Good evening friends. I hope everyone has had a great weekend and is ready for another Halloween-themed tale.
It’s just getting weirder, folks, I don’t know what to tell you.
That being said, before we dive in the story, the following week or so I’ll be traveling for a friends wedding - destination revealed in some photos, so be on the lookout. Then the weekend of 20th-22nd, I’ll be getting back on track after the trip and posting the weekly story.
Okay, enough! Let’s get weird and spooky and dive into our fun halloween-themed weekly story…
Jenny had always wondered why the girl next door was so strange. Not that anyone in Salem was normal, but this girl was especially peculiar. Usually dressed in all black, from head to toe, ankle to wrist. The sun, an apparent mortal enemy.
Jenny’s friends said she was a vampire. Her parents said she was a lonely girl who needed a friend and some attention. She’d try to tell her parents about the nights she spent watching the strange girl from her window and that she’d just stare at the moon for hours with her hands behind her back. Sometimes Jenny would fall asleep and awake to the girl no longer there. Other times, she still stands in that same spot, her head tilted at a different angle, tracking the moon.
After months of prodding, Jenny finally agreed with her parent’s demands to make friends with this strange and lonely girl. Her parents said the hardest part would be just knocking on the door. That didn’t sound too bad to Jenny; she had no reason to think it would be anything else but just that.
It wasn’t until Jenny was up the third stair of the creaky Victorian-style house that she wished she had defied her parents and refused at all costs to comply with their demands. She figured it wouldn’t take too long now, already at the door. That and she felt the burning sensation of her parents beaming at her through the split in the curtains.
As she knocked, darkness seemed to fall over the lot, and the house began to moan. Birds ceased chirping, and crows flew down from fog that had settled in, their eyes inlet with black stones. The door opened to darkness and damp wood. The only light was peaking through the windows from outside as it struggled to get through the fog, leaving a smeared and unsettling grey void wafting in the foyer.
Jenny stepped inside after calling out into the empty living room, just a wood floor, and walked into the kitchen. Nothing. Not a plate in sight. It was as if no one had lived here all this time.
She spotted an old broomstick as she passed through the kitchen and looped back to the living room. Frayed bristles led up to an old oak branch fashioned smooth of knots that sat near a small kettle with an odd ooze boiling inside.
As Jenny stepped closer to see the contents inside, she heard the floor creak behind her and spun to find the strange girl standing, looking down, and breathing heavily. Her black matted hair fell over her face. She lifted her gaze to Jenny, and yellowed eyes and a toothless grin spoke.
“Did you see them?” The Strange Girl asked.
“See who?” Jenny asked nervously, backing away. “Are you okay?”
“Did you see them?”
“No—No, I’m sorry. Are you here all alone?”
“Not alone. You must see them before you enter.”
More Strange Girls approached out of the shadows, toothless and cat-eyed.
Jenny screamed and ran out of the house as fast as she could, tripping down the steps and stumbling out of the lawn.
She stayed awake for the next few nights and kept her eyes on the moon. After the 5th hour during the 3rd night, Jenny was about to shift her gaze away from the moon’s brilliance when she saw it. She squinted and hoped it would happen again, but she couldn’t even begin to imagine or pretend to imagine it was real. It couldn’t be, could it?
And there it was again, clear as day but silhouetted under the moon’s silver, women in shaggy shawls and long hair, flying on broomsticks, circled each other in the sky.
Jenny dove under her covers, curled in a ball, and remained like that throughout the night, unable to sleep but eventually drifting off.
When she awoke, she couldn’t get it off her mind, she needed to see it. Whatever it was, she knew it was sinister and needed to be resisted.
Weeks passed until Jenny finally gave in. Unable to keep herself from the house, she returned and knocked on the door.
Small, ghoulish hands grabbed her as it opened and slowly took her inside. She smiled as she floated across the deck and inside the dark house, accepting the calling she’d felt for so long.
The door slammed behind her, and the sound of witches began to cackle and hiss from inside and percolate down the eerie streets of Salem.
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