me so angry that I did something to hurt you again.

“Don’t you understand? It’s your fault. And now you’ve been punished for it.”

As I read the messages, I became increasingly ill. Slowly, a picture started to form in my mind, a picture that made my heartrate pick up and my jaw hang open.

No. No.

Before I had time to react further, another message came in.

“What the fuck… who’s reading this???”

Shit. I’d forgotten that by clicking on the message, it sent a “Read Message” notification. In panic, I shut my computer, backing away from it like it was toxic.

It took me a few hours to process what I’d seen. To try to understand it. But by the time I did – by the time I realized what Ted had done to my sister – I knew what I had to do.

I took screenshots of the conversation and went down to the police station. It was about three in the morning and they were surprised to see me, of course – but they were very interested in what I brought in.

They started the search for Ted immediately. Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t in their home. He was gone, along with his wallet and all his personal identification. They stopped to talk to Freida, too, and she told them everything – about how they’d been planning to get her away from him, to hide her until she could get a divorce finalized. Freida wanted to talk to me but I refused. I have nothing to say to her for not coming forward earlier.

The police think their prospects of catching him are pretty good – he’ll almost certainly have to use a credit or debit card along the way, which will help them pinpoint his location.

As for me, I’m hoping they don’t find him.

Because if they find him, then he’ll be at the mercy of the law. And I’ve decided that the law is pretty lenient, especially in these parts. If Ted gets convicted – and that’s a big IF – he might get life in prison. And life in prison is too good for scum like him.

The police have started their search. Well, I’ve started one of my own. And I’m not stopping until I find him and get justice for Annalise, for my family.

I won’t stop until he’s choking on his own rotten blood.

#creepy #horror story #author: sleepyhollow_101

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holderoftales · 3 years

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Original story: https://www.reddit.com/r/shortscarystories/comments/ahwi16/it_wont_stop_snowing/

Author: https://www.reddit.com/user/sleepyhollow_101

Author’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ronavaselaar

#creepypasta #snowstorm #my art #horror art #r/shortscarystories

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redditnosleep · 7 years

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Happy Halloween, Witches

by sleepyhollow_101

It might surprise you to know that witches actually hate Halloween.

Witches are generally very quiet, introverted creatures. So the screaming children pounding on our doors and demanding candy… well, that just really isn’t our style.

The little witch costumes are always kind of cute, though. It’s nice to be a role model for just one night.

Vampires, on the other hand, love Halloween. Kids aren’t usually out after dark, except for on this one night, and so the Vampires crawl out of their hovels (or their crummy, downtown flats) to ooh and aah over the little children and their costumes.

I can tell you’re tense already, just thinking about that. Well, don’t worry – our kind have a pact for Halloween. We don’t touch children. Because of the… nature of some of our population, we can’t guarantee that children will always be safe. But on this one night? We make sure the kids can come out and have a good time without fear of losing a limb or worse.

We’re not the monsters you think we are. Well, not always, anyway.

So that Halloween night, I found myself sitting in my living room, studying from the Anatomy of White Magick, drinking some Da Hong Pao black tea, sent to me from my cousin across town.

I was finally totally relaxed after what had amounted to a long, hellish week, and was really enjoying myself… when I heard a scraping at the window.

I saw a shock of blonde hair outside the glass and had to suppress an eye-roll. I absolutely wasn’t in the mood to be toyed with that night. But I rose to my feet and stalked over to the window, throwing it open with a dramatic flick of my wrist. The creature outside my window clapped as though the very sight of me inspired awe.

“Hey, sweetheart, invite me in!” he purred, his voice deep and smooth and hypnotic.

“Don’t call me sweetheart,” I deadpanned, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Geez, fine, you can be such a hardass,” he said, irritation showing in his voice. I could tell it rankled him that his seductive powers had no effect on me. “C’mon, just let me in, I really need to talk to you.”

“Is it about Halloween?” I asked.

“It’s about Halloween. And it’s very important.”

I stared at him with pursed lips for a second. When people think of vampires, they generally think of tall, pale, dark hair, brooding… that kind of thing. Honestly, I blame Dracula. Bram Stoker was such a drama queen. The man before me was none of those things. He had sandy blonde hair and a deep tan, flashing blue eyes and blindingly white teeth. He had a real Beach Boy aesthetic. And they call this guy a creature of the night? I scoffed. Vampires get all the good literature.

I uncrossed my arms and said, “Fine. Come in, Gale.”

He climbed in through the window and landed lightly on his feet, smiling at me. Smirking, more like it.

“I always knew I’d get inside your house one day.”

“Seriously, what do you want? I’m having a perfectly lovely night in and I don’t need you here to ruin it.”

“Ooh, you wound me,” he clutched his heart and threw his other hand over his eyes, as though about to faint.

My lips twitched but I forced back a smile. “Come on, just spill it. You said it was important.”

He sighed, “You’re no fun, you know?” Then he became serious. “We have a problem down on the east side of the city.”

“What do you mean?”

“At least four kids have gone missing. They were trick-or-treating together. I ran into their parents who are pretty frantic with worry. It could be nothing, but I have a feeling that somebody has taken them.”

“Do you have anything to base this feeling on?” I asked.

He shrugged. “No. But it’s a pretty bad feeling. I’m going to go look for them. I’d appreciate if you’d help me out.”

I gazed longingly at my tea and book. I’d really much rather have stayed inside, but Gale was only two hundred years old. He was still finding his feet as a vampire and it would be just like him to run off and do something stupid and get in totally over his head. And then I’d have to deal with the fallout. At least, that’s what I told myself… so I’d have an excuse to say yes.

I heaved a put-upon sigh. “Fine, fine. Let me get my coat. And shut the window, we’re going out through the door, like civilized people.”

