Based on a 'true story'

We were laying in bed discussing the movie we’d just watched – Haunting in Connecticut. It was claimed that the movie was ‘based on a true story’ and I wondered to which extent. I was sure that one person’s account of something slightly creepy was the only ‘true story’ bit that the film relied on, filling in the rest with colourful bursts of devilish horror.

The lights were out as we were technically going to sleep. Somewhere along the line our conversation dissolved. My boyfriend had fallen asleep, however, my own mind continued to play selected movie scenes over and over in my head, trying to decipher which part could possibly be the ‘true story’.

It was then that I noticed a spot, about the size of a R2 coin, straight across the room on the wall. Much like the TV screen, it too appeared to have a green hue to it that popped out in the pitch black night. Only, there was nothing there to glow. I wondered what it could be, or if perhaps, I was over tired and I was starting to see things. I stared at the spot and blinked my eyes. The spot got bigger. I was now even more certain that the spot did not exist, and that I really was seeing things. It’s amazing what the brain can conjure up in the dark. I continued to focus on the spot. I soon realised that the spot had been growing... slowly. I hadn’t noticed it right away, but when I looked at the TV, I realised that the spot was now a round circle that was even bigger than the TV and it was glowing brightly.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and at that point. I knew that there was nothing there. I knew that the wall was blank. I could not fathom this strange phenomenon and found myself lifting my head from my pillow to get a better look. It was then, that a hand came out of the hole. It was a pale, grey hand which appeared to be bony. My heart jumped into my throat. I was telling myself that it wasn’t real, yet there it was, I was looking at it. IN MY BEDROOM. At a painfully slow pace, it moved out of the hole and reached down to the floor. The thing’s shoulders popped out next, and then its head, followed by the other hand... slowly climbing out of the hole onto my floor. It was a skeleton wrapped in blue-grey flesh. It moved strangely, like something unfamiliar with human anatomy. I was petrified. I couldn’t move or make a sound.  I wanted to shout: “Justin, wake up!” but there was nothing. Nothing, but fear.

The thing disappeared onto the floor and out of my sight. I was torn with horror. I didn’t know where it would pop up. Would it rip my heart from my ribcage through the bottom of the bed? Would it pitch up at my bedside and look me in the eye before climbing into my mouth and possessing my body? And then I felt it -a slight bit of pressure at the end of the bed. Yes, it was a hand, soon followed by another. I could feel the weight increase as it lifted itself up onto the edge of the bed. I wanted scream. I really wanted to scream but I was absolutely paralysed with fear. It was almost like watching myself in the third person. I was that idiot in the movie that gets herself killed and I couldn’t bring myself to act.

I lay in my bed, a prisoner of my own body. The thing started to crawl up toward me, slowly, freakishly, like it was just getting to know its limbs and muscles – much like that of a newborn calf, only less helpless, and a fuckload more intimidating. I was building up the guts to scream, willing myself to take action and not become a victim. It was on top of me. I could feel it pull itself up. It was going to look me in the face and I was going to scream. I promise I was going to scream. And then. Just before I could scream.... Justin woke me up: “Baby, baby wake up, I think you’re having a bad dream”. 

And that, boys and girls, is a true story, from start to finish :)

Candice and the man in black

The door unlocked and swung open. Candice threw her keys to the counter and slammed the door shut behind her. She had the look of utter disgust on her face... Mondays.

The man in black had been watching her house for a little over a week now. He only ever saw Candice come home in the evenings and leave in the mornings. He had seen enough and he was ready to go in for the kill. The anticipation moved through his body like a wave of energy. He imagined what she tasted like, the softness of her skin, the sweet smell of shampoo in her hair. He was hungry.

Candice reached for a wine glass and poured herself some. Disheartened with no idea what to do with herself, she decided to settle in, in front of the TV, bottle of wine tucked in under one arm and a box of chocolates under the other. It had been the shittiest of shit days. She had stuffed up her big presentation and her company could potentially lose a big contract as a result. Her world was crashing in on her. She’d worked so hard to get to this point – her life revolved around her job. If she failed at this, she might as well be dead.

The man in black noticed that Candice had left the front door unlocked, again. He could hear the faint sound of snoring coming from inside. He let himself in. She was fast asleep on the couch. He walked right up to her, bent down into his haunches and leaned into her. He could feel her breath against his face. She smelt of alcohol. This was going to be easy. He stroked her cheek. He had big plans for Candice. But half the fun was in the build up before his attack. He enjoyed being close enough to his victims, to touch them. He enjoyed watching them go about their normal lives; it made me feel like he was a part of it. He also enjoyed taking his time with his victims, once he’d begun. He had to savour ever moment because when he was done, he had to kill them, and it was hard to deal with. Like a break up. All he ever wanted was to keep his victims, but that was a foolish idea and it would get him caught. He liked the smart girls and the smart girls always found a way to escape.

