Our House of Horrors (unanun and Peregrine)

[unanun]

"Welcome to the Lakeside Horror House! My name is Evil, and I am the keeper of ghosts. I travel all six-hundred-and-sixty-six realms to curate only the most ghoulish, the most fiendish, the most morbid ghosts for you. By my magic you may safely experience truly the most shocking, revolting, and horrifying stories in all of the history of humankind!"

"I understand that you may be seeking material under R or NC-17. That is also no problem, for I also find ghosts with heart-wrenching tales, lives steeped in tragedy, sacrifice, and honour that have blazed the course of history. Follow the signs and revel in their tales!"

"Why yes, of course my horns are real! I am Evil, and you can see from my eyes that I am a servant of the reaper. That is why you do not need to sign a waiver to enter my Horror House, for my magic keeps the experiences entirely safe. The ghosts will do you no harm."

"Yes maam, the animatronics are no longer functional. Enjoy the House!"

 

[Peregrine]

Lakeside Amusement Park was a once-thriving place of entertainment that had long since begun to fall on hard times. Built around three-quarters of a small, man-made lake, the amusement park touted itself an abode of the classic, a place full of history and charm. What that actually meant was that the place had now become run-down, relying on a small stream of customers who were drawn by its cheap prices and nostalgia from the past to keep it open for business, but unable to perform any form of upkeep.

Over the course of decades, various rides had become defunct, destined to be closed down. The first to go had been the park's most well known boat attraction, which allowed people to rent little paddle boats to take out to the lake, riding them from point to point. However, the accidental drowning of someone out in the water saw the ride permanently closed when the park could no longer guarantee its safety.

The next to go was the tower climb, a remnant of a past when tall buildings were a novelty, granting people a view of the distance. After several teenagers stayed in the park after it was closed overnight, only to be discovered the next morning covered in unknown injuries, only staff were ever allowed to climb up the tower again.

Several other rides had closed down as time had passed, few of them ever to be replaced again. However, the next attraction on the chopping block was not a mystery to anyone who visited the park. The Lakeside Horror House was another remnant of the past, built inside an ancient wooden church that seemed on the edge of falling apart. At the very least, several gaps had already formed in the warped wood, allowing in light from the outside, and all of the buildings animatronics, the key feature of the attraction, had begun to fail. And as the House grew less and less popular, the park gathered less and less intention to keep it open.

McKenzie Wurthington, the owner of the park, came to look at the house shortly before the ride was set to close, knocking on one of the side doors that led to a little back room in the old church. It had become the staff room for the attraction, a place that held the costumes for the staff. That was the latest, and likely last, attempt the park had made to add a bit of interest to the haunted house, a cheap bid that was about as successful as could be guessed.

Rapping smartly on the door, McKenzie called out. "Erin? You in there? We need to talk."

 

[unanun]

The spell of moonlight was not on the menu tonight, and the drifting reflections from the lake and lights lacked their special ethereal quality. Without the flickering shadows, the tickle of senses wasn't right, and the cleverly set props, audio recordings, and hiss from a crystal radio never quite achieved their sheen. The mom calmed her daughter, some of the teens poked at the paraphernalia, and altogether the guests walked in and out.

The evening passed without event. Evil shed her horns and contacts, raised her hands to her head, and combed her pink dyed hair. McKenzie suggested that she wear a wig; Erin decided to go all in.

She snapped her contacts case shut, smoothed her shirt down, tightened her tie, and crisply opened the door. "Yes Boss! Boss?"

 

[Peregrine]

"Erin. Good." McKenzie smoothly pushed her way into the room after Erin opened the door, seating herself on an unknown object that was some mixture of wood and leather. It might have been a seat once upon a time. There was a small stack of papers in her hands, which she set down on her knees, before her eyes turned to Erin once more. A faint sigh escaped her lips.

