The old school closed due to black mould spores but really the ancient caretaker had been found murdered in the attic. His blood and other stuff leaking through the ceiling and walls, causing a rotting meat stink. He had been a pervert, taking boys to the attic under the pretence of showing them wonderful things then having his way with them, so it was good he was finally gone.
(Inspired from; https://only100words.xyz/2017/06/29/three-line-tales-week-74/ with thanks.)
I found the knife on my jog through the woods. I had stopped for a minutes to shelter under an old twisted yew tree whilst I waited for a sharp down pour to end. The handle was sticking out from a low loose branch and when I pulled it the blade came easily out. Surprised, I froze for a few seconds. I hadn’t thought the knife would be that long!
Who had stuck it in the branch and left it? Someone who’d been up to no good, maybe. My mind began to flash with options; a criminal, a dealer, a suicidal person, a murderer? I jabbed the knife back into the tree branch then like a panic idiot I took the hem of my t-shirt and wiped the handle.
I turned my back and pretended that I had never seen the knife. I looked out at the rain dripping off the summer leaves and realised the shower wasn’t going to stop any time soon. Preparing myself to start jogging again, I wondered how long the knife had been there.
Every morning I came this way, so how come I’d just noticed it now? Maybe due to the fact I hardly stopped on my jog? Warm up done again, I set off and the rain full pelted me. Luckily, it was only ten minutes to the back door of my house.
That knife haunted me for months. I don’t know why. Before I fell asleep and when I awoke, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. On my jogs I didn’t stop at the tree, I kept focused and just ran on.
One day though, I just had to know. I stopped at the yew tree and searched for the knife, but it wasn’t there.
The first time I found out my girls’ boarding school was haunted, I was crying in the library. The bullies had singled me out from day one as the ugly geek girl which wasn’t true. I was hiding in the corner of the reference section which no one but the teachers visited when something caught my eyes.
At first I thought it was because my vision was blurred by tears but then the fuzzy white mist before me began taking shape. I dried my face and stopped sniffing as the ghostly form of a young teenage girl appeared. She was shorter then me, with pig tailed hair and long dress.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, her voice whispery and as light as a feather.
Anybody else might have freaked out, but I was use to ghosts. I just hadn’t expected to see one at school!
‘The other girls are being mean to me,’ I muttered.
‘Girls were mean to me once too,’ the ghost responded.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Annabelle. What’s your’s?’
‘Becky. How did you die?’
The ghost floated and turned about as if to take the library in. I wondered if she knew she was dead. Sometimes, ghosts didn’t know that.
‘It was an accident, I think, I fell down the grand staircase,’ Annabelle answered as thoughtfully as a ghost could.
‘Oh, how terrible!’ I replied.
‘It was a long, long time ago. It doesn’t matter. It’s been ages since I last found someone who could see me. Are you a witch or a medium?’
I shrugged, ‘I’m not sure.’
Annabelle sank down and came into a sitting position just above the floor. The library was silent. School was well over for the day and everyone had gone to eat or play.
‘Tell me about these girls. I’ll scare them good for you if you like,’ Annabelle added.
‘You’d do that?’ I asked, wiping my face with a hankie.
‘Sure. We’re going to be best friends, right?’
The ghost smiled and her face lit up.
I had a bad feeling in my belly, something wasn’t right here…..but Annabelle was just a little ghost. What harm could she really do?
‘Okay,’ I said slowly then I told her about the five girls who had been bullying me.
The next day, Darcy was missing from class. She had been the girl who had called me names and put chewing gum in my hair. The teacher said she was unwell, she had fallen out of bed hit her head badly. A few days later, we were told she had been taken to hospital in a comma, she might never recover.
I tried to tell myself that my new ghost friend couldn’t have had anything to do with that that. Lots of people fall out of bed in the middle of the night, don’t they? The bad feeling I had before came back and I tried to find Annabelle to ask her, but I couldn’t make contact.
