Did she really go there of her own accord?
It’s possible.
It’s possible too, that someone decided that it’d be a mighty fine way to terrify the freshman. No better method for earning respect than kidnapping someone from their beds and throwing them into the waiting dark, a hood over their heads, the concrete cold against their legs.
Maybe, that someone was Sally’s roommate.
It’s possible.
Maybe, this incident wasn’t the first of its kind.
It’s possible.
Maybe, as Sally sat crying in the basement, too afraid to call out, something wormed out of shadows. Something old, hungry, smelling of salt and pennies, like the taste of blood in the back of your mouth.
Maybe the thing said to Sally, “What’s your heart’s desire?”
And Sally, too full of grief to think straight, replied with something that she would regret.
That’s possible too.
Is that what really happened?
Don’t ask me.
There are only two people who really know, and one of them might not even be called Sally. Truth is, I don’t think anyone gives a shit either. With stories like this, all people want are their bones. People like putting their own spin on things.
It could have gone any number of ways, this tale. A lot can happen between the main events. Did Sally run straight out of the room? Did she listen for a while? Did she tell her roommate to be wary, to lock the doors and watch out for strange faces? Did she know the assailant?
Was there an assailant?
Who knows.
Still, before you go, let me tell me the version I like best. It’s one that few know and fewer care for, but it makes the most sense to me.
Or maybe, I just like my stories bloody.
Sally was eighteen, maybe nineteen, a freshman like any other, full of hopes and newborn dreams. The future had never seemed so bright.
There was just one problem.
Because of circumstances, she had to share a room with someone she knew, someone she didn’t rightly like. It might have been her sister. The records aren’t clear on that. A cousin, possibly, or her mother’s best friend’s favorite daughter. Who the hell knows? One way or another, it was someone with whom Sally just had to play nice.
And she tried.
Oh, she tried.
In the beginning, Sally did her absolute damnedest to be civil with that other girl, but you’d only drown that poor horse if you forced it to drink. Their relationship took no time at all to ripen to hate, soured by the need to suffer each other’s proximity, both of them jostling for space neither could afford.
Still, it was almost bearable for a while.
Then, Sally’s property started to disappear. Her food, her clothes, research texts, little odds and ends. Then, Sally’s father died, and her roommate used the news of his suicide against her, ransoming Sally’s reputation.
It got worse from there.
Sally stayed quiet, but you know what they say about people like that. And this wouldn’t be so bad if Sally was ordinary, but she wasn’t, no sir. She had a bit of witch in her blood, which is to say that she had a little too much. Sally had just enough power to talk to things the wise leave well alone.
So she did.
One day, Sally decided she had enough and went down into the dark, carrying the hairs from her roommate’s brush. True enough, there was something there waiting.
She fed it those long black strands, one a time, saying nothing throughout. Only smiled when the thing politely asked for more.
The next day, she came back with nail clippings.
This went on for a time.
One night, the thing, taught to hunger for one specific taste, asked Sally, “Where’d you get all that fine food?”
“Upstairs,” she said.
“Upstairs in the light?”
“Yeah,” Sally replied, licking her dry lips. “I could show you where.”
“Huh,” the thing said. “I’d like that. But I don’t like it much when someone watches me eat. It’s one thing when it’s little nibbles like this, it’s another when you’re talking about a feast.”
(Do such creatures really talk with so much eloquence? Who knows. They do in this story, though.)
“That’s fine,” Sally said, rising to her feet. “You can keep the lights off.”
Thus decided, the two left the basement. Sally followed the thing up the spiral stairwell, her footsteps quiet, its footfalls silent. She followed it into her room and sat down on her bed, quiet as a mouse as the thing began its work. Sally stayed true to her word. She kept it pitch-dark. Not even the glow of the distant town to light their way. Thankfully, her imagination was enough.
When the sound of chewing stopped, when the air was the stink of piss and flayed meat, when there was nothing left to do but leave, Sally got up and walked away.
The thing followed behind.
The next morning, she came back to find her room transformed into a slaughterhouse, the air thick with button-black flies. There was an apology scrawled in her roommate’s blood. Sally had to hide her smile.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the lights?”
No, she thought. It would have been fun to watch.
Everything Beautiful is Terrifying
M. Rickert
“But we, when moved by deep feeling, evaporate.”
The Strangos come all year, identifiable by the clothes they wear, the giggling behind open hands, the wide-eyed pretense of innocence; like belled cats they give their trespass away. I ignore them—for the most part—though recently the baristas have begun giving directions to Laurels tree. They think this is funny, apparently, even if they never witness the punch line. Strangos standing in the middle of Wenkel’s cornfield clutching their little purses. Strangos in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot next to the dumpsters, noses squinched against the stench. Strangos in front of my house—not funny at all—so close to each other the heels of their black shoes touch. I found them early on Christmas morning, standing beneath the streetlamp, upturned faces dotted with flakes of snow, matching pea coats frosted with ice, knees trembling above soggy ankle socks and black shoes.
They arrive all year, undeterred by the season. July and August bring a few carrying guidebooks and taking selfies (which no legitimate Strango would ever do) things get more serious in September, but October is Strango high season. In October the scent of wood smoke mingles with the beeswax candles perfuming my home with honey. Give me that and a blood moon casting everything in a mortal glow. Give me that and the ghost the Strangos seek, though I am not one of them, but an original.
She was buried, they say, in an unmarked grave at her mother’s request. It was generally understood this was done in the usual manner, but after that movie came out with its silly premise that Laurel’s weary ghost haunts the mysterious location of her body’s interment, the Strangos arrived with their earnest obsession. I, myself, seeking answers, once stood on Laurels porch until her mother threatened me with a kettle of boiled water.
“Forgive me?” the Strangos murmur as they pass. It’s just coincidence. The Strangos murmur their forgiveness request because in the movie that’s how it’s done. I stand in white ankle socks and black shoes, clutching the little purse with the clasp that clicks open and shut. Laurel stands beside me, dressed to match; though it’s not really us, of course, but actresses portraying me and her ghost. When I whisper, “forgive me?” she doesn’t say anything. The camera pulls back until we are in a circle of light surrounded by black; then a dot, then nothing at all.