"Well, this is not going to be a particularly pleasant conversation, so I'll try and make it as quick as possible. I have bad news and, I hope, good news." McKenzie didn't give Erin any time to respond to her comment, instead simply plowing ahead as she tucked a strand of straightened chestnut colored hair behind her ears. "Bad news is, the inspector came by this morning. If we don't renovate the haunted house, we can't let people keep going into it, and I have no intention of investing the money into what amounts to our least popular attraction."

McKenzie shook her head, her fingers lightly tapping against the papers on her legs. "You know this better than I do. How many groups do you get in an evening? Ten? Twenty at absolute best. You know how it goes; you've heard it all before. Haunted houses are niche attractions. Keeping this place fresh would be nothing but a sink hole. Unfortunately, if it closes, your job goes along with it."

Pausing for a second, McKenzie studied Erin's reaction to her sudden deluge of information, and the whammy at the end that she was about to lose her job as well. "I'm telling you all this, which is quite frankly more than I'd tell most employees when I'm trying to give them notice, because I think you're a hard worker and you deserve a chance since it's now your job on the line. This brings me to what, I hope, is the good news. Howard doesn't give a crap, so he won't help you, but if you care enough about this place to want to see it stay open, you can try and save it, and your job along with it."

Lifting the stack of papers that was on her knees, McKenzie waved them about for a moment, before finally presenting them to Erin. "I've curated local ghost stories. Read them over, pick one, and go investigate it. Make a pitch to me. You have whatever's in the House to try and revamp the attraction for a temporary theme, along with any park workers who are willing to help you, but nothing more. I'll be able to stall the inspector for... two weeks. If you can get over a hundred groups through the house three nights in a row, I'll pay whatever it costs to get the House back up to code."

Finally finished with her little speech, the woman paused, staring at Erin. "What do you say? Wanna give it a go?"

 

[unanun]

If Erin was going through a existential rollercoaster, her major in theatre and extensive small production experience did not let even an iota of it show. The only tell could have been a slight pause once McKenzie finished talking, but a beatific smile spread across her face as she reached for the stack of research.

"Funny that you mention the problems this place has been having, because I have so many ideas to make this thing work! Buuuuuut ... " as she flipped through the pages and McKenzie's raised eyebrow, "this here is fantastic material that I can build off of! You've got my support. And possibly partner, revenue share when the attraction takes off?" as her boss gave her an encouraging pat on the shoulder and left the office.

One shower, one bowl of pasta, and a small pile of trimmed split ends later, Erin spread out the stories across the coffee table.

"A GHOST STORY A musician lives with his wife in a small house in Dallas, Texas. They lead a happy life together, and are looking for a new home and planning their move. She tells him that before she moves away from a place, she likes to hide a note for herself there somewhere in case she ever returns wait, I've seen this on Netflix!"

"THE HAUNTING OF LAKESIDE LAKE that's a little too close to home."

"THE GHOST PACK A group of wolves, driven and hunted to a cruel end by settlers return as a spectral pack to terrorize Lakeside. They terrorize recycling and garbage cans and wait, this has to be about raccoons."

"THE SLAYER UNDER THE BRIDGE..." the ice clinked in her glass.

... a string of deaths ...

unexplained ... city hall claims uneven footing ...

strong currents ...

The obituaries, news articles, and police reports flashed across her laptop screen. Homeless, highschool boy, homeless, homeless,

Male, male, male, ...

male.

There it was, the cat's tingle running along her nape. It wasn't the truth nor an epiphany, but Erin trusted it to be a good premonition, and she slept well that night and sustained her enthusiasm through her day job, then her night shift at the horror house, then at the bridge where she raised the newspaper clipping and matched the simple archway and its rusting wrought iron railings against the dim flicker of the widely spaced lamps at the edge of town. The soft sole of her sneakers sucked in the gravel and there she was, at the center of the bridge, leaning on the railing and looking over the edge into the water tracing a silhouette against the lazy waves, waiting, waiting, hoping, hoping, maybe even feeling ...

that something would happen.