On the second day, Mabel tripped and broke both her legs. She had stolen my things, including my shoes and hide them. Mabel claimed someone pushed her but there’d been no one there. She was taken to hospital but her legs didn’t mend and she had to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. She never came back to school either.
That night, I crept from my bed and went to the library. Sitting in the reference section, I called Annabelle to me using a candle and a charm my great-grandmother had given me. I watched a white mist began to take a girl like shape.
‘Hello, Becky,’ Annabelle said cheerfully.
‘Two girls have been hurt now, did you have anything to do with that?’ I asked.
Annabelle’s face seemed to frown then she nodded, ‘They were mean to you, so I was mean to them.’
‘No!’ I cried, ‘that’s not what I meant for you to do!’
‘Do you want me to stop?’ Annabelle asked.
I held back a breath and tears. The other girls were still picking on me, but things had started getting worse. They were upset their friends were gone and taking it out on me. A part of me wanted them all gone but what Annabelle was doing was wrong.
‘Say it. Tell me to stop and I will,’ Annabelle pressed.
‘You have to find a different way. Just scare them a little. That’s all. Promise?’
‘Yes,’ Annabelle answered and vanished.
Leaning back against a bookcase, I listened to the silence for a few moments then made my way back to bed.
The next evening, Sallie was found almost drowned in the bath. Sallie had held me down whilst the other girls had hit and kicked me. She was a big girl, so it was hard to imagine anything like that happening to her. They took her hospital and she went home afterwards, but was so traumatised she didn’t come back to school that year.
Pacing my room, I tried to reach out to any ghosts but there didn’t seem to be any around. I went bed, tried and sad. This was all my fault and I couldn’t figure out how to stop it. Perhaps it would be best just to end things with Annabelle. If we weren’t friends any more she’d have no reason to hurt the other two girls.
The next day was dull and rainy. The lessons were boring and I couldn’t think clearly. Everyone seemed emotional too and confused. What was going on around here that could cause three girls to have freak accidents in a row? The guilt hung over me like a storm and I couldn’t wait till the evening to speak to Annabelle.
I rushed to the library after my last class and even though it was busy, I wiggled my way into the reference section and called the ghost to me. It took awhile. I guess because ghosts are weaker during the day but also because she knew I was mad with her. When the mist appeared, I asked her why even before her form had time to settle.
‘It was a accident. I didn’t mean to hold her down for so long,’ Annabelle replied sadly.
‘She almost died!’ I hissed back.
‘I was only trying to help you. Didn’t you want that? Aren’t we best friends?’ Annabelle asked.
I shook my head, ‘not any more we aren’t. I never want to see you again and you stay away from the other two girls got it?’
Annabelle’s ghostly face flashed with anger and in a puff she was gone.
I felt better but the next night I was awoken by screams. Scrambling from my bed, I saw that the last two girls, Nadia and Paula had fallen down the grand staircase. They were badly hurt and both claimed a ghost girl had attacked them in the night and chased them till they had bumped together at the top of the stairs and fallen down.
No one believed them of course, expect for me and after that I never saw Annabelle again.
The river consumed everything in it’s path.
Not caring if it was natural or man-made, it swept all it away.
Washing the earth clean of everything that once was.
Nothing ever got done in the zombie office. By the time most of the workers got in it was mid-day and when the last of them left it was almost nighttime. The air smelt like blood, over-cooked meat and rot which wasn’t something a non-zombie could stomach for long. Also, everything felt sticky and had strange dried prints on it from things no one wanted to knew about.
Watching the zombies from his large office window, the new manager called the chief executive up and said, ‘why have we hired zombies? They hardly get any work done and their office is a mess! Wouldn’t normal people be better?’
The chief executive breathed heavily down the phone and replied, ‘I understand but if we could’ve hired “normal” people we would’ve done.’
‘What do you mean?’ the new manager asked.
‘Well….We’re a bit short on humans at the moment,’ the chief executive explained.
