The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!
To Haunt and to Hold
by Lisa Harris
The haunting of Rebecca continued right up to the night before the wedding. Her nerves, already frayed from the weight of seating plans, floral arrangements, and her soon-to-be mother-in-law, were now like shredded skin around gnawed fingers.
The disembodied voices crying her name, desperately seeking her out, she could dismiss as just the pressures of pre-wedding social demands. A natural introvert, Rebecca had never spoken to so manypeople in her life. No wonder she was hearing her own name in her sleep! And the creeping chill circling her temples slippity-sliding down her chest and settling around her heart like a glacial vice was just bridal jitters. Probably.
But the knocking! Thorns! The knocking! How many times this last week alone had she startled her groom-to-be, Michaelis, (and rankled their Housekeeper, Elzberta) with the crash of a shattered tea cup because she’d been caught unaware by a sudden booming knock heard only by her, as if some monstrous fist demanded entry into the very core of her sanity.
Poor Michaelis! He was baffled and alarmed at the nervous whims of his future bride, but secretly blamed himself for them. He thought it only natural that Rebecca’s subconscious was trying to save her; save her from the vampiric curse of his family name and the mausoleum that was Roseblood Manor. But his love for her was as possessive and selfish as it was (initially) forbidden. He couldn’t live without her, nor she without him. Michaelis couldn’t tell if Rebecca’s haunting was paranormal, or just the terrible burden of their infernal love. Love that was costing them both dearly: Michaelis, his immortal soul’s honour, and his wife-to-be, her once wilfully strong mind – a mind he loved as much as her mortal beauty.
Rebecca was weeping in the rose garden, her form ethereally lit under the moon, frail ivory hands clawing at her raven black curls.
“Make it stop… Go away… Leave me be…” she moaned to the eerie voices tangling in her ears. Michaelis found her just after midnight, technically the day of their wedding, and swept her up into a shivering bundle, striding back into the manor, and settling her onto her four-poster bed. He made to leave but she grabbed his arm.
“Micahelis, I’m sorry…”
“Rebecca, you are my soul, it pains me to see you so. If severing ties with me is the only way to cure this spectral affliction – “
“NO! I love you – “
“I love you too, but -”
“I want to be with you forever. Please. We can ask the priestess if she knows how to banish whatever is… pulling me away from you. I just want to be with you.”
Michaelis’s face softens.
“Forever?”
Rebecca giggled through her tears.
“Forever.”
Michaelis held her slim face in his broad hands and pressed his lips to hers. Rebecca had chosen her fate; she would stay with him forever. The distant knocking thundered to a deafening crescendo –
***
“Not anudder feckin’ one, wha’?” moans Paddy, spinning the dusty gaming chair, revealing the desiccated corpse of Rebecca Moore. His Dublin City Council colleague, Paudie, finishes kicking his way through the front door, setting down his sledgehammer.
“Ah Jaysus! How long’s this one been plugged in fer?”
Paddy tugs Rebecca’s head to the side and unceremoniously yanks out the hot-pink wires fusing her temples to the strange gaming console before her.
“Judging by the state o’ dese cables, I’d say she’s been stuck “in dere” a few months. See, dey’re all fritzed at d’end. Water damage. Starved t’death without even knowin’. Stupeh’ bitch.” Paddy tosses the wires to the ground and switches off the monitor, blinking out the loading screen for “Immersi-Verse F(ai)ntasy L(ai)fe: Romantasy Expansion.”
Paudie kicks aside festering rubbish and settles himself on the couch, taking out his cigarettes and gazing in disgust around the mouldy little flat.
“Time was, when people stopped payin’ rent it was cos dey were on d’bag of sniff, or d’rock. Now it’s all dis hookin’ yer brain up to a computer bollix. Dangerous stuff. Bigger killer dan cancer.” He takes a hearty drag of his cigarette. “An’ who’s gonna tell d’sister? Wasn’t she d’one who called it in dat herself wasn’t answerin’ d’door? Bangin’ away in a mad panic fer weeks.”
Paddy snorts.
“Not our department! We’ll call d’piggies, sure, let dem handle it.”
He quickly checks the other rooms: a kitchenette, and a tiny bathroom hidden behind a re-purposed Twilight shower curtain. No one else here, only Rebecca’s body.
“Jaysus knows where her soul is… In d’feckin’ Matrix or somethin’.” Paddy thinks cruelly. He snaps a photo of the dead girl, evidence for his rent collection report, then nods at Paudie. Time to go – lunchtime pints are calling. Just as well, a bride must not be disturbed on her wedding night.
.
Fiction © Copyright Lisa Harris
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com
More from Lisa Harris:
To the Devil, a Daddy
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Satanchu, I Choose You! Unbridled noughties nostalgia runs rampage in this dark and deranged debut novella. Devilish daddies, mysterious murders, and raising Hell with Pokémon cards; nothing and no-one is sacred in this story – especially one child in particular. A surprisingly atmospheric tale of friendship, fecked up families, and the horrors of adulting as a millennial. Read if you dare…! This version also contains the bonus story “O’ Holy Fright!” – a festive feast of fear, in bloody tribute to all the brave soldiers of Christmas retail out there.
Spreading the Writer's Word 