 

[Peregrine]

Valley Creek Bridge was, all things considered, a place that looked to be lacking in any form of notability. Less than 50 feet long, the bridge's only responsibility was to pass over the ravine that had been created by Valley Creek. The spot couldn't even be called particularly beautiful, as the green hills on either side of the creek had ended up converted into a gravel slope when the bridge was made.

Perhaps the only thing it had going for it was that it was remote, without being out of the way. Located halfway between the main city and the beginning of a near-rural suburb neighborhood, it was not a highway of any sort, but simply a convenient passageway for those who lived in the opposite neighborhood.

And despite the fact that the bridge should have made an ideal squatting spot for the homeless with its sheltered overhead, access to water, and relatively untraveled locale, it was left completely empty. Rumors had long since spread among them that the bridge was haunted. Anyone who dared to spend the night there would like as not never get the chance to wake up the next morning. They'd rather take their chances with the police than vengeful spirits.

It was a rather sharp scramble down the hill to reach the creek, which was a trickle of water barely deep enough for someone to be able to submerge their hand if they laid it flat against the ground. Mid to large sized stones littered the creek bed, diverting the water's flow briefly. The bridge was short enough that it did not require any pillars to hold it up, meaning that it was possible to look up and down the culvert quite easily. However, there was almost nothing to see in either direction, as the view was quickly swallowed up by the sloped, rolling terrain.

And, other than the occasional car that rumbled past overhead, the bridge's only occupants were a community of swallows, which had long since built a collection of nests on the underside of the bridge.

At least, that was the way it appeared on the surface. However, at night, even those who were simply passing over the bridge might occasionally hear sounds down below. A high pitched whine that seemed incongruous with the rumble that the cars' passage should have produced. Whispers that mixed in with the babble of the creek, unintelligible and easily attributed to an overactive imagination. Most considered the rumors that the bridge was haunted simple nonsense.

But it didn't change the fact that people had died there. Several warning signs at the edge of the crevice warned people not to enter, that the rocks were slippery and a fall could prove fatal. It was enough to stop most, who had no particular reason to venture below the bridge. But it was certainly not enough of a deterrent to stop the bold, the reckless, and those seeking danger.

 

[unanun]

Some amount of time passed, perhaps ten seconds, perhaps a minute, perhaps thirty seconds, maybe an hour. Nothing changed to mark the time. Erin's silhouette faded into the creek, and she only caught glimpses of it when the water threw a flicker of the street lamp back into her eye. There was a time, some time ago, when all this sensory noise had profound meaning, when colours emerged from the black and she could feel her brain painted onto her surroundings, screaming everything of significance to her. But she did not do that anymore; she did not scream at the starry night anymore.

She had left that when life was going good. When she could see her life falling into place, the bricks descending from the sky into a cosmic road with flanking angels that trumpeted her along an unshakable path to perfection. She didn't need help to visualize her success .. she could feel it, the accolades, the admiration, the momentum.

She rubbed the little plastic tab in her pocket, felt the seconds stretch out

Tick, tock ...

Tick, tock ...

Tick...

Ti...

..
..
..
c..

k.

A small disturbance, a bit of turbulence, threw a drop into the air, where it slowed down and was caught, like dew in web. The drumming of the cars grew into a dull roar and the creek turned into white water rapids. She was fighting for her life, struggling to surface, buffeted by the currents, she found purchase on the edge of the shore, she was hauling herself out of the Yellow River in flood season, and as she threw up the water (and a rainbow) that she had swallowed, the streetlights became will-o-the-wisps and coalesced into a bed sheet in front of her, and that bed sheet grabbed her by the neck and forced her back down below the water again.

