A Horror Story
PROLOGUE
I had a strange feeling, a feeling of being observed. What in tarnation was happening? There was one last sentence in the book and I wish I had never read it. It said “Look behind you”.
As my body was shakingly turning around, a flash struck, almost electrocuting me. When my body was completely turned around it was the alleged Margot D with a Knife in her hand. “How are you alive?” I said with a shakened voice. “Oh I never died, my name is Dorotha Hopkins, I just decided Margot was a well fitted name for a serial killer” she said walking around like a shadow. As I was walking backwards, I stumbled with a chair making me fall. She was now on top of me with a very deadly weapon. “Your mother, Theresa, she wasn’t supposed to die like that, she had to suffer just like her beloved peers”.
Her knife was dripping blood all over my arms. “You are a psychopath you know?”. “ I was diagnosed right after my 7th birthday, when no one showed up and I made a plan to kill all my disloyal friends. Indeed I completed my plans to kill 'em all , except for one. Theresa Hall.” Not only did she steal my boy, Ronny, She went for my birthday as well. “April 3rd, 1933 was the death of an innocent girl's desire to live a pure, healthy life. I left so many clues you know, yet nobody understood me. You are now paying for your mother, you’re now 17, old enough for your father to miss you. “Can I please live?” I said sniffing loudly. “No” She said and then proceeded to stab the knife to her heart. Once again the lights flickered and I thought that was the end of her. Before I knew it, she took the knife off and proceeded to cut my head off.
I am now dead.
Chapter I: Untitled
Windows were quaking with despair, leaves were mounting on the thatched wood of my father’s cozy hut. My ears were starting to tremble like crazy from all the motion and background noises built around me, but I was determined to lead myself out of a mind consuming boredom. My father, Drew Valentine, was a very horror driven individual, a man stacked on a variety of terror novels from the very classic Stephen King, to the unsolved mysteries of serial killers. His detective job was perfectly suitable for his rather bizarre synyster preferences; nonetheless, he enjoyed reading them over and over.
In opposition to all the fairytales read to kids before their sleeping time, I fell asleep to “The beast” and his shivering assassinations. Going through the top shelf of unsolved assassinations, I tripped on my stool and falling with me was a book named “untitled”.” Untitled? That’s the lamest name I’ve ever seen” I thought. It was thick and mysterious, but so were all the other ones and I decided to open it. “Margot D” was on the first page of the book. I deduced the fact that It was the name of the author or detective. I was still trying to figure out whether I was going to read a novel or a true detective story. My gut was telling me that this book was going to be a once in a lifetime story, so I went back to the main house, took some milk chocolate, got a furry blanket, and started reading.
I wish I never did that…..
Chapter II: Gloria Santos
As I was reading the first pages, it was clear that I was diving into a detective’s work. I wasn’t quite sure who Margot was; however, the chapters seemed to be divided by names, and the first page had her detective identification along with a date. October 1st, 1972, exactly 20 years ago. I wondered if she was still alive considering her most valuable item was in the hands of an unknown family. It was time to think no further and start reading, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was expecting. The first story was all about a woman named Gloria Santos. Gloria’s remains were found in a pie after allegedly being grinded in a blender while she was still alive. Imagine feeling your bones breaking and being conscious of your nearly approaching death. She was only 19 and a very optimistic gal with friends and a family.
Margot describes the possible cause of death with clear detail and starts from the first day she found out about the murder. April 3rd, 1943, a customer of Brie’s bakery called customer service regarding a pie that tasted like a dead animal, and it was a dead animal indeed. On April 3rd, Gloria opened the bakery at 8am like any other day. She then proceeded to go on with her day , alternating between selling pies and making a fresh batch of cookies every hour. She was a well loved and cheerful woman in her town.
It was until 12:05 when she had her lunch break that there was a change around the bakery noted by the people. There was a time hole between 12:05 and 2:15 where she left and the customer ate the pie.This murder was luckily caught by security camera the baker installed in case of a robbery, sadly the murderer was so well dressed that you couldn't even tell how tall they were. At 12:05 going to her Lunch break, Gloria felt goosebumps going through her whole body while going to the back to find her Bento Box.