I turned to grab my coat, then thought better of it. I ran to the closet near the foyer and pulled out a black cloak, a bag, a pointed black hat, and a broom.

I heard Gale muffling laughter behind his hand. “Wow, are you for real right now?”

“It’s Halloween,” I shrugged. “I might as well look the part.” I didn’t wait to hear any of his other comments before stalking out the door in search of whoever was ruining my night.

It only took me a moment to get us to the other side of town. Witches have a lot of ways of getting around. My favorite method is to manipulate reality, melt the reality we exist in and transfer to a reality where I’m at my target destination, then merge the two reality strands. Sci-fi fans would like you to believe that this is dangerous, but their fears are vastly overstated. There is nothing so mundane and easy to manipulate as time.

Gale, however, was not nearly so used to this sort of magic. He crouched down with his hands clutching his head when we stopped.

“What’s wrong? Feeling a bit queasy, are we?” I asked. I was glad I had chosen a secluded area as my destination, that way nobody would bother us to ask if he was okay.

“How do you do that and not vomit every time? Seriously.” He looked pale as he focused on taking deep breaths.

I waited patiently as he calmed himself down. We were back on the move five minutes later, watching all the children running around, giggling, screaming.

“Look mom, it’s a witch, a real witch!” shrieked a little girl. She had a sparkly purple tutu, a pointed hat, and a very ornate wand that I surmised she had painted herself.

“I see that, sweetie,” said her mother. She winked at me and I laughed.

“Hey, you’re good with kids,” said Gale as we turned down a side street. There were fewer kids the further we moved, even though this part of town was pretty densely populated.

“You sound surprised.” My voice was dry and I was shocked to find myself a little offended.

“I just never knew you liked them, is all. I could get you one, if you want.” He waggled his eyebrows at me and I gave him a look of total disgust. “Not like that! I’d just… swipe one.”

“You’re just making it worse,” I mumbled, pointedly ignoring him.

He grabbed my arm and pointed at the end of the street. There was a group of parents speaking to some police officers. That must be why the trick-or-treaters are staying away from here, I thought.

“Let me get a little closer, I’ll see if I can hear what they’re saying,” said Gale, slinking off down the street, hiding in the shadows of the buildings.

“Don’t get caught!” I hissed. I stood there awkwardly in the dark, wondering if I should have followed him. I was beginning to feel nervous for absolutely no reason at all. I wondered if it was a premonition. No, that can’t be it, I thought. Gale just got his panties in a bunch over nothing. Hell, the cops will probably find the kids before we do. Maybe they just snuck off to the woods or something…

Gale reappeared next to me while I was lost in thought and I just about shrieked.

“Don’t DO that!” I said. He grinned at me.

“I knew I could getcha. I heard the parents say the kids disappeared while they were on Jay Street. The parents took their eyes off of them and when they turned around, the kids were gone.”

“Geez, how can they just let kids out of their sights on Halloween?” I mumbled in irritation. “It’s like they WANT them to get killed. Well, we might as well head down to Jay Street. Keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll sniff them out,” Gale replied. I shuddered a little at that. It’s true, vampires have very keen senses, and his super hearing or super smelling might turn out to be useful in just such a situation… but it still weirdly grossed me out. Unnatural, that’s what it is.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m one to talk.

As we headed towards Jay Street, Gale asked, “What will the Association do if it’s one of us?”

The Association is… hard to explain. It’s sort of like our version of government. It’s a bit less restrictive, I guess – they don’t have many rules. It’s just that the rules they DO have are very, very important. You reeeeally don’t want to break them, trust me.

“Well, there will be an investigation, I’m sure. And once the Association makes a decision… I’d guess it would be death.”

Gale paled. “You mean like… permanent death?”

“Yup.” I was sort of enjoying watching him squirm. “So you better watch yourself. One misstep and you could have a blessed wooden stake right through your heart.”

He glared at me. “That is NOT funny…”

He stopped short just as we stepped onto Jay Street. He lifted his head and took a long sniff, like some kind of hunting dog. I could just picture him with ears and a tail. It was actually a cute thought…

Oh no. OH no. I shook my head to clear it of that horrifying vision just as he looked at me with excitement.

“I can smell it. They’re here. I know it’s them.”

“What do you smell?”

“Blood.”

Shit. “Is it… a lot of blood?”

“I mean, the smell is pretty strong, so there must be a significant… oh.” His grin faded as he realized the implications of what he was saying. “Well… maybe it isn’t them after all?”

“Can you take me to the source?”

He nodded and started down the street with renewed vigor.

“So, are you gonna tell me your real name?” Gale asked.

“Nope.” Gale frowned at me.

“C’mon, we’re friends!”

“Nothing doing.”

“Surely you don’t want me to call you Ambrosia forever…”

I grimaced. Ambrosia is the name given to me by the Council of Witchcraft. It’s symbolic but also practical – it binds me to the other witches in our community, and if I were to ever break our Code, they could use it to subdue and restrain me. Plus, no witch gives out her real name. Our real names hold unbridled power over us, and to do so could very well mean suicide.

But, still… Ambrosia? That’s got to be the worst name in the history of names. Seriously.

“I’ll think about it,” I answered.

“Hey, if you don’t want to use that name, why don’t you just join a coven instead?”

“NO!” My voice came out much louder than it needed to be, but seriously, I would never dream of disgracing myself by joining a coven. Covens are for witches who are rejected from the Council, and who are stuck in the middle ages. You know those pictures of witches you see, where they’re a bunch of old, haggard women covered in boils and eating children? Yeah, those are the kind of crazies you get when you start a coven. Hard pass.

