It rots, hides, deep inside
Sharp claws, knashing teeth
Shadows in the dark
Caging me, changing me
Warping me in and out
Pain so acute
A knife in my breast
Pain so severe
A shattered, bleeding heart
Overflowing blood
Midnight skies, eclipsed sun
Black waters
Reflecting a void
Tar pit trap
Holding me captive
Fists against steel
Silence, alone, abandoned
Broken, bound, ensnared
Inside my mind
With no way out.
The ghosts of its halls
They have stories to tell
Listen to them
As their screams loop
Each night
The terror of their last night
Echoing across time
Through dimensions
Tragedy befell this place
Horrors you couldn’t imagine
Cruelty only the insane
Could remember
Bloody deaths
Electric torture
Straps to hold down
The unwilling
This skeleton before you
Lives in the night
It breathes
Eats
Kills
When dusk falls
This place
Has a heartbeat
Take caution
Heed the warnings
The ghosts here
They’re alone
Starving
Waiting
For some like you
To join them
Your Beloved Author,
Sandra Easter
Years had passed since Christina had thought of her doll. Her mother helped make it from scratch when she was only eight. They gave her curly bond hair, blue eyes, and a pretty pink dress. It was just as Christina wished she herself looked like. Instead Christina was born with nearly black hair that always frizzed, so she looked more like a poodle than a little girl with ringlets. Her tan skin looked pale against the dark color of her hair and eyes. She never looked cute in little pink dresses. Not like Ophelia. Not like the doll she and her mother made together.
As Christina grew, so did the appearance of her doll. In middle school she changed her hair to a brown color, still with perfect curls. She no longer dressed the doll in pink dresses but in blue jeans and t-shirts she’d made on her sewing machine. A tomboy, just like Christina. Her eyes however were now different. One blue, one green. A genetic trait of Christina’s best friend. Something she envied.
In high school, Christina went through a dark phase. She removed everything from the doll one evening that she considered the worst day of her life, the divorce of her parents.
Christina replaced the tomboy clothes with a gothic dress that had a dark red bow on it. The short sleeves showed the cracking skin of the doll’s arms. Her hair was now straight and ink black that ran nearly the length of the doll. Her green eye was now black so that Ophelia now had one black and one blue. She painted her lips a deep red. In a fit of painful emotions, Christina stabbed Ophelia through the heart with the sewing needle and threw the doll into a shoe box. The last place Christina remembered seeing the doll.
Until now. Sitting in this small room with her. Staring at her. The needle still plunged through her heart and out the back. She sits innocently in the sterile metal chair; seemingly watching Christina as she fights the meds forced down her throat. Blinking rapidly, she tried to make the vision disappear. The doll remained. It didn’t move, didn’t talk, didn’t do anything out of the ordinary. Other than be there that is.
Christina’s heart began to race. What had her cousin gotten her into? She was the reason they were in here. Always with her wild imagination. Christina should have known the end of the road would have led to the asylum. People always joked about being crazy, but to actually be committed; it was not fun and games. She wasn’t crazy. She knew that. But she might be heading there rather quickly. How else would she be seeing a doll that couldn’t possibly be?
Christina took a few cautious steps toward the doll. Her eyes watching it warily. Two sharp banging noises made her jump and nearly pee her pants. A yelp made it’s way out as her cousin called her name from the other side of the wall behind her.
“Christina.” A pause followed by two more quick raps against the wall. “Christina.”
“What?” she asked growing irritated. Sandra already caused her to receive the double dosage of medicine today. Any more and they might roll her down the hall, strapped to a gurney, to shock treatment.
“I’m sorry.” Christina heard foot steps echoing down the hall and didn’t dare test their ears.
Scratching following, nearly begging for the acknowledgement that she’d accepted the apology. It was times like these that Christina wondered if Sandra really was crazy. She did have an unusual imagination for writing. That stuff had to come from somewhere.
Shaking her head from the distraction of her troublesome cousin, and making the room spin at the same time, she returned to look at Ophelia. She was gone. The chair hadn’t moved. No one had entered. Obviously. Fear caused her breathing to hitch before coming in near quick gasps. Another panic attack. Just what she needed.
“Ophelia?” Was she really talking to a doll? Christina pulled on her hair in frustration. She walked to her bed as she thought of the strange hallucination. The drugs must be having the opposite of the intended effects. Putting aside the strange event she began to take a seat to take off her shoes and ready for bed.
A scream ripped from her chest as she turned toward her bed. Her attention stuck on the impossible doll. The frightening, Chucky mimicking doll. Ophelia lay against her pillow. Just as Christina always set her up when she was younger. Just so Ophelia could see her when she got home from school.
Christina looked from the empty chair to the occupied bed. The doll didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Nothing. Impossible, Christina thought. The medicine was messing with her. Scrubbing her eyes she tried to rub away the sight. Ophelia remained.