Apparently at exactly 12:37 there appeared an individual behind Gloria, asking her to kindly give her some food. “Whatever goes around eventually comes back to you” was what the sheriff got out of the muffled sound from the video, and proceeded to take a bite at her homemade burrito. It was then when a glass fell, making Gloria’s attention shift to the broken utensil. The next thing she knew, there was a blackout throughout the whole neighborhood and a strange noise was coming from the kitchen.
Like any other novel, you should know to never follow a certain noise in a blackout, then again this is any other novel. Going into the kitchen, the door shut and the meat grinder had been strangely turned on. As she was walking towards it, she felt a push that made her fall gracefully into the meat grinder. With no remorse, the unknown individual had dropped her into the grinder converting every bone, skin, and hair into a sandy substance. There was blood everywhere, the noises made were the perfect combination between scary and amusing. Even the cameras were now filled with a remainder of her body fluids. The unknown individual enjoyed baking the reminders into a key lime pie with strawberry whipped cream and dark chocolate chips.
Gloria was now known as the key lime pie lady, assassinated by an individual only identified by a candle that the police took as evidence. Mysteriously, 3 days after taking the candle, it was burnt into ashes. Margot described her impotence with such anger after being so close to the killer; however, she did not feel so far away from it. This killer had definitely left clues leading to something else that Margot D was going to get ahead of.
“That was not so bad” I thought. Frankestein gave me almost that same chilly feeling. I then heard a key jingle, it was my father arriving home. “Hey Ruth, how was your day sweetheart? Any murder mystery solved?”. I could’ve told him what I was doing, but I wanted to try and take on this mission of trying to figure out how such a brilliant detective was short on eerie assassinations. So I said "a very boring day, honestly. Just some good old Comic books and a little romance to set the mood”. “Good, you remind me so much of your mom sweetie, as intelligent as her”. “Thanks dad, you make me wish I properly met her.
Chapter III: Adrien Adams
I slept comfortably last night which is a good sign concerning my 3 year-long depression. Strangely, reading horror books was the cause and my help to get through it. It made my mind burn out, yet it made me feel safe within my own damaging thoughts. I was very ready to read Margot D’s crazy encounterings with murder. It was now time for Adrien Adams, the second victim of her detective narrations. April 4th, 1944, there was a missing person filed to the sheriff's department. A lovely lady named Danielle Adams had experienced a mind-blowing situation with her now missing brother. He was later found still like a mannequin behind a post-office frozen to death with fear and awe in his face.
Even though the first victim was a description of Margot’s imagination, this one was testified by a human being. Danielle explained how on April 3rd, the day before, they had gone to Adrien’s favorite Ice cream shop “La Fayette”. She ordered strawberry and Adrien, like any other day, ordered his Rocky Road classic. Within 1 minute of eating, Adrien had an emergency only cured by going to the bathroom. After 15 minutes, which was usually longer than what he would take in the bathroom, she decided to look for him.
Eventually she found him in the freezer and to her surprise, he was very pale as if he had seen a ghost, except he definitely had because as soon as she walked in, the door shut. The lights went out and all she could hear was the ventilation. She heard whimpering from Adrien and started to cry out for help. His whole body was blistering and turning black. From then till the next day is a blur. Adrien was frozen to death and found like an ice statue. Sheriffs believed it was Danielle who had been already studied for psychopathic traits and so she was put into bars. Margot knew it wasn't Danielle; in spite of that, the only proof was fingerprints in the keys for the backdoors that mysteriously disappeared after the police took them.
Margot implied she was already seeing a pattern that no one else could see and that gave her power. Suddenly my house was chilly and the heater had suddenly stopped working. Right after hearing such a chilling story my heart was pounding more than it would pound from reading real life story events. “Crack” my window broke and parts from the glass were now all over the floor of the living room. Out of fear, I fell asleep.