“Hold on, hold on,” said Gale, holding up his hand. His head tilted to the left and he sniffed the air again. “It’s there.”

He pointed to a rather large house with the lights off. It didn’t look like a super welcoming place – no Halloween decorations, no sign of any life. I wondered why the kids walked up to it. Other than the fact that, you know, kids are dumb and tend to do dumb things.

“Alright, let’s go in.”

We made our way up the pathway and I stooped down in front of the door. After discovering the door was locked, I slipped a bobby pin from my hair and started to jiggle it around the lock.

“C’mon, don’t you have some kind of, like, door-unlocking spell?” asked Gale. He was bouncing on his feet, eager to find the source of all the blood.

“Yeah, I don’t use magic on something that stupid. Picking a lock is easier and, honestly, faster.” I heard a click and tried the handle again. This time it turned. “Okay, let’s go.”

We entered the house, prepared to search it from bottom to top in order to find the source of the blood, but it turns out we didn’t have to.

We found a body slumped against the wall in the foyer, blood smeared on the walls and pooled on the floor. Gale swore as I knelt down by the child and put my finger to his throat. He was definitely dead, as if the sheer amount of blood loss hadn’t already given me my answer.

The child couldn’t have been more than eight. He’d been wearing a superman costume that was now torn in the chest. He had multiple stab wounds in his chest cavity and a few in his legs and arms. His eyes were blue and glassy.

“What do we do?” asked Gale, all traces of his earlier humor gone.

“First, let’s find the others,” I said. I stood up and gave the dead kid a pat on the head, as though it would comfort him. Not that he really needed it anymore.

A few blood drops led us further into the house, past the dining room and into the kitchen, where we found what appeared to be the basement door ajar. As we approached the door, we could see a light and hear the faint sound of somebody crying.

“That must be it,” I said. I turned to Gale. “When we go down there, our primary goal is to get the kids out. Whatever has them, you hold it off while I grab the kids, okay?”

“What do you think it is?” he asked. He was trying not to sound worried.

“Well, it used a knife, so I would guess it’s a rogue witch or wizard. Performing a dark magic ritual. You’ll need to be careful, but we have an advantage. They aren’t expecting a vampire.”

He nodded and I took that as permission to begin my descent. We crept down the stairs as quickly and quietly as we could. The basement slowly came into my field of vision.

There were two children tied and gagged in the far corner of the basement, a spaceman and a pirate. At the other end of the room there stood a man with his back to us. He was holding a young girl against the wall by her left hand. She, too, was gagged, and she was dressed like a witch. I saw the man had a knife in his hand and I realized what was happening the same second that Gale did.

“Holy shit. He’s human, isn’t he?” Gale didn’t bother whispering or concealing his voice. Everyone in the room turned to look at him, me included, and I glared.

“What?” he shrugged. “This’ll be a piece of cake, honestly.”

I looked back at the man and the girl and saw that she was missing a finger on her hand, the man having sliced it off with his knife. My eyes went dark and I saw red.

“Alright, Gale. Kill him.”

Gale’s face went slack and his fangs peeked out from under his lips. He rocked back on his heels and then lunged towards the man.

You’ll notice that I haven’t actually told you what the man looked like. The murderer. And there’s a good reason for that. See, he was just so… ordinary. When I first laid eyes on him, the scene seemed so absurd to me. He looked like a regular, middle-aged, balding salary man. There was nothing sinister about him. Nothing that would indicate that he was fucked up. That he liked murdering children.

And somehow, that scared me more than anything I’ve ever encountered in our world. And it’s something I don’t like to think about.

So I watched Gale lunge at the man with something akin to relief. As Gale slammed the man into the wall, he dropped the child and she sat on the ground, sobbing behind her gag. I ran to her and grabbed her, dragging her back to the corner with her friends.

I sat her down by her friends and started searching the floor frantically. I spotted her finger on the ground and grasped it, bringing it towards her. She was pale and hyperventilating, about to enter into shock. I placed her finger back in its rightful place and reached into my bag, grabbing out a handkerchief and a small blue vial. I wrapped the handkerchief around the hand and finger and breathed over it, mumbling a spell to myself as I did. I poured the blue solution onto her hand and let it soak into the cloth. I waited for a beat or two before removing it.

Her finger was reattached and good as new, with nothing but a small white scar to show that it had ever been injured. She stared at it in wonder, her breathing evening out. I reached up and pulled her gag off.

“Hi, there. My name is Ambrosia. What’s your name?” I asked her. She stared at me uncertainly for a moment. Her eyes shifted behind me and I could hear the slurping, sucking sounds Gale was making. “No, no, don’t look there, look at me.” Her eyes shifted back and she took a deep breath.

“S…samantha,” she said.

I smiled at her. “That’s a beautiful name. Are you a witch, Samantha?”

She nodded, then shook her head. “Well, I’m not a real witch. I’m just pretending.”

“I see. You could have fooled me, you look JUST like a real witch. Samantha, I need you to do me a favor. I need you to face the wall and not turn around. I’m going to untie your friends and then we’re going to go find your parents. How does that sound?”

She nodded and turned towards the wall. I slipped a switchblade out of my pocket and cut the ropes off the other children.

“Alright, guys, let’s get out of here, shall we?”

“What is he doing to that man?” asked the pirate. I had a very good idea of what Gale was doing, but I decided to avoid that particular topic.

“You guys don’t have to worry about that. That man isn’t going to hurt you anymore, and my friend wouldn’t dream of hurting you. We want to help you. That means you have to come upstairs with me, alright?”

The kids nodded, a little hesitant, but still trusting. I couldn’t imagine still trusting someone after what they’d seen, but that’s what’s magical about kids.

