Horror Fiction
by Eli Dupree

(TRIGGER WARNING)

"Scared yet,  Carly?" a voice asked suggestively. I felt someone nudging me in the dark − John? Ricky?
We'd been having a party in John's basement, when his parents weren't home. Most of the partygoers had gone home before the storm started. Now the six of us − John, Ricky and his sister Mikayla, Daniel, Steve, and I − were kind of stuck here, unless we wanted to get struck by lightning. Somehow, everyone but me had simultaneously had the idea of turning off the lights and telling ghost stories. Never mind if one of us has hard memories of hiding in a dark basement. Never mind if one of us is going to be constantly on edge until she's finally back someplace warm, light, and above ground.
But I was damned if I was going to let them see it.
"Hah," I said. "You'll have to do a lot better than that to scare me. Steve, that story wasn't even scary the first time I heard you tell it." Nervous laughter went around our little circle.
Ricky's voice called out, "Five bucks to the first person to make Carly scream."
"Hey," said Steve. "Give me another chance."
"Sure, go ahead."
"So, one time I was hanging out with this guy called Andrew − this was in a different town −" he began. "We were in Andrew's basement, telling ghost stories − just like we are now. Only, in his basement, there was a great big painting of some old guy all over one wall. So after a while I said, 'What if there's a ghost in that painting?' He said 'That's the most stupidest idea I ever heard.' Suddenly there's a gust of wind that blows the window open."
"oooOOooOOOOooOOOoooooo!" Daniel's voice called. I laughed loudly.
"I say Umm... but Andrew laughs and goes right on, 'Coincidence. If there's really a ghost in that old rag, well...' and he gives it the finger. There's another gust of wind that blows the window clean off its hinges. Our flashlights go out−"
Lightning illuminated the room for a moment. "Good timing," I said dryly.
"...and all we can see is this eerie glowing coming from the man in the picture. Needless to say, as soon as Andrew sees that, he bolts from the room, and I'm right on his heels."
Why would anyone run away from a ghost? It's not like it ever does them any good. If I was being chased by a ghost, I'd turn around and face it. And then it would disappear, because the only weapon of a ghost is fear and because I know that all fear is fear of the unknown.
"We run clean out of the house..."
I won't be scared of anything else. I won't. I won't.
I slowly became aware that the flashlights of all the others were resting on me, watching John wrap himself around my body. His right arm lay heavily around my shoulders, and his other hand was pressed against my belly, creeping upwards... I shoved him away, leapt up and went to sit somewhere else. As I stumbled across the circle in darkness, the laughter of the others rang in my ears. I shivered and sat down between Steve and Mikayla with my legs folded against my chest.
Steve went on next to me, increasingly melodramatic, increasingly irritating. His imaginary ghost killed his imaginary Andrew, and his imaginary self barely escaped with its imaginary life.
"Not remotely scary," I mumbled. I was thinking about the project that I and my friend Sofie were supposed to be doing the next day.
Daniel jumped up. "You know what we need?" he said, "We need more sound effects!" We heard his footsteps going across the floor, then a series of thumps and crashes.
"Hey!" shouted John. "If you put holes in the wall, I'm the one who gets in trouble, so watch it!"
"But this is fun!"
People were getting up around me, going to join Daniel or stop him, I didn't care which. I tried to inch away and hide in a corner. Someone grabbed me from behind − I choked back a scream − and pulled me up. I heard Mikayla's laughter in my ear as she shoved me towards the others. I stumbled blindly. There were voices talking all around me, there were hands shoving me again and spinning me around. I fell to the floor, my elbow crashing against something hard that I couldn't see in the darkness. I drew in breath to scream "I hate you all" at the top of my lungs.
"I hate you all," I mumbled, quietly, so that they wouldn't hear me over their horrible echoing laughter.
Unexpectedly there was a lull in the confusion. "Storm's letting up," Ricky observed.
Steve muttered, "I suppose I should be heading home then."
"You scared?"
"Do I look scared?"
"I can't see you. For all I know, you're shivering in your− fine, you can go."
"Anyone else need a ride? Dan? You live near me..."