Chapter IV: Ronny Hastings
She died from depression, my mother. I knew that her mental disorder wasn’t gonna come short on me, hence I was prepared to fight it. This story was now my motive for living, along with my crazy father. He was so strong after everything that happened to him and whatever was about to happen. Along with my hereditary depression, she had left me a picture of her that quickly turned into a mirror of myself. I was just like her. Anyway, I had to keep reading, my detective sense had gotten the best of me.
Ronny Hastings, this one had taken Margot’s eye. She described him as a British blonde, blue-eyed prince. I don’t even want to mention how she found him dead, I can, however, say he was found in a turquoise tuxedo. April 3rd 1945 “WAIT, why have all the murders been done on April 3rd” I thought. I wasn’t sure if Margot had figured it out, which she probably did; notwithstanding, was I going to be able to close the cases? April 3rd, 10:05 am Adrien was at a Tennis match in a town 40 minutes away from Birdside. He had won 4 games so far and abided by witnesses, he was starting to feel nauseous and paranoiac as if he knew what was about to happen to him.
At exactly 10:33 he was last seen taking a sip of water until he went inside the changing rooms. As soon as he entered the room he heard footsteps near the coach’s office; subsequently, there was a shadow of a man that then laughed and threw an incredibly sharp knife at Ronny, instantly killing him. Apparently that wasn’t enough, considering that Ronny’s throat was then slipped open, and his tongue was sticking out of the slip in his throat. Now this murder was interesting since there was a video uploaded to the internet a week later titled “My beautiful prince” with a quality view, yet a blur on the murder. How could anyone murder someone and just be proud of it.
The only proof was the receipt from the tailoring place the murder went to get the tuxedo fitted, but it closed in 1990. Strangely, the victim was dressed in a turquoise tuxedo, but instead of a tie, he had his tongue. To my surprise, I quickly realized how all the murders were somehow visualized by at least a person. Nobody knew who it was, yet everybody knew that it happened. If this wasn’t a serial killer, then it had to be a diabolical ghost taking possession of many citizens. In order to deduce this, there had to be a connection between all the victims, so this is where my major spy skills had to come in clutch. I had no idea where to start, nor what to think, but I was going to make myself proud.
Chapter V: Olivia Marchetti
The whole night I had to think, but nothing came into mind. My best option was to keep on reading until I hopefully found something that would spark an idea. I could eventually feel obliged to ask my dad which would probably not be helpful; nonetheless, he could be quite the contrary. April 6th, 1946 just as I was expecting, it was 3 days after the obvious day that the remains of lovely Olivia Marchetti were found. On April 3rd, 1946 Olivia and her friends Malek and Shanon were planning to go into a Sauna. They had reserved a great one at their favorite local spa after having a very stressful week of finals at university. It wasn’t a great day for them; for instance, they were at a friend's memorial. Was April 3rd a national dying day? At 2 pm they arrived at the spa and everything was rather normal.
Before going into the sauna, they collectively decided to get group massages to relax their minds, meanwhile Shanon Meyer… “Shanon Meyer?” I said loudly. Being at a loss for words I kept reading in order to see if a woman I knew as Shanon Meyer could possibly match the profile to this one. This deep into the book, I did not necessarily feel thrill anymore, in fact I had goosebumps anytime a word nearly meaning anything close to death would trigger body numbing reactions. Shanon Meyer knew something was bizarre, while Olivia was uncomfortable and Malek Sharma would now be going for towels at 2:48,; meanwhile, Olivia would be going into the sauna.
As soon as she entered the Sauna, the door closed abruptly leaving Olivia concerned. Interestingly enough, the Sauna was made out of glass where you could see everything going on inside, so that when she was enclosed in the room, her friends were able to be witnesses; nonetheless, they wish they never were. The room was starting to feel heated and Olivia was trying to figure out what was happening. A flame burst out of nowhere and Malek was struggling to open the door in desperation, even so he was unsuccessful.
The flame was intensifying at a rather slow pace, meaning the death was in search for revenge rather than a simple murder. Olivia was uncontrollably screaming, crying, gasping for air as the fire was catching up to her, while her skin was disintegrating. Her screams would never leave the witnesses' mind ever again.
As soon as her voice was long gone, the fire suddenly stopped, leaving her ashes scattered on the floor. The only clue was a balloon left at a corner of a now foggy sauna room, later it obviously popped leaving Margot, once again, inconclusive.
