Death becomes her

I’m participating in my very first blogfest: the ultra-spooky Terror Blogfest, hosted by Mary McDonald today. I heard about the blogfest from my buddy in domestic procrastination, Delia.

From Delia I also heard about a further “Death Blogfest” at Tessa Conte’s site, which I will also most likely enter. How can I resist these subjects? I wrote my entry for Mary at the very last second and though I intended for it to be frightening, it came out kinda funny. But I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether the story makes the hair on your neck rise or the snot fly out of your nose. Without further ado, here is my “Terror Blogfest” contribution, Granny Stays:

Granny Stays

by Lee Robertson

“Oh. No,” moaned Aunt Joannie. “No. Don’t stay there. The thieves, child! Think of the thieves.”

The quaint Irish village had supposedly fallen prey to robbers of late: junkies, armed, who sprang out at night and targeted, in particular, any tourists.

But Jessie wasn’t going to let that stop her from staying at the house: a small white block of a home, tiny really, in which Jessie’s father and his eight siblings had, incredibly, all been raised.

The last person to have lived in the house was Jessie’s grandmother, Granny O’Donnell. Granny had lived there, until they took her away…

As the old lady’s body and mind had deteriorated, an argument flared up in the family as to whether Granny should be taken to a nursing home or left to live on her own in the house: or, in the language of the argument, whether Granny should “go” or whether she should be allowed to “stay.”

In the end, they dragged her off screaming and kicking.

She died shortly later – sitting frozen in her miserable nursing home chair, a look of vengeance in her yellowed, glaring eye.

Jessie couldn’t figure out why Granny had liked the house so much – mildewed and sunk into peat and moss as it was… The teacups in the kitchen were cracked with fine lines that resembled hairs. Spiders inhabited the bathtub. The faucet in the sink blew like a whistle and sputtered water of a grainy, rust color.  

At night, the lamps buzzed and the old bed sank almost to the floor when Jessie sat down on it. Somehow she fell asleep, but her sleep was restless. She awoke to the sensation of cool, moist fingers trailing across her forehead. Fingers – that were not her own.

She leapt up – her heart hollowly knocking; she could hear it. It had only knocked like that once before. When she’d kissed that Spanish boy, what was his name, in a Madrid alleyway near Puerta del Sol. But that had been a good heart-knocking. This was bad. This was so, so bad.  

She shifted, in blocky movements, to the main room and switched on the light. A tell-tale tassel on the window curtain swayed. Jessie stared at the old, milky windowpane. Blackness beyond it. Electricity seemed to shimmer over her limbs as she forced herself to enter the room. Her heart pulled and snapped back in slaps that rocked her upper body. She found her tongue; peeled it from the roof of her mouth.

Her lips quivered and mal-formed over the word. “Hello?” It came out slanted, like “halo.”

She heard a shifting, then a hush. She stared into the open door of the second room. Cold acid seemed to sprinkle down the top of her head as she spotted the oh-so-fragile curve of a gray, osteoporosis back. And the blade.

A wisp of gray hair appeared, then a gnarled face. Jessie cowered. “No…”

The huddled figure drew itself up; then it charged at Jessie, screaming in a voice of shrieking outrage:

“Granny stays!!!”

(P.S. This story was written just for fun and in about 20 min. Thanks for reading!)

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