 

[Peregrine]

After the sun had long since dropped below the horizon, the silence of the night was interrupted by the sound of dislodged rocks, which tumbled their way down a steep incline. A young woman, hair washed out to silver-grey in the darkness of the night, had slid her way down the slope, into the dug out recess under a small bridge.

In the deepest shadows under the bridge, where concrete and soil met into a pit of darkness, a pair of invisible eyes watched her figure. For an instant, there was a burst of expectation within them, but as the woman settled down onto the slight gravel slope that led up to the edge of the creek, that expectation vanished as simply as it had come.

Female.

Not guilty.

There was no reason to continue watching. But there was also nothing else to do. And so that pair of eyes continued to watch. Watch, as the young woman pulled out a small square of blotter paper and stuck it under her tongue. Watch, as she laid back against the rough gravel and stared at the underside of the concrete bridge as though it was the infinite mysteries of the night sky.

Watch, as she began to sway on the spot, muttering to herself occasionally. Shifting. Tossing. Turning.

Watch, as the gravel slid out from under her, and sent her face-first into the shallow creek.

This… was a first.

Many people had died under this bridge. The pair of watching eyes had been one of them, and had been the cause of several others. But, for all the people who had swarmed around this bridge had always claimed 'accident, accident', this would likely be the first true accidental death that had ever occurred in this little space, hidden from the night sky.

She was in pain now. The eyes could tell by the way her hands were starting to spasm, legs kicking, muscles tensing. It probably wouldn't be that much longer before her body was forced to give up the fight altogether, if she couldn't figure out how to lift her head in that time.

Pain.

She remembered pain. Radiating through her body like lightning, longing to scream but unable to make a sound as water flooded her lungs. None of it, however, had hurt as much as the feeling of betrayal that had torn through her heart as that man that she'd once called husband hand held her head under the water.

Female.

Not guilty.

Shadows were suddenly flowing out from under the darkness of the bridge's recesses, coating the ground in an inky blackness of the deepest shadow. Each shadow spun like a ghostly thought, before they gathered together on the edge of the bank, forming a mass so dark it seemed destined to swallow up everything around it. However, instead, the shadow seemed to heave, bubbling up out of the ground into growing, twisting vines, which moments later formed themselves into the shape of… a woman.

Her long hair was black, swirling unnaturally through the air as though she was still submerged in an unseen water current. Ashen grey skin covered her face and hands, pale only in comparison to the complete pitch darkness that made up her hair and clothes. And stunning golden eyes glowed with a brilliance that emitted no light.

She reached out a hand, grabbing the woman by her pale pink hair before hauling her up out of the creek bed, flinging her back towards the gravel 'shore' in one, smooth movement.

 

[unanun]

The impact of landing made Erin cough up the shitty mud creek water, and the taste of it in her mouth made her gag, and the sour spit-up washed away the pulsating vision, so the shores of the raging water calmed into gravel that marked her hands and irritatingly stuck to her palms when she lifted them up to wipe her mouth, and the roaring sounds of the Yangtze receded to a babbling brook.

She pushed herself upright to regard the vision in front of her. She remembered the movie from a few years ago, the first painted movie ever. Each frame was painted by hand, with thick oil strokes in the style of the same one who did starry night. When she took tabs to help her along, to juice her creative process, she always imagined herself in control of the process: I have a vision, an action, that I envision to bring to fruition, but it is beyond my expression, and I need some improvisation such that I may bring about this revision. She wanted a ghost, and there was a ghost in front of her.

This ghost changed on every viewing, every frame, her thick, oily outline swirling with every blink. She had substance, and if Erin reached out she knew that her hand would dip into an inky stew that might suck her in. Curiously, when she did, there was no resistance. She tried to part the apparition like smoke, but it remained maddeningly frozen in space, like a hologram.

And that seemed to be the end of that. So the only thing she could do was spit out some bile, try to rinse her mouth clean, and collapse against the gravel shore to wait for the trip to fade.