I led them upstairs. I kept them distracted while we walked by the body of their friend. As we reached the door, I turned around and knelt down. I whispered a few words in each of their ears and watched as their eyes went blank.

I ushered them out the door. “Your parents are down the street, waiting for you. Go on, now!” They walked away in something of a daze. A quick memory-wipe will do that to a person.

I turned back and looked at the dead child in the foyer. “Now what do I do with you?” I murmured. I stared for a moment, then walked back down to the basement.

Gale was kneeling over the body of the murderer, covered in his gore and blood. The man had been eviscerated, his entrails pulled out and spread around the room in disarray. His fingernails had been pulled out and shoved into his eyes. His teeth were scattered all over the floor. Huh. Dude never had his wisdom teeth taken out, I guess. He was still gurgling and choking on his own blood as I walked over. I could see that Gale had left him alive, at least for the time being.

“Geez, could you take any longer?” I asked. The man’s head jerked towards me, terror written in the lines of his face. I looked away and focused on Gale.

“Well, after what he did to the other kid, I wasn’t going to give him a quick death.” Blood dripped from Gale’s lips and covered his front. His pupils were so large they overtook the color of his eyes. That happens when they feed. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always found it enormously attractive. But I found it even more attractive that he was showing enough self-control to make this son of a bitch suffer.

“Well, we need to pick up the other kid’s body and get out of here, so if you could finish up…”

He nodded and grasped the man’s face in both his hands. Straddling the body, he yanked hard and fast. The sound of his flesh distending and snapping was sickening. His body flailed a moment after the decapitation, but it didn’t last very long. It was a relief when he stopped moving. I didn’t want to think about the world housing that kind of human.

“Help me grab the kid, will you?”

We went upstairs and Gale lifted the child into his arms. He looked at me in confusion. “What do you want him for? Don’t you think maybe we should just… leave him here for the police to find?”

I shook my head. “I can do you one better.”

I grabbed onto Gale and transported us back to my house, my plan already in place.

“Remind me why we’re doing this again?”

Gale was sitting on my back porch as I placed the child in the coffin. It’s a beautiful coffin. It’s made of oak and has intricate carvings all over it. More importantly, it is etched with runes, thousands of them. I shut the lid and caressed it, reading through some of the runes. I smirked a little at Gale’s confusion. He was about to get a first-class show, that’s for sure.

“Are you gonna… I dunno, bury him or something?”

I just laughed and shook my head. “Have you ever heard of necromancy?”

He recoiled a little. “I thought you were a white magic witch, not a… you know…”

“Geez, necromancy isn’t ALL about black magic. I mean, sure, you could do it that way, but it’s a lot harder and it’s pretty disgusting. You have to cook and eat a dog, and abstain from the sight of women… it’s a pain. And the end result is… distorted. But if you do it using white magic, well, if you’re lucky, it just might work. The results aren’t guaranteed, but, hey. It’s better than nothing.” As I spoke, I took off my jacket and rolled up my sleeves. I flexed and stretched my fingers – I didn’t want to pull a muscle in my hand with what I was about to do.

He looked at me like I was insane. “How come I’ve never heard of this?”

I shrugged. “You’re young. There’s lots of things you don’t know.”

“Like your phone number.” He flashed a smile at me and I shook my head in despair.

“There’s no hope for you, seriously.”

With that, I stretched my hands over the coffin. I began to mutter to myself, reciting the runes that graced the lid. My voice fell into an even cadence as I grew louder, the world fading around me in my concentration. On the fifth line, I brought my right hand to my left wrist, feeling for the pulse that beat just below my skin.

On the tenth line, I plunged my fingernail through my skin and into my artery, letting my blood drench the lid of the coffin. It seeped into the rune carvings and disappeared while my chanting continued. I could hear other voices joining me, now, voices from different times and spaces and existences. I finally recited the final, and twentieth, line, my strength failing me. I let myself fall forward on the lid of the coffin, my blood still flowing freely from my wrist as I struggled to breathe. I was losing a lot of blood very quickly – if the ritual was going to work, it had to work now.

I very vaguely became aware of being lifted off the coffin lid. I realized after a moment that Gale was cradling me, my wrist lifted to his mouth. He was licking my wound which, I realized, had closed when it came in contact with his saliva. Vampire saliva has many healing properties. Not that I appreciated it at that exact moment.

“Don’t… interfere, Gale.” It was hard getting enough breath to speak. I had lost a dangerous amount of blood.

“You’re a goddamn idiot, Ambrosia. Are you trying to kill yourself? You know, you could pick better ways to do it than to bleed out in front of a vampire.”

“I have to… the ritual…”

“No ritual is so important that you endanger yourself like that. What the hell were you thinking?!”

A bit of clarity was coming back into my head. I opened my mouth to retort when he and I both heard it.

I tentative knock was coming from inside the coffin.

“He-hello? Is anybody there?”

Gale’s jaw dropped and I struggled out of his arms, wrenching the coffin lid open. The little boy looked at me in terror. His wounds, however, were gone and the blood had vanished from his costume. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. It was a victory I never expected.

I struggled to help him out of the coffin until Gale took over. I didn’t even mind, I was so elated. It worked. I couldn’t believe it worked! The coffin was a family heirloom, and while I knew of its powers, I’d never tried to access them before. It takes a perfect specimen. The boy was freshly dead and had a pure, innocent soul. With anyone else, who knows if it might have worked. Furthermore, the ritual is incredibly dangerous, and many witches have died trying to complete it. That night, I easily could have been one of them.

We sat the kid down and learned his name, his address. He was confused and didn’t remember anything except for being out and about with his friends. He had no memories of his murder. Which was good. We didn’t have to wipe his memory at all.

