Chapter 009: Dead Girl Walking

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CAMCORDER VIDEO FOOTAGE 001

12:35 AM, MAY 28TH, 1987

SASHA

Okay, it's been a few hours since we all went in, and... it's getting creepy now. That, and somehow, Ems, Quinn and Ben have disappeared which, kinda weird but not really supernatural, right?

Sasha laughs nervously, eyeing the hallway as she keeps walking down it.

SASHA 

But I'm sure I'll be able to find them. If not, well, might as well record any "ghosts" on the second one, right?

She makes air-quotes over "ghosts" and laughs again, like she still believes that nothing supernatural is real. And given the time of the recording, she wouldn't be proven wrong yet.

SASHA

So, yeah, guess I'm ghost-hunting alone for now. 

She looks around, the smile slipping as a nervous look crosses over her face.

SASHA

God, I hope I find one of the guys soon. This place is so freaking creepy to be in by yourself. And I hope they're also okay, especially with all those weird noises we've been hearing. 

She continues walking down the hallway, biting her lip. 

SASHA

I know there's a rational explanation, but some of those noises... I don't know, they didn't really sound... normal. But they have to be, right? I mean, ghosts aren't real.

Sasha pauses, smiles.

SASHA

If the guys were here, then Quinn would probably say it's just the house—that it's old and would make all sorts of weird sounds. Always a rational explanation, right? Ben probably would joke and Emmy... she'd say something really comforting. I know she probably doesn't think it, but she cares the most out of all of us—I think if this did turn into a horror movie, she'd probably sacrifice herself just to make sure we all got out alive. To protect us even if it means she dies.

The smile slips as Sasha hangs her head.

SASHA

God, I miss them. Where the hell are they? This house isn't that big...

She walks down the corridor, peering into the rooms—the kitchen, the dining room, the bathroom. She's about to reach the living room when a door swings open before closing. A door no one in the Scooby Gang has noticed or opened to look into the room beyond.

SASHA

Huh. That's weird.

She goes toward it. Before she enters, she grins at the camera.

SASHA

Maybe there might be some spooky stuff inside—or maybe some ghosts. Cue Ben making another dorky ghost noise if you guys are watching this at home with me.

Sasha rolls her eyes, smiling fondly as she remembers Ben making that noise in the first recording on the first camcorder. She adjusts her grip so she's holding both the flashlight and camcorder in one hand as she grabs the door handle with her now free hand, blowing out a sigh.

SASHA

Well, wish me luck—guess ghost hunting must be my true calling. Hope I don't end up possessed like Reagan.

She smiles, before it drops and she twists the handle.

The door groans as Sasha opens it. She doesn't really mind—compared to everything else she's heard in the past three hours, it's one of the most normal noises with an easily explainable source behind it. She gives another grin to the camcorder before she enters.

When she does, the door swings close behind her.

SASHA

Okay... that isn't too creepy. Not at all. I can just yell at one of the guys to let me out.

She chuckles to herself as she now grabs her flashlight, which had also been turned off. Clicking it on, she lifts it up so she can see what is inside.

On the camcorder, it shows her face going from a lighthearted grin to a look full of horror.

SASHA

Oh... oh God.

She backs up until she is against the door, the camcorder shaking due to her hand obviously trembling. Her expression is still full of horror, and that she looks like she wants to vomit but is holding it back. She looks into the camcorder, letting it capture the full expanse of her horror.

SASHA

This is... oh God. You... you need to see it. I can't... oh God.

Slowly, she swings the camcorder to show the rest of the room and reveal the horrors inside it.

Revealing the bodies hanging from the roof—most skeletons, but others look like they just freshly died, their bodies rotting and mouths slack, ropes around their necks, and most, if not all, still wear the clothes they must have died in, blood and other gore dried on the moth-eaten fabric as rotted as the corpses. On the walls, writing in a strange language is scribbled in something that looks disturbingly too dark to just be ink, and mixed with it are featureless faces with two blank dots to be eyes, the heads adorned with spikes, quills and horns, and other faces with too many eyes, too many mouths, too many teeth. A table has a shattered jar on it, with a desiccated, clawed hand with fingers too long to be anything human lying on it, black ooze crusted around the stump of the hand, and a book that is too stained and damaged and torn to be anything useful. And there is dark stains on the floorboards, and a circle in faded ink with strange symbols in it. Symbols that are glowing a steady, bloody red, as the shadows seem to grow thicker and almost rise up off the circle, twist the faces strangely like they are watching Sasha and opening mouths full of fangs. 

Swinging the camcorder back to Sasha, it shows her face is still pale with horror, but there is something else.

SASHA

I... I need to take photos. These bodies... some look fresh. There must be a killer or something—I need to show the police with them, they won't believe me if I don't have proof, and Emmy, Quinn and Ben, I need to get us out of here before the killer comes back.

She sets the camcorder and flashlight on the table and grabs her Polaroid camera out and begins taking photos—of the bodies, the writing on the wall, the hand and book, the circle on the floor and the stains next to it. It reaches a point that she turns her back to the circle so she can take a photo of the writing on the wall there.