It was just before midnight when something woke Candice up. In a daze from too many glasses of wine, she assumed that it was something on TV. She stumbled to her feet and shut everything off on her way to the bedroom. Her head was already pounding so she decided to skip her bathroom routine of washing up and rather just get straight into bed. Little did she know that, a simple decision to skip brushing her teeth, may very well have saved her life.

The man was waiting for her in the bathroom. He had the chloroform soaked handkerchief in one hand and he had braced himself for a fight. But she didn’t come to him. He didn’t understand it. For a week long, every night before bedtime, Candice would come to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. It might have been just a small part of the evening that had failed to go as planned, but the man had an uneasy feeling about it. He was always meticulous. There was never any room for error. Error gets you caught. He would have to return tomorrow.

Feeling a huge thirst coming on, Candice decided to get up and go fetch a glass of water...

Candice’s heart jumped into her throat. She was suddenly sober and thinking as clear as day. The man that stood before her was tall and built. He had a mask over his face and he was wearing a pair of yellow plastic gloves. He made a grunting sound as he lunged toward her. Candice dropped to the floor and slipped through his legs. He spun around and grabbed a handful of her hair before she could get away. Candice screamed and grabbed his hand, desperately clawing at him, in the hope that he’d let go. He didn’t. The stranger pulled Candice’s head toward him to gain momentum, and then thrashed it forward into the passageway wall. Candice was knocked out cold.

There was a certain way that the man liked to do things, and this was not it. It needed to be clean and he needed to have absolute control. He would do what he wanted and then he would kill his victim and get rid of the body for good. The blood on the wall meant that there was already too much evidence to worry about. He collected Candice’s limp body off the floor and took her into the bathroom. The man was filling the bath with water when Candice started to come to. The man used the chloroform to put her out again.

Candice woke up in a state of panic. Even though she was unconscious, there was a niggling brain cell in the back somewhere, doing flick flacks in an effort to get her to wake up – survival. Candice’s hands were bound together behind her back and her feet were bound together and tied to the tap in the bath. She was naked and she was sitting in ice cold water. Her head was pounding. She could smell bleach. At first she thought that it was the water that she was sitting in, but then she heard scrubbing coming from the passageway. He was cleaning up the evidence. A blood curling scream escaped Candice’s mouth. It echoed through the bathroom, moving through the air like shock waves. The man was on top of her in an instant. He grabbed her mouth and shoved her back into the bath, pushing her head under the water. Candice did not have time to catch her breath. She started to panic, as she tried to gasp for air. She inhaled some bleach and water and started to cough while still being held under the water. The problem with that was, she’d involuntarily try and gasp for air after each cough.

The man in black did not want Candice to drown. He was going to have to kill her tonight regardless, and he was just too hungry, to kill her without having her first. He pulled her out of the water and grabbed her throat; “One more sound and you will die. Do you understand?” Candice, too afraid to make a peep, trying not to cough too loudly, nodded.

The man left the bathroom for a moment and then returned with a sock and duct tape. He shoved the sock in her mouth and then wrapped the duct tape right around her head about 3 or 4 times. The man let the bath water out and then threw a towel over Candice’s head before picking her up and leaving with her.

Candice was terrified. This man had showed no mercy. He would kill her in a heartbeat. She didn’t know where they were going but she knew that she was going to need all her strength if she was going to survive. The vehicle stopped. The man got out of the driver’s side and she could hear him walking around to her side. He picked her up and carried her off. When he pulled the towel off of her head, Candice saw that she was in some sort of shed. It was big, and it was set up like some sort of torture chamber. There were chains hanging from the ceiling and a range of garden tools, which now looked like weapons, set up against the wall. The man hooked Candice’s tide up hands to a chain above her head. It was so high up that she had to step on her toes, or the pressure would cause the rope to cut into her wrists. The man stood in front of Candice, wiping her tear from her cheek. He removed the duct tape from and sock (and a chunk of hair too). She was naked; she felt degraded and vulnerable. She started to tremble, trying to keep her sobs low.

She was crying. It turned him on. The weaker she became, the stronger he felt. He clenched his fist and punched her in the stomach with such force that he heard the breath escape her lungs. She gasped, in pain or breathlessness, whichever it was, and it drew out a second punch from him. This time, she let a squeal. It would have been a scream, if she had had the capacity to scream. The man grabbed her throat with both hands and started to squeeze. When she lost consciousness, he let go. He figured she’d need about an hour, and then she’d be ready for round two.

When Candice woke up she was in so much pain that she could hardly breathe. She was alone in the shed, as far as she could tell. She knew that he’d be back. She knew that she was going to die. She had to escape. Candice looked around for some sort of way out. Nothing. Candice noticed though, that she was able to stand on her feet. Her dead weight had loosened the rope around her hands. Candice started to hop, trying to unhook the rope from the chain. It worked.