We told him he hit his head. That we’d found him on the sidewalk and brought him to my place to see if he was okay. Gale offered to walk him home. It was getting late, now, and surely his parents were worried.

And so, Gale helped me into the house and sat me down on my chair, back with my book and tea. Then he took the boy by his hand and they walked towards the front door. I noticed that Gale had already charmed Charlie and the two were getting along splendidly. Gale was good with kids, too. I noted that and filed it away. You know, for future reference.

“Hey, Ambrosia, you busy next Wednesday?” He asked me, before opening the door and disappearing into the night.

“Hm… I might be, I might not. Why do you ask?”

“You, me, dinner. 8 o’clock. I’ll pick you up at 7:30?”

I thought about it, then gave him a laugh. “We’ll see. But no promises!” He grinned and gave me a little wave as he ushered Charlie out into the darkness. I watched them go, content in the knowledge that Gale would get him safely where he needed to go.

And despite my indifferent response, I was definitely going to dinner with Gale. I groaned a little and put my face in my hand, trying to fight a smile and a blush.

Whoever thought that a vampire would be my type?

#creepy #horror story #wholesome nosleep #witches #vampires #halloween #author: sleepyhollow_101

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redditnosleep · 7 years

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A Stitch In Time

by sleepyhollow_101

My family history isn't all that interesting.

I've been getting into genealogy in recent years. It's really cool, reading about all the people who led up to... well, you. I've helped my friends uncover bits and pieces of their family histories. I discovered a drug dealer who fell asleep on some train tracks and lost his legs - he lived to be eighty-six. I found the death certificate of a twelve-year-old girl whose cause of death was: "victim of the beast."

As for my family, we haven't done much of note. The only person I found that had made a "splash," so to speak, was my great great Aunt Esther. She was the first female surgeon in the state, and she was rumored to be brilliant, a prodigy. In fact, after being rejected from dozens of medical schools, she marched into an admissions meeting at the local university and demanded the opportunity to show her skills. The board gave her a chance, hoping to watch her humiliate herself. Instead, she showed such a breadth of knowledge and skill that they admitted her on the spot, the university's first female student. Articles about her pop up once every few years when discussing women's contributions to medicine and our state's history.

I'd thought I'd learned everything there was to know about Esther. I'd read all the articles, gone through all her documentation that I could find online... I was ready to call it quits, happy with what I'd learned, when I got a call from my great Aunt Margaret.

You see, Aunt Margaret is getting on in age - she's in her eighties already - and is going to move to a new city to be closer to her daughter. She'll be moving into an apartment and, as such, needs to get rid of some of her old things. One of those things was a trunk of items she'd inherited from her mother, Esther's sister.

Esther had never married, and so all of her possessions stayed in our family. Margaret had taken ownership of it at her mother's request, leaving it to sit and rot up in her attic. When she happened upon it while cleaning out her things, she immediately thought of me.

"I knew you'd been looking for more information about our family, so I thought you might like to see it!" she'd said. "You can take it off my hands and do what you want with it. My daughter has no interest in it. Honestly, it will probably end up just getting thrown away. At least this way you can see if there's anything interesting or worthwhile in it."

I couldn't stand the thought of letting that trunk be thrown away - even though our family history wasn't that interesting, it was still OUR history. And who knows, maybe something in there was worthwhile. So I agreed to make the drive to pick up the trunk.

When I got there, she had hauled it downstairs - much to her daughter's consternation - and opened it up so we could look through it together.

Going through the trunk was fascinating and reminded me of why I fell in love with genealogy. We found two journals in good condition, which I resolved to read thoroughly later. We also found several papers, including Esther's birth certificate and her diploma.

But what really caught my attention was what we found at the bottom of the trunk.

It was a huge, beautiful quilt with colors that were still as bright as the day it must have been stitched. On several of the squares, a name had been embroidered, each done in a different style. There were twelve in all.

"Ah, I'd almost forgot about that," said Aunt Margaret. "That Esther was in that stitching club."

Margaret seemed content to let the matter die there. It wasn't until I prompted her that she continued.

"Well, when Esther moved into the area, she didn't have any friends. She wasn't married so she didn't meet any of the other couples. But she was very skilled at embroidery and quilting. She managed to get together some ladies who were similarly interested and they made this quilt together. Each one designed a square and embroidered it, then stitched their name on it. The result is what you see here. They got on very well indeed. I'm sure Esther was sad to leave them when she moved on to the next town to attend school."

"Well, what happened to the ladies?" I asked, tracing a name with the tip of my finger. "Did they keep in touch with Esther?"

Aunt Margaret shrugged, but her smile was just a touch mischievous. "Well, I'm sure I wouldn't know any of that. But I bet you could find out, couldn't you?"

She'd backed the right horse.

I took everything in the trunk - even the few dresses and odds and ends of clothing that nobody would think to wear now - and headed home, determined to uncover the mystery that was Esther.

Looking back on it now, I ended up doing things somewhat backwards. I should have started with the journals. First-hand accounts from the woman I was researching? That's gold. However, I was too fascinated by the quilt itself. I decided to start by seeing what I could find about the names listed - I could always check the journals later if I came up empty.

Maybe if I'd done things the proper way, I would have discovered the truth sooner.

First, I made a list of the names. I'll include shorthand versions here, so as to preserve the anonymity of Esther's sewing mates.

They are as follows:

Esther T. (My great great aunt.) Ruth V. Ruth S. Taalke P. Maud V. Greta A. Shirley C. Tabitha G. Elizabeth R. Elizabeth V. Mary C. Annabell T.

Twelve names in all. Based on the information Aunt Margaret gave me, I was able to estimate where they lived, at least while they were working on the quilt with Esther - in a township about fifty miles from where I currently live. That constraint would narrow down my search considerably.