This serial killer must have been an insider after the very neat job done on every of the victims. With my detective hallucinations my first stop had to be finding Olivia’s witnessing friends. Next, I had to ask my dad for some help, which was going to be tough after he knew my struggles with life and delirium. Grinded alive, frostbite, stabbed to death, and now burned till ashes? Margot may have done all the investigating, despite me being the one connecting the dots. All of them done on April 3rd, left transparent clues that were instantly removed, and they had a motive.
Internet browsing had to be a very immediate solution to my investigating idea. To my surprise, some small studies had been done on the 5 killings of this particular individual (At this point I had only read 4); However, all of them lacked Margot’s description as if nobody knew of that book. Was I meant to be the only one to find it? The next killing was going to be the giveaway of it all.
Chapter VI: Malek Sharma
The oppressive feeling of wanting to know something, for instance the patient wait of the next episode of a show coming out, just absolutely eats you alive. My dad had left before I woke up, so before asking him any more questions, I was meant to read the 5th part of 6 Eerie Murders. Malek Sharma was next on the list- “FOR PETE’S SAKE, MALEK SHARMA '' I gasped in terror for the victim. This just meant that they were all surely connected, but I was still at a loss of a connection. Perhaps this would be the giveaway that I had been waiting for. I already knew it would be dated around April 3rd knowing the actual death being that same day.
April 5th, 1947 there was an Indian boy found by a basset hound after digging a hole near a park. It was all over the news at that time, in addition to being the front page of London Daily, the most modern news source in the 40s. As a matter of fact, all the murders were taking importance across British towns once again. On April 3rd, 1947 Malek was grieving from his former friend Olivia marking the one year of her tragic day. Curiously enough, the sources for the proof of Malek’s murder aren’t specified in the book, despite it, Margot had the ability to complete her investigation on him and her words could not make the situation clearer.
At 1 am, Malek was found drunk around a park near the street in which the spa was situated. Sources tell that inhabitants from around the block heard whimpering from afar and the lights of the park were barely working as they were flickering. Next, Malek was in the middle of a blackout alone, and in an alcoholic state making it impossible for him to even fight what was about to come. He fell into a hole of dirt and with no time for an escape attempt, there was now dirt raining onto him. He was being buried alive and the screams he tried to make were now muffled from the dirt going inside his body asphyxiating him to death.
At around 3 am, worried neighbors went around with lanterns looking for a sign of a living human being struggling to stay on earth. Without any luck, most neighbors decided to call it a mistaken noise possibly coming from a television, which was now still an invention being incorporated into the world. Consequently, Malek was found with worms coming out of his mouth and ears. The belonging clue for this murder was also a gift buried next to him that was completely empty, as a matter of fact all clues were meaningless. They were more like a joke as to the fact that the murders were never going to be uncovered. The clues represented a clown, if you will.
Finishing the segment of the book, there was a page of a yearbook from 1942. “There was no key lime pie so I brought your second favorite, chocolate mousse” said dad. “Dad, have you ever heard of Gloria Santos, Adr” “STOP IT, WHERE DID YOU HEAR THOSE NAMES? '' He said in a very angry tone as if I had killed them. “Forget about it Dad” “They were acquaintances of your mother, whatever you know about them forget it. We mustn't bring a curse to this house ""Fine Dad”. How was mother connected to this mess, and why did dad know about them? I was going to search how my mother could be any kind of intertwined; nevertheless, my thoughts were so imponent I fell asleep coming with my own solution to a nation-wide conflict.
Chapter VII: Theresa Hall
This had to be the most anticipated finale of a book yet. I was estranged out after remembering the news about only 5 killings being made and this was the 6th. My hands were shaking from both excitement and anxiety, regarding the very ending. As I was about to read the victim's name I felt a shiver all throughout my spine. My mouth was almost paralyzed from the revelation I had previously experienced. “Theresa Hall” it said, it was my very mother. I knew that she most certainly died from a car accident with an identified killer; notwithstanding, I wondered whether all my dad had told me about the accident was the truth. How else could I find out, but from reading. Maybe It wasn't what I thought it was going to be, and indeed it wasn’t.