‘I see……’ the manager trailed.
‘Don’t worry about it. The zombies will get their tasks done soon enough. If you need something rushed get a witch or warlock in office WW twenty-eight to do it,’ the chief executive added then put the phone down.
The new manager signed and turned away from that window to another. This one looked out of the city. He could see a dark grey gloomy sky and lines of black smoke raising upwards. Most of the buildings were burnt and or abandoned, those that were still occupied barely hung on to their grey and brown colours.
The Supernatural Take Over really wasn’t going to plan.
I stood in the street and let the rain wash the blood off me. My mind which had been running wild seconds before began to grow calm and I could think clearly again. I couldn’t hear anything other then the rain dripping off things and the breeze shaking the trees.
What had I been expecting? People to suddenly burst from their houses, crowd me and demand to know what had happened? Police to turn up and march me away to a padded cell? Whatever I’d been thinking didn’t happen and I found myself totally alone in the rain.
Looking down at my feet and I watched the watered down blood mingling. It was a faded pink colour and soon enough it would be nothing. I tossed my head to the sky and let the feel of the rain take me away.
I was free at last.
(Inspired from; https://lindaghill.com/2017/06/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-june-2417/ with thanks.)
The caves people knew where the tunnel lead too and they left it well alone apart from when they came to bury their dead.
(Inspired by: https://scvincent.com/2017/06/22/thursday-photo-prompt-the-tunnel-writephoto/ with thanks)
In the desert no one can remember your name because once you enter the red sand you are lost to all time in an accidentally wormhole. Your life is wiped out and those that knew you forget instantly as if you had never been born. The wormhole is eternal and as you drift through you see flashes of things. Sometimes you know these things – a rainbow, an expensive take away coffee cup but most of the times there’s just flashes of colour. You will die here in days, weeks maybe a month because no one gets out for that is the nature of a red sand wormhole.
Introduction
My name is Bobby Wallbank. I’m a security guard for a company that buys up old buildings and land to do them up into housing, offices and shops. I’m use to the strange goings on in the night. All my life I’ve been able to ‘see’ and ‘sense’ the supernatural. The gift has always run in my family and many have made good use of it. My gran was a witch, my mother a healer, a second cousin a medium. I decided I needed normality, but sometimes I can’t ignore the gift.
I keep a diary each year of the strange things I’ve seen/sensed either on CCTV cameras or my own eyes. I like to tab favourite pages; the supernatural happens I like the most and were rare.
Friday 27th January 2017. 2:37 am.
A shopping trolley which had been laying on it side in the back car park for five hours started appearing and disappearing about four times before totally vanishing. The camera froze soon after. Went out to check and there was no sign of the trolley. Camera started working again soon after.
Wednesday 1st March 2017. 3:56 am.
Saw a man dressed in a suit hurrying down the street. He suddenly disappeared beside a wall. Couldn’t find no trace of him on any of the cameras. Rewinding the footage, couldn’t see the man again. I know he was there though. He had been wearing a strange hat and carrying a briefcase.
Thursday 20th April 2017, 1:09 am.
For half an hour a cat was seemingly fighting with something invisible. Had complete camera coverage. The cat was acting aggressive and defensive, it didn’t seem to be playing. Cat ran off. Went to inspect and had strange creepy feeling of being watched. Felt something breathing on me. Walked around to shake it off before returning to office. Was on edge for the rest of the shift.
Monday 15th May 2017, 4:46 am.
Was walking around when heard moaning from a locked room. Got in and saw nothing. On leaving the room, felt a coldness and as if fingers were pressing against my back. Turning, saw the shape of something small. I called out hello? and a girl’s voice answered back. Who are you? I asked. Mummy, the voice replied. I asked more questions, but got nothing else. I left the door opened and told the child she was free to go.
Friday 19th May 2017, 3:59 am.