More knocks vibrated the wall.
“She told me she missed you. I told her where you were. You missed her didn’t you? I miss you.” Sandra said with the voice of a child she wasn’t.
Christina shook her head. The meds must be on full lock down in her mind. Nothing was real. She was just swimming in chemicals.
“She told me she missed you. I told her where you were. You missed her didn’t you? I miss you.” again with the child’s voice from her past.
Christina; growing angry, confused, and frightened; picked up the doll to throw it against the wall her cousin was talking through. The doll moved. Talked.
“You hurt me Christina. You broke my heart.” Ophelia’s tiny hand removed the needle from it’s chest and plunged it deep into Christina’s chest where it barely pierced her heart. The pain immobilized her. She was having a heart attack. The meds were killing her.
The doll smiled, stopped moving, and fell limp. Christina looked down, the needle’s eye glinted in the light.
“She told me she missed you. I told her where you were. You missed her didn’t you? You shouldn’t have broken her heart. Now she’s broken yours.” The words echoed in that voice again and again until the world turned black.
For my loving cousin Christina. I love you.
Your Beloved Author,
Sandra Easter
Well, you failed. The Holidays didn’t recieve enough words ransom. They ordered Krampus to tear me piece by piece and devour me.
His acidic saliva melted my flesh in unimaginable agony. His serrated teeth tore the muscles from my bones as if I were cooked chicken. For hours my pain blinded me while screams ripped from my disentigrating throat. The vile taste of poisoned blood coated my tongue and life ceased to exist.
Thankfully! I know a rakshasa. More specifically, an Ak’chazar.
She was able to pull me from the grips of a grim reaper and heal what left remained of my body. They are some very powerful creatures. Don’t ever piss them off.
So here I am, back from the dead. The nightmares will haunt me forever. The cold weather causes aches in the flesh she regenerated me from and I’m still here creating worlds of fantastical creatures for you to dive into when the day is just to long. Don’t count me out. It’ll take more than a Krampus to get rid of me.
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Your Beloved Author,
Sandra Easter
A century later, everything fell to ruin. Rot covered the structure and spread to the nearby town. A place now only children visited for a good scare. The object of dares and double dares on late night weekends. Fear coats the misty air, mingling with a vile sense of danger. Voices are rumored to echo in the night. Ghosts of a tortured past still looking for a way out.
Stories of tragedy often times attract the weird and demented as they hunt ghosts of the past for a thrill. Visits often times result in false findings. That is until the night of the incident. The ‘tragedy’ often whispered in cities within walking distance.
This night, a night of death, a group of kids think it fun to test their grit. Together, laughing and jeering they approach the edge of the abandoned town. This is their story.
When my life ended, it wasn’t the creaking of the stairs that warned me too late. It wasn’t the flickering of lights, or the unnatural draft blowing through the room. Not the fear in my belly, or the sense of being watched. I didn’t hear voices and ask who’s there. No. I didn’t creep in the dark of a haunted house.
When I died, it was the breath on my neck, the stab of the knife in my back, the pain that brought me to my knees. That’s what warned me too late.
It was the machete you plowed through my center, the one we used to hack away at the overgrown vines on the door. I didn’t have a cliché horror movie moment where the viewer yells “He’s behind you.” No, your betrayal made no sense. The shock of it left me in pieces as you stomped your way through my escaping blood. The laughter coming from your gut chilled the last remaining heat from my body as I lay lifeless. My last sight was your retreating figure not looking menacing at all, but rather joyful. My heart beating quickly at the rapt confusion pushed what blood I had left at your distant feet. My body cold, my life extinguished.
Your Beloved Author,
Sandra Easter
10 some odd years ago life dealt me a hand I thought I’d never survive. The day began in dread but the sun didn’t know that. The birds sang happily, people were enjoying their summer, and tourist were oblivious to the pain of my life.
It was my last place to stay. A place that should have bridge the gap between escape and freedom. I was being forced out.
6 a.m. I awoke, grabbed my children, babies rather, and strapped them into the cumbersome double stroller. All my possessions in that one child carring device. I had to dress and change them in the bathroom of a grocery store. The reality of it hit home, hard. Tears found a path down my face as I did my job as a mother. Wiping them clear, I squared my shoulders, lifted my head and made my way out of the store and in search of the person that could have saved this from ever happening. My mother.
With the heat beating down on us, I walked several miles to the home I escaped from in the first place. Not to live, but to contact a person she disliked. That person was my only hope remaining. Four states away, my life would have to start over. ..again.
Through my toughest trial, the sun shined happily in the sky. Not at all sympathetic to my life. Each year I remember as that traitorous sun shines happily and find peace in the rain.
Your Beloved Author,
Sandra Easter
