I had an idea today, while traveling through portions of Montana, Idaho and Washington that are somewhat remote and very winding. I chose to spend my time, traveling through the areas of hit and miss cell phone service and much boredom, by writing the start of a story. I settled on the intro to the story based on what I was thinking and feeling as the car passed through the mountainous roads using an age old intro to stories that I’m sure everyone will recognize… I’m fully aware that I could just end up looking like an idiot if no one actually chooses to participate, and I’m fine with that fact also. Hopefully I’ll be proven wrong. Ok, here are the rules: Reply to this post and add your portion of the story. You can add any amount to the story from one sentence to one paragraph. Feel free to be descriptive as possible, after all, this is creative writing - imagery is your friend! You can take the story anywhere you’d like, all I ask is that you don’t kill people off to end the story prematurely. Once you’ve replied with your portion, encourage your friends to come and reply as well. There’s nothing that says you can’t reply again to add more down the line! This is going to have to be a group effort. In the end, I hope this turns into a fun project for those who are interested in making it happen. So, lets get started! ——————————————————————————————————— It was a dark and stormy night, down a long and winding country road, at a farmhouse many generations old. Winter was just around the corner and the wind blew heavy sheets of rain down on the dimly lit home as the shutters slammed a rhythm against the weathered window frames. Inside, by a blazing fire, the aging widow watched the flames dance against the rocky hearth as she contemplated the coming season. For many years now, winter had been a time of sadness. The harshness of the season had mirrored the harshness of life itself, leaving her feeling empty and alone...
It hadn’t always been like that for Katie Wilding. She had once had a family, a son and a loving husband. All of that had been taken away from her when she had meddled with things that did not concern her. She felt the crystal pendent that hung from her neck, it was cold to the skin and cold to the heart, and brought with it the memories of her past, and of her loss. She eventually fell asleep by the fire but the memories haunted her in her sleep throughout the night.
Coming awake early, still in her chair, she found the hearth down to small embers, some crumbling to glowing dust as she watched. The chill of the night having seeped deep into her arthritic bones and joints, she, carefully and deliberately, rose to her feet to put some kindling into the quickly cooling fireplace before it could go out entirely. The rain had apparently stopped sometime through the night, but the wind was still in full swing, howling like the dickens. “It's a wonder the roof hasn't blown off yet, Henry.” Tears welling up in her eyes, missing the embrace of his strong arms and warm hands.
She ran her fingers over the yielding surface of the old leather armchair. Her husband Tom's chair. She could still make out his familiar groove from nights spent reading to her son in front of the fire. Tom Wilding had been the model father - he had never spoilt the boy but he had never denied him either. He had been loving, kind, generous, hard working. All the qualities she could ever hope for in a husband. It was on nights like this with the wind whipping through the eaves and the cold winter air sending a chill through her bones that she regretted having killed him.
(There's some discrepancy in the names here. Let's say the husband was Tom and the son is Henry.) At the thought of Tom her eyes were drawn, as they so often were, to the cabinet in the shadowy corner of the room. To the drawer that she always kept locked. To the source of the voice that whispered nightly in her head, sometimes in her husband's voice, sometimes in her wayward son's. And she wondered if this would be the night that the cursed object drove her mad. "I'll keep it safe, Tom," she promised. "Those that seek it will never have it." She tried to picture his face the way it used to be. The kind and gentle soul, who in the last frenzied moments of his life had been maddened and defiled by the evil artifact she now kept hidden. But the only face she could remember was that of the rabid beast that had tried to tear her apart.
Tom had bought that evil thing home late one night, after finding it on the streets. He'd bought it to a scientist, who found a metal he'd never seen before embedded in the core of the amulet. Tom had tried to experiment with that metal... with such terrible results. Henry was dead. Tom, too. And Katie was barely alive.
The evil amulet killed them and now she couldn't take it off. If she did take it off the little life that remained in her would fade away. She just sat there with her thoughts slowly going insane.
(Ok, there seems to be a couple of storylines here but, let's see what we can do.) Some time later, how long she really didn't know, time didn't seem fluid to her anymore, disjointed yes, at times highly chaotic, but fluid no, she raised her head and just listened. These lucid moments were few and far in between anymore. The wind had stopped, again when, she had no way of telling. The peace and quiet were a godsend, it relaxed her mind and allowed her to think clearly. With some difficulty, she got up and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Food was out of the question right now, just how long had it been since she ate last, a small laugh escaping her lips.
