WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE A FEAR OF FATALITY, GHOSTS, BLOOD OR MURDER "Kelsie! Can you grab some groceries in your free time?" Kelsie looked up from the book she was reading and said, "Yeah sure, Mom! I have time right now!" Seventeen year old Kelsie Cantu had just gotten her driver's license a little before her most recent birthday, and she was always eager to practice her driving skills. As a gift for her seventeenth birthday, her parents had bought her a used Ford. "Fords are very safe cars," Kelsie's dad had said. She grabbed a few reusable shopping bags, the cooler, and her mom's wallet. After putting everything in the back, she buckled up and started the engine. Putting her foot down on the pedal, she sped away to the nearest Kroger. Kelsie checked the list in her hand. There were only a few things left to buy. She popped some onions into a plastic bag, tossing it into the cart while getting a pack of gum for herself. Kelsie snapped on the gum, turning on the engine once again. She looked up at the sky. It was already getting dark. She hummed an old tune as she drove down an empty road. The road was a detour in the older, abandoned part of the town, and the only reason she was taking it was because the main road was stuck in a traffic jam because of an accident. The only light on the road was a couple of dim street lamps. Kelsie noticed that most of the small houses that lined the street seemed abandoned. Most of them had shattered windows or vines growing all over them, and the yards were encrusted in weeds and dead leaves. "Woah!" she shrieked as she came to a very sudden halt. Right in front of her stood a little girl, staring into nothingness. A shiver ran up Kelsie's spine, and she knew that it would be best for her to keep on driving, but she was an empathetic person. As a child, she had once gotten separated from her parents at a parade, and had wandered the streets crying until a police officer found her and took her home. This little girl looked lost, too. Her greasy, stringy black hair was loose, and she wore a dress so pale it looked like it had been washed a hundred times over. On her feet were a pair of shoes with holes in them, and her face was oddly sunken. Kelsie opened the door. "Hey! Are you lost, sweetie?" The girl turned her head unnaturally to stare at Kelsie. "My name is Margaret," she said in an innocent but eerie tone. "Nice to meet you, Margaret," Kelsie said. "I'm Kelsie. Where are your parents?" "I don't have any parents," Margaret replied. "...So, you're from the orphanage?" Margaret shook her head and smiled, revealing sharp little white teeth. "I'm from nowhere." Kelsie's heart broke to see this homeless girl in the middle of nowhere, wandering around. "But, you must have a home...where did your parents go?" Margaret looked a little sad as she said, "Far, far away from me..." Her expression was one of a person who had endured much pain and grief. Then she looked up and smiled her creepy smile once more. "Can you help me find them?" "Of course," Kelsie responded immediately. She would do anything to help this poor little girl. "Come into my car. Do you know where your parents could be?" Margaret nodded, climbing into the backseat. "They live in a little shack, next to the graveyard." Kelsie didn't want to visit the graveyard. It had always haunted her as a child, serving as the resting place for her beloved great great great grandfather, whom she had heard many amazing stories about. But she had to help Margaret. And so, stepping on the pedal, they took off in the direction of the graveyard. As she drove, Kelsie noticed something happening in the backseat. A faint light was glowing ethereally. But when she turned her head to look back, Kelsie saw nothing. Literally nothing. Margaret was gone. She screamed, pulling over. She was afraid that the little girl might have fallen out of the car while she was driving. Pulling out a flashlight and looking around, Kelsie found nothing. But then she realized that she was parked right next to the graveyard. Perhaps Margaret had leapt out of the car in excitement to see her parents, and had made it to the little shack herself. Kelsie climbed over the tall fence with her flashlight in hand, and landed splat in the middle of hundreds of tombstones, looking around for a shack. There, in the distance, was what seemed to be a small shack made of wood. As she neared it, Kelsie realized how old and rickety it looked. The door creaked ominously as she stepped inside. It was an abandoned shack. Totally quiet. Kelsie picked up a framed picture from the ground. A three-person family. A tall, proud-looking father with a fantastic mustache and a nice suit, his arm around his wife's waist, who was a beautiful woman wearing a pretty sundress, and in-between them was a pretty little girl, with silky black hair and a dress the prettiest shade of pink.
Margaret. She and her family had lived here before, a long, long time ago. The shack looked older than the entire graveyard, which meant that it must've been built before the graveyard opened. But the graveyard opened nearly a hundred years ago. But Margaret couldn't nearly be that old. Unless... A terrible, impossible possibility popped into Kelsie's mind. Could she be...a ghost? No. It just wasn't possible. In fact, it was impossible. Kelsie ventured further into the shack, and soon came upon an old, dusty newspaper that was printed about a hundred years ago. The headline news read: TWO PARENTS OF SINGLE DAUGHTER MURDERED, DAUGHTER LEFT TRAUMATIZED Kelsie gasped, continuing to read. Apparently, a hundred years ago, there had been a town near here. The family that had lived in this shack lived in a remote grassy field on the outskirts of the town. During the night, a murderer had come and murdered the girl's parents. The girl was rescued by the residents of the town, but left traumatized, later escaping from the orphanage and returning to her home, the shack. She had devised a plan and killed the man who murdered her parents, then lived in the shack all alone until the town residents accused her of witchcraft and killed her. The man who had murdered her parents was a man named Peter Horvath, and he was from Slovakia. Kelsie gasped again. Peter Horvath was her great great great grandfather, an immigrant from Slovakia. But...could it be the same person? No, it had to be a coincidence. Kelsie walked on, nearly tripping over something that glinted in the moonlight that filtered through the windows. Kelsie reached down and felt her fingers graze something cold and sharp. It was a knife. Something rusty and brown coated the blade. Blood. A blood-stained knife. Suddenly, something rattled the pantry door, and the wind whistled louder. The stairs leading upstairs were creaking, like someone was walking down. Kelsie's pulse and heartbeat accelerated intensely. "...Who's there?" she asked tentatively. The stairs kept creaking. "Kelsie? Is that you?" Kelsie stifled a scream when Margaret rounded the corner. "Margaret? What are you doing here?" "What do you mean?" Margaret asked in that eerie voice of hers. "This is my house. Mommy and Daddy used to live here with me. Before HE killed them." "...I'm so sorry," Kelsie said, backing up. "But the reason I brought you here was because HE was your great great great grandfather." "B-But, you already got your revenge," Kelsie insisted. Margaret shook her head, licking her lips. "Not enough of it. I died here in this house, but my soul will haunt it forever. I will never have enough blood." Reaching down, Margaret picked up the blood-stained knife from the ground, showing it to Kelsie. "...You see this? I killed your great great great grandfather with this knife..." Kelsie took off into a dead sprint, rounding corners and trying to find the exit to the shack. "Kelsie, don't run..." She slammed into furniture and tripped over things that littered the ground, but she wouldn't stop running. In fact, she barely even registered the pain coursing through her body. She finally reached the front door, and she threw her fingers onto the knob, twisting and turning it wildly. "...C'mon..." Her breathing was ragged and strained. The door was locked. "NO!!" "Kelsie..." Kelsie backed up against the door. "Please...Margaret...don't do this...I'm sorry..." Margaret's tongue slithered out of her outstretched mouth, curving in the most unpleasant and unnatural way possible. It fondled the air, as if trying to taste the fear emanating from Kelsie in the particles that floated in the space between them. "Oh, Kelsie...I promise...I'll make it quick...and painless..." With a flash, Margaret lurched forward, knife in hand. Kelsie screamed, her desperate call forever echoing in the graveyard. She was never seen again.