I started with the Internet. Of course, these women lived in the mid-to-late 1800s, so I wasn't hopeful about digital records. I figured that many of the records hadn't been digitized at all. I was right, but the ones that had been piqued my suspicion.

The first two I came across were Ruth and Maud V. They were sisters only two years apart, and gotten married on the same day... to brothers. I found a digitized article discussing the affair. It's small-town news, the kind of thing that shouldn't be noteworthy, but is to people who have nothing better to gossip about.

The article was paired with another - a double obituary. Both girls had died in 1887. At least, they were presumed dead. They'd disappeared together, much to everyone's surprise. Apparently they had happy marriages, according to their neighbors. My immediate guess was that they weren't so happy after all. It's possible they had simply run away and their obituaries were premature, but two bodies were found downriver a few months later. They were too decayed to positively identify, but they were female and in the same age range as the sisters. They were buried with the sisters' names and that was the end of that.

It made sense that these articles were digitized, I decided. After all, it was a strange case with a terrible ending - plus, the site I found them on was dedicated to "unsolved mysteries" in our state. I thought my search would be less fruitful with the other women.

It's almost shocking how wrong a person can be, especially when they think they have it all figured out already.

I found obituaries for six of the other women: Taalke P., Annabell T., Tabitha G., both Elizabeths, and Mary C. What started off as a strange coincidence soon became a disturbing pattern.

Each and every woman - disappeared.

Only one was found and positively identified - Mary C. Her body was found in a shallow grave in the woods several miles outside of town. She wouldn't have been found, except that a dog had unearthed her corpse and its owner had happened upon her remains. She had been missing for about a week when she was found. The doctors were able to discern that her body had been carved open and several organs had been removed. Crudely. A picture that was taken prior to her disappearance was included in the obituary. She looked familiar, but I couldn't place how or why. The police had launched an investigation and concluded she was likely murdered by a drifter - a curfew was then implemented for the women and children of the town and continued for six months.

At this point, my search hit a roadblock. The remaining obituaries and documents had yet to be digitized. What had happened to Shirley C., Greta A., and Ruth S.? I had to know.

The next day, I contacted the county historian for Esther's township. I told her what I was looking for and she assured me she would find all existing documents pertaining to the women. She agreed to fax them over once she had found them.

I spent the next several days organizing the information I'd found while I waited for the documents. When I was finished with that, I found myself wondering. What had happened to these women? But, more importantly... why? Were they being targeted because of the embroidery club? Or did the threat extend to all women in the town? How long did the murdering go on? In the end, how many women died?

My answer came quickly.

First, Shirley C. I received a death certificate and an obituary. Another woman gone missing. She would have been the first to disappear, in early 1886. The obituary commented that she had had several mental breaks before and it was quite likely she had gone off and killed herself. As such, no investigation had been conducted. Another article that the historian included showed that Shirley's husband had remarried six months later.

Greta A. disappeared in 1889 while on an outing with Ruth S. The two women had gone walking near the lake and vanished, never to be seen again. The obituaries cited the lake as a dangerous area where many a young lady had drowned. A separate article in the township paper had advised women to stay away from the lake that summer and to watch their children carefully, lest they should run off and drown.

The final article that the historian sent me was about the embroidery club itself. The article stated that it had been organized by "local spinster, Esther T." A picture was included that showed the women posing together by the half-completed quilt. Esther stood in the back, looking sternly at the camera. Looking at her sent a shiver down my spine.

Twelve women. Eleven disappeared, possibly murdered. All except for one: my great great Aunt Esther.

Why?

I read and reread each article, looking for more clues, more details. When that failed to produce anything worthwhile, I turned to the journals.

In my obsession with the quilt, I'd completely forgotten about them. I wasn't sure there'd be any information in them - I didn't even know if they had belonged to Esther or not. But I decided it was worth looking.

The first journal was really just a collection of notes that Esther had taken on her studies. She'd clearly used it a lot - the pages were stained, probably with coffee based on how dark they were. She went into great detail on anatomy, illustrating each and every nook and cranny on the human body. Her meticulousness was impressive - it was easy to see why she was the first female surgeon in the state.

There was nothing personal in that journal, and a bunch of anatomy notes weren't going to help me solve the mystery. Putting it aside, I reached for the next one.

You know, the interesting thing about books is that, if nobody reads them, they lose all meaning. It doesn't matter how important or how strange or how beautiful a story is - without an audience, it's a shout into a void that can't answer back. And of course, once a book is opened, it can't always be shut. Some stories, once heard, echo in human history forever.

This was one of those books.

The first page was entitled "Shirley C."

It read as follows:

"Met her in the park near Winchester St. Followed me home, no witnesses. Easy to subdue. Had trouble breaking the sternum - a better method is required. Was able to remove most organs without incident, save the lungs - ribcage is a challenge. Process was slow and messy - I am in much need of practice. Disposal went on without incident - weighted down in the river."

A drawing followed. It was a sketch Esther had made of a young woman's body, her insides on display. It was labeled, like the sketches in her other journal. And, like those sketches, there was a smear of something stained onto the page. Something I had assumed was coffee when reading through Esther's notes.

I began to feel dizzy.

I made it through only a few more entries, including the two sisters Ruth and Maud, who posed a challenge for Esther: "They fought hard. Ruth nearly escaped. Will try to take only individuals next time - any more than that is just trouble."

I stopped reading then, unable to continue. My world spun on its axis as I realized what this meant, what I was reading.

What nobody had read for over a century.

