ADSactly Short Story - Hell Next Door
There is no feeling comparable to hell like living in a haunted house where it seems you have no other option than to dig in. Rosalie lost both of her parents while she was a toddler in the most gruesome way ever, and without any siblings nor close relative, the only option was to keep her in an orphanage. Rosalie stayed in the orphanage until she was 10 years old; when Mr and Mrs Coker came to adopt her as their child. The Cokers were unable to have their own children, that was why they came for Rosalie, but that was the beginning of Rosalie's nightmares and the sunny days seemed to have gone into oblivion.
Mr and Mrs Coker live in a little cottage inside the woods at the mouth of the river, and; as it were; they are the only ones living around their neighbourhood - you'll have to travel over 10 minutes to meet the next house. The Cokers were both sailors, and they would normally leave their house to return after about 1 week. Little Rosalie was often left alone in the house, but each time her foster parents were away, unusual occurrences were often witnessed by her in the house. At first, it would start off with windows flying and shutting on their own, then the doors would follow suit; voices here and there, you can imagine how scared Rosalie would always be.
The funny thing is; all these would halt immediately when the Cokers arrive home, and throughout their stay (which would be about 4-5days before embarking on another sail), the hell-disturbances would be calm. This caused Rosalie to not tell the Cokers - obviously, they wouldn't believe her... those were her thoughts though. But once the Cokers hit off the house, hell would be back. On one of the occasions, Rosalie began to hear some footsteps in the parlour, and when she came out, she noticed that many things were not where she had kept them - she was wrecked with fear, and in an attempt to hurry back to her room to cover herself with blanket like she normally did, she felt the presence of a being right in the middle of the parlour.
As she was about to turn, the being became visible, and it was a little boy standing right before her. Rosalie lost every sense of reasoning and her mind became as blank and plain as an unpainted wall. More scary is the fact that the little boy had a translucent skin, and you could see the other side of the parlour through his skin, but right before Rosalie's face, the figure vanished like smoke. Maybe that could be a momentary comfort for Rosalie; maybe not. One very unusual thing that became usual was: everytime Rosalie walked passed the door of her room to get to the parlour, the same figure would be there to scare her. This made her limit her movement to the parlour, and it felt like she was trapped in her own room.
This kept occuring on a daily basis and would only stop when the Cokers arrive home. On a second thought, Rosalie started thinking "could the Cokers have a hand in this?" But another question that she wasn't sure of the answer was why the transparent being had not posed any threat to her - or was he just a curious ghost that comes to look at a 10year old girl? Or could it be that the little boy's soul was trapped in the house? No one knows. But looking at it holistically, the only person I can see trapped was Rosalie.
Soon after Rosalie's 11th birthday, she was enrolled into a vocational school by her foster parents. The school was about 25 minutes walk from her house, but she didn't mind the distance, all she was happy about was that she would get out of the house each morning and wouldn't come back till evening - at least the major part of the day would have been spent. One day, she invited her school friend over to her house so they would spend the evening together in the house. She didn't tell her about the happenings, because she feared that her friend might refuse her invitation.
When they arrived home, everywhere was relatively calm, but just a few hours into the evening, hell came back. Rosalie's friend was as scared as her, that was when Rosalie started explaining what she has been experiencing. On the spot, Rosalie's friend quipped; "why don't you come live with us?" Man; that was the best thing she had heard since she started living in the house. Without delays, Rosalie nodded in affirmation, and it was like a long-awaited angelic visitation for her... finally, her redemption came in grand style. What later became of the house and the Cokers remained a mystery because they never crossed paths again with Rosalie, and she can now breathe a breath of fresh air.
THE END
Authored by @samminator
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Just these days I was reviewing the different legends of my country and I was faced with stories similar to the one you just told. Children who are like species of goblins who wander around looking for company, haunted and mysterious houses, spirits of people who attract the living and then kill them. I think that fantastic literary history is nourished by these kinds of stories. Thank you for sharing, @samminator
In this part of the world, haunted stories are not uncommon - particularly those involving mysterious houses and whatnot. Most time, they don't have happy ending.
Thanks for reading, Nancy
A conventional tale quite well accomplished. I was actually expecting a little more tension towards the end, not a "happy ending". But okay! The mystery of the haunted houses and/or the traps of others will always be a possible combination. Thank you, @samminator.
Well, yeah that's the idea; to make it "unpredictable". If it had ended like everyone expected, it wouldn't be different from every other haunted tale.
Thanks for reading
After reading this piece, I thought it was interesting on many different levels.
First of all, I didn’t understand how the orphanage did allow Cooks to become Rosalie’s foster parents as prior to granting a couple parenting right they have to go through a grueling investigation that assesses their income, their moral standards, their ability to give a child moral guidance and become child’ role model. Thus, there is no way they were given a ten-year-old child knowing that the prospected foster parent will be in the sea several days a week and the Rosalie will be left alone in the remote house. Not only that this will be qualified as child neglect, but how could a ten-year-old child be providing for herself: cooking meals, buying groceries, going to school, as I presume she was in the 4th or 5th grade of the elementary school. Even assuming that the Cokers lied through the application process, the faster care authorities usually send the revisory delegation to the newly fostered child. Such fraud could have been discovered, the Cooks would immediately be deprived of their parental right and perhaps be indicted.
On an entirely different level of wondering, I couldn’t understand what was the point of the story? Now, I am saying the point, not the moral as not every story has a moral point. But if I were to recite the story to a friend it would be something like this.
“I read this story about the girl who was left alone in the haunted house.”
Then my friend would query “and what?”
“… and nothing. She was just scared and then her friend invited her to live in her house.”
Then he'd ask “…and...?”
Was the point of the story was that there is no escape from evil spirits once you've encountered them, or that the girl should have told her parents about her fears, or that she should have insisted to go with her foster parents on fishing trips? I can only say one thing… as a reader, I was left with questions.
Other than that a great story!
It's fictional, and as such, it is based on imaginary events which do not need to follow what is obtainable in the real world. Well, that's why it is called "Fiction".
Thanks for dropping by
My friend,
I beg to disagree.
A story of a good fiction writer always fits like a glove. Take any work of London, O’Henry or Hemingway. Everything is precise.
It could be about fictional events. But if the events stated in the story have internal contradictions, then a reader falls out of the “suspense of disbelieve” he or she was emerged by the story. That’s why an internal logic of the story should be impeccable. That is achieved by an intense work of imagination.
Let’s say your story is set 200 years ago when there were no social services. A couple of sailors that spend most of their time in the sea take a girl for adoption. This seems strange. What was their reasoning? To spend time with her? To have someone to pass their business to? If so, they’d take a boy.
Why wouldn’t she tell them about the evil spirits in the cabin? She was afraid they won’t believe her? Why? Did it happen before that her foster parents didn’t believe her? Or were they too indifferent to her plea? If so again, what was their reason for taking her from the orphanage?
Next, the sailor couple lived in the haunted house all their life and never did they encounter any spirits?
How is that possible? Statistically, this has a very low probability. If the house was indeed haunted they should have seen something. It just doesn’t make any sense. But maybe it wasn’t the house that was haunted, but the girl herself? The spirit that killed her mother was always following her. But in that case, she should have had the same incidents in the orphanage and in the house of her friend.
See how your story, despite having a nice writing style and some other good narrative moments, literally falls apart, because you didn’t spend enough time thinking it through.
You need to bulletproof your storyline as if you presenting it in court.
Cheers
Excelente el relato, felicitaciones.
Nice short story @samminator.
Thanks for sharing it.
Thanks for reading