But the camcorder is still pointed toward the circle, so it catches the moment the circle's symbols light up red as whispering and howling fills the room and an elongated arm dripping shadows stretches out of the circle as the screen glitches—

When it refocuses, the arm is gone and the symbols have stopped glowing now. Sasha has turned back around, camera lowered. Her face is confused, but also holds nervousness to it.

SASHA

Hello?

Nothing responds back to her.

SASHA

Okay, this is more than I bargained for, this is turning into a horror movie and I'm finding the others and getting us all out of here before Freddy Krueger comes back and kills us. Fuck the dare—our lives are more important.

Grabbing the camcorder, she's about to put the camera away and grab the flashlight when something creaks. Sasha goes frozen as she turns.

SASHA

Hello?

Nothing again.

SASHA

Okay, this is seriously not funny, whoever you are, cut the bullshit and come out ri—

The words die away as she stumbles back, eyes growing wide as a growling noise fills the room.

SASHA

Oh God.

The growling grows louder as something steps toward Sasha, slashing out an elongated, clawed arm—but before it can touch her, Sasha throws the flashlight at it, puts her camera underneath her arm to grab the door handle and runs out of the room full of corpses.

Running down the hallway, Sasha's face is full of panic and fear as she screams out.

SASHA

Guys! Emmy! Quinn! Ben! There's something in here! Guys, please, can you hear me!? It's after me! GUYS!

Nothing, and Sasha's face twists, looking like she will cry from pure fear as she runs to the living room—

And something grabs her leg.

The camera and camcorder are thrown out of her grip, falling to the floor as Sasha does. The camcorder catches Sasha twisting around as she's pulled away from the living room, further down the hallway, ready to fend off her attacker, as a tall, thin, humanoid creature looms above her, shadows dripping off it and onto Sasha as it tightens its grip.

A CRUNCH is heard and Sasha lets out a noise of pain, face contorted in visible agony as tears fall from her face, terror and pain clear in her shaking body as she raises a hand to fend off her attacker.

But it is useless as the monster rips its claws across Sasha's abdomen.

Sasha lets out a bloodcurdling scream as her blood spurts out, splashing against the camera and camcorder before the monster lunges, teeth primed for Sasha's throat—

Blood stains the screen red as crunching, tearing, chewing noises are heard, then heavy dragging, before underneath the blood, the screen statics before blacking out.

It doesn't turn back on—and Sasha's voice isn't heard again. Nor is she ever seen alive again.

***

Emmy stared at the blacked out screen, silent as grief roared through her.

Beside her, Quinn had a hand clapped over her mouth, tears shining in her eyes as Ben's face twisted in agony, shaking his head as he mumbled, "No, Sasha. No, no, no..."

A choked sob escaped from Ben's mouth and Quinn slid her arm around him, Ben collapsing against her as more sobs escape him. Emmy wanted to comfort him as well, to comfort Quinn, but it's like she's frozen again, staring at the camcorder that captured her best friend's last moments, how she screamed for them and they'd been unable to hear her until her last, final scream, that they hadn't known she was gone until it was too late, that if they'd just noticed sooner...

It's my fault. I knew something was wrong—I knew it from the minute I stepped into this fucking house, when I saw Sasha's photo. I should have noticed she was gone sooner because of the photo. I could have saved her if I did, I could have dragged her away from the monster, I could have... I could have saved her.

She's dead, and it's all my fault. My best friend is dead and it's all my fucking fault.

Tears burned in Emmy's eyes, and she wanted to cry, to sob, to scream and release the pain, the guilt, she wanted to stab her switchblade in the monster and tear it apart, to make it bleed and hurt, to kill it, because it took Sasha, it took one of the best people Emmy knew if not the best person she knew, it murdered her best friend, she wanted to burn this house to the ground and burn the monsters inside it with it, she wanted—

She just wanted to go back in time and save her best friend, to say no to the dare in the first place and have all four of them be safe and alive.

She just wanted her best friend back.

But there was no time to mourn—not when the prickling started up, first on Emmy's neck, then travelling down her arms. Every single hair standing on end.

"Guys," she croaked out. "Guys, we need to hide. It's coming."

That snapped Quinn and Ben out of the grief, as fear came back—to remember they weren't safe, that if they didn't hide, the monster and those other things would kill them just like they killed Sasha.

But the bathroom was a no-go, as was the dining room, kitchen and living room, and Emmy didn't know if the monster or those things would be near the staircase to chance an escape up the stairs. That meant...

They needed to find that horrific room Sasha had found. It was the only option left.

Scanning the hallway, Emmy tried to ignore the increasing prickle over her skin, she had to find the door, she couldn't save Sasha, but she'd be damned if she couldn't save Quinn and Ben, she had to find that door—

Like some miracle, she saw it—a door knob, sticking out of the wall.

Running to it, she gestured to Quinn and Ben. "Come on! Get inside!"

Quinn and Ben ran to her—just as the shadows started to detach from the wall, slowly forming into the monster.