My first thought was I have to call somebody. But who? Do I call the police and report a murderer that's long dead and in the ground? And not just any murderer, but one who is revered as the first female surgeon our state has every seen. A boundary-breaker who forged a path towards equality in medicine. Would it even be considered enough evidence? Sure, there's a confession, but how can it be proved that she truly wrote it?

My mind was a tangled mess as I picked up the journal once again, to continue reading or to burn it, I couldn't decide. That's when a letter fell out from the pack pages.

It was still sealed in its envelope. It was addressed "to whom it may concern." I guessed that was me.

Although it was... I guess potential evidence... I opened it anyway, my fingers shaking and leaving sweat marks on the brittle paper.

To whom it may concern:

It is clear to me that this it the most efficient way to learn what so many schools have refused to teach me. It is, perhaps, the only way. These lives, you must understand, are sacrificed for a greater cause. Think on the lives I can save, if only these few make the sacrifice! Only I have the skill - I am convinced of that. I need only cultivate it.

I fear my work will be interrupted when it is discovered what I have done. I only hope to do what I can in the years I have remaining as a free woman. Whatever my punishment, I will gladly accept it. Anything is worth breaking free from the prison that has been built for me.

Esther.

Those few words swayed me. They convinced me.

I went to the police the next morning, once I'd gathered all the information that I could. I thought they would dismiss it as unimportant, but they were just as fascinated and horrified as I was. As a consequence, they were devoted to cracking open the case for the rest of the world to see.

Esther's belongings are now on display in a local museum. Her story has been running in local papers constantly for the past few weeks, ever since I brought matters to light. I expect that it will become national news after a while.

My Aunt Margaret is no longer speaking to me, along with several other members of my extended family. She feels that the dead are best left alone and that I did nothing but hurt our family by making the story public. I'd always assumed that Margaret hadn't really looked at anything in the trunk, never had the opportunity to make the discovery herself. Perhaps I was wrong.

Esther is no longer a hero. She's a villain, and I refuse to take the blame for it. I couldn't stand to let time enshrine her as something she wasn't. Maybe the world needed her to be a hero. But that's not the truth. And sometimes, the truth is more important, even if it hurts.

As for me, I went to see the exhibit once and only once. Seeing everything on display like that was... disturbing. I saw that they had put the dresses on display as well. I almost walked by that without looking at it when suddenly, it hit me.

The picture of Mary C., the one that had looked so familiar. I understood now.

I looked at the dress that I'd assumed belonged to Esther, my mind suddenly matching it to the dress Mary was wearing in the picture. My eyes strayed to the dark brown stains on the cuffs.

All the way home, it echoed in my brain like a story that just won't die.

#horror story #creepy #serial killer #author: sleepyhollow_101

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redditnosleep · 7 years

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He Lives Here, But Doesn’t Pay Rent

by sleepyhollow_101

I didn’t even want to move in here, you know. It wasn’t the first choice on my list. It’s not the worst apartment ever, sure, but the people next door never shut up and I hear something in the walls every night - I’m almost sure it’s rats. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I got it because it’s close to where I work and it was on the cheaper side. All in all, I was happy to move in there.

Until this week.

Figures, doesn’t it. The weird shit doesn’t show up until AFTER I’ve signed my lease.

I signed up for the pests and the noise problem. But I didn’t sign up for being shot at.

Especially by a man who isn’t really there. It started with the bowl. Just one little bowl that wasn’t where it should be. See, I got up early one morning to get ready for work and decided to have a bowl of cereal. Because there was noooo way I was going through the trouble of cooking a real breakfast. So I put the bowl on the counter. I remember looking at it, right there on the formica countertop. It was there.

I went to get some milk from the fridge. When I turned around the bowl was just… gone. Vanished. Into thin air. Maybe that’s cliche, but it’s also terribly true. It simply was not on the counter where I most certainly had left it.

But you know… I was still tired. I figured I was seeing things. Er, not seeing them, I guess. Or maybe I had imagined the whole thing. So I opened the cabinet and, low and behold, the bowl is sitting there. If it had eyes, it certainly would have been staring at me.

I grabbed the bowl and put it on the table again. Milk forgotten, I walked out of the kitchen and decided to put my makeup on first. I’d have breakfast just before leaving.

Not ten minutes later, I get to the kitchen and what do I find? The bowl. Is gone. Again. I open the cabinet. Again. And it’s there. It’s there, it’s there, it’s there.

“What the hell?” I muttered. I was starting to get paranoid now. I actually had the thought that someone had broken into my house and was… what, moving my cereal bowl?

“This is stupid. You’re stupid.”

I put the bowl on the counter. I closed my eyes. I counted to ten. And I opened them.

Guess where I found the bowl?

That’s right. In the goddamn cabinet.

I guess it’s not that big of a deal. In the grand scheme of things, that’s a pretty innocuous issue to deal with, you know?

I just wish it had ended there. The next morning, I went to take a shower before work. I’d been awake for an hour at that point, so I wasn’t groggy or confused or anything. It’s important that you understand that.

I stepped into the bathroom and my heart practically stopped beating in my chest.

There was a man in my shower.

I could see his silhouette through the shower curtain. His arms were raised like he was shampooing his hair, but he was standing stock still.

Slowly, I bent over to open the cabinet under the sink. I grabbed my curling iron - it was the only thing in the bathroom worthy of being used as a weapon. I walked very, very slowly towards the shower, my breath stuck in my throat.

I yanked the shower curtain open, brandishing my makeshift weapon, mouth open to scream for help.

Except there was no one there.

There was no one there.

For a split second - or even half of a split second - I wanted to believe that I was imagining things. I was in a new apartment, I was paranoid because of the stupid bowl thing from the day before… it could just be my brain wigging out.