Candice used her teeth to untie the rope around her wrists and then untied the rope around her feet. She didn’t have a plan. Her best bet was to run away. But what if he caught her while she was leaving the shed? Candice grabbed a panga and ran. It was pitch black when she got outside. There wasn’t a street light in sight. Candice realised that she was on a plot or a farm. She was going to need the vehicle to escape. Candice snuck up to the main house. She tip-toed around the house, listening for activity. It was dead quiet. She had no clue where he was. Candice decided to look for a car. The car he dove to get them there. The driveway was empty. She remembered that he hadn’t pulled into a garage. He must of left – with the car.

Candice decided to take advantage of his absence and went into the main house. Although she was rather confident that he had left, she was concerned that she was wrong and, he was still inside the house. She moved through the house like a mouse. It was immaculate and smelled of bleach. This man was compulsive. The idea scared her. She went into his bedroom and found a t-shirt to wear. His pants and shoes were far too big. She decided to put a pair of socks on. Candice then started going through his draws, looking for a gun. If he owned one, it was on him. She couldn’t find one in the house. She did find a butcher’s knife. But then she found something a little more interesting. A metal skewer. Candice also found an ID book for one Mr Benjamin Scott.

“Benjamin...” Caught off guard while getting out of the car, Benjamin turned around to face his caller. Candice didn’t waste any time. She stabbed him in the eye with the metal skewer. Benjamin started to scream in pain. A strange white type of foam started to ooze out of his eye. He lost his footing and fell on his back. Candice used a brick and hit the skewer’s handle, driving it right through his head. This time blood squirted out and sprayed into Candice’s face.

Candice couldn’t believe that she had done it. She’d killed a man, yes, but she couldn’t believe that she had managed to come out alive. She wrapped her arms around her knees and took a few minutes to sob, releasing all the hurt and anger. After giving a few loud sobs, she grabbed the butcher’s knife that she had ready as her back up, and started to stab Benjamin repeatedly in the abdomen. He was dead and he couldn’t feel it, but she was so angry, she wanted to mutilate him for what he’d done. It was only after she’d disembowelled the poor man, that she noticed that he was wearing a blue shirt... her attacker was wearing black... and he wore a mask...

Candice heard a vehicle coming in. She jumped into Benjamin’s car but couldn’t get it started. Candice jumped out and tried to grab Benjamin’s body and pull it into the car, but he was too heavy. Candice picked up the knife and ran toward the shed. She could feel the warm glow of her attacker’s headlights coating her body. Now she had to outrun him, he would try and drive over her for sure. She ran into the shed. Candice jumped behind a box and kept her head down. The man in black walked into the shed. Candice tried to keep quiet. It suddenly felt like the hardest thing she’d ever done. He walked in a circle, eyeing the shed, wondering where to look first; “I see you found my brother. Funny thing is, he probably would have saved you...”

It’s as if he could hear her heart beating out of control. He walked over to one of the boxes and there she was, lying on her back with her head in the dirt. Before he could act, she swung a knife around wildly. The man in black grabbed the hand that held the knife and pulled her up. He crushed her hand so hard that she cried in pain and dropped the knife. He head-butted Candice and then grabbed her by her neck, picking her up and throwing her across the floor. Candice crawled on her knees trying to get the strength to get up and run, but before she could, he was there again. He kicked Candice in the stomach, knocking the breath right of her once again, and breaking a few of her fragile ribs. Candice spotted an old rusty blade in the dirt, she grabbed it. The man in black kicked Candice in the jaw. She was on the verge of losing consciousness but fought to stay with it. If she was going to make it out alive, she needed to stay awake. The man in black grabbed her by the throat again and picked her up, lifting her into the air while choking her. Candice struggled a bit before realising that she was not going to stay conscious this time. She swung her arm at his face with the blade, but she couldn’t reach. She then sliced his upper arm with the blade. The man dropped her to the ground and grabbed his bleeding arm: “You fucking bitch!”

Candice had managed to crawl away a bit and grab a wooden pole with a huge hook on the end. The man grabbed Candice’s foot and pulled her toward him, scrapping her knees on the floor. Candice used the momentum to swing around and hit him in the head with the hook. It went in through his ear. He let go of Candice and let out a shout. He started to come for Candice again, this time she managed to get to her feet and get the hell out of his way.  She looked around and saw a garden sheer. She grabbed it. The man grabbed her by the back of her hair. Candice swung her arms and by the grace of God, managed to knock the wooden pole that was still hooked into the man’s ear. When he stepped back, crying in pain, Candice lunged forward with the garden sheers and stabbed him right in the throat. The man started to make gargling sounds, before falling to his knees. Candice pulled off his mask. The masked man was a pretty handsome guy, the devil in disguise. He was still choking on his own blood when Candice picked up an axe and finished the job. She planted it right into his skull. She wasn’t going to take any chances with this one. Exhausted, Candice sat down to catch her breath. The sun started to filter through the cracks of the shed.

She was alive. She was alive.