As Katie stood at the sink, filling her glass with water, the first rays of daylight began to stream through the kitchen window. She squinted through the light, attempting to focus on the scene before her as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Her vision settled on the lone tree in the vast yard, a tall maple, completely devoid of its once-full blanket of color after the night’s affairs. The harsh wind had stripped the tree of its last remaining leaves, which now lay plastered to the ground like a patchwork quilt of orange and brown. The tree now stood as a skeleton in her yard, a reminder of the skeletons in her past. A tear began to form in the corner of her eye as her head filled with thoughts, times many years gone now, when the tree had first been planted by Tom as a way to christen their new home and their new marriage - a marriage that had quickly spiraled downhill. The pendant began to grow heavier around her neck and she collapsed to her knees in a fit of sobs…
she couldn't help it, all the memories that had happen came suddenly back to her. The pendent swam back and forth from her breast toward the stale air, Slowly growing in weight until she couldn't even lie on her knees. She silently move down into a fetal procession and continue sob. The pendent reflected light from the outside, giving a sort of beauty to it yet masking its real face. A reminder of the dark past that could never be change. A dark light was all that was reflected into Katie's eyes. Finally Katie began to relax, or rather began fighting insanity back once more. As she got up the pendant's burden felt even heavier on her. It was 10 pound weight on her chest and neck, and she felt like she would fall on the ground once more. She grab the glass and averted her gaze from the window.
she sipped her water slowly letting the cool liquid help her return to sanity. They would be coming for the pendent soon, they had come twice before. Both times they had come wearing their expensive buisness suits and both times they had asked for it saying that it was a key, but they wouldnt say for what. This time when they came for it she wouldnt have it, and with that thought Katie walked out of her house. Her determination allowing her to ignore the ever growing weight of the pendent.
They didn't know this property like she did, there were places down by the river that she knew of, dark places. Those may be the only places that it could be safely hidden. It was obvious that she couldn't keep the pendant in the house any longer, nor even near the house, but the river was nearly a half mile away. The chill of the early morning air prickled her arms with goose flesh, not that she had time to notice. "Going somewhere?"
All Katie seemed to see before her were gray suits, they sprout out around her much like the woods surrounding her home did. She squinted trying to discern suit from wood, but they all began to mingle in her mind until she could no longer tell either apart. "Where I'm going is none of your business, leave me be!" She clutched at her chest and began to stumble on, the cold air finally settling into her bones.
Were they really here, or was her mind slipping again, she didn't know, she didn't care, all that she could do was keep going. Hopefully she could out run them, "Hah, yeah, like that was really going to happen", was all she could think and babble to herself. She could hear the water in the distance, almost there. This is the last place they would ever come, this was the last place she wanted to be as well, "Considering what happened to me last time..."
She shook her head to forget the unwanted memory; she focused all of her attention on putting one foot in front of the other and not falling over. As she got closer to the river the pendent began to glow and the air around her began to grow colder. It wasn't long before Katie could hear a crunching sound as she stepped on the newly frosted ground. In the corner of her eye she could see something fly though her frosty aura towards the people chasing her. She smiled; they had welcomed her this time, despite their warning.
The medallion was no longer heavy, in fact if she hadn't know it was on in the first place she would have sworn it wasn't there at all, except for the glow, and she was no longer cold, the glow that encompassed here had the refreshing warmth of spring, 'Oh my, is it finally time.' Turning to witness what was now inebidable, there was no fear, no thoughts of digust, only genuine wonderment. "I warned you, but you wouldn't listen. Now it's too late," she whispered. The men in the grey suits stood where they were, almost rooted to the ground. Not only rooted but enclosed in what almost appeared to be crystalists, as if the air around them had solidified. The screaming started as each of the men started vibrating, slowly at first, but it amplified as the seconds went by, until the pitch was almost ear splitting until one by one the men themselves split top to bottem, and in their place was a new sapling, each feeding from the new found food source. She smiled as tears of joy spilled down her face, "The cycle is almost complete, soon now, soon."
The cicadas outside hummed their summer rhythms. A lonely cricket beneath the table chirped. Katie sat down in the worn, leather chair with her cane at her side, and looked down to the little plants. She smiled. But it wasn't the kind of smile associated with happines. No, it was a sinister smile. Her eyes narrowed. Her mouth curled into a sneer. "You all thought you could get me...thought you could out fox me. Well look who out foxed who!" With a snap of her fingers and a wave of her hand, the little trees disappeared. Katie smiled again, this time in sheer pleasure, and leaned back in her chair. Laying a hand across the pendant around her neck and closing her eyes to rest, she uttered in a happy tone, "Enjoy Yosemite, gents. Though you'll have plenty of company, I believe you'll eventually freeze."
The pendent had begun to change her, she knew it would eventually; it always changes its owner until they become something that isn’t even human anymore. She began fighting the change. She still had time, time to redeem herself. She should of destroyed it years ago when she had, had the chance but she had needed it to try and save henry. She had failed at that as well. Now she was too weak to destroy it herself. She would have to do the one thing she had avoided all these years. She would have to give the pendent to someone else. She had to pass the curse on to someone else. Someone younger.
