Tag: grimlist2020

#Spooktober2020 Day 22: Cursed

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

“Smile,” you said. “People will wonder what you’re up to.”

So I smiled. I couldn’t not. Your voice cursed my very bones with an alien desire to make you happy. If you wanted my smile, you could have it. Though inside I seethed with fury.

You never thought to wonder what I was up to, gazing at me in the closet where you had locked me up. Never read the formulas and designs I wrote on the walls. Planning your fall.

Through my smile, I recited my own curse. For your silence.

For your silence, I traded my hated smile.

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#Spooktober2020 Day 21: Vow

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‘Til death do us part. That was the vow.

I knew that meant, since I died, that you should be free of me. Somehow, I thought you would be happy to see me. That I dug out. Yet as I shambled up our driveway, grave dirt trailing off my heels, I felt unreasoning rage.

Rage at the unfamiliar car in the garage.

Rage at your silhouette through the window, wrapped around someone else.

Rage that my funeral had just happened this morning.

Once I had vowed love. Now, as I opened the front door with rotting hands, I vowed revenge.

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#Spooktober2020 Day 20: Skeleton Key

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No one would get in.

I turned the skeleton key in the lock of my own door before pulling it closed behind me. The key went into my pocket, the only one left that could unlock this door, as I had melted the original down to a lump of brass.

No one could get in.

I sat in the corner of the windowless room, arms crossed over my drawn up knees. Watching the door. This was my life now. To keep me safe.

I jumped when the doorknob rattled. Held my breath as it turned. Turned.

And clicked open.

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#Spooktober2020 Day 19: Talking Board

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“G-O-O-G…”

“Dude, what?” My roommate sat across the talking board from me, her hands next to mine on the pointer.

“That’s what it says,” I replied.

She had demanded I clean the microwave. When I pointed out I barely used it and already took care of our collective trash, I told her she should do it. She said she didn’t know how.

I suggested breaking out my Ouija board.

Twitching my fingers on the pointer, I spelled out the last few letters. “…L-E-I-T.”

“‘Google it?'” said my roommate. She flipped the Ouija board up in my face and stomped off.

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#Spooktober2020 Day 18: Summon

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When I appeared in your bedroom, you squinted up at me from where you crouched in front of a summoning circle.

“Woah,” you said. “I just had questions. I didn’t need a whole ghoul!”

I raised an eyebrow at the wax candles dripping on the carpet. “You better tell me what you want.”

Your face flushed bright red. “I… need dating advice.”

“From a ghoul?” I rolled my eyes. “What, you wanna date a ghost?”

Now you smirked. “A demon, actually.”

I came out of the other side of the eyeroll curious. “In that case, lemme give you some pointers…”

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#Spooktober2020 Day 17: Fog

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My early morning commute plunged me into thick fog along a stretch of highway known for twists and turns. Traffic around me didn’t slow. When I tapped my brakes, cars began flowing past, honking. I sped back up.

Bent over the steering wheel to see, I scanned the gray for my exit ramp. Ahead, several brake lights lit up red all at once. Clustered together like a multi-eyed monster, all eyes on me.

I yanked my steering wheel left, barely squeezing by a five-car pile-up. The ramp appeared just on the other side.

They were too close together. I mist.

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#Spooktober2020 Day 16: Demonic

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I heard their cries about me from the town square as I threw my belongings together in a sack.

“She laughs too loud.”

“Reads so much.”

“She’s way too smart.”

“Must be demonic possession.”

Soon it would be the torches and the pitchforks. Once they worked themselves into a frenzy, there’d be no stopping them. A bag of rocks tied to my feet in the river to see if I floated. Or just a good old burning.

The way they did my mom.

I slipped out the back window and vanished into the woods. Better luck in the next town.

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#Spooktober2020 Day 15: Ashes

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I laid down among the ashes of my house while they still smoldered. Flakes of gray coated my scorched fingers where I had grabbed the too-hot doorknob while flames licked the walls around me.

Everything gone. Burned straight to the ground.

When they contained the fire, someone in the crowd said, “It’s over.” But they were wrong.

I watched the winter sky above as my back warmed. Burned.

Before the cinders could set me on fire too, I got up. Dusted myself off. The horror wasn’t the fire itself, but the after. Finding a way to rebuild from these ashes.

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#Spooktober2020 Day 14: Grave

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“You know why they always have a fence around the graveyard?” my grandpa asked me.

A brittle October afternoon flashed past outside the truck windows.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because people are just dying to get in!”

Neither of us laughed. As we passed the cemetery, we surveyed all the corpses pressed against the wrought-iron fence, collapsed there after getting this far under their own steam. A few that had managed to get inside industriously dug their own graves, anywhere they could find the space.

There was no sign of the cemetery attendants.

Soberly, Grandpa said, “Guess that fence wasn’t enough.”

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#Spooktober2020 Day 13: Portrait

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You looked so confused when you possessed your portrait. A portrait you never commissioned yourself.

I had spent most of my life painting your likeness. Getting closer and closer to a perfect reproduction. When at last my painting looked just like your face, your soul had no choice but to return to me.

At the sight of my face peering too close at your picture, you frowned. When you recognized me, the one who tormented you in life, now in death, you shrank back within the ornate frame.

But you could not escape.

When I grinned, though soundless, you screamed.

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