 

[Peregrine]

The ghost watched the gasping, heaving woman with glowing eyes, her head tilted slightly in curiosity and interest. Although her ghostly form held impossibly still in its position half an inch above the lightly swirling water. Her shadowy being stirred too, looking as though it was flowing alongside the water below her.

She didn't even flinch as the pink haired girl shoved a hand into her body, waving it around as though trying to grasp at something that wasn't there. Instead, her fixed eyes never wavered from the girl's form, contemplative and curious.

This woman would have died tonight if there had not been a ghost under this bridge to physically intervene in her fate. Drowned in the shallow creek bed, the water causing her corpse to bloat until the smell would finally attract someone to discover her ruined carcass. And her soul would have joined the other restless dead who had perished under the bridge.

Even now, her body was still gasping and shuddering, shaking off the trauma of a near-death experience, but this woman's actions had clear cause and effect. She'd all but thrown herself into the water, and all the flailing had done nothing to save her.

Perhaps her intervention would not be welcomed, had the girl been well enough to form words of rebuke. Perhaps, she'd gotten in the way of something she shouldn't have.

"Why did you try to kill yourself?"

Despite her inhuman form, her voice was perfectly normal, the saccharine sound of a young woman in the most flourishing moments of young adulthood. Such heavy words did not seem suited for such a silvery voice, but she spoke them in a calm and collected manner, as though she was asking about the weather.

 

[unanun]

The words of her hallucination were nearly lost within the visual tempest, but Erin managed to squeeze some meaning out from the ghost in front of her, and furrowed her brow.

"I ... I didn't try to kill myself ... "

"I'm here ... "

Her eyes darted, convulsed around the scene but her head did not move, just like a horror animatronic.

"Inspiration ... "

"J-job ... Lakeside ... House of Horror .. "

She clutched her head, trying to shake out the pulsing, but maybe that just made it worse. Her head was spinning now, and she gasped, falling back against the gravel for support. The little rocks dug into her back, and the ghost in front of her fizzled like static, as if it was about to wink out of existence. Feverishly her mind searched - was there smoke nearby? Fire? Fog? What was there that the tab was turning into a ghost, a talking ghost, the one thing that she needed right now?

"Can you help?"

 

[Peregrine]

Didn't try to kill herself?

It didn't look like it. What else could her actions convey? Her pale skin. The traces of water and bile that soaked her shirt. Messy hair, wildly swaying eyes. The desperate way she clutched at her head, as though trying to keep her brain from spilling out. All of it looked like a person sitting on the verge of death.

How ironic, that the human looked more possessed than the ghost.

"Inspiration?" Had she pushed herself to the edge, the boundary between life and death, in order to allow her mortal eyes to see ghosts? She was no great spiritual talent, and it was luck she'd survived the attempt. Even then, if it wasn't for the fact that the ghost in front of her was such a powerful being, who knew if she'd be able to see more than smoke and hear more than static, even for all her efforts.

"How foolish. If I hadn't pulled you out of the river, you'd be dead now. And yet, you're still asking for more help? What more could you want?"

 

[unanun]

You're right ...

I don't know what I'm doing. I followed some creepy ghost story to the edge of town and took some LSD to try and get some inspiration. I nearly drowned and no one would have cared, McKenzie would have thought that I just gave up when the going got tough, she would have chalked me up to a listless, talentless kid even though I've been the hardest working, just some city girl here on a summer sabbatical that didn't care about anything and couldn't commit to anything. Then a month later they would have founded my bloated - or maybe shredded - corpse somewhere along the lake, and it would lead to a cold case.

Erin picked herself up and squared her hallucination. I'm just a piece of shit that everyone told was great, I believed that, then I when I wasn't great I couldn't take it, and now I'm a college dropout with nothing to show.

She pulled herself out of the creek and squelched her way home with the hum of the streetlights to keep her company. They faded in and out as she walked in and out of their umbrellas of light. Soon her street came up, and her apartment faded into view. The metal stairs to her second floor apartment were bolted to the side, and she felt perfect sympathy with their hollow ringing as she ascended into her home. She left the shoes in a puddle and stepped into the shower.

