Alice
„... a week later the mother went to buy flowers again. She noticed that the shopkeeper now had a stump instead of her left hand...”***
The fire cracked ominously and the five young people shuddered appropriately.
“Who’s next?”
Alice shook her head. “You know nothing about ghosts...”
“I am.”, a boy said. “And I know just the right story. You see this house over there?” He tried to deepen his voice and give it a spooky cadence while he showed them the old and burned-down house on a hill not far from their bonfire. “That’s the MacAllister house. Fifty years ago, to the day, the son of the old MacAllister killed their only daughter.”
“It wasn’t the brother.”, Alice said.
“You see, he raped her a few times and the girl got pregnant and – even worse – the son was training to become a priest.”
The kids gasped in fake shock.
“There was no pregnancy and no rape. It was an ordinary burglary gone wrong.”, Alice said.
“Anyway, when the father came home that night he found the poor girl dead at the foot of the stairs. There was blood everywhere: on the ground and the walls, between the cracks of the hardwood floor, even on the ceiling...”
“There was a lot blood, that much is true, but I doubt it splattered to the ceiling...”
“The boy – his name was Frank, by the way – had stabbed her over a hundred times, ripped her unborn child out of her body and smeared blood everywhere, especially on himself.”
“The murderer was long gone when father came home.”
“The old MacAllister was devastated...”
“That much is true.”
“... and being a sorcerer and devil worshipper he called on his evil master to bring back his beautiful Alice. And evil as he was the devil agreed as long as the father sacrificed his son in a dark ritual of blood magic and death.”
“There was no dark ritual, no devil, no sacrifice, just a lot of tears.”
“And the girl came back. But the devil, being the devil, lied to the father and the girl came back changed: On the day of her funeral a decaying hand opened the coffin that was laid out in her fathers house and the young girl crawled out of it. She looked at the guests and especially at her father and then she slowly advanced on them all... Nobody knows what happened next, not exactly, but no guest survived that night and the house burned down. She’s still in this house. She can’t leave but you should not go near the ruin. Nobody who goes there survives. The lucky ones go mad and kill themselves, but most...”
Alice didn’t listen to the rest of the story. She walked slowly away to the house of her childhood. On the fragile steps to the front door sat an old man in a priest’s robe.
“Why do you still try to correct them? They can’t see you, they can’t hear you. And even if they could, they wouldn’t understand.”
Alice sat down next to the old priest and leaned her head against his shoulder.
“You are getting old.”, she said with a sad smile.
“True. So?”
“Frank, you will die one day. Whom should I talk to then?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps, when I am dead you can leave this world as well or at least our house and find an other ghost.”
“57 years. It’s been 57 years since I died. We found no explanation why I stayed behind, no explanation why you can see me and nobody else. We tried every ritual, every exorcism and I am still here. The only myth, the only theory left is that people need to stop believing in the MacAllister ghost but that won’t happen. It’s not very likely anyway.”
“No, not likely, unfortunately.”
“It gets more elaborate every year. A tragic murder, a fire during a funeral and the fact that the brother of the killed girl thought he saw her some days later...”
“Don’t talk about yourself in the third person, Alice.”
“Don’t scold me, Frank. You’re not my older brother anymore.”
“I am not?”
They both laughed a sad, companionable laugh like so many other over the years while a group of four sneaked through the old house. It was the last time they talked.
There’s this story about a girl called Alice MacAllister who was killed during a robbery and her brother Frank who died in a mental ward because he became delusional in his old age and believed to talk to his dead sister. And there’s this haunted house that burned down because someone knocked over a candle during a funeral. Some people think they hear a whisper when the wind touches the old walls. Some people even think they see a priest and a young girl sitting on the steps of the veranda laughing and talking and just living. They never approach those two because it is clear to everybody who sees them that they only need each other.
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*** That is basically the end of the only horror story ever that gave me nightmares for some rason. I tried to google an english version of the whole story but couldn't find one quickly. For everyone interessted (and able to read it)
here is the german version.Happy spooky (early) halloween, everybody!