As was almost always the case, it seemed it wasn't long before that most quiet and secretive of wishes was granted. No more than a week later: "Hello...hello, umm, is anyone home??" Raising listlessly from the chair she made her way to the screen door and looked out. Standing there was a young man, holding an arm that had obvously dropped out of it's socket, scrapes and scratches on arms, legs, and face. "I wiped my bike out, can you help me please?" He had an open face with no malice or hatred in it. "Come in, please, I'll see what I can do," holding the door for him so he could support the other arm, "have a seat by the fire," pointing the way to the leather arm chair. He just settled in when the old woman was infront of him, her hands on the arms of the chair, keeping him from any real movement, and with one arm out of action, there wasn't anything he could do, which of course was exactly what she had wanted. Looking him in the eye, all he could hear was her voice, gutterally slurring out almost indistinguishable words, and suddenly he couldn't move. "You'll learn, I did," was all she said, then slowly, diliberately, and with some remorse it seemed, she removed the pendant from around her neck, and placed it around his. "You'll learn..." slumping to the floor, shuddering as one final breath wracked her aged and beaten body, she was gone. "What the hell..."
As soon as the pendant was around Harry's neck it began to burn him. Harry could feel the scorching heat burn through his body. He tried to remove the pendant but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t even cry out in pain. While the scorching heat flowed through his body, images of began to flash in front of his eyes, images of people, places and creatures that he had never seen before. Then the voices started. They were the worst part. The disembodied voices seemed to be whispering in his ear one minute and then whispering in his head the next, and despite his best effort he couldn’t work out what they were saying. He desperately tried to cry out for help but no matter how hard he tried he still couldn’t move. After a while the burning sensation stopped shortly followed by the voices and the images. Harry slumped forward in the chair. He felt exhausted and drained, but his arm was back in its socket and all cuts and bruises were gone.
The relief that flooded through him was so great, he slipped into unconciousness almost immediately. "Ohhh, what happened?" Opening his eyes slowly, the first thing he noticed was how subdued the light was, hours must have passed. His shoulder ached, but it just a memory of what it was, small iches made themselves known where he had been cut and scraped up. He was still in the chair where he had first sat down. Bending over to get up allowed the pendant to swing out from his chest enough for him to take notice of it. With a little aprehension he reached for the pendant, removing it he dropped it to the floor. Running his fingers over his chest he could clearly feel the raised imprint of the ornate object, yet there was no pain, looking down it could have been there for years, let alone hours. Getting up, careful to step over the acursed thing as not to touch it he headed for the door, and stopped. Looking back he finally noticed, the old woman was gone, he knew he had seen her fall, heard her gasp and then nothing, she was dead, but, where was the body? "Not my problem, I'm out of here." Not two paces off the warped floorboards a sudden piercing pain hit him, in the middle of the chest where the pendant would hang. It staggered him back up onto the poarch, and the pain vanished.
He stood there gasping for air. When he had fully recovered, he tentatively touched his chest, where moments ago he had felt a piercing pain but it was fine. It was as if nothing had happened. He looked back into the house, the first thing he saw was that damned pendant. Glinting in the poor light all most as if it was calling him, Harry shook his head and turned away from the house. He went to walk away, when he heard the voices again. He turned back to the pendant, he still couldn’t understand the voices but they seemed to want him to take the pendant. He sighed and walked back to the pendant. His hand shook slightly as he reached for it. Taking a calming breath, he touched the pendant. Nothing happened. He sighed and slipped the pendant over his head and let it rest against his chest once more, he turned to leave but stopped. There was a women standing in the doorway. “Going somewhere?”
She was stunning, with hair to her shoulders, the color of spun honey, with silver and crimson highlight, framing a perfect oval face that blemishes wouldn't dare touch. She wore what had to be a tailored business suit of midnight blue with silver buttons, which gave the impression of stars on a blanket of velvet, and low heeled shoes of highly polished leather. "Well, I'm waiting." "Umm, how...who..." Becoming impatient she stepped across the room and held out her hand, "Yes and I'll take that as well, come on, I haven't all day." Still somewhat bewildered and recovering from everthing that had happened to him today, Harry realized he wasn't really in the mood for this. Making deliberate eye contact with her, "Wait a minute, who are you, how did you get here, and why should I give you this?" After a moment she relented, "Fine. My name is Bethany Hail, my car is out in the front drive, and the woman who lived in this...cathedral," she said, making a grand sweeping gesture with her hand, "was my aunt Katie Wilding. Now, it's my turn, who are you, what are you doing here, and what are you doing with my aunts medalion around your neck?" "Harry Belsot, I cracked my bike up about a half mile from here, saw this place and thought someone might have been able to help me. This old woman, your aunt, had me sit in the chair, and, before I knew it she had slipped this around my neck." He left out the voices and stuff, the last thing he needed to do was sound like an escapee from the local asylum. "I guess I passed out after that." "She gave it to you freely, oh no, then it's too late, she chose you. That means she knew she was dying." "Dying?" He snatched the pendant from around his neck, "here, here, you take it, I don't want it anymore, here, take it for god sakes." Gazing into her eyes, he saw a sorrow so powerful it almost drove him to his knees weeping. "I can't," she said, "it can only be passed on just before the moment of death."
She walked into the dark hallway where her king was standing. The king had this nasty look on his face. "But what I do wrong this tiime? I've already done the dishes and mopped the floor." But he continued to stare without saying a word. "Dad? Whoo Hoo?" She waves her hand in his face. Suddently he falls out hard on the ground. "Dad? What's wrong?" She checks his hard pulse, but she can't find one.