Panic thrumming through Emmy, she hissed,  "Inside!"

She wrenched the door open and ran inside, Quinn and Ben right behind her. Emmy slammed the door closed right as a shriek sounded. Her heart thundered in her ears as she heard the monster's footsteps as it walked down the hallway, hardly breathing as it passed by the door—then stalk past it as it growled.

Letting loose the breath she'd been holding, Emmy said, "I think we're safe right now."

"Yeah, uh... I don't really feel safe right now," Ben said, voice sounding strangled.

Emmy turned, seeing what Quinn and Ben were seeing. What Sasha had seen.

Bodies—skeletons and corpses—hanging from the ceiling. The writing on walls in a strange language that seemed to whisper to only Emmy's ears written in something too dark to be ink. The table with the monstrous hand and destroyed book. The stains on the floor. And the circle also on the floor, symbols black and not glowing.

"Jesus, this is like if Texas Chainsaw met Exorcist," Quinn muttered, but not even her dry quips could hide the terror trembling through her.

Emmy swallowed back her own fear, ignoring the bodies hanging from the ceiling—ignoring if Sasha's body might be swinging above them—and turning to her friends, trying to push back the grief and guilt threatening to consume her whole and focus on what was more important.

"Guys, we need a plan," she said.

Ben let out a hollow laugh. "What plan, Emmy?"

"On how to get out of here—and figure out what's going on," Emmy revealed. Looking to the camcorder, she added, "Ben, turn it on, and keep it on."

"Why?" Ben asked.

"In case we don't make it out, maybe someone might see it, and... I don't know. Maybe keep people from coming in here again," Emmy explained, sliding a hand over her face. She felt exhausted, scared and full of grief, but she couldn't show it. If she was a final girl like Sasha seemed confident she was, then she couldn't break down. She had to get them all out and maybe take that motherfucker down with her if she couldn't get out alive.

She had too.

But before Ben could turn it on, Quinn stretched out a hand to stop him, eyes narrowed.

"Before we do any of that, you need to tell me and Ben how the fuck you know where those things are, Emmy," Quinn demanded. "Because normal people don't have a fucking radar inside them or whatever for fucking shadow monsters."

Emmy bit her lip, before she sighed. They needed to know.

"I... I can sense the monsters," Emmy revealed. 

Silence rang.

"What do you mean... sense the monsters?" Ben questioned, a note of skepticism in his voice as Quinn's eyes remained narrowed.

"I mean exactly what I said," Emmy said, voice growing snappish before she took in a breath, trying to control herself, before it all spilled out. "When I was kid, I heard.... voices. Whispers. Phantom noises—nothing nobody else heard. Sometimes I could feel a presence along with the voices, but usually just the voices. But the voices... they started disappearing, and I assumed I just made them up, that they weren't real, especially since no one else could hear them. I haven't heard the voices in years... until today."

Looking at her friends, Emmy added, "I didn't tell you guys or... or Sasha because I did think they weren't real. But, apparently they are along with those monsters, and that I can somehow sense the monsters before they appear and... and when I held this and Sasha's camera, I saw this girl and Sasha before they..."

Emmy couldn't finish as she held out the hair clip, but on Quinn's and Ben's faces, it was clear they guessed what she couldn't finish as they stared at the hair clip before Emmy slipped it back in her jacket pocket. She swallowed, nervousness filling her as Quinn and Ben remained silent.

Finally, Ben said, "So you're psychic or something?"

Emmy gave Ben a hard look. "I'm not psychic."

"What else do you call it other than being psychic?" Ben shot back.

Emmy opened her mouth, paused, then admitted defeat because she couldn't. "Okay, maybe."

She looked at Ben and Quinn, frowning. "You're not questioning it or anything?"

"We've been hunted by monsters all night. I think my skepticism's long gone by now," Ben said, shrugging, but his mouth tilted in a half-smile.

Emmy gave a small smile back before she looked at Quinn. "Quinn?"

Quinn worried her lip, before she sighed.

"I'm with Ben—if shadow monsters are real and so is whatever the fuck's going on outside, then I guess my best friend being some sort of psychic must be real, too," Quinn said.

Quinn gave Emmy a look, one she received before she looked at Ben. "Can you turn it on?"

"Oh, right. Yeah. Turning it on," Ben said as he lifted the camcorder up and turned it on.

As the red light blinked back on, determination slid back onto Emmy's face as she looked at her friends, trying to feel more determined than she felt and less scared than she really was, to cling to the determination to get them all out alive.

"Okay. Let's figure out a way to get the hell out of here."

***

RIP Sasha, you were awesome and did not deserve to go out in that way :(

But yeah, Emmy is psychic! She's been since a kid and it wad dormant until Morrow House's haunting brought it roaring back to the surface. And yeah, the kids are starting to figure out a way to get out of here—and maybe to get some answers...

Also, we only have five chapters left until this is finished! While I knew this was going to be short, I'm still amazed we've already reached the end! I hope you guys enjoy—and the ending I have planned >:)

Please read, comment and vote!

GhostWriterGirl out!