The cheap scented bodywash helped her forget the humiliation of the creek. The strawberry was strong, and chemical - a cheap imitation with only one of the hundreds of natural oils. She finished her dinner.

Showed up at the Lakeside Horror House.

Disappointed McKenzie.

Tried everything she could, but watched the guests dwindle.

The day the House of Horrors closed, she stood in front of the mirror in the changing room, and looked at herself. Her pink hair was ruffled, but she had tried to keep it clean through the summer sweats and the dust. Her horns were polished, and didn't look like they were styrofoam glued to a headband. Her crosshair contacts where in correctly, and both were properly oriented. She wanted to say she had done everything she could.

But she hadn't. She walked away from a real ghost at Valley Creek. The enormity of her failure hit her in the gut. It wasn't just losing this job ... it was a complete shattering of her confidence, her realization of her inability to hit even an underhand pitch thrown by her dad. She could feel the depression opening up under her feet, ready to swallow her into an abyss she would never crawl out of.

She squeezed sides of the locker door and tears blurred her vision. Rage pooled into her fist and she lashed out at the mirror. If only, if only she had talked to that ghost, if only she had taken a leap of faith. The regret was worse than the failure, a god-given chance so obvious in hindsight but thrown away, a puppy pitched out of an open car window into a stormy night that wouldn't be there follow night. She bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood. Please, god, just let me go back .. let me have another chance .. please ..

Erin blinked and the ghost was in front of her again. She gasped, inhaling a great lungful of air as it rising from a deep dive. The confusion of her hallucination hit her, the months of failure were so real, and the emotions kept pouring in and out of her eyes. She tipped forward, grabbing for the ghost like a life buoy, pleading with her eyes, hoping that her hand would clasp onto something solid.

"Please .. please help me."

"Help me build a house of horrors!!"

 

[Peregrine]

The ghost lingered in front of Erin, swaying and wandering, yet holding perfectly still except for her hair, which swayed, swallowed in an invisible current of swirling water. She floated there, watching the beleaguered woman in front of her, as her half-focused, dilated eyes wandered down unknown paths.

Where was she going, when she wasn't looking at what was in front of her?

Curiosity. It was a rare feeling, especially for a ghost. The living had little to do with the dead anymore, or that was the way it was supposed to be. It was an impenetrable veil, an eternal separation that divided everything into two categories. But there were always those who loved to push back at that boundary.

Those among the ghosts. The vengeful. The grieving. The greedy. The envious. They clung to what little remained of their life, and inevitably suffered for it.

And, rarer, but not nonexistent, those among the humans.

"You wish to control ghosts?"

Her laughter was like a bubbling brook at first, light and playful as her mind danced over the concept in the manner of water over rocks. But it grew in volume, until it became a harsh tide, echoing in the space under the bridge until it seemed as though there were countless laughing voices all around Erin, mocking her daring.

And then the laugher was gone as quickly as it came.

"I've never met a ghost I could not subdue. But you? Despite your reckless little gamble in the creek bed, you don't stand a chance at becoming a master of ghosts in your own right."

There had been light spilling under the bridge. Traces from the moon, the yellowed street lights that buzzed in the distance. It reflected off the shallow water of the creek, occasionally sending a flash of light across the underside of the bridge.

But that light was gone now, swallowed up by sourceless shadows that rose from the ground like creeping ivy. The bridge grew darker and darker, until no light remained but the brilliant amber glow that came from the ghost's eyes.

"So, that means your last remaining chance is to make. Me. Work. For. You."

The ghost's glowing eyes grew larger, filling the space as though they were waiting to swallow Erin in the same way they'd swallowed the light.

"How are you going to manage that, little girl?"