Was walking in the area I had heard the girl on Monday. I checked the room and it had been left unlocked. Heard crying, but when I called out, got no answer. Walked away and the crying carried on. During my second walk around, I went into the room again and put a small teddy bear on the floor. The crying stopped. I got the sense that girl is trapped there. I’m not sure if she was murdered or died from something else. Tried talking again, but didn’t hear anything else.
Saturday 3rd June 2017, 2:27 am.
Too much is happening and it’s making me regret agreeing to cover this shift. The other security person up and left, not sure why but maybe he couldn’t hack the supernatural stuff that’s happening. It looks like a group broke in last weekend and did some kind of thing that called a demon to the building. There’s been a lot of loud bangs and flashes of light. Every time I walk around, I get this sense of evil and I want to leave. I can’t though. Maybe I can find someone to remove this demon. I heard more crying and screams too and there has been so many shadow things.
I heard whispering voices asking for help and telling me to beware. I got the idea the good supernatural were trying to protect me but this evil is too powerful. On my break at Midnight, I felt this burning on my shoulder and when I looked I had three long red scratches down my shoulder. I washed them in water and that helped, but I can still feel them.
Saturday 3rd June 2017, 6:00 am.
Getting ready to leave and everything is quiet here. The scratches from a few hours ago have faded and I’ve not left the office since. The CCTV have been playing up though. Some cameras blacking out and losing connection, others becoming static. The noises too have kept up. I’m glad to be getting out of here.
Monday 5th June 2017, 10: 45 pm.
Brought a friend tonight to help get rid of the demon and release some of the ghosts. What she did seems to have worked and the place is settled once more. Won’t really know for a while though. Sometimes these demons like to pop up again. I feel better too. It was attaching itself to me, I could feel it. I’ve been having weird dreams, about a dark red and black creature chasing me. I don’t remember seeing the demon fully. She give me some stuff to bless myself and the house with. Maybe I might use some in the office too.
Friday 9th June 2017, 3:11 am.
Everything is quiet here still. There’s been no supernatural happenings and I’m feeling fine. A new woman has been hired for the weekends and to cover me, she seems nice. I’ve been teaching the ropes all shift and now she’s gone for her first walk around alone.
Monday 19th June 2017, 11:20 pm.
She gone missing, the new woman. Yesterday she clocked in and didn’t clock out. An easy mistake to make when you are tried but she never returned home. Her family have reported her missing and lots of searching has been happening. I got asked to look through hours of footage to find out what happened to her. Maybe she did leave and went missing off site? I couldn’t find the truth though.
No CCTV camera has her last moments. I got one of her entering the corridor where the I’ve heard the girl crying and that’s it no more. A connect error message appears on all screens in that area. So she goes in but never comes out again.
I’ve done one walk inside now and I’ve come across nothing but the traces of all the people who’ve been through today. I even asked the ghosts to help, but nothing has come of it. I hope it’s just a simple thing that she got lost and fell or she decided she’d had enough and ran away.
A part of me knows that’s not true though. She’d been taken by that demon!
Thursday 22nd June 2017, Midnight.
She is still missing and everyone is restless. I have seen supernatural things in the buildings and my home. Voices calling me, telling me where to go and that I must help them. I thought she had come to me at one point but she wasn’t there long. Lights have been flicking on and off, strange lights have been coming and going, sometimes close enough for me to feel how ice cold they are. Tools and other things have been moved around, stones thrown at me and others.
I know what I must do. I came here tonight to set things right. I know what’s at risk. I’m not trying to get her back either, she’s already gone. But I got to stop the demon before he takes anyone else. I’m prepared and ready to go.
I’m leaving my diary here just in case I don’t come back.
Twilight was the most dangerous part of the day. As the sun set and the moon rose the portal between worlds became unstable. Evil leaked through like oil into a river, covering everything it could. People hide, frightened by stories travellers told of the things that ruled the night.
(Inspired by: https://scvincent.com/2017/06/15/thursday-photo-prompt-twilight-writephoto/ with thanks)
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