This chapter was incredibly different from any other part of this book. This wasn’t even an investigation about my mother. I would rather call it a burn book. Puzzle tokens were finally fitting together. Shannon Meyer, Olivia’s friend, had been a friend of my mother’s who had been to my house for many years. I was terrified as I kept reading, examining details about my mother. “She was a backstabbing jerk who had been a bully for years” written by Margot? This seemed like a very personal matter that made me question why Margot had written any of this.
After a very personal roast, there was a planned murder for my mother for exactly April 3rd, 1948. She was supposed to go to a lake for an alumni reunion where she was going to drown after a mysterious individual was going to trap her underwater. It all indicated the exact time, place, manner, etc. It was almost a tutorial for an eerie murder. This all seemed foolish considering my mother died 2 months before any of this could occur, meaning that all of these murders were a cautiously planned situation.
I almost forgot that Margot D was the author of this book, and as a matter of fact, it hadn’t been touched before. I was shocked by my own thoughts. After not being able to think for 5-6 minutes, I was starting to think about the victims: Gloria, Adrien, Ronny, Olivia, Malek, Theresa. “ACRONYMS” came to my head. Maybe, Togram? The “ argomt” came to my mind strangely enough. I almost felt completely stupid from the fact that I ignored the obvious. “MARGOT” I screamed off to the top of my lungs and then the lights from the whole house were off. Had I been cursed and this was my end?. This wasn’t a detective tutorial, it was a diary.
My Dad came running checking if I was Ok and so we went to my grandmother's house, since our house was now spooked. The very next day, I ate my cereal and my lovely grandmother decided to give me one of her leftover Chinese cookies she had from the previous day. It said “You are the hero to no one's story”, what great fortunes were awaiting me? It was now time to go back home.
Chapter VIII: Ruth Valentine
As soon as I arrived home, I remembered the unfinished job I had, the book. How could it have been her all along. The disappearance of clues, the very detailed murders, the planned and unsuccessful murder of my mother. However, I had previously checked and she was long dead. Opening the book I realized I had missed a chapter, how uncanny! It was titled “Ruth Valentine” . I felt a very hard pain in my chest that made all of my bones tense.
Once upon a time there was a girl, she was reading a book and suddenly the lights went off. She then ran off to her grandma’s house and slept over. As soon as she woke up, destiny was not on her side, since right after she opened a fortune cookie, her future was not very bright. She then went back home, next she opened the book once again and gasped as she read these very words… My mind was completely ignorant as to what was happening. I started looking around me, feeling observed. What in tarnation was happening? There was one last sentence in the book and I wish I had never read it. It said “Look behind you”.
As my body was shakingly turning around, a flash struck, almost electrocuting me. When my body was completely turned around it was the alleged Margot D with a Knife in her hand. “How are you alive?” I said with a shakened voice. “Oh I never died, my name is Dorotha Hopkins, I just decided Margot was a well fitted name for a serial killer” she said walking around like a shadow. As I was walking backwards, I stumbled with a chair making me fall. She was now on top of me with a very deadly weapon. “Your mother, Theresa, she wasn’t supposed to die like that, she had to suffer just like her beloved peers”.
Her knife was dripping blood all over my arms. “You are a psychopath you know?”. “ I was diagnosed right after my 7th birthday, when no one showed up and I made a plan to kill all my disloyal friends. Indeed I completed my plans to kill 'em all , except for one. Theresa Hall.” Not only did she steal my boy, Ronny, She went for my birthday as well. “April 3rd, 1933 was the death of an innocent girl's desire to live a pure, healthy life. I left so many clues you know, yet nobody understood me. You are now paying for your mother, you’re now 17, old enough for your father to miss you. “Can I please live?” I said sniffing loudly. “No” She said and then proceeded to stab the knife to her heart. Once again the lights flickered and I thought that was the end of her. Before I knew it, she took the knife off and proceeded to cut my head off.
I am now dead.
By: Vicky Merchán, Step 9