 

[unanun]

"You're ... "

"You're a ghost?" Erin dug her palms into the sharp gravel and scrabbled back from the shore until she felt the bridge against her back. "No ... you can't be a ghost. That has to be the acid." She squinted at the specter in front of her: Erin recognized the telltale swirls, the bright and dark flashes of light, and the off-kilter feel the entire world had as it swayed under her bottom.

"You're .. you're a person .. who saved me .. " She reached forward, biting her lip, hoping that her land would land on something solid, hoping that the thing in front of her would not be a fog or a mass of seaweed. Maybe she was choking on the dirt at the bottom of the river right now. Maybe this was her death hallucination.

But somehow ...

The terror was so incredibly real.

 

[Peregrine]

"Yes, I saved your life." The ghostly eyes did not waver in the darkness, pinning Erin in place. A dampness was filling the air, the sound of water dripping off the underside of the bridge. "I dragged you out of the creek bed before the water could flood your lungs."

Flood the foolish girl's lungs like it had once done hers, leaving nothing behind but panic and fear and the burning pain in her chest, until it all finally went dark.

"You did not answer my question."

The ghost approached, her eyes growing larger. The concrete and stone floor finally appeared again, illuminated by a wan yellow light that seemed to have surrounded Erin like a spotlight. For a moment those eyes flicked, studying the bedraggled girl up and down. "You wish to face ghosts. You got your wish. The restless dead stir under this bridge."

A cackle abruptly came from the darkness, followed by a scream. The voice was deep, undeniably male, filled with panic.

"No!" the voice shouted, before abruptly being joined by other voices. A teenage boy. A hoarse old man. All of them screaming, nearly incoherent, before the sound of dripping water silenced them once more.

"And they'll kill you if I let them. Drag you back into the water until you drown, dying suffering, the same way they did."

For a moment, the thought of having another woman, another innocent, trapped under this accursed bridge with her was sweet. Appealing. If this girl died aggrieved, became a ghost, she could help her grow stronger.

Then, they could drown the men who came here together.

The ghost brushed her cold, slightly damp fingers against the back of Erin's neck. "Don't scream. Don't run. If you do either, I'll let them have you. You're trapped here now. You have to answer."

 

[unanun]

"I ... "

Erin wanted to go back, but the cold stone just pressed her soaked clothes against her back.

"I don't want to die. I don't want to die!"

The underside of the bridge stretched out to infinity at her left and right, with no escape. She could run along the walls forever, but she knew she would feel the gravel scraping her face bloody as that thing dragged her back. She knew. The thing in front of her was smoke to the touch, but her instincts screamed past the drugs, trying to move the legs rooted to the ground.

Through the terror she could see her final moments and her life flashed in front of her, like the day dream she just had a few minutes ago. But she went backwards instead of forwards, and replayed walking up the steps to her apartment, the shower, the bowl of pasta, and trimming her split ends. A little more forward and she saw the pile of papers and her laptop screen. The fine print was hazy, but the big bold letters leaped out.

THE SLAYER UNDER THE BRIDGE

THE SLAYER...

Was she face to face with a killer? Was she going to help them kill more? Erin teetered on the precipice, and she threw herself to the devil.

"Your grudge..." She grabbed a handful of the sharp gravel, steeled herself, and stared her apparition in the eye.

"I'll help you settle your grudge. But help me run my house of horrors."

 

[Peregrine]

Her grudge.

That man. She remembered every detail. The way his heartless face had leered down at her as she'd cried, the way he'd shaken his head at her, looking at her with a mixture of pity and rage. As though it was her fault he'd led her under this bridge. As though she'd somehow done something that meant she deserved to be killed, instead of giving him her everything. As though he was only doing what was right. It tormented her every day, every night. She saw his face on every man who walked under this bridge.