"Sure, thanks," said Daniel sheepishly.
"Carly?"
"My aunt's house is two doors down," I said from the floor, trying to sound at least somewhat composed. "I'll walk there when the rain clears up."
"Oh, sorry, I keep forgetting you live with your aunt now..."
Go ahead and rub it in some more, why don't you? Make me remember the wait, the endless wait in the cold dark cellar after I heard those words, "Keep hiding down here until your father or I come to get you."
The others sat down in a circle with me, again − this time a circle of four. John was next to me again, and if I inched away from him it would only bring me that much closer to Mikayla...
We heard the front door close behind Dan and Steve. Mikayla said in a loud whisper, "There goes two more of us... who'll be next?"
"Don't be an idiot," Ricky snorted. "No storm ever just lets up in a ghost story."
"Unless they're trying to trick us."
"Shut up and tell us a real ghost story."
"Alright." Mikayla leaned, with a smirk on her face, towards me, and said, "I'll tell this one just for you, Carly." She took a breath and began, "I heard this from a guy just before he died of an ancient curse..."
I tuned her out.
That's pretty funny, actually. When they're trying their hardest to scare me, that's the easiest time for me to not pay attention. It's like you have to want to be scared... but why would anyone want to be scared? Anyway, it's just so easy not to be−
"...thundering footsteps outside, and an inhuman roar," she was saying. "He said he remembered his mother shoving him down the basement stairs, saying 'Stay down here until...'"
What the hell?!
"'...until I come back for you.' So he hid in a corner, and he was shivering, and then suddenly upstairs he heard splintering wood and shattering glass." I could just barely make out Mikayla grinning a lopsided grin at me as she went on, "And then he heard screams again. And this time they were human screams."
And he's going to go upstairs and find his parents dead, right? You lose. You lose right now. Is this just some kind of a joke to you−?
I was shaking. John and Ricky had their lights on my face as I stared emptily at her, trying to hold everything under the surface. They wanted nothing more than to see me break down. I would not. I would not cry for them.
You've got to be kidding me. I never told anyone that story, anyone. Okay, I told Sofie, but come on − Sofie's closer to me than anyone! She'd never just blab that kind of thing to someone like you... would she?
Ricky chuckled. "Just look at Carly's face," he said. "I wouldn't want her to stare at me like that. Mika, you might not want to go on. I think she'd eat you."
"I'll eat her," John returned.
Mikayla looked away from me. "So, what do I win?" she asked Ricky.
"A free ticket out of here alive. Let's go home." They walked out, leaving me and John alone in the room, flicking the lights on as they went. I stood up angrily, walked across the now-illuminated room to the one high basement window, and stared out into the pouring rain. I was still a little jittery, but the light helped.
I'm just glad it's over. What a bunch of idiots, building up fake fear for themselves that they can laugh at when they're done. Fake fear, fear of ridiculous fantasies, so they can pretend that when they're not in that haunted house or that dark room, they don't have anything to be scared of − so that they don't have to think about the fact that the scariest possible monster is a−
The first thing I felt was his hands pressing against the bare skin of my sides. He was coming up behind me, running his hands and arms up my shirt...
"Stop that," I said loudly.
"Come on, baby," he was saying close to my ear. He was fumbling with my bra strap.
I tried to face him, I struggled with him, but he held me too tightly. Panicking, I swung my head like a club, lashing out wildly behind me. I connected with something hard, I heard his cursing... the next thing I knew, he had shoved me away from him, and I was lurching forward, falling against the now all-too-well-lit concrete floor.
I cowered there, I made my throat raw screaming, but no one heard me. No one but the monster.
And then he was on top of me, holding my head back by a fistful of my hair, his fingernails digging into my scalp, my body recoiling from the touch of his other hand as it ran over my breasts, as it slid down under my waistband−− fear's not in the unknown−−

"Is something wrong?" Sofie asked the next day. I didn't say a word. "I want to be able to be there for you..."
I snapped, "I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

~(February 2009)