Except that, just then, I noticed a little steam trickling out from the bottom of the shower.

I know this probably sounds crazy to you. Or like an over-exaggeration. But the thing is… this wouldn’t be the first time I’d seen a ghost. And that’s what I started to think it was. A ghost. Maybe someone who had lived - and died - in the apartment before me. I’ve been seeing spirits since I was about eleven, you see. Not regularly or anything, just once in awhile. My mom told me that I’m “sensitive” to the spirit world, just like she is. My dad rolled his eyes and didn’t believe either of us. All I know is that there are ghosts out there. And I was becoming certain that one of those ghosts was taking up residence in my apartment. A few days went by and things continued as usual… for the most part. I still had issues with bowls and various other dinnerware in my kitchen, and once my mischievous ghost switched my yogurt out for some cheap, shitty beer, but there was nothing more major or sinister going on, so I slowly started to relax.

I eventually decided I wanted to throw a housewarming party. I don’t know why… maybe because I was feeling so weird and alien in my own home that I wanted to drive home the fact that it was my apartment. Maybe it would make me feel better.

I invited a bunch of friends and work colleagues, bought a ton of chips and beer, and turned on the tunes. I had a pretty good turnout, and although we tried to keep it down, the sound must have gotten out of hand because we started hearing banging on the walls.

Everyone at the party went quiet as the banging echoed through the apartment. It was strange, it was like the banging was coming from all sides - I couldn’t even tell which neighbor it was we pissed off.

But I convinced myself that’s all it was. A pissed off neighbor. I had to believe it. I didn’t want to consider that it could be… something else. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking about the banging on the walls. Should I go around and ask my neighbors in the morning if we’d disturbed them? Somehow, I had the feeling the noise didn’t come from any of the surrounding apartments. It was almost...like it came from inside my apartment.

I decided to turn on the TV so at least there would be some sound in the apartment. The silence was horrible. Maybe it would help me sleep, too.

So there I sat in bed, watching some brainless reality TV show, when all of a sudden, the TV shut off.

“What the hell?” I muttered.

I picked up the remote from the bedside table and turned it back on. I figured it was just a power glitch or something, we used to get those on the farm all the time when I was growing up.

It turned off again a few moments later, but this time I couldn’t get it to turn back on.

“Son of a…”

I got up, muttering to myself, and went to check on the TV.

I couldn’t get the damn thing to turn back on until I checked behind the TV. That’s when I discovered that the cord had been unplugged from the wall.

My hands were shaking as I plugged it back in. I climbed back into bed and turned the tv back on. I set the remote down next to me and waited. For a few moments, everything was fine.

And then it shut off. Again.

I had this sick, sinking feeling in my stomach. I stared at the remote sitting next to me for a few moments before deciding that I would just leave it off for the night. I would have to sleep without it.

It wasn’t all that surprising that sleep never came. I think the worst thing, though, is that my books have been stolen by whatever the fuck is living in this goddamn apartment with me.

My books are my pride and joy. And, interestingly enough, Pride and Prejudice was the first to go. I set it on my coffee table one day, went to work, and when I came back it had vanished.

Over the next few days, more books started disappearing. I searched high and low for them. My little library is sacred - I don’t even lend books out. But no matter where I looked, I couldn’t find them.

I’m not proud to say I cried more than once when I realized I’d never be getting them back. The weirdness didn’t stop there. A few mornings later I woke up to find a condom in my bathroom trashcan. A CONDOM. In case you were wondering, I’m single. And even if I weren’t, my orientation makes condoms entirely unnecessary.

I felt like I was going crazy. Because if this was a ghost, he was sure getting up to some weird shit in our - no, MY apartment. And then, two days ago, I saw him. For the first time, I saw whoever it is that’s haunting me. I was in the kitchen, drinking my morning coffee, when he appeared standing across from me. He was translucent, the morning sun shining through his skin, but he was definitely there. I stared at him in shock until my trembling fingers lost their grip on the mug and it fell to the floor and shattered into pieces.

As soon as it hit the floor, he disappeared. When I finally managed to look down, the pieces were gone, too.

Last night things got worse. Quite frankly, they got about as bad as they can be.

I woke up in the middle of the night. Which is sort of odd for me because I am a really, really heavy sleeper. Like… it takes a truck driving through the front door to wake me up. That kind of sleeper. But I woke up anyway and realized immediately that something was not right.

There was someone next to me. In bed, sleeping right beside me. I could hear their breathing and feel their weight on the mattress.

I opened my eyes and saw him staring at me, his mouth open in shock.

I screamed. I screamed like I’d never screamed before. I’d seen ghosts before. I’d experienced haunted shit. But it was never something physical, it was never a tangible goddamn entity that could reach out and touch me and hurt me and oh God, oh God, oh God.

He rolled out of bed and started crouching down, like he was searching for something. I practically launched myself off the other side of the bed, hitting the ground with a hard thump. As I hit the ground, a gunshot shattered the air in the room, piercing my eardrums so hard I thought they might burst. I grabbed my ears in pain and lay there in terror, trembling on the floor.

Eventually, the ringing in my ears stopped and I noticed the room had gone quiet. I peeked over the edge of the bed tentatively. There was nobody there. I was alone in my room. The door was still shut and I’m sure I would have heard if he’d left, despite the ringing in my ears.

There was no trace of him. It was as though he’d never been in the room.

All except for the bullet lodged in the wall, of course. Honestly, I have no idea what to do. I’m living in constant terror in my own home, thinking that he might return. I don’t know who he is or what he wants, if he’s dead or alive or something else entirely. But I need help. Please, has this happened to anyone else? Can anyone out there help me? I just can’t do this anymore.

#creepy #horror story #author: sleepyhollow_101

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