She hated him. She hated him. There was nothing she wanted more than to drag him into the water, to let him spasm and flail as his lungs desperately fought for air, only to pull him up at the last moment and repeat the process over and over and over again, till the moment his mind finally shattered, and he begged her, begged for her forgiveness, begged to be killed, begged for it to all just end so that the suffering would stop.

And then she'd feed his soul to the other angry ghosts that lingered under the bridge, ripping it off bit by bit and letting him feel the endless torture as his last remaining scraps of existence were slowly obliterated, knowing that nothing would remain of him once it was complete.

He deserved it. He deserved all that and so much more.

...Such a shame he'd died almost two hundred years ago.

As she looked down on the little girl crouched on the gravel, moisture pooling in her eyes, her hands clenched into desperate fists, the ghosts's momentary burst of hatred could only cool.

Was she truly going to consign this innocent to a ceaseless, dark hell?

No. She wouldn't. Of course she wouldn't. She'd just wanted to...

Well. She'd wanted to keep her. Like a pet, or a plant. Something cute and silly to keep around, to add something to this dank, dark, dismal bridge underside she truly hated so much.

A House of Horrors? It didn't sound so bad if it meant getting out of this place.

"Settle my grudge?" she repeated, her echoing laughter filling the darkness. "I wonder if you'll be able to. But you want to try? So be it. We will consider it a contract."

And, with those words, the darkness seemed to pulse. The glowing eyes closed, vanishing as if they had never been there at all. And then, an instant later, the darkness rushed towards Erin like a tidal wave, swallowing her up.

 

[unanun]

Erin woke up in her tussled bed. The sheets and bedding were a complete mess, and for a moment she thought she had woken from a dream before her hair wetly splashed on her skin and she leapt from the bed to look at the damp outline of her body on the mattress. Was it just a nightmare ... ?

She had been drowning. Maybe she actually was drowning. She sniffed the ends of her hair, checked her fingernails for dirt, but they smelled of her cheap toiletries and her nails were neat and trimmed. Her (relatively) good looking face stared back at her from the mirror, and there were no cuts, bruises, nor scrapes on her body. Nothing to suggest that she was scrabbling back on the gravel as the tidal wave of black roared over her ...

The wave. The wave lingered over her as she shuffled through the day (like a ghost). Sometimes she felt the ichor edging on her throat in the bathroom, which was okay, but other things it happened in the House of Horrors and she staggered against the wall, and the children wondered what could make this pink haired demon so afraid ...

The end of the day came and Erin pulled her horns off, pulled her contacts out, and looked into the mirror inside the door of her locker in the changing room and bared her teeth. She thought the ghost would come back, maybe flood out of her ears, announce her presence in some way, but so far she was just having some mild traumatic flashbacks. She squeezed her eyes shut, clicked her heels three times, and peeked out ...

 

[Peregrine]

Waiting.

Ghosts always had expectations, but they weren't supposed to be impatient. After all, they had long left the cycle of life. Time was ephemeral, and days or years could pass in a blur.

Yet she'd been expecting more. This girl was the first human she had ever entered a contract with, and she had thought there would be more. Watching her begin her morning routine, going through her day. Nothing to indicate she'd almost paid with her life to summon a ghost last night. Nothing until the late afternoon, when the young woman finally arrived at a run-down amusement park.

There was so much of this world that she hadn't seen, so much that had changed in the time that had passed. But the ghosts she'd trapped under the bridge with her meant that she hadn't completely lost track of what happened outside. Yet, a place of amusement situated on the edge of a haunted lake? That was new.

New, and seemed to fit back in with the image of the pink-haired girl from under the bridge.

Yet still she was waiting.

It wasn't until late in the evening that she got anything that could even remotely resemble a summon. Even that was only because she was forcing it. Yet mirrors had always been used as a summoning method for ghosts.

It was good enough.

A pair of yellow eyes floated in the shadows in a dark corner of the room. "This is your House of Horrors?"

Hardly horrific. No wonder she was in such desperate need of aid.